short story: MONSTER
Category: Poems

MONSTER

I saw a monster cat when I went out this morning. It looked like any other animal i had ever scrutinized-- furry, grey, agile. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except, I could have sworn it was staring at me with three, red eyes. 

You don’t recover from seeing that. No, sir. Every stray I walk past has 4 eyes, or 8 legs or something. Never did it have three. 

I never saw you, either. Or heard from you. I checked my phone to see if you’d called. I checked it again. I picked it up and crawled to the spider web pictures on the wall. The window had cracks in it, too. Spider webs. 

My floor had a ceiling that day. It flew off the next morning. The morning I saw you. Monster cat. My existence was looking for that cretin, for a time. 

It wasn’t long until I was on your trail. Smelled what you smelled-- summer grills and charcoal inside some asian guy’s garage. Clinging-to-the-air-time. So was I. And all the houses were stuck together like the bricks that built them, and all the stoops were occupied. All the lawns were burnt by summer heat, grimacing and sweltering on distant undulating roads. And all the cars looked cracked.

So, there I was. The heat streaming glowing hot on my bicycle handles. I stood up, a skill i had mastered in middle school, let the wind sail underneath my jersey and onto my skin. I flew down that salty-aired hill, down through the streets of people careening across black pavement rocks and orange balls kept catching on walls. Some of them squatted next to a convenience store, most of them sweated obscenely in the blistering hot. I assumed, as I passed, that it was all they could do. I agreed with them too-- the sun had not risen today. No, the sky was neon as the insides of clocks and public school restrooms. It stayed disturbingly white as my pink skin got darker. White as smiling, friendly maws. Red lipstick rings. Those kids swelled like heat waves. I could barely see them.

I was looking for you. I knew you’d be down that hill. Past the bridge that subdivided those sh*tty neighborhoods that went behind me all the way up to the river. Once my bike reached the peak of that bridge, Lordy. Shiny, new Benz. First thing I saw and I kept drifting down that street, through the open gate with the title “Oak Caul”. How disturbing. 

I felt you here. Felt you so passionately and fervently that I dismounted my bike without any thought to lock it. I was in Oak Caul. I was with you. I finally had found you. The street opened and curved as if inviting me to seek refuge in it’s edges. For a second, while the big green lawns waved and turned blonde, I wanted to be you. I wanted your life. I damned you.

The sky finally turned blue, like eyes. Blue like eyes that weren’t mine. 

But yours were red.

Mine are black.

I hid behind a high voltage box and waited ‘till nightfall. It was already sundown when i got to your area. I took that time to truly think about the consequences of my actions.

I knew I had to continue.

When it was black outside and my eyes adjusted, I got down on all fours, my greasy, sweaty fists. I started to saunter like you would along the sidewalk. I purred to myself, I let my fists slam until they bled crimson blood that stained the pretty perfect white pavement. I smelled the air and it was flesh. Flesh, and I knew you would be stupid enough to follow that scent. To breathe it in. I was stupid to have woken up, too. Maybe the ending to this story wouldn’t be so horrible.

Huge house, not a mansion. White plaster walls, and orange faux spaniard roof. A swirling driveway stretching blocks until finally reaching the street. I approached the house from the side and out from the basin where the rich water goes collecting. Definitely the biggest house in the whole lot. Of course you would be here-- you have a propensity for luxury.

Continuing on my hands and feet, I bounded across the glowing green grass, smelling freshly cut now like febreze and candles I used to hold and break in my mother’s apartment. I had never smelled 

that. I found a toy once I reached the garage. Stopping in my tracks, I stood up and adjusted my back. It was a plastic gun. AR-15 with an orange nozzle to keep kids from getting shot by the cops around here. Not like mine, though. I pulled out my glock, a heavy black piece that had been burning a whole in my underwear for the past day. I compared the two, the toy and the glock. I heard those same kids laughing in the back. Rich folks having a barbeque.

They even left the gate open. I threw the toy gun on the lawn, and brandished my glock as I hastened my saunter, on two legs now. 

You’re so stupid.

Their backyard was pretty big. Whole nine yards. It had a pool and a hot tub flowing into it. Everything was made of perfect stones, i could tell it took a least 8-9 hispanics to make that. I stood my guard at the fence, taking the whole stretching mass in. They had a small deck too, and there was a family surrounding a fire. And all the children were huddled to the side of the pool. They giggled at something. Someone. I knew it was you. Attention whore.

I wasn’t afraid anymore. You brought me so far. I gave you everything. I got nothing. I slaved 25 miles for you. The gashes on my knuckles throbbed with blood. Those kids’ rich parents blasted something on big speakers. It reminded me of when I used to glue my fingers together.

I hate ‘70’s music.

I got excited and I started walking calmly towards the group of kids. I didn’t realize what i looked like to them-- a mouth filled with mud, covering perfect white gnashing teeth. I hate that you gave me away so easily.

“Hello?” one of the dads stood up and his pink shorts shot bullets towards me. He caused a chain reaction, and even the black guy at the barbeque craned his neck to see me. Too bad I was already there. I already found you. All five of those kids were laughing. Laughing so hard. I saw you. In the center of it all.

“‘Scuse me,” I kneeled down and the kids let me through. You just stared up at me. Came closer and even sniffed my hand. You smelled the blood and so did the kids. One of them started crying. 

“Hey!” Some women screeched out at me. She didn’t see the gun in my hand as I pointed it in the space between your three red eyes and shot you.

You flopped backward, dormant, and I had finally won.