I grabbed one of my more recent journals, not from the Manda pile (unfortunately for Ripley, but she's heard almost all of them anyway), and opened it up to a page that had a horrible scribble of a fat guy with balloons and the name "Shannon Bennet" inside a heart-shaped scrawl. The word "FALL" was scratched over the whole page in black sharpie.
"This one's a REVENGE tale. You know what revenge is?" I asked.
"Nah uh."
I know that most of the stories I tell Ripley should not be told to anyone under the age of 15, let alone 6, but the simple ACT of reciting tales, regardless of what they are, makes us both occupied and happy. And Ripley, despite being unable to understand the harshness of a lot of my writings, is super attentive and loves to learn new words to use in front of her mother to sound smart. And I adore getting a child's innocent perspective on things that she won't encounter for years to come, if ever at all. Plus, Ripley has seen things that I could never imagine when I was 6, living in this shithole. I doubt a few words told by an open oven door would harm her in the long run. She's got a good head on her shoulders.
"Revenge is when…umm…when someone does something really bad to you or to someone you love, for no reason at all, and your brain starts making you think you have the capabilities and the rights to go and do something bad back to that person. Doing these bad things BACK to the bad person is called REVENGE."
"Cooool. Like if Mr. Halford hits mom again, and then I don't like that so I put worms in his coffee?!"
"Yah, kinda like that." Then, under my breath I muttered "But you should do more than worms."
"Yeay, REVENGE!"

So I gave Ripley a cup of milk in my old favorite cup, a Garfield mug I got from Burger King when I was a kid that says "I hate Mondays." I never knew why I liked that cup, I fucking hate Garfield. She took a sip, holding the mug with both hands, and sat back to listen…


"FALL"
By Chadam


I fell for it.
I fucking FELL for it.
Maybe it's because I was raised not to waste anything. No, that can't be it. I toss at least a quarter of every #2 with curly fries into the garbage like an unwanted newborn. And my shoes. Jesus, I've only worn those Bacco Bucci lizard-skins ONCE, to a fucking Christmas party no less, where the only person that was gonna notice em was a balding hairstylist who's name was probably Jonas or…Jerrod or some other repulsive J-word. It can't be that. I mean, it,s not like I NEEDED it, either. But it was a 20 dollar bill! If there's anything I like looking up from the ground at me more than my housekeeper's huge chipped-tooth smile with cum on her gums, its Andrew Jackson's fucking face on the sidewalk. I mean, really, how long can an orphaned twenty last before someone adopts it and just…blows it? Was I honestly the only jackass who mistook a sawbuck for a beartrap? Or was it meant for me? The instant I bent down to reach for it, I remember the only thought that ran through my mind was "I'm gonna be pissed if there's shit on the back of this". Not that the shit thing has happened to me before. I just saw it on TV, and thought it was hilarious. Either way, if a feces covered hand was the worst thing to come out of that Jackson, I wouldn't be so fucking scared right now. But there was no shit. There was nothing. The bill almost levitated into my right hand as I kneeled down. I'm pretty sure even the breakdown of how I was going to spend it cycled through my frontal lobe before I blacked out. Lemme see…yah, I finally had an excuse to buy that Daniel Powter shit on Itunes. I mean, hell, theres no way I was gonna spend my own goddamn money on that asshole. But I LOVE that "Bad Day" song. Heh, that's actually almost ironic, considering my situation. I guess everything has its place in the world…including me. Except I have no clue where my place is. I have no clue how long I have been here. If we are measuring in nightmares, I've been here for about 6 years. Though, realistically, it may only be a few days, maybe a week or 2. Time disappears altogether when you can't see or hear. Time disappears altogether when an IV is shooting its sperm into your arm and what started as a steady, flowing sensation morphs into an LA traffic jam inside your veins, overstuffed with flaming cars and pissed off commuters and doesn't stop. Time disappears altogether when you aren't allowed to sleep. And time disappears altogether when every 42 minutes (after about the 78th time, I started timing it) something hard and cold is pressed against the only part of your head that's exposed to the elements. And it's fucking here again. And I think it's being pushed harder this time.
It was the same exact thing for a while: a door would open, there was the sound of 3 steps, the door would close, what I think was a chair sliding over, and someone would sit down. I can't be positive that it was a chair, or that someone actually sat down. It sure felt like a chair. Because with every slide, the "chair" would bang me unapologetically in the ball of my knee, so much as though I could feel the water in my kneecap start to part, like a tiny Moses was trekking across the vastness of my knee's interiors. Yah, it was probably a chair. Then the hard cold metal was pressed against my temple. It was held there for 17 minutes. Then it was gone. No sounds except the dueling breaths of myself and the metal-man. If this were some sort of bizarre breath-race, I would have beat that fucker every time. And no smells, except for the scent of the rotten urine that was seeping though my pants and probably causing some infections on my skin by now. But I was more than used to that. Nothing. Just a chair sliding, a metal rod at my head, heavy breathing on my part, and then…gone.
Until 42 minutes later.
The routine lasted a while. It was a dizzying repetition. Not because it was strenuous or anything, but repetition is dizzying in itself. If you force anyone to do the same thing over and over they will lose touch with reality. In my case, I was forced to FEAR. I was just as scared every single time.
But even though I was scared, I tried to make the best of it. In the back of my mind I knew it was a gun. Most likely a .357 magnum, not that I know anything about guns, but I've seen my share of Eastwood flicks and I've always imagined what it felt like when Dirty Harry bruised the side of some rat's head before he fired. And I guarantee this is what it felt like. But sometimes I would try to lighten the mood. Not that it would stop myself from pissing or panting or crying, but I've always been a half-full kinda guy.
I imagined it as a robotic hot dog.
I imagined it as a tiny, frozen tree.
I imagined it as Steve Martins nose from ROXANNE.
I imagined it as a thick metal straw, and maybe memories were getting sucked out into a vat, only to be examined by a group of scientists from the future.
I imagined it as a prosthetic arm.
I imagined it as electrical cord that couldn't quite fit in the outlet on my head.
But mostly, I imagined it as what I knew it was.

I continued to be scared.
Then, about the 7 or 8 hundredth time, I was suddenly INTRIGUED.
The silence was broken. After 16 minutes of imagining the gun as a futuristic dildo getting ready to machine-fuck my brain, he spoke:
"Remember."
Then he was gone.
42 minutes later, repeat, now with the added vocabulary again.
"Remember."

"Remember what?", I thought? Who the fuck did I piss off enough to kidnap me and bathe me in my own piss and fuck me with a glucose solution until I cry like fat girl when she runs out of Chunky Monkey?! I mean, yah, I don't stop for people in crosswalks, but fuck them, they should drive. The environments not gonna disappear in our lifetime. Could it be Trevor Billson from accounting? He fucking deserved to be fired, he was swiping office supplies and selling em on ebay. Shit's a lot more expensive than trapper keepers nowadays. No, that greasy fuck is way too dumb to plan a kidnapping. And if Paul is pissed off enough at me to hold me hostage for not giving him back his Criterion Collection Robocop, then fuck it man, I'll buy you 30 of em! LET ME GO! Maybe it's just bad luck. Maybe Daniel Powter is punishing me for liking his shitty song. I doubt he wants a fan like me anyway. The amount of random acts of violence is incredible these days. Maybe he thinks i'm someone else. Should I be remembering the ALAMO? And how it doesn't have a basement? Fuck man, I don't know.

"Remember."
Again.
"Remember."
Again.
Remember.
Remember
Remember
Remember
Remember
Remember

"FUCK, MAN WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT ME TO FUCKING REMEMBER?!!!" as I uncontrollably screamed this, it kinda came out like "FJKSHJ MAHJHD WHA DKD FUCK OOO WAN ME TO FUCKING REMEMBER!?" because the farther I opened my mouth, the more the sutures holding my mouth closed ripped apart. Blood was the first thing I had tasted in ages.

The man's voice spoke softly and calmly, "Shannon Bennet."

Shannon Bennet?
Shannon Bennet?
Then my voice, uncontrollably, but the least bit remorsefully, muttered…
"Fuck."

That was one of the girls I raped and ki…

(Before he could finish his thought, the gun fired, and the captive's head exploded. Blood immediately cakes the wall and, almost as if Shannon had been watching the entire thing from beyond the grave, spells out "Thank You Daddy" as it drips down toward the ground.
The story ends with the captor walking out of the door, kissing a photo of his dead daughter.)

The end.


Ripley almost made it through the whole thing, but I could see I was losing her about the time I referenced her favorite ice cream, Chunky Monkey. I saw her smile with her eyes half closed and then fade off as I read the rest of my story to her. Oh well, you can't please everyone. Maybe it still needs work.
I use an old throw to sleep in. It's too small for my lanky body, but it works. I tossed it loosely around Ripley and decided that this is a good opportunity to finish getting ready for work while I wait for Sandy to return…