I have completely freaked my shit out.

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Had, for me, an unusual occurrence last night.


2:45, woke up from a particularly vivid text nightmare (while having the nightmare, i was also reading it as if in a book - a sure sign that my writing muscles are getting in shape). mulled it over for a while, went to jot down an outline so i could recount it.

that done, i repaired back to bed, but the brain kept worrying over the denouement, which kept freaking me out (goosebumps, chills, hearing noises, the whole nine yards), so i trundled back downstairs (now 3:15) and proceeded to try and type it out quietly. i was more successful at the typing it out than the typing quietly (ooops, sorry, K *smacks forehead*), and an hour and a half and 1500 words later, i've got an IT-like freaky little short story on my hands.

and reading the end of it -still- creeps my shit out.

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[part 2]

But I do remember graduation day, and so do you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have that tumbler of Jack Daniels by your right hand. That’s okay, there’s a slowly-disappearing fifth of Grey Goose on my desk as I write this. And I bet the bar will do a brisk business at the reunion, and it won’t just be us. Nobody will know why they’re hitting the sauce quite that hard, and there’ll probably be some arguments (my money’s on Penelope Johanssen and Meredith Bax, with the undercard of Curt Bowley and Jimmy LaPerrier).

Besides, drunks aren’t very good swimmers, and are ever so much more apt to drive off a twisting road, especially at night.

But that afternoon in 1982 is why I’m writing you, bottle close at hand. Another knockout day, remember? Warm, windy, and the last day of our High School lives. Funny how many of us rode our bikes that day, isn’t it? And me, the flamboyant dipshit, with those chopper handlebars and that mop of curls, weaving in and out of everybody like I was begging for an ass-kicking.

What did I care? I’d never have to see you assholes again, other than for two hours Saturday afternoon. I was so happy just to be free that I didn’t care what anyone saw or thought (except Agnes, of course, but she had 9th period free and always left early).

I don’t know if I flipped you guys the bird, or said something, or what. Whatever it was, I had to pedal for my goddamn life when you lit after me. At this point, I’m almost inclined to believe that nothing set it off. Well, nothing tangible, anyways.

And nothing wrapped the shoulder strap of my orange nylon backpack through the spokes of my back wheel and around the chain as I hit Venkman’s Curve, either. You don’t believe that either, huh?

But there I was, the bike snapping over and sliding before it went down on the hardpan, and me, flying like a fashion-impaired scarecrow clear over the embankment and into the water. You must have tried to stop and crashed into my bike, because I saw you go in nearly head first. I remember thinking you’d break your neck because the water was so low (and I’m sorry I wished you had at that moment, but eighteen and outcast is a pitiless way to be).

Yeah, the water was low. Too low, which is why we’re both here to get Dolly’s invitations. But still fast and strong enough to dump me ass over teakettle with the current. I got one look at you, standing up and leaning backwards into the flow, watching me. You were soaked, but your hair was standing up, and the sun hit it just right, so you looked like you had a halo with horns. It was your expression, though – there was some shock and surprise, and a fair bit of pissed off, but you looked scared shitless, too and I thought I saw you say, “Thank God, not me.”

But by then, I was going around the bend. You remember how it opened out into that pool where all the summer people thought the fishing would be good on the far bank, across from the municipal intake? I don’t remember fishing there, or seeing anyone from town bother (except Scooter Malley, but as the man said, there’s a fine line between fishing and sitting around, drinking beer, and looking like an idiot holding a stick).

After that one little girl had been pulled into the intake in, what, ’63, the town put a grate across it, which was just smart – you can’t go around having a five-foot pipe with nothing to keep people out. I can’t imagine being the guy who had to put that sucker in. You couldn’t pay me enough.

There was still that one strong current, though, and it hooked towards the municipal intake. I was caught hard in that, and between panic and being scrawny, I was along for the ride, even with the water as low as it was. I’d managed to keep my head up, pretty much until then, but got sucked almost all the way under, and that’s when I heard it.

The water talks there. It’s not the polite chuckle of a backyard stream or the insensate roar of Niagara Falls, this was words and sentience and malice. My ears were in the water and my face was in the air, and the water talked to me.