GOD'S FIRE

Last night I dreamt I was throwing a birthday party for God. He had this cake that was like a million miles long. I had to step on the frosting to get to the candles. Once I got them all lit, the sky looked like it was on fire. I was waiting for God to blow them out when this big alarm went off and woke me up --

"OK, guys, I want you all to put your swimming sandals on and follow me. Hurry up."

It was the night nurse whose name I don't know. I woke up and she was shaking Tooley awake. Brian and Chris were sitting on the floor putting on their swimming sandals and Carl was looking out the window.

"Everybody's leaving." he said.

"There's a fire boys. Now everything is going to be fine, but I need you all to line up at the door now."

I hate my swimming sandals, so I put on my sneakers instead -- just didn't tie them. Then I got my hook arm off the chair I leave it on at night, there wasn't time to put it on, so I just carried it and got in line behind Tooley, who was starting to cry like a God damn baby. The alarm was so loud, I could see the night nurse's lips moving, but I didn't know what the hell she was saying. The hall was crazy with people. The night nurse told us to hold hands. I told her if I'm going to hold someone's hand I needed to put my hook arm on, since I couldn't hold a hand and my arm at the same time. Nobody heard me. Tooley grabbed my hand and made me drop my hook arm on the floor. His hand was like a fat frog. I saw my hook arm lying there on the floor, all these people stepping over it -- lights flashing like the inside of some horror tunnel at the fair.

We got outside. There were fire trucks and police and the whole thing. There was some smoke coming out of the roof -- but not too much. They told us to sit on the grass.
There was tons of kids, all kinds of kids -- red house kids -- older kids -- kids littler than us -- and girls -- I didn't even know they had girls here, but I guess they do. So it was this big endless line of kids sitting there on the grass watching the center burn down.

"This is awesome." said Carl. "They're gonna send us all home you know." I started wondering if I still wanted to go home.

"No they're not you idiot," said Chris. "They're gonna send us to Holliman's." Holliman's was this real sucky hospital where they yelled a lot. Chris had been there and so had Brian. Then all of a sudden Chris started doing the crab walk, real slow, into the grass, away from all the flashing and yelling. We watched him, waiting for one of the nurses to say something to him, but they were all too busy watching the red house collapse in a big cloud of smoke.

"Holy crap, where is he going?" asked Tooley. "Should we tell somebody?"

We all told Tooley to shut the hell up. I kept looking behind us, but Chris was gone. I started wondering if I should go too. I sure as hell didn't want to go to Holliman's. I asked Carl if he was going to make a run for it.

"Make a run for what? Do you even know where we are?"

I didn't. But everybody speaks English, so we must be in America -- and you can drive anywhere in America.

"I'm gonna hitchhike."

"Morris, you are one dumb bastard." said Carl. "Do you know what happens to hitchhikers?"

"I don't give a rat's ass."

"Seriously Morris. I heard this one kid had his eyes poked out hitchhiking. And then he went to a school for the blind and his teacher turned out to be the same guy who picked him up and poked his eyes out." I was the one who told Carl that story. I made it up, and it's much scarier when I tell it.

The fire was getting real big, it was almost like the sun was out, there was so much fire.
I stood up and started walking across the grass. I walked between long, shaking shadows. I heard Carl trying to get me to come back. I walked all the way to the fence and looked out into the woods. I've thought of jumping that fence a million times, but it seemed a hell of a lot bigger now. I started to climb it, but it was hard -- my hook arm would have helped. I felt sort of sorry for it -- my hook arm I mean -- since I figured it was burning up. When I got to the top of the fence, I got stuck. "Crap." That's what I said. No one heard me but me. The center was burning real good now. They had the hoses going and water was shooting way up in the sky and all this black smoke -- like the biggest cigarette of all time, burning and smoking in the sky.

I finally got over the fence and landed in the woods. It was so dark I couldn't believe it. I started to walk, but it was just like it looked -- the trees were too close together -- there wasn't any room to move. I tried climbing, so I could maybe go from branch to branch or something, but without my hook arm I couldn't climb for crap. I tried climbing back over the fence, but I was all out of wind. Then a voice came from the sky.

"You coming?" he said. It was Chris. He was up in the tree.

"Where are you going?"

"Beats me. Away from here."

"I can't get up there -- not without my arm."

He moved to the next branch -- to the next tree -- to the next -- like a monkey. I never knew how much like a monkey Chris was, but he was.
"See you never Morris."

And then he was gone and it was just me again. I was sort of sleepy. I watched the fire burning far away and it made me even sleepier...

I woke up and the sun was coming up. A couple of fireman were standing on the other side of the fence looking at me.

"You Boris?"

"Morris."

"Can you climb back over?"

"Maybe, I don't know."

"We found your...thing...thought you burned up in there." He had my hook arm. It was a little burnt, but not too bad. He threw it over the fence to me. I got it back on, and climbed back over. The firemen looked sort of impressed, but I wasn't showing off or anything. I walked across the grass with them. They were tired and they smelled like this old coat I had that my Mom got at a fire sale. I wasn't sure where the hell we were and then I realized it was because the center was gone. The kids sitting on the grass were gone too.

My parents were there though. They looked happy to see me. One of the firemen gave me this melted army guy he found inside. I put him in my pocket. There was something soft in there. I pulled out my hand and saw I had some smooshed birthday candles in there. I dropped them in the grass and let my mother hug me.

11:37 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

THE LEAK

There's a big field with a crooked baseball diamond in back of the hospital. It's all fenced in. I think I could climb it, but I'm not sure. On Mondays and Wednesdays we're supposed to play kick ball for an hour in the morning. Nobody was really in the mood for it today, not even Brian or Carl.

It's not just the diamond, the grass has been trampled in lots of other shapes too; since most of the kids who play back here don't know the rules to stuff and end up killing the grass in all these crooked shapes -- these sad looking paths to fake bases and circles of rocks. Tooley laid on his back and then Chris sat on Tooley's stomach and they fought for a few minutes, but it didn't last long. Something about the sun made us all sort of sleepy. There were little bugs flying and pieces of dandelion fluff floating in the air. Out past the fence there's woods. Thick dark woods. Trees so close together I doubt there's room to walk. You'd have to swing from the branches or something. I wondered about maybe trying to escape.

Carl walked away from the rest of us. He started walking along the fence. Brian got up and asked him what he was doing. I figured they were trying to figure out a way through the fence. Tooley took off his shoes. His feet were white as snow. Chris told him to put his shoes back on, but Tooley refused. I walked the crooked baseball diamond a few times and then I walked some of the crazy dirt paths that cut up the whole field like some red house kid's scribble. I wondered if I was forgetting things. Like my parents. I tried to draw them in my head and it was hard. I tried to remember my house, which was a little easier, but still I kept wondering if I had forgotten something. Some other room. What if I go back home and I'm walking to my room and I pass a room on the way and wonder, what room is that? Who sleeps in that room. Or some part of my room that I can't remember. An extra drawer. What's inside it? How does my brain choose the things it wants to forget and the ones it wants to remember?

The white parts of my sneakers were getting all green from walking around in the grass. I walked to the fence and looked into the woods. I started wishing for things I don't have. Something inside my head was asking questions and some other part of my head was giving answers, the way you say the alphabet, like a song or a rhyme.

There is a room in my brain where I keep the things that make me happy. There are only a few of these things left now, so I keep this room guarded pretty good. It's guarded by these mean bastards that live under my teeth. Their skin is made of tooth and their insides are pure brain -- so they're pretty unstoppable. Sometimes they'll even stop me. Sometimes I just get bored -- not really depressed -- just bored -- and I'll want to go in the room in my brain where all the happy stuff is, but that room is only for emergencies, and since it's getting a lot emptier these days, I can't just go in there for any old reason. Like today; I was just walking around in the grass and the sun was making my hair feel hot, and I wasn't really sad, but I wasn't happy either -- so I thought maybe I'd go into that room and remember something and be happy -- but the tooth men will stop me and threaten me with a spear to the brain if I go any further. I can't even tell you what's in the happy room, because just talking about it, makes it a little bit emptier. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do when it's empty; when I go in there and there's just walls and floors and ceilings -- all made of brain. Sometimes I try and put more stuff in that room. Like I'll look up at a cloud and it will look like a skeleton riding a dragon and I'll smile and think about how God damn awesome it is when skeletons ride dragons, especially when they wear cool helmets with devil horns on them -- but for some reason -- after I put them in that room with the other stuff, it just seeps through the cracks like when you pour milk into a box of cereal. I think only things that have already happened can make me happy now. New things aren't made the way the old ones were. They're not as heavy, or bright, or fast, or slow -- these old things happened bright -- bright as the sun shines. The sun doesn't shine like that now.

Then all of sudden something smashed the hell out of me. Everything went all black and noisy. Then I saw that God damn kick ball rolling away from me. It had just bounced off my face. The other guys were all laughing their asses off. I ran after the kick ball and picked it up. It's hard picking up kick balls with one real arm and one hook, but I did it. Then I whipped it at Tooley, mostly because he was the slowest running away. I hit him in the foot and he went flying into the grass. Then it started getting cloudy and dark. Our nurses started yelling for us to come back in, that it was going to rain, but we ignored them, all of us laughing, running from Tooley who had the ball now, trying to find someone to throw it at.

9:43 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

French Toast

So when my nurse, Judy, tried waking me up this morning -- my body felt sort of dead, deader than my hook arm even.

"Where's your prosthetic Morris?"

"It's gone."

"I see that. Did you hide it again -- 'cause I don't have time for shenanigans this morning."

She pulled me out of the bed and I fell on the floor like I was dead. She was pretty upset with me. She asked me if I was sick. Playing sick doesn't get you much here. You might get to stay in bed -- but I hate this bed. I don't get out of school or anything, there is no school.

The other guys were already at breakfast. I could see under their beds. Tooley had that God damn package his Grandmother sent him under his. She made him all these cookies and he ate too many and threw up in the box and then he closed it up and hid it under his bed. Chris had some busted up stuffed animal under his. I say it's a stuffed animal, but I don't know what animal it's supposed to be. I asked Chris what it was and he won't even admit it exists. Carl and Brian didn't have squat under their beds except some empty crushed drink boxes and some stupid cross word book that Carl thinks is proof that he's some kind of genius. He just takes all the answers from the back and fills them in.

Judy sat down on the floor next to me and took my pulse. "You know Morris, they have some real good stuff in the kitchen for breakfast today."

"Like what?"

"Like lots of things. Do you like french toast?"

"No, I used to, but not anymore."

"I like it. My mother used to make it for me on Saturdays."

"Is today Saturday?"

"No, but it tastes good on the other days too."

"I can't move."

"Yes, you can."

"I can't. There's no where to go. My body won't listen to me if there's no where to go."

"There is somewhere to go. Breakfast is somewhere to go."

"No it's not. Breakfast is nothing."

"What would something be?"

"I don't know anymore. It's hard to think in this God damn place. I'm forgetting all the things I like, and the things I like are the only things I care about."

"Well I'm not carrying you -- you're too big for that."

"Just because I don't want to get up, doesn't mean I think you're gonna carry me."

"I'll have to drag you. By your feet."

"That's fine."

"Do you have a hat, so your head will slide on the floor? Like a winter hat?"

"No, hats make my hair look all crazy."

I guess Judy didn't care about my hair too much, 'cause she started looking in the other guys' cubby drawers for a hat to put on me. She got this ridiculous red pom pom hat out of Tooley's and put it on my head. I just let her put it on me. That's how lousy I felt. Then she picked up my sock feet and started dragging me. She was right; that hat definitely helped me slide faster. I just stared up at the ceiling while she dragged me down the long hallway, all the way to the short hallway, and then on to the orange hallway with the big numbers up on the wall. Finally she dragged me into the cafeteria. Brian, Tooley, Carl and Chris were all done with their french toast. The other nurses helped Judy pick me up and sit me down at the table. I was in my pajamas. I was wearing Tooley's hat. I was pretty upset.

A couple of tables away some red house kids were being fed their breakfast. One of them was being real loud and bossing all the other red house kids, and they were all treating him like he was president of the world or something. He was holding something -- waving it around like crazy. He was like a crazy cave man who had something to say.

Then Brian said: "Hey Morris -- isn't that your hook arm?"

It was. It was the red house kid who was following us to the pool yesterday. I forgot I gave it to him. He looked like he was having the time of his life with my crappy old hook arm. All the other red house kids were laughing and screaming and dancing. All these nurses were trying to get it away from him, and he got up on a table and tried to fight them off with it. It was pretty dramatic.

"Aren't you going to go get it?" asked Carl.

"I don't care. He can have it."

But the more I watched him and all the fun he was having with it, the more I started feeling like I did care.

The nurses didn't even notice me at first, they were too busy trying to get the red house kid off the table. So I got down low and moved in. I got under the table he was standing on. It was like being under the stage while a trained bear is dancing. I grabbed one of the table legs with my hand and tried to shake it, but it wouldn't shake. I saw Brian, Carl, Chris and Tooley watching me from the other side of the cafeteria. They were having a grand old time. I got out from under the table and the next thing I knew something clobbered me in the face and I fell on the floor.

The crazy red house kid smashed me in the face with my own hook arm.

I was lying on the floor and all these nurses were standing over me, yelling at each other. One of them was holding my hook arm. I saw them dragging the red house kid out of the cafeteria. He looked so God damn sad that they took the hook arm away from him. I felt kind of lousy about it. He looked like they were taking his real arm away.

After that I got sent back to our room. The other guys were out playing kick ball, which I hate, so I was happy, at least a little bit. Then Judy came in and gave me my hook arm back. She was sort of steamed about something and left without saying anything.

I got the old hook arm back on and took a look at it. The red house kid drew something on it, and when I saw what he drew I got the screaming behind my ear real bad. It was the two headed giraffe with the bloody fangs. I took my hook arm to the bathroom and scrubbed the hell out of it until I got it off.

Then I stopped scrubbing it and I just kind of stood there for a while watching the water drip off my hook arm. It was so damn quiet that I could hear the whole world thinking. So I started grinding my teeth and breathing real loud until I could only hear that. I started wishing I was a baby and I knew all the stuff I know now and I'd be a baby genius and probably get put up in a castle somewhere with a robot to take care of me and record all my genius words.

I bet there's a baby somewhere who wants to be nine, maybe we can switch.

1:11 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

THE RED HOUSE KIDS

Note to reader:
Morris' writings while at the Wadsworth Center For Children were always thought to be incomplete. Last week our suspicions were confirmed when a notebook was found by someone on their staff and mailed to us. We'll be publishing these "lost entries" over the next two weeks.

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So on Thursday mornings our nurses take us to the pool. It's a stupid parade. Nobody is allowed to wear sox, and we have to wear these hospital sandals, and everybody carries their towels. Carl puts his up on his head and goes around saying he's the Swami. They gave Tooley this gigantic towel and he wears it like a dress. Mine was kind of small and it had fringe. I wrapped my hook arm with it and it looked like I was wearing an Indian cast instead of a hook arm, which was alright by me. Our nurses walked ahead of us and they were talking to each other in their low nurse voices. Judy had a band aid on the back of her foot. They walked us through lots of hallways that looked like the inside of white submarines. Then we had to walk through the red house -- this building that isn't red and isn't a house. It's where all the really crazy kids are. The ones that don't talk, and look like aliens. We walked by a big room full of red house kids. They were doing jumping jacks. They looked like somebody was controlling them -- like they were puppets and the guy pulling their strings was busy watching TV or something. One of them ran out into the hallway and started following us down the hall. None of the nurses noticed.

"We should tell our nurses he's following us." said Tooley.

"You rat on a red house kid and you get a curse put on you." said Carl.

"Just let the poor bastard follow us if he wants to follow us. It's not like we're going anywhere good -- it's just the God damn pool."

"Red house kids pee in the pool Morris." said Chris.

Then Brian piped in: "I heard their pee is like acid. These kids went swimming after some red house kids did, and when they came out, all their skin from the neck down was burned off -- they were like skeletons with human heads."

"I heard that Morris was a red house kid, but he was too stupid and they made him leave."

That last one was Carl. I was going to say something about his mother being a red house kid, but I just couldn't do it. Christ, the red house kids depress the hell out of me sometimes and having this red house kid follow us, listening to us talk about how his pee was acid -- it just made me want to think of other things. So I picked Christmas to think about. We had Christmas stockings when I was real little and they were always bulging with toys, like they were stretched over some big elephant foot -- only the elephant foot was made of toys I wanted. But then one Christmas my Dad got drunk while we were opening presents and he put me and Rambo's Christmas stockings on his lousy feet and walked around in them all day. He wore them outside in the mud and the snow and then he came inside and fell asleep with them on. Finally my Mom took them off him and threw them away. She said we'd get new stockings next year, but we never did.

The red house kid was still walking with us when I got done thinking about Christmas. He was walking backwards. I think he was showing off for us -- I'm not sure. Tooley started making faces at him and laughing his Tooley laugh. Red house kids are the only kinds of kids Tooley can make fun of without being clobbered. It was strange seeing Tooley so happy, with his towel dress on. I unwrapped the towel from my hook arm and when the red house kid saw it he thought I was some kind of robot God or something. He started walking real close to me and looking at it like it was made of gold. I don't like people who aren't Judy walking close to me. I told him to get the hell away from me. The other guys started laughing and saying me and the red house kid were going to get married and have red house kids. I started getting all hot under my sweatshirt and the hall was getting smaller, and there was all this stuff painted on the walls by the red house kids. These weird trees and air planes with one wing and birds with teeth. It was the way the red house kids see the world I guess, which was kind of crazy, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized I saw the world even crazier -- so what does that make me? Red house kids are the craziest kids there are, so if you're crazier than a red house kid what are you?

Finally I got so sick of this kid walking close to me and looking at my lousy hook arm, that I took it off and gave it to him. He went running off with it in his hand, screaming all this red house kid mumbo jumbo. Our nurses didn't notice, they were too busy looking at each other's fingernails.

When we got to the pool and everybody went berserk. It's like there's something about the smell of chlorine that makes us all want to drown each other. Tooley kept yelling cannon ball and then he'd just do a regular jump -- it wasn't a cannonball at all. I told him to quit yelling cannon ball if he's not gonna do a real cannon ball. Carl can do flips off the side, and his nurse kept telling him he was going to split his head open. I don't like having my shirt off. I don't like it at all. I look pretty stupid that way. So I walked around with the water up to my neck, so just my head showed.

And then, I just started peeing.

1:16 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Because I could not stop for Death, He Kindly Stopped for Me

I was at the end of a dream. It wasn't even over and I was already forgetting it. I could hear the dream people yelling for me to remember them. But I couldn't.

I saw flowers. A painting, but not my Dad's, someone else's. They looked like flowers are supposed to look. Sort of alive and sort of dead. Like if crayons had hair. My eyes closed again.

I could taste it still, the Triaminic, wherever I was I could still taste it.

My hook arm was growing. Like a fungus or a spider web. I could pick up anything with it. I picked up my house and looked inside my own window. I saw the Christmas candles. And there I was lying on the floor. I had purple triaminic all over my face. I was sleeping on the floor.

I looked in Rambo's window. He was hiding from me. I was like King Kong. I saw my face reflected in his window. My tongue was purple.

I put my house down.

Then I was standing at the door to Thad's house. It was snowing real crazy. All white. Somebody made all these snow angels in his front yard. It was like an army of angels died, fell out of Heaven and landed in Thad's front yard...but all their bodies had been taken away.

There was big snow snake in his driveway. Somebody dribbled blue food coloring on him. It made him look like he had the plague or something.

I had my silver gloves on. The ones I lost four years ago while I was playing in the woods. They're pretty awesome. When they get cold these space ships appear on them. I rang Thad's doorbell and it played this big trumpet song. And then he opened the door.

"Morris."

"Thad."

"I got a new sled. We should go sledding."

Thad had this crazy new sled. It had seats. I sat in the back where the break was. We weren't on a hill or anything. But it moved anyway. It was the magic carpet of sleds. We slid all over the block. Then we slid into the woods and over the swampy pond which was all frozen over and there were all these dogs running with us.

Then I put the breaks on and we stopped right in the middle of the ice.

"This is a pretty good sled Thad."

Thad wasn't listening to me. He had gotten off the sled and was walking around on the ice.

"Look Morris you can see fish swimming under this ice. Piranhas I think."

I looked up in the sky and saw a blue dragon fly over us.

"This is a good day Thad."

"It's OK."

"What day is it?"

Thad shook his head. Then he said:

"I don't think it's any day."

We sledded back to my house. Our Christmas tree was up. The fake one we used to have before Rambo used the pieces as weapons and got all the branches all bent up. There was no one home. Me and Thad went into the kitchen and there were pop tarts. Boxes and boxes of God damn pop tarts. I laid out like twenty on this big pan and put them in the oven -- toasted them black. We ate them at the table.

"These are good Morris."

"Yeah. Everything is pretty good. It's weird."

I checked, but it was still there. I still had my hook arm.

"I still have the old hook arm though."

"I don't know why you're always griping about your hook arm. It's not your drawing arm. It's funny that when you stuck your hand in that lawn mower -- you stuck your left hand in there. Most people would have reached in with their right hand, unless they were left handed, like me. It's almost like you knew it was gonna get chopped off."

"Thad will you cut the crap for Christ's sake. And don't eat all the Pop Tarts."

"There's plenty. And when you eat them all, there will still be more, and when you eat those there will be more after that. It's like that with Mamma Celeste Pizza at my house."

"I just realized you're not dead Thad. You're here in my house eating Pop Tarts with me."

"I'm not with you Morris, you're with me."

8:38 AM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

HIBERNATION

I'm really sick of this. Everything. I can't deal with it anymore. I went up to the attic and got two of the electric candles we put in our windows at Christmas. I'm going into hyper sleep. When I wake up things will be different. My parents will be waiting out in the driveway, they'll have the car going, waiting for me, so they can take me to Ace surgical supply to buy me a new prosthetic arm. There will be snow everywhere. Snow tunnels in my front yard, a big two story igloo in the backyard. I'll get in the car and the radio will be playing star wars. My parents won't say anything stupid. They'll drive me there and I'll get the new arm. Some guy in a lab coat will throw me a basketball and I'll catch it with BOTH hands. Then another guy in a lab coat will give me a video game controller and I'll be able to shoot and steer until I win the game, blow up the evil worm and ride through video game town, with pacmen video game people cheering for me.

I know this day will come. I just can't wait for it anymore. So I'm putting myself into deep deep hyper sleep.

I've stolen the grape Triaminic from the bathroom. Two bottles worth. I know when we go on long car rides my Mother gives me two table spoons so I go to sleep, and don't get car sick. So I figure if I drink both bottles I should go into hyper sleep.

I surrounded my bed with what's left of my guys. That war with Rambo left a lot of my guys headless or crippled. I put all the pieces in my drawer. But Snakeeyes and Imperious Leader are OK. So I put them next to my bed. The Dark Mountain play set is sort of smashed. It's in two pieces after Rambo's eagle dive-bombed it. So I dug into my closet and got some of my older stuff. A stuffed monkey with a red hat, whose got a sort of melted rubber face. Some pieces of the big red bear. It didn't add up to much. I sort of realized that most of my toys were missing or dead. All the more reason to go into hypersleep.

I put the two Christmas candles up in my windows. It'll be Christmas while I'm in hyper sleep.

I took off my hook arm. I got on two layers of pajamas. I barricaded the door. It was six o'clock in the morning. Hopefully something will happen -- God will do something so my parents forget to get me up for school.

I started drinking the Triaminic. I was drinking it like Pepsi. I heard my Mom's alarm go off. I heard her talking to my father. I drank some more Triaminic. I looked at the posters on my wall. Star destroyers are triangular. So are the pyramids and all the houses on Keppler Avenue. I sat on my rug and picked at this piece of gum that's been stuck there since forever. It looks like somebody's brain. Some little person who sank into my rug. Only his brain is showing. And when I pick at his brain he sends me telepathic messages, telling me to beware of the triangles.

There was someone sitting on my bed. I hadn't seen him since before I went to the hospital. The man with powder on his face. He was shaking his head at me, whispering stuff I couldn't hear. I closed my eyes and grinded my teeth until he was gone.

I looked at the clock. 6:01pm. Thanks to God damn Doctor Macadon, I'm always living in the moment and time goes like a turtle racing a rabbit to the very bottom of super hell.

I heard Rambo yelling at my father about not wanting to go to school. I heard him punch the wall and yell out some swears. I drank some more Triaminic. I had my desk and two chairs in front of my door. I looked out the window at the three wise trees in my front yard. They were probably standing there since the pilgrims were hunting turkey with muskets and tophats.

Out the window I saw Mr Higgins using his leaf blower. I drank some more Triaminic.

I thought about Doctor Macadon. His missing face. How can you blow your face off and not die?

I looked at the electrical outlets on my wall. They're plugged up with plastic stoppers so I don't shock myself dead. My parents put them in after I got my hook arm. My hook arm has metal prongs for fingers and it's easy to stick them in the socket and die.

Someone started knocking on my door. I drank some more Triaminic. It was my Dad. I didn't listen to him. I stuck my head in a pile of dirty clothes. I listened to him walk away from the door. I finished the first bottle of Triaminic. My legs were feeling light. My feet felt like they weren't in my sox, even though they were.

There's a light switch on the wall and all the all of the sudden I couldn't remember what it did. I flipped it up and down but nothing happened. I opened the second bottle of Triaminic and spilled some on the carpet. It made a funny sort of cobra shape. The Christmas candles. I put my hand on the bulbs that pretend to be fire. They weren't that hot. All of a sudden I started wondering if it might be Christmas after all.

I was ready for hypersleep. I got in bed and got under the covers. I could hear my Mother knocking on the door. The clock said it was six o'clock. Time was going backwards.

I closed my eyes and saw some of my copyrighted colors. Colors only I can see. Grue. Rellow. Blorange. Things got real relaxing. Somebody was playing a xylophone.

9:47 AM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

SESSION 2 - THE ICECAPADE

My Dad is painting out in the shed now. He thinks we care what he's doing in there, acting like it's a big deal. He wears his stupid rabbit skin coat and goes out there every morning now. I asked him if he's going to sell this painting and get me the new arm he owes me.

"I'm not a fortune teller Morris. But I'm pretty sure that this painting will sell for millions. You can buy a different arm for every day of the week!"

I really don't want an arm for every day of the week. Just a real good one that is so good I can forget about the fact that it's not real and start thinking about other stuff, like the comic book I'm going to do about a black plane that flies around the earth and never lands. People see it up there in the sky and don't know what to make of it. When the black plane flies over you, you get a funny feeling, like someone is mowing the grass over your grave.

Rambo's fourth girlfriend broke up with him. She moved or something. He's real mad about it. He clipped his fingernails into points and keeps dragging them across his wall.

I woke up early. I've been wearing the same shirt for three days. It has a hawk on it and it says "hawks." I had a lot of time before anybody else would wake up so I went out to the backyard, to look in the shed and see what the hell stupid crap my father was painting. But the shed was locked. It was a new shiny looking lock. I tried looking between the boards, but it was too dark inside.

Mr Higgins was in his front yard spreading weird slime on one of his trees. He caught me looking at him and yelled:

"Tree's sick."

I've heard stories about people being turned into trees. They can't see, hear or talk, they can only feel the wind blow.

I went back inside and picked up the same empty box of pop tarts I pick up every morning. When the hell is someone going to get more pop tarts?

I ended up eating some old cereal, which there wasn't enough milk for. Then my Dad came in whistling some crappy song. My Mom came in, but she wasn't dressed for work. She was smoking, wearing her pajamas. She told me she was staying home -- that she had the flu or something. I was jealous as all get out. Rambo came in. He cut his nails back to normal. His face was all read 'cause he'd been beating on himself, which is something he does when he gets real crazy.

My Dad got a beer, got his rabbit skin coat on and went out to the shed to work on his painting. Rambo just sat at the table watching me eat my milkless cereal.

Over the weekend Rambo agreed to have a war with me. We took out all the toys. He got out all his guys -- the one's he packed up in the empty box that the air conditioner came in. He dumped them all over the living room. It was like three years ago that Rambo decided he didn't care about toys anymore and became the thug he is today. I remember asking him if I could have his toys, since he wasn't going to play with them anymore. He told me to shove it and shoved all his guys in the air conditioner box. Then he taped it up until all you could see was tape and shoved it way in the back of his closet. Then he started going out with girls.

I guess it's been pretty lousy so far, Rambo's time with girls. He gets all crazy about them and then they break up with him, move to another town or start going out with Scott Cunningham. This last girl really put him over the edge. She went around telling everybody what a lousy kisser the guy is. I don't doubt it's true, but it sure made him nuts. So he wanted back in, wanted to play war. I can't say no when he's like this. I was sort of in the mood for a war anyway.

My mom left and my Dad was out back in the shed working on his secret painting, so we could be as loud as we wanted. I had to be careful. Rambo was only playing because the girl had driven him crazy. He has no love for toys. I had to be careful which guys I let fight in this war, because Rambo might try and destroy them. Burn them on the stove, or crush them under a big garden rock, or melt them in the microwave.

So I took Snake Eyes and Imperious leader and hid them under my pillow. As for the rest of my guys, they were on their own. It was a horrible slaughter. Rambo had this old mechanical eagle toy. It used to be his favorite, but now it was just a kamikaze battering ram from the sky. He crashed it into the dark mountain playset, dropped it from the top bunk. Then he pulled the batteries out of this old space shuttle toy and started hucking them at my head. Then he pulled the sheets off the top bunk and threw them in the air, and they fell over the battlefield and he said it was poison -- some kind of poison jelly fallen from the sky. I was crawling around on the floor under the sheets and whatnot, trying to get some of my guys before Rambo could stamp on them. He stamped on my hook arm, one of the straps came undone and it fell off me. I got real mad -- real hot under my sweatshirt and I picked up this Garfield garbage can and knocked him over the head with it.

I went down to the laundry room to hide. The washer was going. All the tubes covered with gray fluffy dust. The big orange containers full of thick blue sap. I sat down in a big hill of dirty laundry and stared into the little blue flame that's always burning inside the furnace.

Looking into the blue flame will get you thinking things that aren't quite right. Rambo stuck a pencil in there once. My Dad said he could blow the house up doing stuff like that.

The door opened. It was my Dad. He had paint all over his face.

He told me to get ready. I had an appointment with Doctor Macadon. A man who has no face to accidentally get paint on.

When Doctor Macadon called me into his office he was wearing the black mask I picked out. He was wearing sneakers this time. They were blue and yellow. It seemed funny to me that he would wear blue and yellow sneakers. A guy without a face is supposed to wear black frankenstein shoes.

"Good afternoon Morris. Today I'm going to teach you to live in the moment."

"I hate the moment."

"I know you do. It's my aim to fix it so you don't hate the moment. If you like the moment, you'll find it's much easier to be happy."

He opened this panel in the wall. It was a freezer. He had a freezer in his wall. He took out a tray of ice.

"Hold out your hand."

I held out my hook arm.

"Your other hand."

I did and he put some ice cubes in my palm.

"Now I want you to hold these for one minute."

I did. They were cold. My hand started burning they were so cold.

I asked him if I could put the ice down. He shook his head.

It seemed like forever. Him standing there, wearing those stupid sneakers. His smushy carpet. My hand getting all numb and white.

"Plenty of time left Morris."

Now the ice was really killing me. It was melting a little, dripping down on Macadon's smushy carpet. I started thinking of just hucking the ice at Macadon's missing face. I guess it would hit him right in the brain and kill him and I'd have to go to jail. Probably get the chair.

"Not even close."

He was lying. Had to be lying. This was too much. Torture. I was going to die. Or lose my good hand. It was becoming a blue Jack Frost hand. I could make it snow if I moved my fingers a certain way. I started seeing spots. Purple, yellow...

"OK Morris you can let go of the ice now."

It had all melted. He showed me his watch. It turned from three thirty-six to three thirty-seven.

"So you see Morris. Your mind was forced to stay in the moment and by doing so you experienced more in that one minute than you usually do in an hour. Your mind was not allowed to envision the future or dwell in the past; it was kept right here with us, in the present where it belongs. Next time I'm going to teach you to do it without the ice."

My Dad drove me home later. I tried to explain to him why I never wanted to see Doctor Macadon again.

"Sounds like he's on to something Morris. It's only natural to resist something you don't understand."

"He's wrecking my mind. He wants to slow down time on me. Time is already too God damn slow. When I think about how long I've waited for a decent arm. And he wants to slow things down. No way am I going back there. I want to be frozen in ice like Walty Disney, not hold it in my god damn hand."

I went to my room. I was pretty upset. I got under the blankets. Then I got out from under my blankets and closed the curtains. But then I realized Rambo tore them down. So I got them back up. I used some push pins and scotch tape. We have scotch tape now. I don't know where the hell it came from, but we have it. So after I got it nice and dark I went under the covers, where it was even darker. Then I closed my eyes and got it even darker than that. There is a color that is darker than black. It doesn't have a name, but when you see it, you might feel like sleeping.

I stayed like that for what seemed like a real long time. Then my Mom came in and asked why my toys were all over the living room floor. I looked at the alarm clock my Dad bought me. At first I thought it said three thirty-six -- that I was still trapped in that same God damn minute, the one I started with Doctor Macadon. But when I looked at it again it said it was four thirty-six. Which wasn't a hell of a lot better. Time had slowed way the hell down on me. I got a pain in my stomach. I went to the living room and started picking up the toys.

Rambo had smashed the hell out of them.

Arms, legs, heads and middles. We were all living in the moment. And it sucked.

11:06 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

FANTASY ISLAND

"So tell me a little about this tape you made, for your old psychiatrist?"

"I listened to it in the woods. It was just me telling this story about Colobosh -- some guy I made up who made those wooden toys."

"Wooden toys?"

"I got a box full of wooden toys from my old psychiatrist. That's what the tape was for. He wanted me to record a story about them."

"Right. What did you do with the wooden toys?"

"I don't know. They were just gone. I didn't do anything with them."

"Morris, you realize that you've never heard the tape. It's been in police custody until two days ago, when they released it to me."

"Maybe it was the wrong tape. I used to record myself telling stories. My voice did sound a little babyish. Have you listened to the tape?"

Dr. Macadon got up and walked to his desk. He opened his drawer and pulled out a tape inside a ziplock bag. I noticed his mask didn't have an elastic to keep it on his face. I wondered how he got it to stay stuck on so good.

"We'll listen to it together, but not today, OK?"

Dr. Macadon was starting to get on my nerves. I felt like I'd been in his office for a million years. I started thinking about building a toy out of play dough. I heard if you put play dough in the microwave it comes to life. I doubt that's true, but I still want to put play dough in the microwave. I'll sculpt it into a worm man with a big Indian head dress and he'll hold a big blue axe -- I'll use all the blue play dough just for his axe --

"Morris? Are you listening to me?"

I wasn't. He'd been talking for a while. There was a big steamer chest in the corner. He told me to open it. Inside he had all these different masks. Nothing too cool. Mostly plain ones like he had on, but different colors.

"I ask all my patients to pick out which mask they prefer I wear for their sessions. Which face would you prefer to talk to?"

I picked out a black one. It was made of funeral mesh or something. More of a hood than a mask. He laughed a little when I picked it.

"I'm not sure why that one is in there. I wear that to sleep. I take a long train ride to work everyday and I like to nap. But if that's the one you like, that's the one I'll wear. Excuse me."

He left to change masks. His office had some more of those weird maps of the world up on the wall. America was all stretched out. There was a photo of some kid on the wall. He had side burns and long hair. He looked very Brady Bunch to me. I saw something looking at me -- a cat in the room, just sitting in one of the dark spots staring at me like crazy. Then I started dragging my hook arm on the top of his shiny desk. The metal prong fingers made scratch marks. I stopped and went back to my chair. I wondered what they hell time it was. When the hell am I gonna go home.

He came back in. He looked like some kind of Egyptian demon executioner.

"This better?"

I nodded. I never liked drawing people. I like eyes. Not pupils. I like to color them in black usually. I don't like noses. I like teeth, but I don't like mouths. I don't know what I think of ears. But seeing Doctor Macadon looking that way, like something I might like to draw -- it sort of threw everything out of whack. I got a little discombobulated. I started to wonder if I should have picked a different mask.

"OK, we don't have too much time left, so are there any questions you want to ask me?"

I was so God damn happy that there wasn't too much time left.

"Your maps look wrong."

"One of my old patients was a cartographer. Do you know what a cartographer is?"

"Yeah."

"Do you really?"

"No."

"A map maker. He was in an accident. And after the accident, no matter how hard he tried to make them as accurate as he always had, his maps came out looking like that."

"Does he still draw maps this way?"

"He took a cruise on my suggestion, and when the boat reached the exact coordinates of an island that appeared on all of his maps -- an island that wasn't actually there, he jumped ship and drowned."

11:10 AM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Picasso

I went to see my new psychiatrist today. This is my fifth psychiatrist. My Dad drove me after school. My Dad had been painting all day, working on his "new idea." His hands were covered with paint. He looked like he'd been beating on a clown. He just got a new coat. I think I told you I gave all his coats to Thad, when Thad was living out in the woods. His new one is fur. Made out of God damn rabbits. I can't think of anything crappier than killing a bunch of rabbits for a big stupid looking coat.

"Morris when you get to be my age, you learn that animals were put on this earth to serve us. Whether it be for food or clothing or jewelry. It doesn't matter. Just like trees are here so we can have something to print books on and build houses. It's all for us Morris. All of it. When you don't eat meat, or wear fur or leather -- it's like sending back this big fancy dinner God made special just for you. It's like saying, sorry God, rabbits are far more important to me than your feelings, so why don't you take this fur coat and shove it where the sun don't shine."

My Dad dropped me off at my new psychiatrist's and told me he'd be back to pick me up.

My new psychiatrist's waiting room. Real big on the wall he's got this painting. It's a map of the world, but it looks funny. There's all these islands I've never seen before and the continents are shaped funny. The chairs I sat in was the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in. The rug was real squishy -- like wearing five pairs of sox. He had one of those noise machines, which all my psychiatrists have, but his was fancy -- it sounded real: forest sounds; birds, crickets and windy trees. It was so God damn relaxing that I fell asleep.

He woke me up. He was wearing a mask. It was the plainest mask I ever saw. He said his name was Doctor Macadon and he was pleased to meet me.

His office was full of weird toys. Behind him there was a big painting. Bigger than me.

"That's a Picasso. Do you like it?"

"Not really."

"Does it make you think of your parents"

"Nope."

"Me neither. That's why I like it."

He thought that was funny as hell and started laughing. He laughed like he had air leaking out of his nose.

"You want to ask me about my mask?"

I shook my head. Then I nodded. Then I felt bad and shook it again.

"It's OK Morris. It's the first thing I talk about with all my patients. When I was seventeen years old my mind had become very sick. I had been very sad for a very long time and I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. I managed to get my hands on a gun and I tried to kill myself with it. I woke up two weeks later in the hospital. I thought I had died -- that I was in Heaven -- but then they told me that I wasn't in Heaven, that I was still alive...that I had blown my own face off. But I can still see -- got one good eye -- can still hear -- got two good ears. And one good brain. After that I met a man who helped me. He got me interested in psychiatry. Anyway, what all this means is that I know what it feels like and I can help. I've read your file and talked to your parents. You're an interesting individual Morris, I think we'll be great friends. You'll only have nine sessions with me, and at the end of the ninth session you'll be ready to begin your life -- live it the way other people do -- the way God intended you to live it, savoring all the little gifts he gives you every second of every day."

1:04 PM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

WORLD RECORD

Morning. I tried like hell to remember this fantastic dream I had. I went into the kitchen and made some Carnation Instant breakfast. My Mom only eats Carnation Instant Breakfast now. There was only vanilla left. I ripped open the package and white instant breakfast dust exploded all over my face. I went into the bathroom to wash it off, but somebody was in there. I went back to the kitchen. I was getting depressed. I usually wake up OK, then get more and more depressed as the day goes on. Like an hour glass full of Carnation Instant Breakfast powder. There was still some powder left in the package. I was pretty hungry. I poured it into a Star Wars glass. I added some milk, but I stirred it too hard and it spilled like crazy all over the place. I took a couple sips. The glass was all sticky. I realized I forgot my God damn dream already.

Then I was on the bus going to school. I don't remember what happened in between. I usually get pretty comfortable on the bus. I lean my forehead against the glass and put my back pack on the seat next to me so no one sits there. The bus driver likes putting the heat way up. I get to sleeping a little. I started to remember that dream, but then I lost it. I got to thinking about how bad everything is getting. I'm never getting a new arm. Life is only getting worse. All the good stuff is over. That Christmas three years ago when everything seemed so great -- what the hell happened to that? I just wake up and go to school. Over and over again.

I look down at the desk where somebody carved a swear. I color in the letters with blue pen. It's like a comic. Usually the guy who draws it doesn't color it in too. The kid who wrote this swear word is probably grown up now. It took all this time for his swear to be colored in.

I'm starting to get worse and worse about talking at school. I mean I really don't say much of anything anymore. The other kids --they all seem to like it there -- at school. Everybody seems to have something going on. Their birthday or some crap on TV or some new kind of calculator. Everybody is wearing coats and shoes that don't make any sense to me. The floor gets dirty and then the next day it's clean again. There's old posters up in the halls. Animal faces. The lights are dirty.

My Mother was all upset this morning because a kid in our town killed himself. He was eight years old. He set the record for the youngest suicide. At first they thought it had to be an accident, but then they found a note. He got real bad marks in penmanship. He spent three weeks getting his suicide note to look right. His parents found tons of crumpled paper in his room, from all the times he did a note in bad penmanship and had to start over.

1:10 PM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment