START
Jack had been working in that flap factory for close to ten years when she was hired on and stationed right next to him on conveyor belt 43C-1A.
She walked down the stairs from the manager's office, a simple, round,squat sort of girl with thick glasses and pony-tailed hair, clad in the same unflattering standard FlapperCo apron that Jack himself wore. To the untrained eye, there was nothing at all noteworthy about her, except perhaps her unnoteworthiness itself. But to Jack it was as if a great flap on the ceiling had been raised and he was seeing the sun shine down on him for the first time. Her name was Jill.
The manager followed her down the stairs, and guided her over to where fat Jack sat flipping flaps. A slap on the back, just a friendly pat, and that was that. Jill was new, without a clue, but Jack knew flaps, and that's a fact. So Mr. Bill sat Jill with Jack, filled his sack with flaps, and cracked a joke about a pack of smokes going flat broke and then he just walked back.
"Hi Jack. I'm Jill," she cracked in a shrill tone that made Jack's bones go chill.
"Hi Jill. I'm Jack," he answered back, and spilled his milk on a sack of flaps. A panic attack! And so it began...
=====================================================================
But never expect much when the story starts.
No, rather a reader must first hold him/herself and quietly watch what is to come about.
One must have the calm and quiet of an aged observer, knowing all but allowing himself the surprise.
"Well, yes, I did mention that she was a magnificent creature, if you could ignore the voice."
He said to me after he finished the last of his pint.
It's a usual night again at the tavern, people drinking and talking about how much their backs aren't what they used to be, how their legs are going to break down, and how they are going to snap if their wives prepare meatloaf for dinner again.
"I mean she is a nice girl. Nice smile, she's got a nice to look at face, and she tries to be cheerful. She actually tried to strike up a conversation for Christ's sake."
I can't tell exactly what he wanted to say, but it was obvious that something inside of him was going through a shock.
He didn't look at all like he was enjoying the pint, looked more like he was trying out some liquid courage. Never seen him like this before.
"But she is a nice girl, right?"
“What? Yeah, she is nice, it's just that, that voice. It's that voice that's really just putting the mess into the picture."
Another thing, he wasn't talking to make sense. I think he was trying to make heads or tails of what he has seen.
I tried to picture her from what he told me i.e. plain girl with thick glasses and horrible shrill voice.
What came to mind was this small thing with this toad like face making this shrill screams.
Hard to imagine how something like that could attract anything, let alone get a job.
But whatever.
Now, you can't ask too much out of a tavern on a weeknight,especially on a Monday. Everyone is just winding down and try to be ready for tomorrow. Not much talking was going around, not even the juke box was singing.
Bar was in that tired comfortable state where you just want to lay your drink down and watch the tube.
"So, what are you driving at? You like her or not."
I said and picked up a peanut, and popped it in my mouth.
"I seriously don't know. It was our first day together, you know, it could turn out any old ways. She might be something, or she might just be a total disaster. I just don't know."
"Guess that means this talk was for nothing."
I said and popped another peanut.
"Sorry if I wasted your time."
He shrugged uncomfortably and continued
"You know, for someone who obviously is not comfortable with anything, you don't mind me talking to you, you know that?"
"That's because you are my friend."
After that, we talked some more about how cigarette price hike was
starting to be a bitch, how decent hamburger was becoming a rare commodity, and bitched about work.
=====================================================================
Fat Jack sat there and downed pint after pint, shot after shot, as a fellow with something to forget will, until his words floated around
together in that warm piss drunk soup of the mind that we crave after a long day at the factory. And it must have been about 2 or 3 in the
morning when he decided that he'd had enough of my shit ("You know,
Benny, what ya problem izzs? Yer sooo damned smug, ya bastard!"),
and picked up his mug like he meant to chuck it at me.
Well, lucky for him and me both, the bartender saw it coming from a mile away, and gave him a grand-slam whack on the back of the head with his broomstick before the pitch could be delivered, and ole Jack was out for the night. His head slumped down onto the bar, I finished his whiskey, and all was well in the land of the lounge lizards.
Things got quiet after that. I mean, it was a quiet night to begin with, by any man's standards, but after that, the silence was almost deafening.
The kind of silence that grows over the centuries in a sealed crypt. The kind of quiet that beckons from the far side of a black hole.
juke box to save the lingering shreds of my sanity. One quarter and three pushes of a button later, and the spell was broken by Marvin Gaye, crooning out some Sexual Healing. I can't get enough of that groove.
A sigh of relief found me back at the bar, ordering up another round,
when the door opened and in she strolled.
Short, squat, thick glasses...if this wasn't Jack's Jill, then I wasn't the son of a damned vacuum salesman turned junky in the depths of the bible belt.
She took one look around before her eyes settled on the prone form of
Jack, and then she opened her mouth.
Out it came, like a vicious hyena through a megaphone, echoing through the forgotten caverns leading to the very gates of hell. It rattled the windows, it stopped the juke box, and it knocked fat Jack right out of his stool and on to the floor. It was beautiful.
------------------------------------------------------------
After something like that, everything was under her control.
If she was to say that she wants so and so's head on a platter, it was your duty to sharpen the knife and clean out the platter, cleave that poor guy's head and make damn sure you don't
tremble when you face her.
I tried to maintain as much cool as I could manage with the aid of all the whiskey in me, and I hope I sounded as much human as a palsy victim, but I probably sounded like a monkey with a stick up its ass
giving out his dying twitch.
"You, uh, came for him?"
"Yes, so if you could hand him over I won't put up any trouble."
"He's out cold to begin with, there's no way any trouble can start."
"You probably think that you are a smart man. And maybe on the outside you are but deep down you are just a shallow prick
who needs to laugh at everything around you so you can feel some superiority. Now before anymore trouble starts, can
you be so kind as to prop him up and hand him over to me?"
Now, talk about some sucker punch from where you least expected it.
I looked into her face to see what was the matter with this little thing, and I found that when you get past the short squat thing, she got some, and I can't believe I am admitting to it, she got nice features.
Her lips were drawn in a straight line that showed strong will, her eyes burnt brightly and said "I maybe little, and you can take punches at me, but don't think that I'll go down without a fight."
And all around her she exhumed this, this aura that made her look more like a 6ft muscle bound monster that will rip your head off just with the twist of her wrist.
After that, I was all hers.
And with that notion, the whole world became just me and her.
Everything went away, the juke box, the people, bartender, the smell of piss and beer in the air,that antique plastic singing bass shit, everything.
I didn't feel fat Jack's weight as I straightened him out, or when I had him slump his arm over my shoulders so I could
bring him to her.
All there was, was just me and her.
I didn't say a word to her as I handed him over, and she obviously noticed something because she took one quick look to me
and didn't try to make any contact after that.
She walked out the bar with him over her like the proverbial sack of potato and she walked as if she is carrying a little bag of flour.
Christ, what a gal.
=====================================================================
Out of the bar and into the night, Jill carried sleeping fat Jack on her back like a veteran fireman out of a burning building. She stepped out of the light of the parking lot into the woods bordering it, and that was the last anyone saw of them.
What happened after that is any man's guess, but its definitely worth
considering for a moment. So at this point, dear reader, rather than
think about this logically, which has been done a thousand times by
various arm-chair detectives and loud-mouthed beer-guzzlers, I would
like to ask you to join me in stepping back from the current story, with its rules and reality-binding patterns, for just a moment, and fly with me through the golden skies of fancy. Here we go.
Jill carried Jack deep into the forest, through the thick underbrush
past where anyone had ventured in centuries. She walked for days
beneath the ancient canopy, past the land of solid shadows, until at
last she arrived at the realm of Negative Space.
Jill put Jack down at the base of the last great tree of the great
forest, and stood for a moment facing the electric mist that marked the boundaries of the known world. She lit a cigarette, and as she exhaled a cloud of smoke the mist lifted for a moment, revealing a vast field of silver eggs, and a glowing orange circus tent atop a hill on its far side.
She turned back to sleeping Jack, and with one swift motion tore his
beating heart out of his chest. Turning back to the impenetrable
electric mist, deadly to any human foolish enough to step into it, she took a deep draw of her cigarette and began to squeeze Jack's heart with all the force she could draw from the black depths of her rotten core, until it burst like a coffee-filled water balloon.
The sky was filled with blood spray, which began to settle on the
electric mist and cause a strange reaction. Static discharged across the field of silver eggs, crackling and popping, lighting up the land with a firestorm of sparks.
The show of chaos and light continued for several minutes, as Jill stood smoking patiently. When the last spark had popped, the electric mist was no more, and her way was open. She put her cigarette out in Jack's glassy eye, gave his dead balls a little kick just for fun, and continued on her way.
Jack had been working in that flap factory for close to ten years when she was hired on and stationed right next to him on conveyor belt 43C-1A.
She walked down the stairs from the manager's office, a simple, round,squat sort of girl with thick glasses and pony-tailed hair, clad in the same unflattering standard FlapperCo apron that Jack himself wore. To the untrained eye, there was nothing at all noteworthy about her, except perhaps her unnoteworthiness itself. But to Jack it was as if a great flap on the ceiling had been raised and he was seeing the sun shine down on him for the first time. Her name was Jill.
The manager followed her down the stairs, and guided her over to where fat Jack sat flipping flaps. A slap on the back, just a friendly pat, and that was that. Jill was new, without a clue, but Jack knew flaps, and that's a fact. So Mr. Bill sat Jill with Jack, filled his sack with flaps, and cracked a joke about a pack of smokes going flat broke and then he just walked back.
"Hi Jack. I'm Jill," she cracked in a shrill tone that made Jack's bones go chill.
"Hi Jill. I'm Jack," he answered back, and spilled his milk on a sack of flaps. A panic attack! And so it began...
=====================================================================
But never expect much when the story starts.
No, rather a reader must first hold him/herself and quietly watch what is to come about.
One must have the calm and quiet of an aged observer, knowing all but allowing himself the surprise.
"Well, yes, I did mention that she was a magnificent creature, if you could ignore the voice."
He said to me after he finished the last of his pint.
It's a usual night again at the tavern, people drinking and talking about how much their backs aren't what they used to be, how their legs are going to break down, and how they are going to snap if their wives prepare meatloaf for dinner again.
"I mean she is a nice girl. Nice smile, she's got a nice to look at face, and she tries to be cheerful. She actually tried to strike up a conversation for Christ's sake."
I can't tell exactly what he wanted to say, but it was obvious that something inside of him was going through a shock.
He didn't look at all like he was enjoying the pint, looked more like he was trying out some liquid courage. Never seen him like this before.
"But she is a nice girl, right?"
“What? Yeah, she is nice, it's just that, that voice. It's that voice that's really just putting the mess into the picture."
Another thing, he wasn't talking to make sense. I think he was trying to make heads or tails of what he has seen.
I tried to picture her from what he told me i.e. plain girl with thick glasses and horrible shrill voice.
What came to mind was this small thing with this toad like face making this shrill screams.
Hard to imagine how something like that could attract anything, let alone get a job.
But whatever.
Now, you can't ask too much out of a tavern on a weeknight,especially on a Monday. Everyone is just winding down and try to be ready for tomorrow. Not much talking was going around, not even the juke box was singing.
Bar was in that tired comfortable state where you just want to lay your drink down and watch the tube.
"So, what are you driving at? You like her or not."
I said and picked up a peanut, and popped it in my mouth.
"I seriously don't know. It was our first day together, you know, it could turn out any old ways. She might be something, or she might just be a total disaster. I just don't know."
"Guess that means this talk was for nothing."
I said and popped another peanut.
"Sorry if I wasted your time."
He shrugged uncomfortably and continued
"You know, for someone who obviously is not comfortable with anything, you don't mind me talking to you, you know that?"
"That's because you are my friend."
After that, we talked some more about how cigarette price hike was
starting to be a bitch, how decent hamburger was becoming a rare commodity, and bitched about work.
=====================================================================
Fat Jack sat there and downed pint after pint, shot after shot, as a fellow with something to forget will, until his words floated around
together in that warm piss drunk soup of the mind that we crave after a long day at the factory. And it must have been about 2 or 3 in the
morning when he decided that he'd had enough of my shit ("You know,
Benny, what ya problem izzs? Yer sooo damned smug, ya bastard!"),
and picked up his mug like he meant to chuck it at me.
Well, lucky for him and me both, the bartender saw it coming from a mile away, and gave him a grand-slam whack on the back of the head with his broomstick before the pitch could be delivered, and ole Jack was out for the night. His head slumped down onto the bar, I finished his whiskey, and all was well in the land of the lounge lizards.
Things got quiet after that. I mean, it was a quiet night to begin with, by any man's standards, but after that, the silence was almost deafening.
The kind of silence that grows over the centuries in a sealed crypt. The kind of quiet that beckons from the far side of a black hole.
juke box to save the lingering shreds of my sanity. One quarter and three pushes of a button later, and the spell was broken by Marvin Gaye, crooning out some Sexual Healing. I can't get enough of that groove.
A sigh of relief found me back at the bar, ordering up another round,
when the door opened and in she strolled.
Short, squat, thick glasses...if this wasn't Jack's Jill, then I wasn't the son of a damned vacuum salesman turned junky in the depths of the bible belt.
She took one look around before her eyes settled on the prone form of
Jack, and then she opened her mouth.
Out it came, like a vicious hyena through a megaphone, echoing through the forgotten caverns leading to the very gates of hell. It rattled the windows, it stopped the juke box, and it knocked fat Jack right out of his stool and on to the floor. It was beautiful.
------------------------------------------------------------
After something like that, everything was under her control.
If she was to say that she wants so and so's head on a platter, it was your duty to sharpen the knife and clean out the platter, cleave that poor guy's head and make damn sure you don't
tremble when you face her.
I tried to maintain as much cool as I could manage with the aid of all the whiskey in me, and I hope I sounded as much human as a palsy victim, but I probably sounded like a monkey with a stick up its ass
giving out his dying twitch.
"You, uh, came for him?"
"Yes, so if you could hand him over I won't put up any trouble."
"He's out cold to begin with, there's no way any trouble can start."
"You probably think that you are a smart man. And maybe on the outside you are but deep down you are just a shallow prick
who needs to laugh at everything around you so you can feel some superiority. Now before anymore trouble starts, can
you be so kind as to prop him up and hand him over to me?"
Now, talk about some sucker punch from where you least expected it.
I looked into her face to see what was the matter with this little thing, and I found that when you get past the short squat thing, she got some, and I can't believe I am admitting to it, she got nice features.
Her lips were drawn in a straight line that showed strong will, her eyes burnt brightly and said "I maybe little, and you can take punches at me, but don't think that I'll go down without a fight."
And all around her she exhumed this, this aura that made her look more like a 6ft muscle bound monster that will rip your head off just with the twist of her wrist.
After that, I was all hers.
And with that notion, the whole world became just me and her.
Everything went away, the juke box, the people, bartender, the smell of piss and beer in the air,that antique plastic singing bass shit, everything.
I didn't feel fat Jack's weight as I straightened him out, or when I had him slump his arm over my shoulders so I could
bring him to her.
All there was, was just me and her.
I didn't say a word to her as I handed him over, and she obviously noticed something because she took one quick look to me
and didn't try to make any contact after that.
She walked out the bar with him over her like the proverbial sack of potato and she walked as if she is carrying a little bag of flour.
Christ, what a gal.
=====================================================================
Out of the bar and into the night, Jill carried sleeping fat Jack on her back like a veteran fireman out of a burning building. She stepped out of the light of the parking lot into the woods bordering it, and that was the last anyone saw of them.
What happened after that is any man's guess, but its definitely worth
considering for a moment. So at this point, dear reader, rather than
think about this logically, which has been done a thousand times by
various arm-chair detectives and loud-mouthed beer-guzzlers, I would
like to ask you to join me in stepping back from the current story, with its rules and reality-binding patterns, for just a moment, and fly with me through the golden skies of fancy. Here we go.
Jill carried Jack deep into the forest, through the thick underbrush
past where anyone had ventured in centuries. She walked for days
beneath the ancient canopy, past the land of solid shadows, until at
last she arrived at the realm of Negative Space.
Jill put Jack down at the base of the last great tree of the great
forest, and stood for a moment facing the electric mist that marked the boundaries of the known world. She lit a cigarette, and as she exhaled a cloud of smoke the mist lifted for a moment, revealing a vast field of silver eggs, and a glowing orange circus tent atop a hill on its far side.
She turned back to sleeping Jack, and with one swift motion tore his
beating heart out of his chest. Turning back to the impenetrable
electric mist, deadly to any human foolish enough to step into it, she took a deep draw of her cigarette and began to squeeze Jack's heart with all the force she could draw from the black depths of her rotten core, until it burst like a coffee-filled water balloon.
The sky was filled with blood spray, which began to settle on the
electric mist and cause a strange reaction. Static discharged across the field of silver eggs, crackling and popping, lighting up the land with a firestorm of sparks.
The show of chaos and light continued for several minutes, as Jill stood smoking patiently. When the last spark had popped, the electric mist was no more, and her way was open. She put her cigarette out in Jack's glassy eye, gave his dead balls a little kick just for fun, and continued on her way.
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