The Magic Collection

 

Tablo reader up chevron

Christmas Drake

Janie sat and sighed looking at the window. The snow was continuing to fall like she lived in a snow globe. Unemployment led to this. She took a drag off of her cigarette and blew it out of her mouth like she was a dragon. She pictured flying away from the troubles she was having.

She reached over and hit play on the answering machine. Asshole’s voice filled her 200 dollar studio apartment. Couldn’t she be a dragon and burn him? He rambled on with a bullshit reason why he wasn’t there and why they were not going out to dinner for their anniversary. It was him not her kind of stuff. Ha! Cancer? He better have it or he’s dead.

Janie looked out the window and sighed.She thought of the childhood stories that her parents read to her of dragons and their beauty. She remembered how when she was 5 years old, her dreams would be of her flying over the countryside on the back of one of these beautiful creatures. She closed her eyes this night and remembered those dreams and imagined feeling the wind blow through her hair.

She felt her dirty blonde hair move with the breeze.

Wait . . . She was in her apartment in New York City. It was December. Why was her hair moving?

Janie looked and saw one of her windows was wide open. She jumped off of the bar stool she was sitting on and went to close the window. Who needed men anyway? Her lease was coming up at the end of this month. She could easily forget everything in New York City and head back. Stupid Dan and his bullshit lies. He could just go jump off a bridge for all the she cared. After all, she had bigger fish to fry.

Her angry rage that had built up to a healthy froth had taken a pause when she reached the window. After all, it’s not every day you see this in the Big Apple.

*********************************************************************************************************************

Dan hang up the phone and sighed. He wished that he didn’t have to do that. But he loved Janie so much that he didn’t want to have to see her suffer. The doctor‘s initial prognosis was bleak. He wasn’t expected to live much more than six months. Apparently what they thought was nothing had progressed quicker than what they had initially expected. The doctor wanted to run more tests, so this was the reason Dan was sitting among the walking wounded of the world. Some guy who sliced his leg open on a metal pole, a lady who had apparently seen better days by the look on her face, some kid who was wheezing like ever breath was his last. Christ, he hoped he got out of there soon.

Finally, his name was called, and Dan walked down a dimly lit corridor to wait in an antiseptic room for whatever bad news life had to throw his way next. He though of Janie and her laugh. The way the sun light would hit her hair just right that it would make his heart stop. God, why did he have to call everything off. Tonight was going to be special. He had it planned out, up to the waiter bringing the bowl of Tiramisu with his great-grand mother’s ring sitting in the middle of it.

As he continued to kick himself for the most idiotic move he ever made, Dan’s doctor came in. The little mousy man with bad breath nervously pushed his glasses up multiple times as he stammered out an apology. Apparently the test results that gave him his death sentence actually belonged to another man.

Dan looked up from his self-flagellation confused. He asked the doctor what the hell he was talking about. The doctor apologized again and told him the original prognosis of six months was off by about forty years. He was perfectly fine, and he was once again so sorry about the horrible mistake that his office made and he hoped that there wouldn’t be . . .

Dan didn’t care to listen to the doctor any more. He flew out of the room with only one thought in his mind. He had to call Janie. He had to make things right.

*********************************************************************************************************************

Dan paced back and forth on the bridge. He couldn’t believe how stupid he was for calling everything off with Janie. He had tried calling her about 20 times since leaving the doctor’s office. He had not gotten an answer every time he called. Where was she?

This was one hell of a week. First Dan was going to tell Janie he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Then he found out he was dying. Then he found out he was perfectly healthy. Now he had to get back in touch with Janie so he could finally find some happy ending to this horrific week.

He kept looking at his great-grandmother‘s ring and watched the moon light glint off of the stones embedded in it. The anger of the week melted away as he gazed into the gems and imagined Janie’s smile as she hugged him and said that she would marry him. But now he ruined it all. In the period of one week, he went from happy to the end of everything. He had no happy ending, he didn’t get the girl, and he was going to be alone. What did he have to look forward to?

As these thoughts were racing through his head, Dan climbed up to the ledge of the bridge. His saw the river running below and imagined himself being carried away from everything. He set his great-grandmother’s ring on the railing. If Janie wasn’t going to wear it, someone else might as well have the honor of wearing it.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. As Dan prepared himself to jump, he heard a voice that he wasn’t expecting. “What were you planning on doing up there, beautiful?” Janie asked. Dan looked behind him, but no one was standing behind him.

“No, silly,” Janie giggled. “In front of you.”

Dan slowly looked in front of him. There was Janie, looking beautiful as always with her dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. But she was sitting on the back of a crystal blue . . . . dragon . . . floating in the middle of the air?

Janie could see the confusion on his face and she let out that chuckle that Dan loved hearing. “I was thinking about how I wanted to catch a flight out of here, and this guy showed up to give me a lift.”

“I’m . . . I’m . . . . ummm . .  .”

“Yes?”

Dan took a breath and spilled out everything that had happened. He told of the initial diagnosis and then the meeting he had with the idiot doctor. Janie’s face changed multiple times in reaction to the everything that Dan went through. “And so the doctor was an idiot . . . and you wanted to kill yourself?” she asked, confused.

Dan took a deep breath. He picked up the ring off of the ledge. “I just wanted to give you this.”

Janie felt her breath taken away. It could have been the gust of wind that blew in her direction, but she’s pretty sure it was the beauty of the ring and the moment. She felt tears rolling down her eyes. “You’re an ass, you know that?’

Dan felt that was a fair assessment. He felt tears forming in his eyes as well. He didn’t expect her to say what she did.

“Why don’t you climb on for a ride,” Janie said with a tear filled smirk. “Then, you can give it to me. I want this to be a night to remember.”

Dan carefully climbed on. He thought that O. Henry would kill for an ending like this.

Comment Log in or Join Tablo to comment on this chapter...

Mother and Child Reunion

He fell. As he fell he thought. He thought how that was a paradox. He thought how his life was a paradox.

He remembered seeing her in class and asking her out on a date. She was gorgeous and he wasn’t. He figured it couldn’t hurt. He was almost shocked when she said yes. They made plans for going out for coffee the next night.

“Flowers,” he thought as his body sped to the ground and his nose caught the smell of a nearby garden.

They had met at a local bistro downtown. They spent most of the night filling the awkwardness with the fear inspired chat that so often accompanies first dates. However, they seemed to have hit it off quite well as the next thing he knew, he was being invited back to her place for drinks.

“Laughter,” he thought as he heard the sounds of a nearby outdoor bar.

They sat and talked for a while. He told her about the last break up that he had with his psychotic ex-girlfriend. She told him of the last time she broke up with her boyfriend and how it was horrible. He had left her with a five month old child that she eventually had to give up for adoption. He thought about his own mother that he never knew. Didn’t she have raven hair like hers? Didn’t her laugh sound exactly like hers? He knew this was his chance. He was her son. She was his mother.

She excused herself as she went to slip into something ‘more comfortable’.

“Steel,” he thought as his head connected with the trunk of a passing car.

He decided that this was his chance. Fate had brought him to his mother’s waiting arms. She lay in bed dressed in a negligee. She called him close to him. Like a dutiful son, he crawled into bed next to her. She undid the straps on her clothes as he undid the safety on the gun he carried with him.

BANG.

Unfortunately, he was not her son as that would have been a coincidence and the universe abhors such a thing. However, her son was in the trunk of the car his head had connected with at impact. The police report later would report that the son was killed due to a drug deal gone wrong.

Somewhere in the world a panda bear laughed.

Comment Log in or Join Tablo to comment on this chapter...

Nailing a Fairy

    “Where are you, you little fuckers,” Dave muttered to himself. He sat in his folding lawn chair in his garage staring at the wall. Along the wall were several rat traps. These little beasts had been torturing him for about a week now and he had finally decided that enough was enough. He was going to show them who was king of this castle and put an end to it. He looked at his watch and saw that it was slowly approaching eight o’clock. It should be dinner time for them soon.
“Hey Dave,” Kevin Parker shouted from the end of the driveway, looking at his neighbor sitting and staring at nothingness. “What’re ya doing tonight?” He had been worried about his neighbor since Dave’s wife had let him about two months ago. They had seemed to be such the perfect storybook couple but somehow that storybook couple had a horror movie ending to their relationship. Dave seemed like he was doing fine, but having spent the last hour watching his neighbor sit in his garage staring at nothing, Kevin decided that he had to check on him. He wanted to make sure that Dave wasn’t going to do anything crazy.
Dave took a drink from his beer and looked down at his neighbor. “Just doing a little rat cleansing, Kev,” he shouted back. “These little fuckers have been dropping turds all around my house and chewing on my clothing for a week now, so I figured it’s time to exact a little vengeance.” Dave smiled a grim smile that conveyed how much he would enjoy being the Rat Destroyer. 
Kevin gave a short friendly smile. “Umm, well then,” he shouted back in return, not really sure what to say,”you have fun with your . . . ethnic cleansing.” He gave a polite chuckle and waved his hand to signal he was leaving. As he walked away, Kevin thought how he should try to spend more time with Dave and get him out of the house more. Sure, killing household pests were the job for any home owner, but Kevin had never seen such a desire for blood in a man’s eyes before like Dave had. As he walked back to his house, Kevin intended to ask Dave tomorrow after work if he’d like to go out to eat.
Dave watched his neighbor head back to his house. Kevin was a good friend and neighbor, but he surely didn’t understand all the issues that Dave was going through. After all, these rats were terrorizing him, leaving small squishy rat turds everywhere from the garage to his bedroom every night. He also had to go out and buy a whole new set of clothes for work as they had chewed and sliced through several of his shirts. Dave already lost his wife which was fine, but by God these rats were attacking his piece of mind and his livelihood by attacking him at home. He sighed and slid back in his chair, finishing off his second beer of the evening.
After all, Dave continued to himself, a man’s home was his castle and he should have a certain level of security allowed to him when he was there. Not like that cheating ex-wife of his, Rebecca, who left him one day out of the blue, saying that she felt she couldn’t connect with men and wanted to leave to pursue a childhood belief that she preferred the company of women in her life instead. Dave was heart-broken but felt he couldn’t deny the woman of his dreams to chance to be what she felt she was and let her go to live her life as a lesbian.
Two weeks later, he got a call from her asking if she could borrow three hundred dollars. Rebecca was a waitress and her income was supplemental money in their relationship anyway. Dave was used to this fact of life. He drove over to her friend Jenn’s apartment, where Rebecca was staying, with the money in his wallet. As he was ready to hand it over to her, Rebecca began carrying on about the reason why she needed that much money. Apparently she had met some guy named Eli who was one of those door to door magazine salesmen. They had spent the day together and apparently had sex in the car that Dave had bought Rebecca for their anniversary. Dave still could not clearly remember what happened next, but according to Jenn, he threw the money at Rebecca, yelling something about that being her payment for being the high-class whore that she was and then he stormed out of the apartment. All he could remember was seeing red and feeling all the remaining ties he had to her snap like a overtuned guitar.
He muttered several things to himself about how stupid he was to have fallen in love with her in the first place and looked at his watch. It was apparently ten o’clock. Funny how time flies when you’re busy thinking about a whore, he muttered to himself. He stood up from his chair to get another beer and felt the power of gravity begin to kick in. Dave was confused. He had only had two beers, so why was he drunk? He glanced down at the spot by his lawn chair just to make sure, but for some reason instead of two there were seven now.
His mind tried to comprehend how he had drunk so many, but after a few moments of failed calculations and remembrances, he shrugged his shoulders and just laughed it off. He had bigger fish . . . No, bigger RATS to fry. “Frying rats,” he chuckled to himself. He should write that down and remember it. He stumbled over to the refrigerator to get himself another beer. When he turned back around, his drunk mind tried to take in what he saw next. After all, half-naked fairies weren’t something that you saw every day.

*******************************

Wednesday was like any other normal day at the office. Board room meetings were held, phones were answered, deals were made and money changed hands. Kevin Parker had something more important on his mind then the day to day operations of modern capitalism. He wanted to check on his neighbor to make sure Dave was doing okay.
The two of them had worked in the same office building since Dave and Rebecca had moved in to town. Dave’s desk was on his way to the elevator, so this gave Kevin a perfect excuse to check on his neighbor without being overtly concerned. However, Kevin felt that showing concern was now called for. Dave hadn’t been to work in the last two days since Kevin talked to him in his garage. Kevin had knocked on his door a couple of times and even looked outside while he was watching television to see if he had opened his garage door. He had not.
However, Dave was at work today. Kevin saw him amble in this morning, but he looked . . . different. He looked like he was only partially in this world while whispering to some unknown entity in another world. Dave had a couple of days scruff growing and looked like he had not slept in a couple of days. Kevin knew crack addicts on the side of the road that looked better than Dave did. Those morning images were playing through his head when he walked by Dave’s desk.
“Hey Dave,” Kevin beamed, trying to act as if nothing was wrong. “Where’ve you been, you slacker? I haven’t seen you in a couple of days.”
Dave blankly stared off into space and it took him a minute or so before he even noticed that Kevin was there talking to him. “Wha . . . Oh . . . Ummm . . . Hey . . . Kevin,” Dave mumbled, snapping out of the thoughts that had entrapped him. “Sorry, I’ve been . . . busy.” Dave turned around in his desk and found some papers to begin shuffling as if to drive home the last word.
“Oh,” Kevin said, not sure where to go next. “So . . . ummm . . . hey, you want to catch a bite to eat after work?”
“No,” Dave said with more force than he had delivered in any of his other words. “Like I said, I’m busy.” He turned his eyes up from the papers he was shuffling. His once clear ocean blue eyes seemed to burn red with some sort of inner rage. “I need to go buy some nails on the way home so I can make sure . . . ” His voice trailed off. There was that far away look again.
“Well,” Kevin interjected, trying to stand his ground as a concerned friend,”I have a whole box of nails at home. I can swing by after dinner and I can help you with what ever project you’re . . . ”
“NO!” Dave growled this time. He stood up from his chair and Kevin drew back a little bit as he saw that look of blood lust in his neighbor’s eyes that he had seen when they talked in the garage. “Look, I don’t need you. I don’t need your help, I don’t need your pity, I don’t need your words. I just need NAILS.” As he yelled the last word, Dave stormed away from his desk, pushing Kevin into the wall as he headed to the elevator. Kevin regained his footing and tried to race after his neighbor, but it was too late. The elevator was already on its way to the first floor.
**********************************************************************************
“Dance for me,” Dave mumured, letting out a low sexual growl. He looked at the fairy who was standing provocatively against his wall. She was the fourth one in the last three nights to make a visit. Her long flowing dirty blonde hair seemed to him to almost shimmer in the flourescent lighting of the garage.
The fairy began the dance like the other ones had done the previous nights. As she started, Dave took another pull off of his beer bottle and decided to let his hands make himself happy. As he began his own little ritual of enjoyment, the memory of what happened the previous nights remained in the back of his head. He was ready this time however.
As he reached his climax, the fairy’s gyrations seemed to reach their own high point. And then, almost like a tiger stalking its prey, Dave grabbed a hammer and nail he had sitting near by, lept to the wall and drove a nail through one of the fairy’s wings. The look on her face was one of shock, and yet Dave thought he saw a bit of . . . pleasure in her eyes. He quickly grabbed another nail and drove it into her other wing. Dave looked at her and this time saw a sadistic crooked smile come over her face.
“You like that, don’t you,” Dave whispered lustily.
But then, she was gone.
Dave let out a primal yell. “You goddamned bitch,” he screamed, his voice reverberating through the garage. “Where the hell did you go?”
He heard a playful giggle, from another corner of the garage and saw another fairy, this one with bright red hair. She looked at him with a playful come hither look and began her own little dance. Dave’s anger disapated, and he sat back, drinking another beer and enjoyed the dance that this one offered. He began his own personal ritual again, and felt his worries escape his body as he finished. But now, he had to make sure that this one didn’t escape.
He grabbed three nails this time, and hammered them in to different parts of the fairy. Again, she gave a sadistic smile and let out a low growl, raising a tribal passion that Dave had not felt since before Rebecca left him. As he stood back, however, the passion turned to rage as this fairy disappeared as well.
He walked back to his chair and kicked the six empty beer bottles that had been stacked up and started swearing at everything and nothing. Just like a woman, he thought. They come and trap you and get their own little kicks and once their happy, they leave you on the side of the road like a piece of garbage. He went to the refrigerator and grabbed another beer. As he came back however, there was another fairy, a lanky brunette waiting for him.
A mischievous grin crossed his face. “Why hello there beautiful,” he whispered. “Why don’t you show me your dance.”

**********************************************************************************
Kevin walked by Dave’s desk for the third time today. No one had seen him, or had even heard from him. He knew he had to do something. He thought he had heard some sort of screaming last night coming from his neighbor’s garage, but it sounded like a wounded animal. “He must’ve finally caught one of those rats,” he remembered thinking when he heard the noise. Kevin went to bed, thinking that he’d see Dave at work tomorrow and that he would tell him of his kill.
As Kevin stood at Dave’s desk though, he suddenly remember the last conversation that they had. “Nails,” Kevin whispered to himself. Holy shit, was his neighbor driving nails into the rats? Had Dave finally lost it? The thought of his friend that he had known for so long turning into some sort of homicidal rat killer was too much to comprehend. He decided he’d stop by when he got home and break the door down if need be to find out what was going on.
**********************************************************************************
Dave blearily opened his eyes. He slowly sat up, his head pounding with the worst headache he had ever had. What day was it, he wondered. Thursday? Friday? He had no idea. The only thing he knew was that he had passed out on the floor of the garage. He slowly pushed himself up, knocking over a set of empty beer bottles as he did so.
He looked over at the wall in front of him. Thirty-five randomly hammered in nails studded the wall as if someone was preparing to hang up a gallery of pictures, but at several different levels of height. Dave felt tears of frustration begin to well up as he remembered how each one of those nails were representations of his failure last night. He sighed and went to the refrigerator to get himself another drink.
He grabbed another beer and thought about Rebecca. Even though she had torn out his heart and left him feeling hollow and dead, Dave knew that he still loved her. He took a pull off of a beer as he remembered her toothy smile and how her green eyes would sparkle when sunlight had hit them just right. He remembered how soft her dirty blonde hair felt as he ran his fingers through them when he kissed her. He remembered how madly in love they were once and began to think about how he should call her. He could apologize for what he did and maybe they could try again. He constructed a fool proof plan, finished off his beer and grabbed one more before he would get dressed.
As Dave began to drink from the next bottle, he heard a voice that sounded similar to the beauty of a nightingale’s song. “Human,” the voice said,”why do you try to capture my people?”
Dave spun around to see who had spoke. As his hungover brain compensated for the quick spin, Dave saw another fairy. But he knew who this one was. He knew the dirty blonde hair and the green eyes that sparkled in the lighting in the garage. She had a long, flowing purple robe and a sparkling crown on her head.
“Rebecca?” Dave whispered in confused awe.

 

**************************************************************************************

 

Comment Log in or Join Tablo to comment on this chapter...

The Hunt Ship

Comment Log in or Join Tablo to comment on this chapter...
~

You might like Robert Parker's other books...