he was a doctor

Goddammit, they were looking at
a doctor
He came into the casino in a suit,
the same suit every day and night
dark gray
shiny with grease around the
elbows and lower back
smelly
patched up in places

he kinda forgot what it was like to be
sober

and lately he kinda forgot what
it was like to win at the slot machines

he forgot how to perform surgery
how to diagnose a patient

forgot what the company of a woman felt like

forgot what love was

he was a machine that consumed cheap
but strong alcohol
Rubbing alcohol filtered through bread
That stuff was 70% alcohol
his liver knew it

"Ah, pleaseeee, for the love of God, don't
make me work with this
stuff again," he would scream while
playing at the slot machine

and the bouncer would walk up to him
and say, "Hey, hey, doc. Everything all right, man?"

"Oh, sorry. That was my liver shouting
through my mouth. He's a pussy."

They say companies that deliver food
get very suspicious when their
regular customers,
the people who order every day,
stop ordering all of a sudden
They even check on them

Well, we don't deliver food
but we got really concerned when
our favorite doctor stopped
showing up
all of a sudden

Maybe our managers would've checked
up on him but
there was no phone to call
and no door to knock on

Still, one of our boys went to the nearby
park and asked the homeless men around
for our favorite doctor
and the man handed him a
newspaper

Shit,
it wasn't even on the front page
there was some political shit on the
front page
Nobody gave a damn about that article

The real thing was a few pages
after, not even colored
HOMELESS MAN DIES AFTER TRYING TO
PERFORM SURGERY ON HIMSELF
IN PUBLIC RESTROOM

That was a doctor with guts
Guts pouring out of him
straight into the sink
and another cluster found in the toilet

We framed the article and pasted
it on a board in the back room
of the casino

our very own patron saint

she woke up because her feet were cold
The window was open
and she had not the audacity to
stand and shut it in someone else’s house

He was still asleep
beside her
The sheets were stained with her maiden’s
blood
That was all right
She was twenty
But him.... He was also twenty but that’s not the point

This was the boy who
put her through hell during both middle
and high school

The bully

There was that time when he pushed
her down the stairs
and broke her thumb

that time during the field trip
when he threw a rock
straight into the side of her head

that time when he put
a frog in her
lunchbox
And another in her backpack that she
carried home

That time he kicked the ball
in her face giving her
a bloody nose

that time when he threw a snowball
at her ear

And there was another incident
resulting in a chipped tooth

and all of that was besides the
name-calling and the random hair pulling
and the tripping and the scaring
and all...

Yet now here she was
Here they were
In his house
In his bed

And all because he contacted her the previous day
and apologized for everything. Truth
is her life placed some nasty miles both
behind and ahead of her
and someone being nice all of a sudden...

It was so easy to get her
And what did he think of her now?

She felt tears trickling down
her cheeks as she thought of this and
stared at his sleeping body beside her

Maybe the time to
get revenge was now

Or was it not?

silence
Silence is the most important thing
It's what renders headphones
and earbuds
and headsets one of the
greatest
inventions of the modern world

The ability to enjoy entertainment
without disturbing those
around you

Silence

It's important to know this about it
cuz unfortunately some of
the lessons
about the importance
of silence
are taught by the most
extreme teachers

Myself and a friend of mine had been
taught the lesson by such a teacher

We were twelve and thirteen
and he got a new gaming console for
his birthday and we spoke with another
friend to lend us a cool game,
some shooter

I stayed over the night
and we started playing
and the TV was quite loud
The game was fun
We were loud
and there were bangs and explosions
and guns firing and screams and flashes

and suddenly
the door of the bathroom bangs
open with a kick and my friend's
grandfather storms into the room
with froth about his bleached lips and
he grabs my friend's arm, twists, and
pins him to the ground and holds him there
as he looks around the room with crazed eyes,
more scared than both my friend and I

I think what's worse
is that the old man was previously
on the toilet
using it
and he got up without wiping
or washing his hands
and came into our room like that

My friend's father came when he heard
the commotion and
dragged the old man away
and left us mute
and shaken

we didn't say a word until he
came back a few seconds later
and lectured us about PTSD

but I guess the real moral of the
story is that silence is important
and headphones are really one of
humanity's greatest inventions

the stress was messing with
her periods
so she got even more
stressed as a result

Oh, and that guy she met
through the dating app, he considered
himself catfished. Why?
She looked like
in the
pictures. No difference.

More stress...

It all started with the premature
death of her
mother
And then there was
the messy divorce and all that
But she didn't wanna think
about it

There was only one way to cope
with the stress

She sat on the couch
and turned the TV on
and got the
nail clippers out of her makeup kit
and used
them to chip pieces of skin
off her knuckles
and then chew them like sunflower seeds

it worked wonders
as a stress relief technique

The skin of her
hands looked very much like
Swiss cheese but
the dents were rimmed with redness

She watched her hands
as she chewed on the pieces of skin
and then it hit her
"Oh God! I'm such
a dumbass. I forgot to take off my
wedding ring.
No wonder the guy considered
himself catfished. He
saw my hands and
thought I was some unhappy
wife looking for hookups. Oh dear..."

but what if it was
all a dream?
All a nightmare

What if he wasn't just a construction worker
who fell from the
scaffold and couldn't get up
and was in incredible pain from the torso up
because he had no more feeling below?

If this was all a dream
all a nightmare
and he was no construction worker barely
making ends meet
then his wife did not divorce him
a few weeks ago
and she did not take the kids
and she did not have another man in her life

If it was all a dream
a nightmare
then
he did not
just
jump to his death

If it was all a dream
a nightmare

same thing
After a painful breakup
she would
have her sister over
for some hardcore drinking
and nasty chatting

Usually
there would be a little over
ten shots of tequila
with salt and no lemon
that brought along their favorite
story

"When I told you to
lie down on the carpet," her sister
said, "and I brought the
dog over you and jerked
him off in
your hair."

"Crazy bitch."

"No, it was funny! It was funnier when
dad saw you with
that shit stuck in your hair and
your collar and he
beat up our babysitter's boyfriend who
visited that day. Hahahahaha!"

"Poor fucker..."

"Yeah. Him dying in the
hospital put daddy
behind bars, you know?"

"I know."

"And then it was all heaven for us."

"It was?"

"Duh. We were free to
go out with guys then. Mom didn't mind. She
had her own."

"Yeah, I guess
life was
pretty nice to us..." 

He kept coming back
That was his only skill

Respect is not something you can possibly
be born with. The children of
kings and lords
should know this
but most don't

Though this kid who kept coming back
he was no one's son
A vagabond
His body bony in all places
no meat
under the skin

A skin that had all the colors
from pale to yellow to blue to
crimson to pitch black
dirty
scarred
sore
and something that looked
like bone peeking out of tissue

He got beat up every time he came to the
fighting pit behind the tavern

Never won a fight against
those well-fed, bulky sons of farmers
and blacksmiths and butchers
with puffy arms and wide napes

They fought mostly for respect
and the money was a side prize
But the bony boy
came only for the money
and he never got any
But he never begged in the marketplace either

The bony boy had
a pride about him
a pride that never left until the day
he could no longer stand in the fighting pit
after that fatal blow
It wasn't even that much of a strong hit
but his neck was so weak
it snapped

And they gathered in a circle
around him
mute
and stared

stared until their backs felt brushed,
shoved to the side by a pair of
hands weaker even than the bony boy's
Softer

"That's his little sister,"
someone said as they all moved
aside and let her reach the
bony boy,
crying

"So it's her that he fought for
all this time."

"Yes."

"And he kept coming back
every time."

"Yes."

"Insane."

"Wah, respect for the little guy."

"You know what, boys,
I think we should do it.
Give the little girl the prize money."

"Yeah."

"Though this ain't no fantasy land
and no poem.
So, no poem, no poetic justice.
We'll give the girl the prize money alright,
but she'll have to earn it.
Hopefully doing a better job than
her brother."

"Yeah, girl, just like your brother,
come back every time you need money.
Unlike him
you'll get it.
You really will."

"Right, now off with those
rags and let your fight begin.
I'll go first."