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A lone ant
crawled into his hair and went across
his forehead to
his eyelid

He woke up
Sand all about him and wood above

But this was so far
from hell
Hell was a thing of the past now

Now he had her by
his side

She was still sleeping
in her rugged sleeping bag

For the past few days
they slept under the cabin
to avoid being ambushed inside

He knew she wouldn’t be by his
side
for long. The infection in her
mouth was really getting out of control
putting her one outrageous fever
away from death

This was the world today
A warm wasteland full of predators
and no medical help of
any kind. Kill or be killed. Law of
the jungle. And so on

He liked to believe he
adapted

Too many didn’t

His luck stood in not having that much of
a fine life before the disaster

In fact
life was actually better now
in some aspects

For one
he had a cute companion by his side

A man really doesn't need
much to cling to life

She awakened a few minutes later
from another one of her fever dreams
All sweaty
Breathing heavy
Reaching out for his hand

“Do I smell?” she asked

“What?”

“I said, do I smell?”

“Well, yeah, we both do. Just look at…
where we are. How we are. But hey,
one thing you can be sure of, I
really, really don’t mind.”

“You sure?”

“More than sure.”

“Good. Then hold me.”

He moved closer and circled her with his
arms. Buried his head in
her hair. “We can go inside. No one
came tonight either. It’s safe.”

“No,” she said. “Hold me for a bit longer.
This night… I had the worst of
them. Worst nightmare. A boat came
here on the beach. With saviors. They weren’t
even pirates. But actually good people.
They rescued us.
And among them… there was another woman.
A healthy, pretty one.
And the two of you fell in love. And I
lost you. And I killed myself. Threw
myself over the board. And drowned. My lungs
were burning.”

“Wow,” he said. “What a silly dream.”

“It felt so real.”

“You think I’d leave you for another woman
just because she’s healthy and pretty? After
all we’ve gone through?”

“Look,” she said, “my husband left me for
another woman
even before my gums and tongue started to
swell and rot. When I was still
healthy and… somewhat pretty.”

“Well… I’m not your husband.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I… shouldn’t have brought him
into the discussion. And you’re right. You
are… the most… You’re all I’m still
alive for, really. And I know
I won’t be alive for long.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he said

“It’s true. That’s why… I want you to know
that these past days…
I’ve been praying. For God not to send
us any rescuers. I prayed not to be
found by any other humans. I hate all other
humans besides you. I know it’s incredibly
selfish of me but… We’ve enough
provisions here to
survive… You know, in my case, for the rest
of my life. It’s all a matter of
days, really. I want these last days to be
spent with you alone.”

They made love there in the
dirty sand
and he didn’t mind covering that rotting
mouth with his

By the time she died
her belly
was quite swollen

And he made his peace
with the fact that he’ll never get
over it

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“I tried to hire my mentally ill
brother,” he said. “I gave
him a knife. He’s
forbidden to touch them but I gave
him one anyways and
told him to
use it on me. That was my
strategy for productive writing. My
brother would stand by
the door
and I told him to cut me
down if I dared stand and walk away
from my computer. A
computer with no
internet connection, of course. Only
a word processor.
That’s all.”

“Impressive.
And how did
it work
out?”

He shook his
head.
“It didn’t. My brother got
very bored
and played around with
the knife
and hurt
himself, dammit.
Today
I imagine I’m locked in a cell
with a computer
and my captors made a
deal with me. You
have to write 50 poems
a day, they told me. Else you
don’t
get out of here. It’s
an okay method
but I still would’ve
proffered the first one. My brother would’ve
made some money too.
I’ve life insurance.”

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well it’s been about four days of
fasting
Four days of eating nothing
but smoke from
his cigarettes
so it was difficult to tell whether
the woman
who sat in his bathtub
and smoked some of his cigarettes and
watched him writing on his desk
was real or not

“Of course I’m real, you
dumbass!” she said, exhaling smoke. “I’m
just hiding. This seems
like an okay place.”

“Hiding from whom?” he asked

“Well,” she said, “since you don’t know,
it means they hadn’t looked
for me here yet. That’s good. Anyway,
you got something to
eat in here?”

“Um… no, sorry. I’m fasting.”

“Fasting? What the fuck for? So that God
might forgive your sins
or some shit like that?”

“No. I’m… a writer. I get my inspiration
like that.”

“Oh? A writer? And how’s it going so far?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “I wrote this
story about
a woman who disguised herself
as a prostitute to infiltrate
a corrupt officer’s home and killed him
to fulfill a revenge pact.”

“No shit,” she said. “And what did the
officer do to her?”

“I haven’t gotten to that part. The
story doesn’t unfold like
that. It starts with her
running away from the authorities and breaking
into the house of a lone writer
who suffers from
schizophrenia and can’t tell whether she’s
real or not. So he
begins to regard her as a muse
and their relationship develops from this.”

She lit another cigarette. “No shit.
Well, I bet it’s gonna
be a hit, this story of yours.”

“You think so?”

“Sure, sure. Say, you won’t mind if I
go through your kitchen a bit, right?
Maybe you’ve some leftovers or
something that I can help
myself to?”

He shrugged. “I probably don’t. But, okay,
have a look.”

She got out of the
bathtub and now he could see that all
she wore was a gray tank top. No
pants, no shoes. A bright green snake
with stars for eyes shone
tattooed around her crotch. “I will,” she said,
“thanks.”
And she disappeared into the kitchen

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they didn't even know
who the kid watching TV in the
other room was

but maybe that was
not their number one problem

"You goddamn bitch," he said. "Tell me!
Tell me you didn't
steal any from me, so I can say
I don't believe you. C'mon, tell me!"

"Fuck you," she said. "You lost it."

"I knew you'd find some
excuse, some lie. Cuz you're one lying bitch,
that's what you are."

"Hey, what about the tenant?"

"Who?"

"The tenant, deepshit! From the other
room. You'd rather believe
I stole it, not him?"

"What the...? Bitch, that's your son. He's
like five. He don't pay no rent."

"What? We gotta kick 'im out then!"

"Aha! So you did
take my shit! You so high you don't
recognize your own son. Again!"

They were louder than
the TV
but it didn't matter. This TV had one
channel only
and it played commercials on a loop. Commercials
about frying pans. He
liked to watch the food
displayed in those commercials. It looked
divinely good.
And he was hungry and they ran out
of toast again
But dad threw mom out the window
again. Maybe she'll grab some
on her way back.

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“You need help,” they
told him. “Get some therapy, some
counseling, something. Reach out, man,
you need help.”

He would raise his
glass at
such advice and say, “Oh, hell yeah, I
need all the help I can
get. Thanks.” But he
would never actually reach for it

He’d reach for the
closest bottle
and pour himself another drink

and maybe reach
for some leg
or breast or ass

By this time the ladies knew he
wasn’t a bum, even though
he looked like one
with his ragged, soiled green suit
and his worn out shoes
his cobweb-like greasy hair
and the unkempt beard that looked
like he was chewing on
a dead, rotting octopus

He was loaded
with cash
despite all that

And the explanation was simple

He was
a poet

He laughed at all those well-meaning
advisers and their
concerns

He would return to his home
in the slums
and wrestle with a door that wouldn’t
open because of the mounts of
empty bottles from
the other side

and would enter through the window
once more

fall on his face

start bleeding
from his nose and lips

Stand
and look at the redness pooling on
the dirty floor beneath
and start laughing

“Haahaaaah! Advising me to seek
help. What garbage. Calling me
a fool.
Fools are those who trade their madness
for the privilege to fit in.
Fuck those people! I’m gonna write
a poem with the
used tampon my new girl gave me.”

He went to his
desk
searching his pockets

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a thief had entered the house
and all
he stole
was the TV remote
Perhaps some prankster kid
because at times
the TV would act strange. So he's probably
close and messing with them.

there was only the two of them
home. The old man with
dementia and his
daughter, not a very young woman herself

unable to speak,
the old man
began to cry because he couldn't
watch his favorite
cartoons on TV

and he cried and cried and kept crying
about it
It was too much
and, the daughter thought, it was
about time. About time she
left the past behind and
started her
own life. She was 39, childless,
no husband, no boyfriend, nothing.

Over the next few days
she arranged for the old man
to be placed into foster care. He was still
crying.

Sacrifices had to be made. She was wiping her
own tears when the
phone rang.

She picked up
and a nurse told her they'd taken her
father to the ER
as he wouldn't stop crying

"Goodness, what happened to him? Is
he all right now?"

"Um, mam, this might be
difficult to hear but..."

"Yes?"

"In the ER, they found a TV remote
lodged inside his
rectum."

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The building had 60 stories
and he was 60 years old
Still cleaning it from bottom to top
for the past 35 years

one thing remained unchanged
as time passed

the coldness

Every surface he’d ever touch would
be as cold as the glass
of a window in the winter

And the people who
worked in the building were
pale and cold as vampires

He forgot how it was to be saluted
or how it was to salute
and get a reply

No one talked to the janitor
No one knew his name

No one cared

There were no souls in this isolated
monolith
that stood in the center
overlooking other monoliths

Hell is cold
and monotonous
and plays constant factory noises
or keyboard noises
and exudes smoke

Even the plants were made of
plastic and their flowers
and leaves had to be sprayed with alcohol
and wiped with a rag

Real plants wouldn’t
accept such treatment

They would punish you with their death
and that should be enough

But not for those pale vampires

The only thing alive
was him, the janitor
who imagined jazz music playing in
his mind as he scrubbed the tiles

and one mushroom that grew behind one of the
toilets in the women’s bathroom from
a used pad

He left it there for days
It was his little secret, his little friend
in this world of soulless beings

It was life sprouting against
impossible odds

Life in hell

It was something to look up to
every day

Something to kneel before and say
hello to and sing jazz to
and even pat gently with the finger

He promised himself that the day that
mushroom died
he would retire

So far it was still alive
Still sprouting spores that he
inhaled
and tasted with his tongue after
rubbing it gently with his finger

Living beings
stick together
regardless of species

Just like the dead do

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She was sucking
on a red lollipop
quite loudly
and would constantly
take it out of her mouth
to stir her whiskey with it

She wore round sunglasses
a crimson bandanna
her hair in thin dreads
and all her shirts
were sleeveless

She took the lollipop out
one more time and
pointed it at him
across the table

“You want some?”
she asked

“Um, no thanks. I, uh,
stay away from sweets.”

She dipped the lollipop
back into the glass
and stirred a bit
then put it back
in her mouth

“Good for you.
I’m not too fond
of these either.
Just use ’em to help me
break the smoking habit.
It’s been working lately.”

She picked up the glass and took a sip
of the lollipop-flavored whiskey

“Anyway, like I said,
I brought you to my place
to read your tarot cards.”

She pulled the deck out
from under the table
and began shuffling
it intently

“If all’s good,
there’ll be a second date
and perhaps even more.
It all depends on you.”

Just then,
her dog barged into the room,
a fat pit bull wagging its stubby tail
and sniffing around the guest

It then ambled to her side
and she took the lollipop
and placed it between
the dog’s jaws

She shuffled some more
very focused on what
she was doing
and when all was ready
she took the lollipop
from the dog’s mouth
and resumed sucking on it
with loud slurping sounds

“So, you ready?”
she asked

He watched her,
gulped, and
scratched his head

“Um… yeah, totally.
This is, uh… like
poker, right?”

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“You made me take drugs,” she reproached
him

But he didn’t hear her
over the pain in his lower belly

“You made me take drugs,” she repeated.

“Huh?”

“And for this I’ve decided to
replace you. With someone better, someone who
would never make me do something
I don’t feel right with.”

He shook his head and noticed
that he was in the kitchen
tied to a chair
And there was a horrible pain in his lower belly
and his chest and
most of his body
and he felt like vomiting

His woman was at the gas cooker
pouring oil over a frying sausage
in a pan

The dog was at her feet
salivating

“This is what you get,” she said, “for making
me do drugs, darling.”

“What?” He was still with a foot
in the world of painful dreams
but he watched her take
the sausage from the pan and toss it
to the dog

The dog grabbed it before
it could land on the floor and began to chew

She pointed at the dog. “He. He’s gonna
take your place now. He’ll never
make me do drugs.”

“What?” he said. Still not understanding
what was going on.
He looked down and saw the blood
and the tissue dangling from
his crotch.

Then he screamed
And the dog barked

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the old boy
wakes up three hours ahead of
the world that lives in concrete buildings
and one hour ahead of the
competition
and emerges from his damp tent

looks around the park
looks at the sky

Overcast

He stretches a bit and scratches his
head
and walks over to the fountain
and has a drink

collects some mint leaves
chews on them
spits
and rinses his mouth

The work clothes are already on him
Boots
two pairs of socks
cotton and wool
faded jeans
a shirt
a sweater
and coat over them
mittens
and a cap that covers his ears as well

It's now time to set about
collecting tin cans around the neighborhood
to make just enough for
a meal and a half
and maybe a few cigarettes sold
individually

It's been
enough years for all this to become
routine
When you don't know of any better you
don't expect any better

And now he only did this to have just enough
energy and life force to
visit the public library and
read heart warming poems