T.R. Dailey's Blog, page 2

The Bathtub Story

Toby Jones loved his baths. He would sit in a bathtub, foamed and warmed, all day and all night. He loved to lie there pondering things that are much too big to simply ponder. And he would sit and ponder all day and all night. You see, Toby Jones had not left his bath in twenty six years.

When he was nine he had gotten in and had never gotten out. When he was ten he slipped and broke his leg and he sat with it in the air while his doctor made a house call to cast it. When he was fourteen he asked a girl over for dinner and a movie. She sat on the toilet, the strangest date of her life. His mother had fought, his father had left, and his grandfather died of cancer much to his chagrin, but he never left his bubbles.

When he was sixteen he designed a mechanics system that would allow his bathtub to become mobile. When he was twenty he finished building it. When he was twenty one he finished implementing and he strolled out of the house on his mobile tub.

Since, he has been riding from State to State, making his tub faster and stopping over for hot water refills in the local inns. In Texas he rode a mechanical bull, but they kicked him out for sloshing. In California, he went to a punk show, but they kicked him out for moshing. He met the President in Washington, Mickey in Florida, and Lady Liberty in New York – although what a squeeze to get that tub to the top! He was featured in Guinness and all the local news; he even had a meeting with Ripley before the year was out.

Toby Jones saw a long life ahead of him, endless possibilities and many countries to visit. And he could do it all without leaving his tub – all day and all night.

Undamaged Reality

The mirror went first with a solid crash; she had never felt herself looking as ugly as she did in that moment. The bottles of lotion and hair gel, the decorative seashells and tissue box, the soap canister – everything went to the floor in one fluid sweep of the arm. The shark teeth and small cheap portraits on the walls were flung across the room with a force worthy of a marine heavily armed with grenades and vengeance. The medicine cabinet went after that - its innards strewn across the room. There was only one thing left standing: the shower. The fogged plastic doors were no match, they were kicked from their rails, cracked and broken. But they didn’t see any of that. They only heard it, it wasn’t the sound of crashing and breaking as much as it was the sound of materialized rage. The door had been locked. The rage had stopped before they reached it. The calm from inside was the most frightening of all. There was a knock and a quick name called out. When no answer came, the next sound was that of the wood splintering, the lock torn from its hinges. But she didn’t hear any of that. When they found her she was calmly resting in the bathtub, lying over the collapsed shower doors as though they didn’t exist. The warm water trickled through her hair, over her shirt and pants and shoes. She was smiling when they found her, her left hand swaying loftily over the drain, entrancing her as she watched. They didn’t yell. They wanted to. But they didn’t understand what was going on. The silence settled over the damage like hundred-year-old dust.  They wanted to speak, but didn’t know what to say. They were enraged and confused, but it was all muffled by a certain sense of pity that kept them quiet and stunned. “You can see the lights.” She spoke so softly that she was nearly drowned out by the sound of the water pouring over her. They leaned in to her. She smiled at her dancing hand and said again, “the lights, watch them dance…the sunshine is playing….”They glanced at each other. It was night time and there were no lights and no dancing.She pushed herself to her knees so quickly they nearly toppled over to avoid their faces smashing. “YOU CAN SEE THE WORLD!”Her pupils were as big around as walnuts, or so it seemed with her so close to their faces. “LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!” She leaned over the drain and peered down it. They peeked over the edge; there was nothing but a drain, slightly moldy from lack of proper cleaning. “You can see it. There’s the hills and the giant rabbits and the Tree.  It’s sunny and there’s people all dancing the tango and the mambo and the cha-chi-cha-chi and….the…man with the white coat is giving everyone something. I WANT IT! Whs hs I hwan it n de av it n I wn it don hv t”Her words grew to mumbles, angst in every syllable. She began pushing her fingers into the drain, “I WANT INSIDE! I WANT TO DANCE! WANT IT WANT IT WANT IT WANT IT WANT IT!!!!” There was a desperate attempt to pull the drain open wider and fit inside, but the only prize she won was the muck on her fingers. She looked up pleadingly asking them for help. She paused, staring at them, and whispering as quietly, “jack hammer…”She began to scramble out of the bathtub running over them, soaking them with luke warm shower water. They grabbed her and held her to the ground. In her attempt to break away, her last attempt at freedom, she sliced her arms and legs on the mirror strewn over the ground. She flipped onto her back screaming that there were too many snakes. They held her down as she sobbed and screamed. She went limp, staring at the ceiling. They let go and tended to their own wounded elbows and knees hoping the struggle was over. She was quiet, the water from her clothes turned the room into a large bloody puddle. A tear ran down her cheek. Her arm raised slowly, her hand open, welcoming the ceiling. Curiosity made them look, but there was nothing but a ceiling, beige and moist with condensation.“There.”

55 Words or Less: Story One

She hung up the phone.

“He’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“Your father.”

She turned on the TV.

“Mr. Cruntle, beloved school principal was murdered, two shots to the head.”

There was silence.

Her husband returned that night, a pistol in his coat pocket.

The Rain from the Desert

The night grows colder with the setting sun and my coffee’s temperature follows closely behind. Outside the store, the patio bench, made of oak wood and heavy manufactured screws, holds me above the cold cement floor. The store has priced the bench at $213.19 but the district office has placed it on sale for $199.99. You will receive a full thirteen dollars and twenty cents credit, if you purchase this monstrosity of a seat, this economically insane, environmentally destabilizing butt holder.             Both signs stating this wonderful savings are currently crumpled beneath my foot, along with the two Marlboro Red cigarette butts I smoked within the last ten minutes, a small piece of mysterious trash, and a half-deceased ant, complete with twitching leg. Under my size 10 black work boot is not the decomposing, unimportant tidbits of this world, but the astonishing parallel that is my life.             The day’s rain has washed the filth from the cars and streets leaving that clean illusionary aroma that only comes when it rains. But the rain never fails to forget to wash away one piece of filth that has ridiculed this world for too long: the people.             This is where I come in.             I enjoy sitting outside, watching the carbon dioxide float through the air, watch the disintegrating ozone turn colors in the sunset – a sunset that everyone seems to miss anymore during their jobs or school or five-o-clock commute home. I enjoy watching the people scurry around their lives, thinking that everything they know and love is truly (and I laugh at this matter) important.             Tonight’s number is generous: five.            There is a man, he is older with graying hair and walks with a slight limp. He has his hands buried in the pockets of a white jacket, hidden against the cold, hidden from the outside world, just like he prefers his inner most thoughts to be. He walks tall, but that limp is fresh, and he will hide it with every effort he can. He eyes me slightly, but looks away, rotating his shoulder, brushing me off of him.            There is a woman; she is youthful with brown hair and full breasts. She smiled at me as she passed; her smile was passionate and warm, but her eyes were cold and determined. She has no rings on her fingers, but there is a child with her, around twelve or so. Children are the hardest to see in my count. They flourish in the moonlight and thrive in the sunlight, but it’s not long before the rain is past due to wash them away. The child looks at me, a smile cracks his lip, but for a second, and then he turns to the woman, ignoring that I was ever there. His hands are separate entities amongst themselves, moving with free will, and they tell me what he whispers to her in loud convulsive exclamations.            There is a man, he follows his world, pushes it along, in a steel shopping cart that doesn’t belong to this store. He’s heavy, a medical mystery, and bowlegged. His face and hair, under a blue beanie, is unshaved, uncut, un-groomed, and unclean: the bottom feeder of the ocean, and the only honesty to this joyous compilation. There is a ragged brown bear, a child’s play thing, strapped to the innards of this home: A friend and a listener. This man ignores me.            I kicked at the ant, the cigarettes, the trash, the prices, and my coffee cup; I stood to my full six-foot-three-inch frame. I heard my trench coat rustle in the wind. My dark sunglasses framed my long, scarred face. My scarred past and present and future, framed by the dark mask I wear outside.             I turned on my heel, and faced the doors of this store. I reached both hands deep inside my coat, deep into my belt, and pulled out two stark black .50 caliber desert eagles. My boots kicked open the doors, my hands raised the guns and the bullets rained upon them, washing the world of its filth, its excrement, a little at a time.            There was a man, who dropped to the floor, his eyes begged and watered. When he died, his hands fell from his pockets and his arms opened wide. He no longer had to hide the hurt in his ankle, or his life.            There was a woman, who dropped to the floor, her eyes determined to save her child. She leapt in front of him, and stood tall and ready. When she died, she crumpled onto the floor in a ball, slumped over and weak.             There was a child, old enough to feel the rain, who dropped to the floor. His hands were separate entities amongst themselves. When this child died, he raised his hand in my direction; one finger told me all his words, words he never told his mother.             There was a man, who dropped to the floor. He never looked at me, not once. He hugged his friend and whispered goodbye.
I walked out of the store. My desert eagles back in their nests. The rain had stopped. The air was cleaner. I mentioned five for this game. I have been paid to do much worse, and in higher numbers. Today, five is generous to me. The fifth has remained silent until now. The fifth has not said a word, but merely taken part on these events.The fifth is you, for when this story ends, so does your journey in my life.To me, you will die.