The Secret

The room is condensed and square, it has the stuffiness of an old Soviet indoor pool that has grown stale and humid since the fall.  The air is stagnant and unmoving, the concrete walls and floor are moist and wet, a smell of musty water permeates the whole space. Though it is not immediately apparent, the stench creeps in, infecting clothing and skin so that not even a good scrub can cover its heavy perfume. 
For all the aura of still-standing water, there is no pool. One wonders just how many years the floors have been slick, and why is the concrete ceiling covered in small beads of moisture, like a blanket of hanging fruit, when there is no obvious water source?
Glenda can only see the sweating walls and the gleaming cement floor because of a few opaque glass covered bulbs attached to the wall behind her.  They give off just enough light for the room to look washed in a haze of gray. 
In fact, she’s not really paying much attention to the space, she’s aware of the dampness and the air which is hard to breath, but her attention is fixed on the paper bag.  The crumpled bag is wrapped up tight in plastic, like someone was trying to make sure the contents did not spill.
Glenda’s punching it, throwing it down as hard as she can, kicking it, stomping it, doing whatever she can to make sure the person she killed and stuffed into the bag is actually dead. Her thick black boot heel slams into the bag over and over.
She picks it up and hurls it towards the wall- the sound of it smashing into the wall is abrupt and ends without echo, like it has landed upon an already dead surface. Another kick.  She’s just got to make sure it’s dead, the fear of it somehow managing to escape the bag, coming insidiously to extract its revenge keeps her moving quickly, it provides the strength for another stomp and punch.
As she obliterates the bag, she can sense the shadow behind her, the friend she cannot see.  Even if she turned around there would be no shape or color. The dark shadow of her companion he could not describe even if needed, but it is there, filling up the corners with presence.

It is night and there are crickets out in the bushes adding a comforting sound to the darkness. Glenda is in a familiar front yard. This is suburbia, she has been here before, but she could never tell you when, she really doesn’t remember. 
The house is twenty feet away and dark, not even the porch light is on, but the moon is nearly full and she can see the carefully sculpted landscape- the trees and the low growing bushes, the decorative grasses close to the front door.  She has been here many times and she easily takes a few steps down into the dry landscaped creek that runs along the front side of the property. There is a small Monet-style bridge made of wood that crosses the creek. 
She takes the brown paper bag- covered in another plastic bag- and pushes it into a small black space where the earth and bridge meet. She can see the pink of her hand as it pushes the bag into the darkness.

The motel room is drenched in yellow light, looking somewhat elegant as the light plays off the textured wallpaper and the maroon carpet.  Glenda’s little white dog is sitting on a fabric covered chair and her dark shadow companion is once again filling in the corners of the room behind her. 
It takes her a moment to realize that the dog has found the bag – didn’t she leave it under a bridge?  The bag is chewed and torn, little bits of white plastic and crumpled brown paper are on the ground and on the chair seat. 
She can hear a voice in her mind: 
“The thing you try and hide is the thing that keeps popping up.”
She knows it's there, in the bag, the secret.

There is a central market in the middle of town.  Set up inside an old cement building that has survived two civil wars and a host of international conquests (all eventually unsuccessful) is a bustling scene. Instead of concrete, as one would expect of an indoor market, there is black water.  It is deep enough water to support all the canoes laden with fish and fresh produce and the giant mangoes that have just come into season.
Whether it is vendor or seller, everyone moves around in a canoe. The water is black with ripples of white reflected from the overhead florescent lights embedded in the ceiling over three stories up. The sound of the market is alive with bartering and the gravely voices of long-time smokers trying to get the best price for their hand-picked crops.  
Glenda and the shadow paddle out to the middle of the frenzy, knocking against the sides of other canoes as everyone tries to move around, like fish in a very small bowl limited to the surface. 
Glenda picks up the brown paper bag, bringing it out of the shadows by her feet.  She holds the bag in front of her, for the first time looking calmly at the folds, the crinkles in the paper now worn and dirty. 
Reaching in, she pulls out a long bone with some reddish brown muscle still attached.  She hands it to the shadow in front of her.  Reaching in once again, she pulls out a similar bone and takes a bite. Together they consume it all until what they hold is white and bare.  She takes both bones and tosses them overboard, she hears a splash and feels them descend into the black water beneath them.

Executive Decisions

I once considered them monsters. Men without conscience in dark expensive suits and gelled back hair that reeked with the scent of hundred dollar bills and imported cologne. I pictured them as clearly as a dream, surrounded by smoke and ash, rising higher as they trampled over bodies in their shiny leather shoes. They never thought about the blood or the oil, the trash they left or the babies born without arms and organs. Men who lived so far away from the rubble and graves that their gated bubbles allowed in only certain parts of reality. Reality that smelled only of roses, filled only with the sound of cartoon cash registers opening and closing. Cha-ching!

Late at night, surrounded by books and pipes and stories I could hardly bear, I cried. How did those monsters sleep and move and breathe? How could a mirror not crumble with their stare? Were they just hollow shells of flesh, content with their bank accounts and fresh strawberries in winter and champagne at every meal? This was the evil in the world, the web of corporations and their flesh-covered robots that breathed in stocks and exhaled only blood. Money was their god. They sucked on half-dollars and bent over for the penetration of rising stock, orgasming into the bright red passing numbers of the trades. Maiming, bodies…it was just part of the game, those born without fortune.

I studied them in school, corporate criminals. Men who pushed hard towards the bottom line, relentless in their pursuit of power and wealth, one begetting the other in a perfect circle. In round table meetings, they decided to knowingly sell faulty cars and tainted food. They used algorithms to determine which would be cheaper, settling the wrongful death lawsuits or a massive auto recall? They were monsters that hid behind a massive establishment, never finding the harsh eyes of the jury upon them.

I thought of them as inhuman, men who could put money before human life.
I thought of them as monsters, until I became one, until I glimpsed the world through their eyes.

Early Saturday morning I loaded up my truck with baskets of fresh baked artisan bread. It was bread I was proud to sell, being both beautiful and delicious. I was in one of the worse neighborhoods in San Francisco, at the very end of Revere St, where the slumping houses gave way to gray warehouses on the edge of the bay. Here, there was graffiti and piles of refuse and old rotten couches on every other corner. Old Victorians sat crumbling, sagging under the weight of years and poverty; and shriveled, skinny prostitutes wandered the streets, looking for another way to score. It was trash and dog shit that littered the streets, and I drove through there every Saturday morning to load my car with handmade bread.

It was an overcast morning, but the air clung to my skin in humid clumps of moisture and I felt the day growing hotter with each minute. My truck was packed with an umbrella, two tables, and all the bread I could hold. There were loaves covered in sesame seeds, others with poppy, a bin of long plain baguettes. I closed the hatch of the truck and walked to the driver’s door, opening it and taking off my thin sweater before I got in. A sound made me look up and towards the back of the open bed truck. I saw a fluttering and before my mind knew what was happening, I was walking towards the bed of the truck, yelling and waving my hands. A tiny bird flew up and away from the bread basket, beating its wings as it dropped a few of the stolen sesame seeds. It flew back to the withered sapling that stood next to the blue door of the warehouse.

I looked into the basket. There were over ten loaves of bread in there, each one covered in bright white sesame seeds and a golden crust. I looked at them, searching for a sign of the bird; a hole, a place without seeds, I could find nothing. An ethical dilemma had been born, brought into existence by a hungry bird and my own conscience. I had no idea which loaves had been contaminated, if any. I just didn’t know. I knew I would not want any loaf in that basket, but I couldn’t just throw the entire basket away…could I? Should I? There was a chance the bread was fine, but there was a chance it was contaminated. It could make people sick. The possibilities played in my mind. Customers retching, wondering what they had eaten.

I got into the car and drove over the bridge to the market.

When the tables were arranged with a red table cloth and all the baskets, I stood, waiting for a customer. I still didn’t know what to do. The first customer of the day was a loyal regular. He reached out and grabbed one of the seeded breads, though luckily he picked one that was close to the edge of the basket, the least likely place to have been touched by the bird. After he left, I walked around the table and inspected the bread leaves another time. I couldn’t see any sign of the bird, but I grabbed the four loaves in the middle, the most likely ones to have been contaminated and put them behind the table.

These were regular customers, how could I knowingly put them in danger? But what if there was no problem, then I was wasting bread. Which was more important, a few sick people or the sale?

I realized it then. I am not pure. In me lies the flecked specks of every monster. In them must lie the sparks of flowers and soft kisses. In me is that which I despise. Now, I could see the bridge.

Looking Into The Nameless

I knew then, through whispers and side-glances, as I know now, that I am different. That the compulsion to jump from fences stirred me even then, and I would run from the sofa, through a house full of cool tile, to the lush garden that awaited with green arms and promises I could never describe. And I would leap, throwing my body into trust I hadn’t the name for, into chambers I had yet to recognize. And I would land, spinning, on my head, smiling with the impact, alive with the hurt and dizzying reality of matter, and something else, something I have yet to place in a box and seal with a kiss.
I have used thousands of words, I have run around it in circles and created colorful stories that hint at its splendor, but I refuse to stare at it directly. I refuse to look it right in the eye and mark it forever with letters and obvious description. It is respect, colored by the sheer knowledge that I know nothing, that any word would fall a thousand miles short and cause bruising that could never heal. I have seen it spinning in blackness. I have poked the edges with a sharp stick and my prying mind and curious eyes that seek the details of all forms.
There is flesh, round and soft with pointed ends. There is darkness lit only by stars and the dreams of the dreaming. And I have walked through the tunnels of my mind and I have taken ships that led me to forgotten caves painted with orange and red.
I have looked, with my head bowed, and my body calm as a steady sea. I have looked. Into mirrors, into eyes that seem to look back with the same curious stare, my eyes, brown and almond shaped, alive with flecks of green I might soon forget.
It is all there, and as I know now, as I knew then, that this is different. Leaping from fences and rooftops, scouring the inner caves of ink and stinking rot, this is different. And I pull on thick boots and walk with my head bent, my arms open for others that might come running naked from the mouths of other caves.
And if they do, we will walk, through tunnels of brown and sooty black, and we will walk, through tunnels I have yet to touch and refuse to name.

On The Edge

“I want to fall asleep, but I just cannot let myself dream.”
He said it softly and so close to the glass pane that his breath momentarily fogged a small circle on the window. And just like the dreams he would not allow, the little galaxy vanished before he saw its nebulous shape.
Five inches above, his eyes looked out the window. Below him was New York City and a skyline of gray and glass and snow covered branches and impatient taxi horns. There were a few speckles of green that dotted the sidewalks and in the very far distance against the white horizon, the promise of Central Park. The open. The wild within the tamed.
He looked out, his eyes burning with the cold that found its way through the glass, wishing he could just blink and find himself in a grove of tall trees, perhaps watching a chipmunk gather some nuts amid buried oak leaves and empty potato chip bags.
If only he could travel so easily. If only he could let himself wander from the room, beyond the walls and carpet and structured glass. The world out there was spiraling through the dream, and he wanted to be part of it, only he didn’t know how.
He looked out the window. He wished for something he could not name. He tried to claw at the feeling, he tried to turn it around and examine just what he wanted or how he could find it, but the shape was a gray cloud that morphed every time he tried to focus on it. There was nothing to hold onto, no word or action he could use to explain his irritation, his frustration with himself and his constant need for control.
“And why can’t you let yourself dream?” the thin voice of a woman finally responded.
He rolled his eyes towards the city, hating her voice and the question. Hating the legs that sat crossed and covered in sheer black pantyhose. The leather chair held her. It touched her legs and the back of her torso which was covered in a white collared shirt and a blazer above that.
It was a question he tried to avoid nearly every time it was brought up. He just didn’t have an answer, not an answer he wanted to reveal. What if he jumped into the cloudy stew of colors and shapes? What if he jumped and could never find his way out again?
He would be stuck in the world of twisting reason that leaps from moment to moment without sense and logic. He would be trapped within his own mind, unable to drag himself back from the deep waters of unconscious darkness. He had the vague memories of nightmares that squeezed the breath from him. Thick armed and tentacled men who tried to drag him to their chambers while he gasped tugging at their claws.
He couldn’t risk it, he might not be strong enough this time. He cleared his throat, preparing the simple answer she could understand.
‘It’s all chaotic and nothing makes sense. I just wish it could tell me something directly. Something I could use right away. What do I do with a flying mattress or an octopus that keeps trying to eat my hand?”
There was a heavy silence between them, as if the woman on the firm leather chair could not think of a good argument to counter. He looked to the horizon, finding the greenery of Central Park with his seeking eyes.
If only he could leave his small apartment or the doctor’s office two floors down. If only he could find his way to the lobby and out the front revolving door and onto the sidewalk. It was through the doors that the world awaited. The park was beyond the walls of his building, beyond the cage of his skin.
In the distance there was a bit of the wild within the tamed. That small part of him wanted to run towards the trees, to dive into the dark lake that waited impatiently for curious hands.
A small howl emerged from deep within him, but he stifled it with a little false cough.

The Power of the Secret

He woke up frightened. His chest was a rock of fear and his arms were covered in a glossy sweat. Someone knew what he had done. It had been many years, but now someone knew. The deed was out in the world. It swirled in the light of the sun and then found him in his dark apartment in the layers of night and dreams. How the rock had been turned, he had no idea. But the worms were exposed and a wind had drifted towards him and disturbed his still body.
The note had been left on his car. Such a small innocent piece of paper, no different from any of the other pieces of abandoned trash that coasted down the street until finally drifting to the sea. Only this one was not lost. It had not fallen out of a blue trash can on an early Tuesday morning. It had been folded with care and written with a precise hand that revealed black block letters. It was for him. And it found him. It began with his name and was attached perfectly to the side of his car. How he wished that a strong wind had shaken it loose and sent it running through grass and cityscapes, but it didn’t.
He grabbed it with curious eyes and slightly shaking hands. It was on his nightstand now. A small white innocent piece of paper, only its message was a demand.
“I know what you did. I want two million.”
He was over forty. He had done many, many things he was not proud of. Things he would never tell his mother. He had lived a wild life for many years. It was the consequence of money and fame. It was the consequence of being a male. It was the consequence of abundant energy and the pursuit of the unknown and the love of a female body. He had been ripe and he had stepped into the world wanting to lick it all.
As he sat in bed in the early morning light, the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen, he knew there were some things he would not repeat if given the chance. They seemed fun, they seemed okay at the time, at least some of them for a few minuets before rationality and consequences caught up to him, and although he tried not to live with any regrets, still there were some things he would not repeat. There were some things he didn’t want exposed. He was a public figure, he needed to fit, at least partially, into what the majority of his audience viewed as “appropriate.”
What did they know? Was it that one time on Christmas Eve? Or that one comment he said while intoxicated. What did they know? Which secret? There were a handful, some he didn’t want to think about.
His mind went to his family. He thought of their faces bunched in disappointment. He winced, his chest hurt. The walls began to push against their wooden supports, it felt like they could crumble. His skin glistened.
He looked within and suddenly he knew what they knew. His body was still wet, his heart still raced, but he knew. And now, he had to reduce its power. The secret, the deep, deep hole in his chest that spun like a wild storm would have to be revealed. His mouth would bring it forward. His words would expose it and turn it over and over until there was light. Until the eyes of the world judged him. He would tell them all, and he would drain the secret of its power. With each sentence, spoken live and slowly, he would let the flashlight of a million eyes do their work.
It was only a secret if no one knew. It only held strength as long as he locked it up in fear. Blackmail could work only if he held tightly to the moment, if he clenched and gritted his teeth and pushed the rock further into the moist dank earth. It was only a source of power if he kept it hidden in the closet of memories.
There would be no money. There would be no dark well within his chest anymore. Tonight he would expose himself, he would reveal his secret, he would tell them all and they would reject him or laugh, but the secret would be drained. The power of that little folded note would be worthless, because they would all know. And the secret would die under the sunlight. Such is the nature of secrets.

The Secrets are Real

Secrets are real. Tender as the soft pink skin of rose petals, they shrink from the sun, unable to laugh or scream in a way audible to our ears. The secrets come in changing forms and shapes, petals layered upon themselves, forming full cups of fragrance. The smell, lingering in the twilight stops my heart, seconds pass while I journey into stems and tubes, petals lick me into submission and I glimpse the vast undulating fields of movement. I take notice. What have you to tell me? Linguistics dull this sacred knowledge. Even the truth can be obvious and not seen. You need eyes, real eyes. You need ears and the ability to truly hear, a skill I do not yet posses.
The heart, the soft red organ covered in scars, must be open, even a small crack will do, just enough for the songs to enter. The recognizable yet infinitely unfamiliar beat. Beautiful, bringing tears to my eyes, yet causing my heart to pump strangely, the new sensations sending mixed messages to my frightened brain and sickened body…yet, something in me sings, unable to look away. Growing louder with time, the gates slowly open a little more…then, ever so slightly, a little more.
With the passing of time, with the passion tended knowledge and budding transformation the gates can be pried further by the tiny scarred hands of inner struggle. Did you know there where thousands hiding in the frozen folds, in the vast wastelands of negative emotions, ready, dying even for a reason to exist once again. Tired of masturbating, bored of fear and petty emotions. Bloodied fingernails scratch at every surface, the gold tinged bars and iron locks have had many years to rust.
Has the message seeped in? The clues are all around, yet you must do the deciphering. The detective is hidden among your many egos, your many centers of vision, each one of the thousands thinking itself unique and alone. Grab the cloak and the pipe, take a walk in the cloudy night. Smokes wafts among your legion of demons and colliding impulses. Yes, it is you who must dig for the treasure.
Maps lay at your feet, soiled and muddy from neglect. Did you know they littered your yard? The dog has chewed the corners, children have colored upon them, adding flowers and rainbows on the thick parchment and gold filigree. Can you feel their wisdom? The symbols are plainly written, bold strokes written with a sure hand and flaming presence. Fire leaps from the characters, can you hear them talking? Are they speaking to YOU? The Real. The eternal unnamable.
They come with silence, they come with fragrance and power. Each one carries the cries and knowledge.

Chamber of Secrets

It was a clear, sunny, breezy afternoon. There were probably better reasons to be outside, but we were on our way to the pharmacy, the one inside the big hotel that had a lot of medicines and other items imported from the United States. The whole place was covered in slight teasing glimpses of another life, a life far away and drenched in sex, violence and money. I could feel the caress of these visions in the way that man was dressed as he signed up for a room, in the way the bellhops spoke to each other, in the smell of the leather of the sofas in the bar, in the laughter of the people seated in a circle, drinking large glasses of hard liquor and talking very loudly, one of them wearing dark glasses with his arm around a much younger woman wearing a mini skirt, in the cold voice of a tall man giving orders to two guards about their respective positions, in the shiny gold of the handrails that lead up to the hotel rooms upstairs. I felt it and I wanted it, I wanted to be part of it, to be in it, to receive it and become it, to swim in it and let it drown me in its unimaginable pleasures.
We stepped into the pharmacy and my eyes immediately wondered to the newsstand. It was very wide and very tall, full of mysterious magazines I had never seen before. There were some comics but these were not the comics I was used to. They were all in English, the covers screamed sex and violence, they told of stories that had begun before me and would continue after me, stories I would never fully understand and I adored them because of it; because they escaped me, I wanted them more. There were so many that I felt overwhelmed, my eyes shifting quickly from one to another, spotting some familiar characters in very unfamiliar situations, sensing that this was the "real thing", not the imitation I had become used to… here was a chance to touch what had formerly been just a rumor, but where to begin? Which one to pick?
Quickly, before the maid picked up the needed medicines and it was too late. I looked up and saw it.
It was the size of a regular magazine, not the smaller size of a comic. The cover had thick, dark colors, not the bright glossy colors of the comics… it was the color of real blood and not its fake counterpart. And blood is what there was. Lots of it. A large character dressed in red opening a bag full of human entrails and laughing, the pieces of intestine and heart dropping onto the floor along with a broken hand and the remains of a human foot. I looked a little closer. The large man had a long white beard and a tall hat. The large man was Santa Claus. My eyes opened wide. This was a comic book, but it was not like the others. It was so high up that I couldn’t reach it. It was probably not meant for my hands. But neither the maid nor the man behind the counter had any clue about it. For them a comic book was a comic book and they never even looked at the cover. So pretty soon the strange magazine was in my hands and I was breathing intensely, reading the little blurbs that spoke of the mysteries to be found within.
This space, this instant of recognition, surrounded by temptation, closed doors and revelation, was now inside of me. I would now search for it. There was a new "me" that now swam within my inner ocean whose only purpose was to find this space, over and over and over. Search for the place, the special chamber, find it, activate it… search again.
It would now be a comic book store in the suburbs of a faraway city in California, or a little college town turned into a festival of medieval color and strange little rolling dice in Wisconsin, or a lost little book store in the heart of the Basque country in Spain, or a strange web site in the lost backwaters of the Internet, or a little booth covered in flashy covers in the middle of a huge convention specially prepared for others cursed like me. Wherever I may find it. However I may look. I would shift aside and under, let my attention slither out and connect and I would look for it.
And when I did find it, it would only last an instant. It would not be the moment before, it would not be the moment after, when I may or may not have an item in my hands and be ready to pay. It would only be that single eternal instant, when my eyes would land on it, on the cover, on the text, on the voice, on the message, on the color, and I would hear the laughter, and the cars, and the voices, and the golden handrails leading up to the secret rooms where the hidden heart of darkness would finally be revealed. Always one step away. Always just slightly beyond my reach, always alive in its obscurity, infinite and eternal in its insistence on staying one step removed from time, space and form.
And as it would always escape me, I would forever want it more.