My daughter and myself walked into the market. We were looking for something new. Something that would spark the imagination. There were stores that had some of the latest electronic gadgets around but nothing that really caught Maria’s attention. She looked up with her brown eyes and said “Daddy I’m looking for a friend.”, “Don’t you have a lot of friends at school?” I asked her. She looked at me and said “I want my own friend. A friend that will never leave me.”
We had moved around a lot with my work and knew that she was longing for a friend that she could grow up with. Someone she could talk to about anything, and share her deepest thoughts with without worrying about them getting out to others. The search would continue for the next hour until we found a small shop on the corner, and that is when I knew we had found what Maria was looking for.
Maria walked right over to what she would call her new friend. The little white person is what I called it, but Maria corrected me. She told me, as she held its hand, it is my new friend. I couldn’t help but snap a picture of her with her new friend.
To this day even though Maria is grown I show her this picture and we remember this day with fondness. She has her friend to this day and shares all of her secrets with him and doesn’t worry about her secrets getting out.
The hospital room Mike was in after his heart surgery was quiet except for the beeping of the many machines around him monitoring his vitals. Mike was barely awake when he saw a bright light in the doorway to his room. He raised up slightly and saw a dark silhouette standing in the doorway.
“Who is that?” he mumbled. His strength was diminished due to the surgery, but he felt it start to return as the figure moved closer to him. He appeared to float across the floor towards him, and a fog seemed to follow him. “Who is that?” he said in a much louder and stronger voice, but still the figure didn’t answer. Then as it approached his bed he at last realized who it was. It was the one person people feared most and had been the subject of many a horror movie in his youth, the Grim Reaper.
“What…This can’t be happening I have to be dreaming?” he said. The Reaper looked at him and moved in close enough that he could see the light in his eyes and skeletal face with a wicked smile, and he finally spoke in a much friendlier voice than he expected, “Time to go buddy”. Mike felt himself become light and strong. He felt all of the wires and probes that were attached to him pull away, he was free. He stood up and felt better than he had in ages.
“Come with me my friend and I will show you wonderous things.”. Mike was more than happy to follow and began to follow his new friend out into the hallway where he saw the nurse sitting at her desk, with a look of panic on her face as she ran to the room he had been in. He then saw the doctors run with the crash cart. “Apparently there is an emergency,” Mike said as he laughed and smiled
“We have many things to see Mike,” Old Grim said to him, and with that, Mike found himself in what appeared to be a dive bar. There was something strange about the bar though, and he couldn’t put his finger on it till he stood up and ordered a drink. “I’ll have a whiskey and sour please.”. The bartender poured his drink and said “It’s on the house buddy.” and laughed.
Mike began drinking, looked around, and then figured out what was wrong here, all of the customers were dead people. In one corner he saw Mark Twain and Hemingway drinking together. In another corner, Jim Morrison tipped his glass at him and started talking to Marilyn Monroe. He just couldn’t believe this was what death was going to be like. He looked at his new friend who slapped him on the back and said “Drink up.” then tossed back a shot of tequila, “Don’t worry there are never any hangovers here…one of the perks since we never go to sleep.”
As the days went on the two of them traveled the world from Paris to London just to watch the people, they quickly became the closest of friends. They would sit on benches and laugh as the Reaper would pick out the next ones to join their group. They had Presidents, actors, and writers with them. The Reaper always said that Mike was his best friend.
He took him to all the great dead hangouts. The places he never took any of his other victims, though he preferred to call them his clients. He always said he was taking them to places they never would see in life and trying to make the transition easier…he really did seem to enjoy his job.
One day while they were sitting in Central Park, not too far from the hospital Mike had been they were enjoying one of the great New York hot dogs when all of a sudden there was a bright flash. A flash like the one the night the Grim Reaper had taken Mike. He felt this pull on his body and yelled “What’s happening?”, the Grim Reaper smiled and said, “I’m sorry Mike it just isn’t your time, but I’ll see you when it is.”
The next thing he saw were the lights of the nurse at the desk and the doctor standing above him. He let out a big breath and heard the doc say “I thought we lost you.” He didn’t pay much attention to that but saw his friend smiling behind him with that bony hand and bright eyes, and then disappeared.
Jesse flipped the burgers onto the fryer. The grease flew up like sparks from a fire and were burning off the hairs on his forearm. “Damn it.” Jesse yelled and rubbed his arm. “Hey, watch the language Jess. Remember we have children out here.” “Fuck you” He mumbled to himself.
Reaching up he pulled the warm buns out of the container above the grill, laid the bottom on onto the burger, flipped it over and then put on the top one. This was his job now, he was a damn burger flipper or maybe he could call himself a culinary artist. He laughed to himself and thought _Oh how the mighty fall. _
“Order up” he yelled as he through the fries on the plate and placed it on the shelf between the counter area and the kitchen. He spun the wheel of orders around and picked one off of it and sighed. He remembers when people were making food for him, and it wasn’t these greasy ass burgers. He would dine on the finest steaks, seafood, and caviar. He felt like he was the king of the world. Again he thought oh how the mighty fall.
“Hey, what are you doing. Get going on that order or you will have more time on your hands than you want to daydream.” his boss Mike said. Grumbling inaudible words that he preferred Mike not here he worked on the newest order.
When he set the latest order up Mike looked at it and said “What are you doing? This isn’t what was on the ticket.”
Mike had enough he tore his apron off, threw it on the floor and headed for the back door. He didn’t get far though before he heard a voice from the front of the restaurant he recognized.
“Hey kid, come out here”, Jesse about ignored him until he heard the man call his name “Jesse Brock.”
No one had called him that in years, ever since he had run into troubles with drugs when he was the biggest Hollywood actor in the 90s. He turned and headed out to the front of the restaurant and saw who had called him. It was a director he had worked with, Brian Damon.
“I thought that was you Jesse. I would have recognized that voice anywhere.”
The two men sat at the table and asked how each other was doing, and what they had been up to. Jesse started to feel excited, maybe this was his way back into the game. He could be the comeback kid. The kid actor that came back stronger with bigger rolls, but unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be.
“He could I get a bacon cheeseburger with some curly fries?” Brian asked. With that Jesse dropped his head and started heading back to the kitchen when he heard Mike say “Where do you think you’re going?”, “Back to work” he replied. “Back to work? You’re fired.” Life just kept getting worse.
Her head hit the floor and the door slammed shut. She laid there for what seemed hours in complete darkness the hood provided. The kidnappers had grabbed her as she walked out of the grocery store and thrown her in the back of a van and driven for hours to this location. The room felt damp but she felt the warmth of sunlight and she pulled the cover from her head.
The walls were stone with one single window that allowed sunlight to flood the room. It was warm but the room felt damp. She saw a mattress laying on the floor and crawled over and curled up in the corner. _At least they gave me a mattress and blanket _she thought to herself, and wrapped herself to try and keep warm.
The day passed and she could here what she figured was her kidnappers outside of the door, and then a small window in the door opens and one of the men calls into her.
“Do you know why you are here?” He asked. Mary was almost to scared to answer but thought it was safer to say something instead of staying silent, try to build a rapport, “No I don’t. Can you please tell me?”. The man just laughed and said “You will find out soon enough.”.
After the man left Mary decided she needed to find a way out. There had to be a way out of this place, but where. A small door at the bottom opened and some food came through. The same man who had talked to her earlier told her to eat. She pulled the tray over to her and began to nibble on the bread and at the porridge on the tray. She knew she had to eat something to keep her strength up.
The rest of the night she tried to get some sleep and managed to get what she figured was at least a couple of hours, but none of it was restful. The next morning as the sun began shining through the window she heard some noise outside the door. There were now two men talking outside the door.
“We have to take it in there and do this.” One of the men said. “I don’t know I feel pretty shitty about this. Why don’t we just ask for some money, we can get out of here.”, “That’s not an option.” The other man said, and the door opened up.
Mary looked shocked at what they were rolling it was an old CRT television, one like her family had when she was a kid. In fact it looked very similar to the one they had, even the scratch that appeared on the side. The hooded man rolled the tv to the end of the mattress, plugged in the lone outlet in the room, and turned it on.
When the man left the room left the room he removed his hood and told his partner it was done, she was going to do whatever they wanted her to do. The television was a mind altering device, she would be the one to kill her husband for them. Both men laughed and watched her through a CCTV in another room.
Staring at the door after the man had left the room Mary looked back at the television. There was nothing but static on the screen, and with that she smiled. _I finally have a way out _she thought.
The two men little known to Mary were her husbands partner at work Jeffrey and Jack. They wanted to remove him and take his place at the CEO of the company and blame him for the embezzlement they had done. They had taken millions from the company and if they did this right her husband John would be blamed.
Watching Mary on the screen they saw as she reached her hands to the television and closed her eyes, “What the fuck is she doing?” Jack asked with a quizzical look on his face, “Isn’t that suppose to start the brainwashing?”. Both men continued to stare at the screen when all of the sudden everything in the room started to shake and their screen went blank.
Mary continued to chant and touch the screen, she had used her magic through the television and summoned her demon Michaelangelo. The door started to shake and flew open, she heard screams down the hall and large banging down the hall. She removed her hands from the screen and walked out the door and down the hall.
Entering the room where the two men had been the only thing that remained was pools of blood on the floor and pieces of the men on the wall. She smiled and walked over to one of the remains and picked up a cell phone. She looked around and found a finger to open the phone up and dialed her husbands number. “It’s done, the problem is eliminated.”
The mist settled upon the water, lighting flashed as if reaching from the heavens striking the lake, and then he appeared. A silhouett of a man standing on top of the water in the middle of the lake. He started walking gracefully towards us his menacing features becoming so much clearer, and I was afraid. Yes, I was very afraid.
There was a line that crossed his face, a burn mark. His eyes glowed like the lightening that had appeared before his arrival. His skin was gray and wrinkled outlined by his cloth hood that addorned his cloak. He was a man but seemed more like Frankenstein but with a grace to his walk. He walked with confidence. A man to be feared but also admired at the same time.
When he got closer a toothless smile crossed his face and he reached out his hand. He appeared to be greeting as men do. I admit I was afraid but I reached out towards him all the same, and that is when it happened. The lighting shot from his fingers into me. I felt the jolt like the energy recieved from the heavens above. My life flashed before me and I saw the past, present, and what could be my future. It was all glorious. I felt as if the power of god was pulsing through my body, and then he released me.
I dropped my head exhausted. I felt as though I had run a marathon, but the adrenaline was still there. I looked back up at him and that is when I heard his voice for the first time, but his lips didn’t move and nothing came from his lips.
“You are now one of us my friend. You have been given a great power and must use it wisely., “But what just happened, what power do I have?” “You now have the power of mortality and ability to control time itself. It is up to you to fix the wrongs.”
I couldn’t believe what I was being told, _Was I some kind of god now _I lthought to myself. A resounding no came to me. “If you misuse this power for your own gains you will be stripped of all that has been given to you and struck down.” He conveyed to me through telepathy. I nodded and understood that this power wasn’t a game, or to be used for my own gain, but to help humanity when needed.
The man then told me his name was Alexia and would help guide me through the ever changing phases of my new power, and when it was time I would pass it on to another. He then turned away and back out to the middle of the lake where two lightning flashes on both sdes of him crashed down and he was gone.
Things had been tense in the house the last few months after Janet had caught Jack cheating on her. They had been working through their issues but the air was thick between them and couldn’t seem to see no way out of divorce. The morning that it happened they had just gotten done with a huge fight.
“What the hell do you mean you can never forgive me, do you remember what you did two years ago to me?”, “Oh sure bring that up. It is nothing like fucking around on me with my best friend, or should I say ex best friend.” Jack just huffed and walked out of their bedroom slamming the door behind him causing the picture of there wedding day to fall to the floor.
Janet fell to the bed and began to sob. _How could it come to this _ she thought as she got up and picked up the picture. The glass had been shattered just like their once perfect marriage had been. _ How could he bring up when I had lost all that money in the investment, it wasn’t her fault her ex best friend lied to her _she thought.
She attempted to hang the picture back on the wall but the frame had been bent and the glass just kept falling on the floor. She set it on the table next to the door and put her head to the wall and began banging on the wall in frustration. There was no way out of this, it was over divorce was inevitable.
When she hit the wall the last time all of the sudden and small shimmer of light appeared next to the bed. “Oh, I almost forgot about that” she said out loud. The door was to a small closet next to the bed. It was pretty much useless so they didn’t use it but now there was a light on in the room, and then all of the sudden she heard a low growl of a voice come from behind the door “We can make this problem go away.”
Janet walked closer to the door and put her ear near the door and heard it again only a little louder this time, “We can make this problem go away.” Janet stepped back from the door and shook her head, she had to be hearing things and decided to look into the room but just a peek and that is when she saw the little creature behind the door and he said “We can get rid of him and make the problem go away.”
His teeth were pointy and his hair was jet black. He smiled and blood rolled out of his mouth and down his chin. His eyes began to glow like two shiny pennies and he said “You let me out and I can make this problem go away.” He began running towards the door. He pulled out a knife and began to shriek in an evil laughter that was what Janet pictured the laughter of a madman would have sounded like.
Janet slammed the door shut and stepped back. The light went out and no more noise came out from behind the door. “What the hell was that?” She said out loud and realized that she never wanted to open that door again, and planned to nail it shut. A peek was more than enough for her into that room and she never looked inside again.
I emerged from the outside office door into the dead of night. A street light flickered reminding me that I did not want to stay late at work tonight. It is the one night that the strangers in the shadows would creep up on you and do the unimaginable. I wish I knew what that was but I didn’t have much of imagination but figured it must be bad for it to be a saying. _Why had my boss asked me to stay late tonight, and more importantly had I said yes _I thought to myself.
When I took the first step out the door I heard the scurrying of what I know must be some creepy little animal run down the alley. _Who in their right mind puts the exit of an office building out into an alley _I thought to myself. I had been thinking to myself a lot ever since I had said I would stay late.
I walked along the wall making sure to try and stay out of the sight of anyone who might be out here to kill someone. I am such a worry wart and scaredy cat. I just need to get to my car so I can get out of this situation. I continued to move down the alley when someone appeared out from behind the large dumpster on my left. They stared at me. I only know they were staring because I could see the shining of their eyes as they cut through the darkness. I couldn’t tell what color they were, and I didn’t care and turned to go the other way when I saw another figure appear at the other end of the alley.
My mind began to race, _what am I going to do? _my worried mind raced through ideas. I could run, but where. I could scream but who was going to hear me? I knew of only one action that I could take, and that was to fight back. I dropped my bag and prepared for battle. It was me or them. I wasn’t going to be a victim or be the coward this time.
I put my fists up and yelled “Come and get me you bastards.” The man by the dumpster moved forward and nodded at me, he put his fists up. I rushed towards him and landed a right on his left cheek. He backed up and seemed dazed, but that didn’t last long. He moved forward again and pulled a knife from inside of his jacket. The blade was long and I could see the shine of the blade from the moon light. I felt the sharp stab in my right side as the blade entered me, but I wasn’t going to go down without more of a fight. I swung again at the man who now appeared to be a giant to me and felt another stab in my mid-section.
I fell to my knees and looked up at the man. I looked up and saw the shining eyes and the last thing I heard was “Don’t walk home alone.”, and then felt the jolt of pain at the back of my head.
I needed to make a call and the phone wasn’t working on the airplane. “Excuse me do you know when the phones will start working again?” I asked the flight attendant, “No sir. We have been having problems for a while now. A soon as it comes back I’ll make sure to let you know.”
I just nodded at here and knew that that wasn’t going to happen. I went back to my laptop and began working on the document I had started earlier. I am a glad I am in the window seat so I could see the city of San Francisco and it’s beautiful light during the night, and then I saw it, the phone booth amongst the clouds. It made me think of Doctor Who. Maybe I could transport to my location instead of stuck on this airplane with no way to communicate to my business, which I desperately needed to get a hold of to make the stock trade.
I looked at the flight attendant and smiled and called her over, “Do you think we could stop by the phone booth so I can make a call?”, she laughed at me as if I had told the funniest joke, and then I pointed out the window. Her jaw dropped and she ran up to the cock pit and then that’s when it happened. The plane came to a complete stop and the side door over the window opened up.
I looked around and everything and everyone seemed to stop. I walked over to the door and walked out on the wing gingerly so as not to fall over 10,000 feet to the world below. When I got to the wing tip I reached down and opened the door to the phone booth and climbed in to make my call.
“You won’t believe where I am.” I told my executive assistant Jeffrey. When I told him where I was he just laughed. I took a picture with my phone and told him I would send it to him when I had a signal again. I informed him of what I needed to have done and then climbed back onto the wing and into the airplane. When I sat back down in my seat everything went back to normal.
When I finally landed in Hawaii and had a signal I opened my phone up and was going to send my photo and realized that the photo was gone. I knew it happened so I called Jeffrey to make sure he had completed the task I had asked him to do.
“What do you mean you called me.” He said to me. Apparently it was all a dream.
His eyes opened wide. I could see his pupils have become an empty abyss. He sneered at me and made an animalistic sound as if he was ready to attack. I had to think fast or this is goig to be my last day on this big blue marble. I run to the door and realize the door is locked and knocked like my life depended on it, oh yeah it does.
I turned back to see the man standing across from me and I was on my own and I am going to have to talk my way out of here. Being his therapit I realized I am the only one that really understands this psychopaths thoughts so I slowed my breath and began to talk soothingly to him.
“Listen John I undesrand how frustrated you must be hearing about your mother testifying against you” I told him in my calmes voice, “How can you possibly undertand how I feel at this moment?” he respsonded.
I began to formulate an answer when he lunged towards me. _Oh shit the cuffs had broken off the table, how come I let the guard leave the room _I thought to myself. “My mother told my teachers I had cheated in school.” I told him. At this he stopped and looked at me, “She did?” he asked with look of a bewilderment that could be seen in how he raised his eyebrows and twisted his face.
I knew at that moment that I’m getting somewhere. “Yeah, I was fucking pissed. That bitch ratted me out and all I could think about was strangling her.” I said through gritted teeth. John looked at me and sat back down and relaxed back into the chair he had just about flown out of just minutes ago.
“Man if I could just get a hold of my mother and make her shut the fuck up.” John said. I knew at this moment he was just puddy in my hands and then that is when I sat back down across from him feeling much more relaxed. I leaned in close and tell him that I have a secret. He leans in close and I whisper into his ear “You know what I killed her the very night she ratted me out.” and then leaned back in my chair and told him “You can’t tell anyone John. We aren’t very much different, you just haven’t had the opportunity to kil. your mother just yet, but she is outside and I can help you with that.”
John smiled at me and I knocked on the door again. This time the guard came and opened it up and let me out of the small room. When I was outside I breathed a huge sigh of relief and told the guard to take the prisoner back to his cell. I never returned to the prison and assigned that psychopath a new therapist.
The sun began to rise across the water. The sunset was beautiful with shades of red, yellow, and orange. The ocean waves crested and began to wash up to the shore. The white caps looking like the snowed covered mountains to the east. The view was breathtaking and I couldn’t help but stare in awe.
I sat in the sand and pulled my shoes and socks off. I wanted to feel the sand beneath my toes on this beautiful day. Walking down the beach I began to pick up stones and throw them back from where they came from not expecting the ocean to return from what was left.
Peering across the water dreaming of distant lands I noticed something begin to bob in the water like the bobber on a fishing pole. The only difference was there was no pole and this was no bobber. What appeared to be coming up from the ocean was a red and white Volkswagen Bug. I couldn’t believe my eyes as the car got closer and rolled up onto the beach. I walked up to it and could tell it was running, how in the fuck did this happen, but it wasn’t all that washed up.
While I was staring at the car a bicycle rolled up on the beach on two wheels with the horn blowing and the bell ringing. The most amazing thing is the fact that it dropped is kick stand and parked up next to the car. _How is this possible _I thought to myself.
The next vehicle to roll up on the beach was an old biplane. The propellor was spinning and looked as though it was getting ready to take off. It rolled over next to the car and the bike. I admired the airplane and almost felt as though I should take her for a spin, or maybe just take the Bug and trade it in since it was in mint condition. The bicycle would be great for my boy.
Throughout the afternoon more and more vehicles like expensive cars, semis, motorcycle and four wheelers showed up on the shore. It looked like a parking lot with plenty of different types of things to choose from. I sat down and just looked at all of the vehicles on the beach until twilight when they all began to roll back into the ocean. As the moon began to rise across the ocean the last vehicle floated away. I never saw anything like that, there are some strange things that can wash up onto the beach.
