groceries bulging out of the biggest bag he could find, the boys were standing well away from the door, on the corner. Jacob nodded to them. He scanned the streets. All Dead.
“Hey,” one of the boys called. Jacob looked over. The athlete hustled over to him. He scanned the streets as well.
“We haven't seen anyone around here in a while, but there's been smoke that way.” The boy pointed to the east. “I think it's been moving this way. It's a lot of smoke. I think something's coming.”
“Thanks,” Jacob said.
The boy nodded then ran back to his buddies.
Jacob ran across the street and ducked back behind the Subaru. He looked towards the east, no smoke right now. But he could feel it, something was coming. Something was always coming at you now.
Me and Jo-Jo and the Deep Blue Sea
Deh-deh. Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
“You hear anything?” I asked Jo-Jo.
“No.”
“Okay.”
We kept swimming.
Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
“Really? You don't hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“The sound of impending doom.”
“You've been down in the deep water too long.”
I tried to shrug off the comment. He was right, of course. I'd been doing deeper and deeper dives. I've been down below the Great Blue Line, as we call it. I didn't want to admit it, but being that far down, with that much pressure, had affected my senses.
“What are you doing down there, anyway?”
“Trying to get out of a rut,” I said.
Jo-Jo stopped swimming for the briefest of milliseconds. He was in shock. We don't talk this way. We don't share our feelings. Jo-Jo started swimming again, I think he was more surprised he'd stopped swimming then he was about my news. We never stop.
“You okay?” he asked. Jo-Jo was a good friend.
“Yeah. Just, tired of sea lions is all.”
He broke out into a grin. All the fish near us scattered. They hate when we smile. I'm assuming they can see their relatives stuck in our teeth, but what are we supposed to do? I don't want to terrorize their fragile psyche's with reminders of the brutal carnage visited upon their loved ones. I just want to eat. It's kind of all I want to do.
“I feel you there. I like sea lion. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy there are so many, but I too like a taste of the exotic.”
“You've been diving deep?” I couldn't believe it. In all my time, I'd never seen another shark down there in the dark dark blue.
“No. Just the opposite. Want to see?”
We started swimming in a direction I hadn't gone before, towards the vast waste land.
“Jo-Jo, we're going to run out of water soon.”
“Trust me,” he said.
I did. I trusted him.
Deh-deh. Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
The music got louder. Doom was just around the corner. Was it my doom? I wasn't sure, but I had to keep swimming. Jo-Jo had done this before and he was okay. Sure, he had a few scars, but who didn't? I had a few myself from some scrapes, mostly with killer whales, once with a giant metal monster infested with fleshy parasites.
Deh-deh. Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
All I felt was fear and adrenaline. I love that feeling, when you know something big's about to happen and it could go either way. It could be a delicious sea lion or it could be a vicious surprise. It's the not knowing that I love.
Deh-deh. Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
“There,” Jo-Jo said. We were in shallower waters.
“Where?” I didn't see any fish. I just saw a lot of light blue water.
“Look up.”
And that's when I saw them. The parasites from the metal monster.
Deh-deh. Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
That sound was making it hard to think. It crashed into my brain like a tsunami.
“Them?”
“Yeah.”
Nothing smelled appetizing. Jo-Jo and I swam in circles. I glanced up often, but it just didn't feel right.
Deh-deh. Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
“What do they taste like?”
“You'll love them.”
“Do they have claws or sharp teeth?”
“No. They're wimps.”
Deh-deh. Deh-deh. Deh-deh.
I geared up, got my tail swinging like crazy. I aimed towards the sunshine. I wanted to breach the water at full speed, surprise the buggers, just in case.
I'm fast, real fast. I could beat most of the fish in a race and I did, when we were racing for their lives.
CRUNCH!
One big mouthful of parasite. I tore off a huge hunk of flesh and bit down in triumph. And all I could taste was disgust. I spit out the meat, it's metal-tasting blood bitter on my tongue. I left the parasite slapping and shouting and bleeding. Other parasites tried to help him. Most swam away.
I swam back to Jo-Jo who was damn near belly up with laughter.
“Taste like crap, don't they?” he said when he could catch his breath.
“Yeah. You really got me there, Jo-Jo. Good one.”
I swam off leaving him behind. I'd forgive him eventually, I always did even though I HATE PRANKS. But just then, I was back off to deep waters. Somewhere, there had to be a food I hadn't tried that actually tasted good.
The Blow Up
I was with Bob when he exploded. He'd been going through a divorce and changing jobs. When he told me he got evicted and needed to move to a cheaper apartment, I warned him:
“Take it easy, Bob. You're doing too much at once. Why don't you crash with me for a few months, until you get back on your feet, safely?” I can be a pretty nice guy when I think about it.
My warning fell on deaf ears and really, what did I expect? If Bob had been a good listener, his wife wouldn't have left him and he wouldn't have been fired from his job. Actually, Bob was kind of an ass. Still, that didn't mean I wanted bits of him all over me.
Bob is friend number three that has blown to bits. I lost Trevor first. Poor Trevor never stood a chance being a stutterer and having to give a speech at work. Delane was a bomb tech, so when she exploded and the bomb didn't, we were shocked.
Bob and I were having breakfast when it happened. He was on the phone with his new landlord.
“You can't raise the rent, we signed a lease... I know there's a clause but I'm a brand new tenant... I don't care how many other people would love that apartment, it's my apartment...”
I wonder if the landlord knew the stress levels Bob was carrying. I'd like to think that if he did, he would have backed off. Probably not. Most likely, he hoped Bob would blow to bits so he could keep the pre-paid move-in fee and rerent the apartment on the quick. Those jerks were doing that kind of thing all the time these days. What was one more bloke blown to smithereens? Some people think it gets rid of the genetic weak links, some people.
Bob hung up the phone.
“Buddy, you okay?” I asked, though of course I could tell the answer was no.
Bob's face had gone red, not that pink some people get from laughing too hard but a deep tomato red like happens when you hold your breath for way way way too long. Sweat poured from his brow.
“Calm down, Bob, it's just an apartment. There's plenty of apartments out there.”
His eyes bugged out of his head farther than any cartoon I'd ever seen before. His face swelled, neck grew large like he swallowed a bag of oranges. His pants split down the seams. Just when I thought his eyes were going to fall out of his head, his entire body exploded sending chunks of Bob all over the other diners.
“Really?” the teenage girl across from me said. “Gross.” I watched her pick Bob's ear out of her salad. “Why don't they just, like, chill out or something?”
I have to admit, I was wondering the same thing.
The Tree Hugger
I always knew that I wanted to be a conservationist
. When I was a kid, I explored the woods, collecting soil samples to send to the lab. At the time, my lab was my garage where I would pour water on the dirt and turn it into mud. I painted signs, “Save the forest” and then sat behind our house where our lone tree stood. I gathered cans and bottles along the side of the road and took them to a recycling center. This didn't make me the most popular little boy on the block, but parents dug me.
As I grew older, my obsession grew with me until I quit law school, defying my father's wishes. Instead, I studied environmental science and attended rallies every weekend to save a whale or a dolphin or the bees. I'm sure you can see what drove me to The Congo.
I'd heard about the Gumji Gumji tree when I was a freshman. I thought it was a myth. We all did. “The Tree of Love” it was called in English. It was a tree so perfect, so big and alive that it embraced life and the very people around it. It was the stuff of legend.
When the news reports started appearing my senior year, I was as shocked as anyone. The Gumji Gumji tree was real. It had been discovered by a team from Yale. Well, it had been discovered hundreds of years ago by natives, but that's another story. The Gumji Gumji was in danger, and it needed my help.
I boarded the next flight to The Congo. Thankfully, my dad's a rich oil man so I can pretty much afford to go anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. I want to hate him for being an oil man, but he's just too damn nice to hate. Look at how he's let me picket his office every summer for the last eight years. Great guy, my dad. Ask anyone. But that's not what I want to tell you about.
“Hey man, don't go so near the tree.”
I'd hiked all day to the interior of the rain forest. My legs were aching. It turns out that an all day hike is way harder than standing in place holding a sign. And no one was there to give me