With all these things going on

I feel it is right to postpone posting of these things.  There are alot of things.  When I post again, with chapters, from my house, I will post all the backlog.  After that I will edit this site back into composure.  Sorry for this.  I didn't see it coming, the internet is gone.  I have a number of chapters waiting to be deployed with no connection.  Please.  I am sorry.  Please, this is a one time thing in my 221 chapters left.  And I still work on it daily, but the posting is left in the lerch.  I am sorry.  So sorry.  I mean no disrespect.

Chapter 7: I walk to the forest from the supermarket

I just finished delivering many boxes of bananas to a large supermarket half an hour outside of Boston.  There are woods next to the supermarket.  Some of the boxes were white, there was a new brand logo on them.  There were bananas on the box, of course.  There was a blue stripe.   I didn't recognize these boxes.  I take my gloves off when I am walking through the parking lot.

There is a black bird with an iradescent head and a yellow beak.  I know this bird is a european starling.  I walk to where the bird is standing in the parking lot.  It flies up and lands in a tree in the forest next to the supermarket.  

I put my gloves on the drivers seat.  I check off the location on the checklist.  I put my glasses on and walk towards the forest.  The bird is still in the tree.  I look at it's eye from where I am standing.  It flies deeper into the forest.  I climb the short chain link fence and walk into the forest.  The ground is muddy here.  I walk through the forest and find the bird in another tree. I stand at the base of the tree and look up at the bird.  I touch the tree with my hand.  The bird doesn't move.  I lean on the tree.  I grab a branch and it breaks.  I grab another and it is sturdy. 

I begin to climb up the tree.  I move up a few branches and look around.  I can see the supermarket better.  The bird flies from the tree and leaves the forest.  I continue climbing.   

I get to the branch the bird was on.  There are many body lengths between me and the ground.  I look down at the forest. There is an animals climbing up a tree near the tree I am in.  I make an animal noise at it.  It climbs down the tree and runs deeper into the forest.  I look at the supermarket through the forest.  I can see the back end of the top of supermarket.  There is a series of vents on the roof.  There is some garbage on the top of the supermarket. 

sorry

sorry about all this hesitation on this thing.  I have chapters lined up and I don 't want to put different ones up just as filler.  I will put up chapters as soon as I can.  Soo, soon there will be a good number of chapters put up here.  I will link to it from small animals.  

Chapter 6

I am having trouble transfer chapter6.  check back later, please, sorry about this.  I am working on re-establishing internet closer to me.  

Chapter 5: Moving from the hotel room to Geary's house

He calls a number from the newspaper laying on a bed in a hotel room. The phone rings eight times. The last ring happens very close to the ring before it. The answering machine picks up.

He thinks this voice sounds drunk. 'Hi, you have reached Geary. Leave a message and I'll get back to you.'

He leaves a message, 'Hello. My name is Lee Killen, and I am calling about the room for rent in your house. I have just flown in from overseas, and I am staying in a hotel right now. I have references, willing to put money down right away. I just want to have a place.'

He goes to sleep in the hotel bed with the tv on. When he wakes up there is a message. 'Hi. Lee. This is Geary, you called about the room for rent. Your message was convincing enough. I know how hard it is to find a place and I am willing to arrange something with you right away.

He checks out of the hotel and calls Geary.

New Characters

He, Lee

I, Garret

Geary

Ghost

Lee from Northampton

Emma from Northampton

Redity

Rae

A-1, Vince

Chris

PJ

Jerry

Memphis

The Juice, Murphy

Wraffly, name not known

Showy

Fella

Conway

Mr. Lucey and his English class

Dinosaur dream #1 video

video of dinosaur dream #1.  Chiefrunnngtears on the bed in the background. Also up at small animals with short life spans.  

Chapter 4: Dinosaur dream #1

He takes the cola from the stewardess. She continues methodically giving most people a beverage. His drink is dark brown. Most of the drinks are bright colors.

The woman next to him looks at him and winks. She is older than him, but not elderly. She says, ‘flark ovum farnal’ and she smiles. She has vampire teeth. She drinks the purple liquid in her glass. She drops the glass. He notices that everyone is dropping glasses. There are bright blue, orange, green, purple, red, yellow, and iridescent black liquids mixing together on the floor of the plane.

He looks out the window and sees the plane’s wings are not rigid. They are flapping. The inside of the plane begins to change from mechanical forms into biological forms. The luggage compartments bulge with fluids. The people in the seats liquefy. The seats liquefy. The walls begin to pulsate. Organs drop from the oxygen mask compartment and inflate. He is sucked into the stomach. There is still a window. He can see the outside of the plane bending more and more. Eventually, the wheels drop down into legs. The tip of the plane extends into a beak, and there are eyes where the windshield was.

The plane has become a pterodactyl. He sits in the stomach looking out of a window around where the belly button would be. He sees the lights of the buildings move past below him. The pterodactyl makes a sound from it’s mouth. It’s raining from the clouds below him.

Chapter 3: Lee and Emma from Northampton, Mass.

++sorry for the twenty minutes late and the formatting. I have been driving around the city trying to get a wireless connection because my connection at home went down.++

Everything outside of the car is closed, reflecting on the car.
“Here okay?” Lee lifts his head to point his chin at the Wendy’s as he turns the wheel to enter the parking lot.
“Yeah. Here is fine.” Emma has one hand stretched into the back seat, touching his sleeping daughter’s knee. She is pregnant with another, she was joking on a cell phone the other day, “It’s like a two-for-one deal,” smiling with one half of her mouth, looking at her reflection on the storefront in the afternoon. Lee chuckles to himself, nudges Emma, and gestures at the employee in the dining room on the cell phone. She smiles, the car slows and he rolls down the window. The snow reflects the restaurant’s spot lights.
“Hello?” It is late, she is suspicious this place is closed. “Hello?” He puts the car in park and repositions himself on the drive through, hoping to catch some sensor. Emma watches the people in the car in front of them sitting at the window. “Hello?” He gets louder, “Is anybody there?” He sits, unfocusing his eyes to listen. He is listening for the drive through speakers. In the silence there is a faint digital hum from the speaker, it breaks up, static for a few seconds. He frantically responds to the static, “Hello?” Lee leans out the window, “Can you hear me?” He listens briefly, then turns to Emma.
“Did you hear that?” She turns from looking at the dumpster under snow.
“Hear what?” She looks into the backseat without turning her head.
“Listen.” The hum is quietly broken for what could be two words. “Hello…hello? Can you hear me?” The car ahead of them is still at the window. There is one car in the parking lot. The highways are kinda empty, but the police are out. A tractor plows a back road at the town limits.
“Fuck you!” Lee slams his open hand on the steering wheel and forces the shifter into drive. Emma jerks back in her seat. Lee puts his hand, on her hand, on her stomach. He slaps the turn signal right and turns, drives ten feet, and turns into the McDonald’s parking lot. He takes a deep breath when he sees the twenty-four hour decal on the window-wall.
“Welcome to M-”, momentary static, “I take your order.” Lee smiles and, making a surprised face at Emma, he puts the car in park.
“Just a second.” He turns to her, mimicking enthusiasm, slapping his knees. “What are we getting?”
She makes a thinking face. “Well.” She scratches her shoulder. “We can get one of those kids things for her, and I want a number six, large size, with a pop.” There are more cars in this parking lot. She watches a bulldozer and a dump truck moving the snow around the gas station parking lot. Someone in a knit hat jumps out of a passenger seat and runs from the pumps to the store. Lee gently gases to the window. He looks up from his wallet and smiles at the middle-aged man wearing thick glasses and a headset, extending his hand and repeating the total. “Here you go.” Offering the bills, then the coins. Workers in the kitchen are filling the bags, and putting the drinks in a carrier. It is bright and warm in the restaurant. A little heat escapes, slightly warming Lee’s face. He looks over at Emma looking out the window. A Domino’s delivery car pulls into the parking lot. Its logo light distracts Lee.
“Here you go. Sir. Here you are.”
“Oh sorry.”
“Have a nice night.”
“You, too.”
Emma holds the drinks and puts the kid’s meal in the back seat. She grabs a fry and bites it. They pull into a near parking spot and distribute food, and eat quietly to pop radio static. Lee checks his mirrors to make sure the cars that pass don’t backend them. The pizza delivery car exits the gas station straight from the pump.
“Must’ve paid with a credit card.” Lee says, pointing to the car.
“What?” Emma licks a sauce from her lip, lifting her finger to remove the residue. “Oh, yeah. It’s the easiest way.”
“We can put her food in the fridge and heat it up for her lunch.” Lee takes a bite and continues to look interested in the movement of the parking lot.
“We can leave the toy on her nightstand for the morning.”
“Good idea.” He says, looking back at the cardboard, his abdomen tightening from the deep-fried in the stomach acids and the alcohol and the emptiness this late at night. “Do you want any of these?” He holds out the fries from his hamburger box. She doesn’t say anything, but takes them and pours them into her mouth, tossing the box into the bag with the rest of the trash. She smiles at him, and opens her door. Lee watches Emma put the bag in the trash and admires her walking on the snow. A shock of happiness moves through him, followed by a powerful feeling of sadness, then quickly back to emptiness. Emma sits in the car, and shuts the door, rubbing the snow into the carpet. Up the street two people run around an intersection testing to see if the stoplight sensors and crosswalk requesters work. Lee turns onto the street, drives five feet, and turns into the gas station. He parks in the back corner of the lot to avoid the dump truck and bulldozer maneuvering. The car touches the curb.
“Do we need anything?”
“Milk, peanut butter, coffee, cookie dough ice cream.”
Lee closes the car door and walks into the store, releasing the edges of his coat as he enters. He collects the things from around the store, hesitating in the candy aisle. Today’s newspaper is already on the stand, he corners through it, skimming headlines. He approaches the counter, and places the items on it. “And a pack of…um…those, the buy-two-get-one-free.”
“These?”
“Yeah.” Lee hands the clerk his credit card. The magnetic strip moves through the machine. Lee looks at all the cigarettes. The card is returned with a pen and a receipt to sign. Lee holds the paper with his right hand, signing.
“You a lefty?” The clerk asks enthusiastically.
“Yeah.”
“Me too. Yeah, lefties are the best. We are not ordinary.” The clerk smiles, he takes the receipt and pen. He looks over to his co-worker, “Almost time to get out of here.” Lee grabs the plastic bag, nods and goes back out to the parking lot.
“Oh, fuckers.” Lee almost yells, quickly walking back to his car, blocked in by the dump truck. “What is this about?” Lee looks over at Emma sleeping on a balled-up sweatshirt against the window. He turns on the car attempting to reverse into a parallel position with the truck. He gets inches away from the truck then pulls forward, then reverses again, and again, making little progress. Lee takes a deep breath and watches the steam blow against the windshield. He screams as loud as he can, “Fuuuck. What the fuck.” He violently turns his neck and his torso slamming the steering wheel, his voice gets louder, “Fuck. I hate this shit. What the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with everything.” He looks at his fiancé and daughter both still breathing deeply in sleep. He tries to get out of the space three more times, deepening the difficulty of escape. “Fuu-uck, this is so ridiculous.” He begins to scream again. “Naaa-ahh. Jesus, I hate this fucking town and everyone in it. I just want out. Fuck. Fuu-uck.” Lee sees a worker walk around the front of the truck, he begins to wave Lee back.
“Turn the wheel all the way.” The man says, taking off his gloves. Lee gestures, turns the wheel, nods, squints, and wrinkles his forehead. One wheel goes up onto the curb as the car squeezes past the oversized truck. Emma wakes as the car bounces back onto the ground. She turns in her seat a bit, and puts a hand on Lee’s head carelessly, lovingly, and half asleep.

Chapter 2: Geary

Geary shoves it into the bag. The birds are out, flying short distances between trees and eventually leaving this area of the forest into the sky. Geary’s hand goes deep into a pocket and extracts a thick thread. He wraps the thread around the bag, intuitively securing the top flap and the contents inside. With his foot he gently rolls the bag into a hole he dug yesterday morning. He picks his beer up from the ground, holds it level with his chest for a moment, and then lifts it to his mouth, emptying the bottle. The sun comes through the bottle at the peak of the drink, and then in one fluid motion Geary continues raising the bottle over his head and flicks it at the tree ahead of him. With a pop, the bottle disappears and small pieces of glass settle on the leaves on the dirt. He uses his foot to shift dirt around the bag and on top of the bag. The small hole fills and he pats it level with a few quick stomps. Walking slowly, he leaves it behind and doesn’t look around at all, lighting a cigarette. His eyes focus on the tip of the cigarette, it catches and he closes his eyes, inhaling. All over the Semicity are these small forest-sewer-creeks. These small stretches of small amounts of water moving through sparse foliage to the concrete tube to the reservoir are the highpoints of backyard scenery.

In the mud by Geary’s feet is the wallet of a gym teacher from his old elementary school. He picks up the wallet and recognizes the eyes and the nose and the mouth and the name, Mrs. Novak. He holds his sleeve over his fingers. Some dirt fills the small lines in the leather. Fling. The wallet hits the creek and sinks like a rock. Geary’s shoe slips a bit in the mud, leaving a deep imprint. Some contents of the wallet float up and are barely taken by the current. He squats down over the footprint, grabs a nearby rock and flattens out the indentation into a small rotund crater. He steps onto the firm ground and walks up towards the concrete ducts. The tube underground has its shadow on the inside. Geary steps on rocks across the water and, with small exertion, he jumps into the tube. He leans on the tube taking its shape with his torso. The cigarette hits the water and becomes a discard. Geary turns his head to the shadow of the tube and screams from his chest, the sound echoes and perpetuates through the sewer. Geary jumps, grabs the concrete at the top of the structure and pulls himself out of the tube onto the dirt. He walks to the sidewalk, long stepping twig to twig. He walks out of the forest and into a yard that hasn’t been clipped for a couple months.

The grass and leaves make a little noise when he walks on them to get to the sidewalk. A car approaches and passes. He walks along the sidewalk toward the house. There isn’t much of a front yard on Geary’s house. Really it is dirt and under the dirt is animals that have died in the forest. On top of the dirt are some vague headstones, an old toy car, a shopping cart, a marble table, and various tiles pushed in a bit. One of his cats is missing. Geary remembers this when he sees the food he left on the porch the previous night. Geary grabs the old doorknob and shoulder thrusts, opening the door and stumbling the step up into the hall. He walks through the house to the kitchen and paces trying to remember what he was compelled, so briefly, to do when he walked on the porch. He flicks the pull-string hanging from the light in the center of the ceiling. He looks at the rubbing alcohol on the counter and thinks to take a sip, but he shakes his head and says out-loud, “No.” The curtain hanging in front of the kitchen closet isn’t moving, until Geary pushes it aside and sticks his head in the dark closet where the kitty litter stays. Geary grabs the litter and walks back through the house. As he passes through the living room he grabs the top of an old food carrier from a local restaurant. He opens the door and steps back onto the porch. The sun slowly disappears and the brief sunset becomes steady dark. There’s no one walking down the block. The top makes a high-pitched sound when it hits the porch, and the litter makes various tics when it hits the top. He looks at the food dish on the right of the porch steps, then looks back at the litter. He thinks about grabbing a toy of some sort to leave near the door. Geary shakes his head again. He looks down at the litter and shakes his head, smiling. He laughs a little. Alone on the block he laughs once or twice and walks back into the house, emptying the block.

The porch is silent. The streetlight vibrates a constant bulb hum. This place is easily mistaken as silent. The hum becomes the silence. A cat runs through the backyard of Geary’s house, then back into the woods. Geary has six cats. The tops of the trees sway in unison, leaning slightly in the direction of the wind. A light goes off in a house across the street. Geary steps back onto the porch with a bowl of water and places it next to the food. His head turns in each direction, inspecting the scene. No cats, no people, nothing. Geary reaches for his cigarettes and takes his time getting across the porch to the tiger-barrel-couch. He runs his hand across the orange and black striped pleather. The lighter sparks once without lighting, twice. Geary shakes the lighter, he watches his hand move unplanned and violent. He tries again, it lights, and he begins to smoke. He tries to get his eyes out of focus so his hearing will get better. As his eyes go out of focus he begins to identify the various sounds and fails to anticipate their rhythm. There is the streetlight bulb hum, there is an animal in a tree, there is a little near by traffic, there is not much. He looks up at the streetlight as he drags his cigarette and listens again. His heartbeat is vibrating his body like a light bulb in a streetlight. A bug makes a few noises then moves on, a car drives by on the highway across the field behind the houses across the street. Geary closes his eyes. He leans his head against the house behind the couch. Earlier today he and a friend took machetes and trimmed the bamboo overtaking the side of the house. He imagines the sound of that and the look of the blade that’s too dirty to glisten in any light.

He begins to listen again. There is the streetlight, there is something small moving next to the house, there is an airplane motor. His eyes open aimed at the sky, it is clouded, and the plane is covered. He catches a satellite father up, coming into the open then behind cloud, back into the open and gone again. He looks into the road, opening his vision to its max periphery. Geary sees a figure moving from around the side of the house. He looks over as the figure turns from the side around up onto the porch. Geary briefly looks down at the food and looks up directly into the eyes of the figure. There are no legs; it is slightly blue and transparent. Geary looks away, back into the road. The figure takes a step and stands silently on the porch. The streetlight goes out. Geary takes a drag of his cigarette and it tastes like filter. He throws it to the opposite side of the figure, trying to pretend he didn’t see the figure. But they have already seen each other into the face. The figure didn’t make a sound in its approach. Geary hears it in his head like a thought.

“Let me in. Can I come in?” The figure does not move. Geary tries not to think anything.

“Can I come in?” Geary feels cold and pulls his arms tightly around his abdomen. “Let me in.”

“Let me in. Can I come in? Can I come in? Let me in. Can I come in? Let me in. Let me in.”

Geary tries to focus his eyes, but the street is blurry, he looks over at the figure, standing silently on the porch. It is staring into him. He can feel this, but he looks where it disappears, where its feet would be. He doesn’t speak out loud but he articulates a thought, looking briefly up towards the figures face and behind it.

“Look, this is the first time you have ever come around here. I don’t know you very well. Maybe if you come back and we get to know each other, then we can talk. But right now I have to say no. I can’t do that.” Geary looks back into the road. The figure takes a step closer to the couch and Geary.

“Can I come in? Let me in.”

“No.”

Out of the corner of his eye Geary watches the figure retreat down the steps, silently, around the porch, back to wherever it came from beside or behind the house. Geary takes a deep breath. He wants to run down the street and find the traffic and jump onto it and stand on the hood of the car screaming about the ghost. Instead, he goes back into the house. Geary turns on all the lights in each room, periodically peeking out of a window to see if the figure is standing there watching him run around trying to take in the light from outside. He kneels on the bed and pulls the blanket up to his waist. A cat runs across the bedroom onto the bed and up to him, rubbing on the blanket covering his leg.

“Where is it, Corn?” Geary takes his finger down to the small cat’s face. Cornballflake thrusts his face on Geary’s hand, passing his scent along.
“Where is it?”

A truck drives past. Geary stays on the bed waiting for someone to return home. Every now and then a car drives past and Geary imagines it stopping as it moves on. The sun comes up around six twelve. Geary passes out sitting up. The cat falls asleep in Geary’s lap with Geary’s hand as a blanket. The blanket falls to the side. Eventually, Geary falls onto the bed and the cat adjusts onto the bed near Geary. A car pulls into the driveway and someone uses the exterior steps to go in on the second floor. There is a thud as they fall into their bed. Geary wakes up for a second, pulls the blanket over himself and the cat, groans, and goes back to sleep.

leaky bannana box

Chapter 1: America

He wakes up. His cell phone beeps. There is a message. He dials a few numbers and holds the phone up to his ear, he hears an automated voice. He brings the phone down to chest level and looks and the numbers. He touches some of the buttons.

‘You have one new message, press one to-’ The phone makes a sound when he presses the button.

‘Hi-’ He recognizes Emily’s mother’s voice. ‘I know this is kind of difficult to understand right now.’ She is crying, gasping for air every now and then. ‘But last night, after your date. I got a call this morning. It was around five in the morning. It was the police. Emily. At around three. She fell. She was walking back from town and she fell off the bridge. Ohhhh. My baby. She washed up around four. Some jogger found her. Nobody knows what happened. Emily. Emily. Ohhh. Where were you? Nevermind. I know she didn’t want to leave you though, she loved you, you helped her. I know that she had you with her. She-’ His phone goes dead. He throws it across the room.

He chases the cell phone and plugs it into the wall. He walks, with no emotion on his face, towards the television. He imagines Emily breaking up with him. He imagines her on the bridge. under the water, pulling with her hands at the water. The phone rings. He imagines it is Emily, her mother, or the police. He doesn’t recognize the number.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, sir. Is this the resident of 53 Graves Avenue?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hi, my name is Amanda. I am looking at our records, here. It says that you owe $264.87 for gas heat over the last three months.’

‘Yes.’

‘We can process a check over the phone.’

‘Ummm. No. I think I will have to look at my bank statements and figure out something later.’

‘If it’s a matter of not wanting to give your information out over the phone, I completely understand.’ The tele-debt collector wants some commission.

‘No. It is a matter of not having any checks here.’

‘Oh, well I will give you a confirmation numb-’

He hangs up and throws the phone, it is plugged in, it swings back and hits the wall it is plugged into. He thinks of Emily laughing.
He goes on the computer and buys a plane ticket to Virginia for $250. He leaves tomorrow.

\\\\\\\

I pick up a box of bananas, hop out of the truck and walk across the parking lot towards the small market. There are four people working at this market right now. One of the workers is wearing an apron, she talks very quietly as she places various fruits in a basket. I can’t read it without my glasses. It looks like there is the outline of a storefront on the card. The woman turns to me, and I hold up the box of bananas. She nods.

I walk to the back room and place the banana box on the cement. When I try to walk back into the store I hit my shoulder against the doorframe and stumble a little. I shake my head looking back at the door like it was a person that had aggressively bumped shoulders with me in a crowd.

The woman’s hair is a bright white, she looked younger from across the store. She has on tall boots. I hand her the receipt. She signs it. Her face looks busy, this is a new stop for me. I don’t know anyone here. She hands the paper back, I tear off the spoolfeeding edges and hand her the yellow carbon copy. I pocket the pink and white parts of the receipt.

‘Thankso much.’ she says, wiping her hands on her apron. There is a crash in the backroom. She looks in that direction and hurries off. I look around the store as I leave, there is a big convex mirror in one corner, near the ceiling. There are no carts, only baskets. I walk back across the parking lot. I get in the truck and put on my glasses. I check off this location with a pen tied to a clipboard. I toss the clipboard into the passenger seat.

the bannana truck is coming