...but no one looked out the window: Smoker Guy

His name was Rutherford Alexander Thornswallow the Third, and he hated people who told him that he needed to quit smoking.

His girlfriend was doing it at that very moment.

"I just don't understand," she whined.  "You promised you'd stop."

He looked at her with tempered confusion.  "I never said that, Lena."  His consonants were long and drawn out, the remnants of an accent molded in his childhood.  Rutherford never told anyone where it was from, though it was entirely possible that even he didn't remember.  He took another, deeper draw on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out over his left shoulder.

"You did!"  Lena exclaimed, her bright pink lips convulsing into a pout.

Rutherford shrugged.  "Whatever."  He finished the cigarette, dropped the butt on the ground and stomped on it.  "Guess this isn't working.  See ya."  He turned around and walked away.

"Ru?  Rutherford?" Lena screamed after him.  "Are you breaking up with me?  Rutherford!"

***

The Lena Episode was a record ten days, four hours, and a handful of minutes.  Rutherford hacked and spit as he kept walking to his apartment, glad that she hadn't tried to follow him.  Jane had tried to follow him when they broke up.  Zora had stalked him for a month afterwards. 

On his way home, he stopped to get an Americano.  He sat for a while in the sun, wishing he could afford prescription sunglasses and glaring at anyone who passed by.  

A woman with bright auburn hair stopped in front of him and stared.  Rutherford tried to ignore her. 

"Hello," she said.

Rutherford looked her over.  Long legs, lean arms, straight nose.  Nothing that went against his Code of Women.  And she had mind-bendingly artistic tattoos covering both arms.  Double plus.  

"You look like kind of an a**hole," she said.  "I'm Roxy."  She put her fists on her hips and grinned. 

"Rutherford the Great," he said.  "And I am.  Just ask Lena."  He nodded toward the corner.  Roxy turned, but there was no one there for her to see. 

"Right.  Can I bum a cigarette?"  She had ice-blue eyes that seemed to be alive with electricity.

Rutherford looked at her sideways, trying to figure her game.  He ignored the cigarette line on purpose.  "I only date women with four-letter first names," he said, as though that would get her to go away.  "Nicknames don't count," he added.

Roxy looked amused.  "It's not a nickname, Rutherford Your Greatness.  It's the real deal."

"Eh.  Not interested," Rutherford said.  He was lying, and he thought that she knew it.  But he had a rule against dating women who came on to him first.   

"Right.  Well, then, I'll see you tomorrow. Over in that park," Roxy said.  She pointed to a spit of green and brown grass surrounded by a cement containment wall.  It was covered in dog crap and mangled pigeons.  

"Uh huh," Rutherford said.

Roxy walked away, her long hair swinging like a pendulum behind her. 

***

Rutherford picked up a girl from the bar that night.  Her name was Tina.  She had beautiful blond hair and was very, very fun when she had loosened up. 

In the morning, Rutherford sat in his window, his right leg dangling outside, while the left was hooked under a pipe so he didn't fall three floors to his death.  Tina came out of the bathroom, hair wet, her day-old outfit clinging to her damp skin.  She came up to him and put her arms around him, running her hands along his bare shoulders. 

He sucked on his cigarette and blew the smoke out the window.  

Tina tried to kiss him, but he turned his face away.  He was thinking about Roxy, and it bugged him.  No woman should be able to get his attention like that.  He wouldn't let it happen.   

Tina pouted.  "Baby..." she whined.  "Didn't you have fun last night?"

Rutherford smiled at her, annoyed that she didn't even realize it was a fake smile, and kissed her on the forehead.  "Of course.  Now, off you go.  I have work to do."

Tina bit her lip and smiled, twisted from side to side like a five-year-old and looking ecstatic. When she was gone, Rutherford put out his cigarette and got out his paint.

"Freaking galleries are idiots," he mumbled to himself as he flung the paint on his canvases.  He had set several up in a row, stomping on them with painted bare feet that slipped and slid in the wet medium.  The cigarette hanging on his lip nearly fell out a few times, but he caught it before it could damage anything.  At noon he stopped painting to sit on top of the back of his couch, staring down at his handiwork.

The galleries were idiots because they bought his paintings like they were worth something.  From atop the couch, though, there was a moment where he could see why they liked them.  Frenzied, harried, thrown together...He was distracted.  For the tenth time that day, he went back to his spot in the window and sucked on a cigarette, his murderous lollipop stick.

From his apartment window, he could almost see the "park" Roxy was supposed to meet him in.  It occurred to him then that she hadn't given him a time.  For all he knew, she could be there right now.

There!  A flash of auburn hair.

Without thinking, Rutherford yanked his leg inside and tumbled to the floor.  His hand landed in wet paint, but he didn't notice.  He slipped on a pair of shoes, made sure he was wearing pants, and just barely remembered the lock the door.  Roxy was just passing the entrance to the apartment building, and Rutherford caught up to her nonchalantly.

"Hey," he said.

Roxy looked at him like she knew he had sprinted over himself to get down to ground level.  "Hello."

"Want a cigarette?"  He offered a fresh one, which she took and lit with a match from her pocket.

Roxy stopped and took a few deep drags, then grinned at him.  "I thought you told yourself you weren't going to come meet me."

Rutherford shifted uncomfortably and almost forgot to blow out his smoke.  "I never said that."

"I know.  I just figured.  What did you do to your hand?"

His hand was yellow and gray, and there were stripes of wet paint on his pants.  "Sh**," he said, as he took himself in.  "I liked these pants."

Roxy shrugged.  "Come on. Park time."

Forgetting about his painted pants, Rutherford followed her.    

...but no one looked out the window

I'm kicking off a brand-new blog series with this little thought:

There is a strange world on the other side of my window.  

A really, really strange world.

Smoker Guy has a different woman every morning.  He sits half out of his red brick sill, sucking at a tiny white cig, a woman standing next to him, kissing his neck.  

Creeper Dude's blinds are down right now, but almost every day at 2:30 p.m., he sits on his knees in front of his window, a pair of binoculars glued to his eyes.  

Robe Lady is up every morning at the same time, walking around with her curtains wide open, clad only in a robe.  She watches TV while flipping her head upside down, blow-drying it with fervor. 

Crazy Bathroom Chick snuck up to our floor today and used the restroom, talking on the phone the entire time.  A few minutes later, she was screaming and cursing at the person on the other end of the line.  The thing is, no one saw her holding a phone or wearing a Bluetooth headset. 

It's a very, very strange world out there, and so few other people are looking out the window.  Who else will tell these people's stories, but me?  

Craziness happened, but no one looked out the window...except for me.

 

Avel and the Alien, Part 3

I know you want to read Part 1 and Part 2 before you dive in...So go ahead! -m

The thing squeaked a couple of times when the shaver started clearing away fur, but it didn't fight me until I accidentally hit one of the tentacles.

"Skeeeaww!"

A free tentacle waved at me, nearly whacking first my arm, then the shaver.  I had about a third of the alien shaved and didn't really know what to do with the tentacle.  So I hit it back, slamming my hand into the tube.  Except...well, maybe I should have thought a bit longer about how to hit a moving object.  My hand didn't hit the tentacle, my wrist did. I yanked my arm back, cradling it against my chest.

"Ow!"  There were four tiny scratches on the inside flesh of my arm, right where it's nice and tender, and the skin around them was bright red and tinged with purple.

Avel twisted to look at me, so I showed him my wounds.  He grabbed my wrist and licked the scratches, smacking his lips.  "Poison.  Interesting."

"What?  Poison?"  The purple and red spread up my arm.  "Oh, *&$%."

"What's wrong?"

I pushed Avel closer to the back of the couch so I could get a good look at Avel's skin.  It was purple and red all over, and spreading quickly in the direction of his heart.  "I think it's getting into your bloodstream."

"So that's why this hurts so much," Avel said, trying to laugh.  He looked seasick and was covered in a sheen of sweat.

"You look like crap," I told him.

"Don't make me throw up on you, Meli."

"Right.  OK.  Do you want me to keep going?"

"Can you see the whole thing?" 

"No."

"Then keep going."

"Are you sure?  If it's poison, maybe we should call someone?"  Avel didn't answer, so I resituated myself, ordered my nerves to ignore the burning sensation spreading up my arm, and got to work.  Green fur fell in waterfalls, revealing green skin polka-dotted with black freckles.

"Still hurt?" I asked.

Avel cleared his throat and swallowed.  "Yep."

I finished shaving and sat back on my heels.  "Done."  I took the head off the shaver and smacked the entire thing against my thigh, knocking green fur onto the floor.  While I did this, Avel very slowly and carefully put his hand on the alien and inspected it.

"It feels like a dolphin," he said.  "I wonder..."  He pinched one of the tentacles and tried to pull it off of his skin.  The alien squealed and Avel winced.  It didn't look like the alien was going to budge.

"He's like a fuzzy dolphin-porcupine-octopus...thing," I said.  I reached out to poke it, but changed my mind when I saw the barbs.  I wasn't exactly keen to get nicked again.  "Now what?"

Avel sat up, carefully not touching or otherwise disturbing the formerly fuzzy alien.  "We're going to see Ezequiel.  Go grab your keys."

My stomach twisted.  I didn't like Ezequiel.  He didn't like me, for that matter.  Probably something to do with, oh, I don't know, the fact that I shot him in the shoulder once.  Twice.  In my defense, he was trying to mug me in the middle of a job.  In his defense...yeah, he deserved it.

I dragged my feet to get my keys and purse from my room, resurfacing by the front door just after Avel.  He was wearing a huge, ugly hoodie that hid the alien nicely.  We drove to Ezequiel's place in the southeast part of the city.

The neighborhood is all tiny bungalow houses on terrifyingly steep rolling hills.  It reminded me of San Francisco on steroids, if that's even possible.  Instead of parking by the house, Avel had me park at the bottom of a particularly steep hill, and we walked up.  By the time we got to the top, my legs were shaking and I was breathing like an asthmatic in a marathon.  Avel, of course, looked as fresh and relaxed as ever.  Well, I mean, if you didn't count the fact that he looked like he wanted to die.  Alien parasites do that do a person, I've learned. 

Ezequiel's house was usually darker than a seedy bar, and I always had felt like I was supposed to whisper a password to get in.  But today the house was surrounded by cars and people, and all of the lights were on.

"What the heck's going on here?"  I asked.  A nearby couple heard my comment and gave me a weird look, scowling as they looked me up and down.  "Can I help you?" I said to them, returning their scowl.  Avel didn't give me a chance to hear any response – he grabbed my arm and pulled me through the open door.

Everyone inside was crowded around tables piled with stuff.  Old stuff, new stuff, stuff in boxes and bags and cellophane wrapping.  Avel wove through it, still holding my arm, and got us to the back of the house.

Ezequiel was standing with his meaty arms crossed over a faded, grease-stained Coors t-shirt. "Brother," he said to Avel as they shook hands and pounded each other on the back.  He glanced at me.  "Meliora."

"Ezequiel."

"What can I do for you?"  Ezequiel asked.

Wordlessly, Avel led him into the bathroom and I followed.  It was the one place that wasn't full of people, and it was surprisingly roomy.

"I need your...expertise," Avel said.  He nodded to me and I shut the door, and then he pulled off the hoodie.

Ezequiel whistled and then cursed in Spanish.  At least, I'm pretty sure he cursed.  My Spanish isn't so great, but it sure sounded like cursing.

"That's not comin' off, man," Ezequiel said.

Avel and the Alien, Part 2

Check out Part 1 (or any of my other mostly fictional blog series) before you start reading! -m

We went into the house and I made Avel lay on the kitchen counter so Fuzz and I could be on the same level.  I grabbed a pair of kitchen shears and found one of the tentacles under the green fur.  I placed it between the blades.

"OK, brace yourself," I said, and squeezed.

Nothing happened.  Well, something happened, of course.  There was a ton of screaming from both Avel and the thing.  But the scissors didn't do their job.  In fact, they snapped in half.

"Crap," I said.

Avel was moaning.  "That hurt!"

"Sorry.  Want me to try again?" I reached for the tentacle again, even as Avel yelled at me to stop.  The green creature made unhappy sounds and dug its barbed tubies deeper into the side of Avel's waist.

"Stop!" Avel bellowed.

I let go and the fuzzy thing settled back down.  "What's your problem?"  I growled, annoyed with his tone.  "I'm trying to help."

"Well, you're hurting more than your helping."  He sighed heavily  and pulled himself to a sitting position.  He was really pale and covered in a shiny sheen of sweat.  Avel sat still for a minute, silently inspecting his parasite. 

It was dark green and covered in fur that was thick and coarse.  There weren't any eyes, or even an "up" or "down" end.  I had no idea where the noises were coming from.  The tentacles were about the width of my pinky and edged with sharp barbs, like thorns on a rose.  Around the mouth of each tubular tentacle was a ring of those barbs, which was how the thing had attached itself to Avel.

"Can I ask you what happened, exactly?" I asked warily.  I glanced outside, where the rain was beginning to let up.

Avel didn't look up at me as he continued to carefully prod at the green thing.  "There was some sort of box in the middle of the yard.  I went to check it out and this thing jumped out and attacked me."

I grunted and walked away, tossing the broken shears in the trash on my way.

"Where are you going?" Avel asked, sounding dismayed.

"I'm gonna check out the box thing," I said.  I slid open the door and looked around.  There was a black metal box sitting in a small crater in the middle of the formerly pristine lawn.  I whistled and went over, inspecting it with my foot.  The metal was hot and the whole thing was steaming.  I looked up, half expecting to see something else in the sky.  Stray raindrops tickled my cheeks.  There was nothing but gray clouds in the sky.

Back inside, Avel was on his feet and waiting for me.

"I think it's an alien," I declared as I shut the door.

Avel rolled his eyes.  "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous.  I seriously think it is."  He still appeared skeptical.  "Well, what do you think it is?"

We both looked at the thing.  It looked like Avel had glued a green, headless stuffed animal to his shirt.

"Mutant leech?" Avel ventured.  I almost laughed, but he shuddered and I held it in.

"Alien.  Leeches don't have tentacles."

"Fine.  Here," he said.  He handed me a small bag.

"Your shaver?"  I pulled out Avel's electric shaver and flipped it on, then turned it off again.  It took me a second to catch up.  "No.  That's just nasty," I said.  "You seriously want me to shave it?"

Avel shrugged, then grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled.  The tentacles had burned through enough of it that the shirt – which had been one of my favorites, by the way – came right off.

Even with a fuzzy green alien sticking its barbed tentacles into his skin, I couldn't help but grin at my bare-chested boyfriend.  Lord, was he attractive.  Is attractive.  Anyways.

"Why are we doing this?"  I asked.

Avel talked to me over his shoulder as he went over to the couch, which he had covered with an old sheet.  "I need to see what it looks like," he said matter-of-factly.

"Oh."  Of course.  All I could see was fur.  Without the fur, we'd be able to see what the thing really was. I tossed the shaver bag onto a chair and tried to grin.  "So, are we thinking 'buzz cut' or something a little longer?"

Avel snorted, which was probably as close to a laugh as I was going to get. "Just use the head that's on there."  He beckoned for me to follow as he lay on his side, full-length on the couch, but I was frozen.

All I could think was that something was going to go wrong, the shaver was going to slip, the alien was going to suck out all his blood, then go after me...I think they were very typical worries for when an alien leeches onto your boyfriend.

"Meli?"

"Yeah?"  I shook my head, clearing it of the mental image of a half-shaved green monster tearing me and Avel to pieces.  It wasn't very pretty.

"You gonna do it?"

"Oh.  Yeah.  Sorry."  I turned on the shaver and lowered it to the green fur.  I was shaking, my heart was pounding like crazy, and I was holding my breath.  Oh, yes.  This was going to go well.

Avel and the Alien, Part 1

Before I split with Avel and went to work for Mr. Oulara, there was about a year when things were good.  Great, even.  I mean, I wasn't treated like a princess or anything, but he didn't run off when the police were coming and stuff like that.

The weather was strangely rainy that summer.  I should have taken that as a clue that everything else would be strange, too.  But, no.  I maintained a positive outlook.  Silly me.

So it was a Tuesday, and we didn't have a con going, which was even stranger that the rain wildly pattering on the windows and roof.  Avel was reading a book about Nikola Tesla, and I was trying to think of something sweet and clever to write in my sister's birthday card.

"What was that?"  Avel shut his book quickly and sat up straight, head cocked to the side in prime listening mode.

"I didn't hear anything," I said, the end of my pen clenched between my teeth.

"It came from the back," he said.

I grunted.  His house was large, and we were in the den near the front of the house.  I have no idea how he'd heard anything.  But Avel stood up and dropped his book on the couch.  "I'll be back.  I'm gonna go check on things."

"Uh-huh," I said, writing You're freaking AWESOME  very carefully in the center of the blank space of my sister's card.

Avel stepped over me and I tried to playfully grab his foot as he did, but he just ignored me.  I labeled the envelope, stuck the card in, and licked the nasty adhesive.  I was pinching it all together to make sure it stuck when I heard Avel scream.

"Meliora!"

I was on my feet and halfway to the back door before he could call my name again.  I was moving so fast I almost forgot to slide the glass door open before I barged through it.

Avel was writhing on the grass, sopping wet.  His hands were clawing at something on his left hip, and he was still screaming.

I blinked in the rain and almost face-planted on the slipperyness of the ground. "What's wrong?  What is it?"  I had to yell over Avel's screams.  I landed on my knees next to him and tried to keep him from writhing.  I couldn't see anything in that dang rain, and he just wouldn't stop moving.

"It's on me!  God! Shit! It's on me!"

"What?"  I reached and rolled him over, half sitting on him so he couldn't twist away.  I could feel something hot and fuzzy stuck on him, just underneath his ribcage on his left side. "Stop moving!"

Avel shuddered and held his arms aloft, struggling not to move.  The fuzzy thing squeaked when I poked it.

I breathed deeply, flinging soaked hair out of my eyes.  The fuzzy thing was literally attached to Avel.  I carefully lifted the fur on the sides and saw that it had tentacles...tentacles that had burned through Avel's t-shirt and were now sinking into his skin.

"Oh, shhhh...oot," I said, trying to not sound too freaked out.

"Get it off!" Avel yelled.

I stuck my fingers under the green fur and pulled.  Avel screamed, and the thing screeched.  The tentacles stretched to their limit but didn't come free.  The thing shivered and pulled itself back down, landing with a THWOP against Avel's ribs.

"I...uh, I don't think it's going to come off."

"Try again!"

So I stood up, got on the same side as the thing, and grabbed it.  And pulled.  And yanked.  And twisted.  But that little booger had a death grip on my boyfriend.  I gave it one last pull, a pull which was so hard and ill-planned that I ended up on my butt on the ground, thunder and lightning overhead, icy rain pelting my freezing skin.

Avel stopped writhing and screaming long enough to yank me up and drag me inside, where we would hopefully have better luck detaching the fuzzy green parasite.  

Hardly random

I am in love with a fictitious character. It's really quite pathetic. I suppose, at the very least, it's not quite so pathetic, since I am able to keep John Krasinksi and Jim Halpert separate in my head. Jim is..... sigh...... he's Jim. Enough said.

There is a hole in my oldest pair of jeans. I almost said they are my favorite pair, but since I got my new skinnies, it's a tough call. Sometimes I pretend to despise myself for being a wannabe hipster from the 40s, but then I get over it. Why fight it?

My little sister changed her Facebook relationship status before talking to the boy about it. I'm slightly ashamed of her. The announcement of the aforementioned fact was the catalyst to several seconds of open-mouthed horror shared with our other sister.

I read other people's blogs and gasp with their heart-rending angst and wish I were more compelling like that. And then I wonder, why would I want to be depressed all the time? Even if I weren't, why would I want to pretend to be?

Final project in Magazine writing: A Day in the Life. Subjects from classmates include a high school freshman who has cerebral palsy and is blind, a stripper from Philly, the guy who runs Suburban Home Records (used to be run in his basement), and a kindergarten teacher who is going blind while her husband goes deaf. I hung out with an ex-"drunk-a$$ college student" who works at the Children's Museum. It seems like a situation I should be laughing at. Like one of those super awkward jokes that only one person in the room laughs at, but only because it reminds them of another, more funny, joke.

I spent 60 bucks today on graduation announcements and a cap and gown and tassels. 60. There's a sticker on the gown that reads, "Do not wash. Do not dry clean." Hm. So, in other words, "Single use only. Place in proper trash receptacle, you taken-in idiot." Thanks a lot, University. I'm very glad to be leaving you, too.

Does anyone know of a job that includes creative writing, arts and crafts, making enough money to pay off college loans, and people who aren't boring? I'd like one.