Colt Copsey

Take a pin and tie about a hundred threads to it. Press it into the wall and pull the threads as far as they go.
Last night Colt had dropped a mug of coffee over his arm, now the red was going down and Sarah was on the phone with him.
He said, “So I guess Eric isn’t coming back”.
Sarah, being the shortest thread, said, “Hold on a minute”, and the line went quiet.

The coffee had turned out to be a really bad idea, only being able to stay five seconds in each room before having to change again.

Last night Eric had sent him a text from some seedy motel,
“NEED M SPACE RIGHT NOW. LOVE Y BUT IT JUST ISNT WORKING OUT”.
This was fifty years after telegrams got outdated.
After half an hour he had replied,
“WOW, BIG SURPRISE THERE.” Stop.
“JUST LEAVE ME THE FUUUUUCK ALONE ALREADY” Full stop.
With his body shaking he spilled his coffee.
Poor little Colt who just couldn’t cut off the hanging threads.
The problem with pins, if not falling off, the things pinned down will stay on the wall forever.

Now the cell-phone laid haunted on the table as a silent receiver.
Three four five and he left the room.

There was the sound of brushing against skin from the other side and then Sarah was back on the line.
“So, Mr. Powell is out of the picture. What happened?”.
Colt looked over at the phone and then picked up his keys, “Don’t know, wish I could tell you.”.
He headed for the door.
Sarah asked if she could come over and Colt said, “No, I’m heading out”.
Three four five and he was out of the apartment and he knew exactly what his sister was thinking
What perfect stranger would little baby brother Colt fuck now?
It didn’t really matter that he wasn’t going to.
Sarah said, “Ok.. But I’ll be over tomorrow”.
Colt, almost holding in his breath, said “Ok, love you. Gotta go”.
He kept walking up the hill behind his apartment building and when he was at the top he kept on walking. When he came to a small gathering of trees by the railroad tracks it was already dark.
He took a deep breath and the street lights by the tracks came on, stop.
And he screamed until his lungs couldn’t take it anymore, full stop.

Prologue

This is a first for me, actually reading a story out loud. I guess, since this is the first draft of the PROLOGUE (!!!), I wanted to do something special.



If you read this, please comment if you think that this is, reading out loud that is, something I should do more often.

Caroline Hughes

She says, ”Look, there’s us”, pointing at the small screen on her camcorder.
This was all in all the seventh time they’d met each other.
“Just try to ignore it”, she says and Colt slides back on the couch.
“So, school project?”, he asks.
In her bag is tape after tape of interviews of her family,
Brian’s quote unquote borrowed tapes and pictures of aunt Maggie.
“Yeah”, she says but this wasn’t a school project anymore.

Six months ago, as a late birthday present, she got her family tree from her cousin Sarah and after getting her drunk the nonlinear and unpolished history of her family started unfolding. While recording, Sarah pointed at the pencilled cross by her aunt.
“You should have been there. Bricks E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E”.

Panning from the bottle of booze to Sarah, she asked her, “Did you call her Mom or Maggie like my mom does?”.

Colt says, “So this is mainly about mom right?“ and looks at his digital reflection on the camera,
“Not to be a bore but I don’t remember much”.
Putting in a new tape, branded “COLT” she says, “No really, that’s ok, you just have to tell me what you DO remember”. She could tell this wouldn’t get her any closer to a rough cut.
Switching the light adjustments to indoor-setting she remembers, “Hey, so how does it feel being an uncle?”.

Laine had given birth a couple days earlier and before she left for Colt’s she had scribbled the baby’s name and birthday on a post-it and scotch-taped it to the enhanced family tree on her bedroom wall, George B. Abrahamsen.

She says, “Nevermind”, as she plugs in the external microphone, “Let’s leave it to the interview”.

After Sarah’s drunken war-stories came her own mom’s sombre retelling of the facts with a lazy hand covering her face and after her came Bill. That was six months ago.
Now she was worried that her student funding would get pulled,
Now her bag was full of DV-tapes marked with names off the family tree.
Now it was Colt and after him Brian if she could get hold of him, which she doubted.

This could be it, the last version of why her gloomy family had curled up behind the walls after that renovation accident.
She takes a breath, now she would leave it to the camera.

“Hey Colt, after we’re done I could show you your sister really drunk”.
She presses the REC-button and then she asks him,
“So did you call her Mom or Maggie?”.

Adam Green

Her name was Kimberly,
how fucking common.

Three years ago her name was at least Audrey.
One year ago, maybe Andrea.

He always did this.
At this point there was already a short story being published about her.
She, of course, didn't know that.

Kimberly, Kimber even, with her spidery legs and bulimia teeth.

In Adam's old notebooks Andrea/Kimberly had..
Nevermind.
He always did this.

He took a breath and held the air in while trying to ignore her stupid checkstand anecdotes. Kimberly was officially not his muse anymore.

Her name wasn't even the worst part.
She was a single-parent.

In fifteen minutes she has poisoned everything about herself.
Why did he even bother?

Audrey would have been his wife, easily.
In his notebooks she was a virgin, she knew german.

This was just stupid and this was a date.

Kimberly liked his stubble, she said, "Colin Farrell".

For the love of..

She said "her nieces" and he wrote on his napkin,

"Kimberly is a stupid cunt, Andrea is dead."

The story in the paper would probably win him an award, that was why they were here.
On a date.

He folded his napkin and she said "painted a picture in Kindergarten" and he wrote:

"I am forever a retarded fuck who never learns."

Felicia King

It's a given that even the teachers die.

She wouldn't do so today and probably not tomorrow but the rot in her breasts wouldn't go away.

When the future was already handed to her all she had left was the past.

The linen underneath her had wrinkled and felt moist, her neck was stiff.

She pulls out another memory, they seemed so much clearer now, she remembered Sarah.

Why she didn't know, Sarah had never been a great student, smart but lazy.

She had sent off kids to Ivy League but today everything revolved around that memory of her.

She stood in front of class, her hair still reeked of peroxide, in the light it looked transparent and green.

A book report, that's right, it was a book report.

She opened her mouth with uneven pauses and she hadn't brushed her teeth.

Still, this was why she loved her kids, perfect in their invented imperfections.

If they only could remember to breathe.

This boy whispered, so that the girl behind him could hear, that she looked like a whore.

And Sarah looked at her, perfect in her brittle sand castle body.

The classroom was bright and the sun shone in on all the whores and the fags. The fat kids and the suck-ups. Why this memory was still there, she didn't know.

She opened her mouth.

Josh, that's right, his name was Josh and the book was Uncle Tom's Cabin.

What happened next she didn't remember.

Her mouth was open and now she knew exactly what she should have said, however she knew that wasn't relevant anymore. The guilt was since long over. That wasn't who she is anymore.

A haphazard young woman placed in that classroom that wasn't her.

Eric Powell

A thing about him was that he always used those never-ending sentences,
No means no
means no
means yes
means no.

He was pulling out photos from a cardboard box in an empty house.
This was the new agenda of Eric, drawing a time-line of truth through his childhood.

Staring at the bruise wouldn't make it heal, he knew that.
But he needed to try.

He checked into a hotel with a bunch of stolen photos, matches and a mental surgical saw.

Scattered on the bed infront of him;
Exibit A, a smiling baby.
Exibit E, a blur forming just above him.
Give a little
to get a little
to give alittle.

At the hotel he outlines the basics for the memory rewrite.

On the back of his prom picture, EXIBIT T, he recognizes his handwriting.
It says, ”Best night ever. ”.

This is why he was here, he reminded himself, to edit the raw-material.
He stepped out on the balcony for air. He said to himself: Find new truth
in the old truth
in the new truth
in the old truth.

Back in the room he scanned the picture to his computer, made a note.
”I wasn't stupid, not knowing better”.

He opened the window and in the bathroom sink he burned the picture.

Looking at the ashes, he thought that this was easier than he thought it would be,
polarizing his youth.

The way the word ”slut” written on your chest dissolves in the mirror,
he desperately needed to know there was something else could reflect the way he was now.

He went back to the computer and sat down,
erasing was impossible, he knew that.
He just needed to change the words he used to describe it.

He grabbed another exibit and put it in the scanner.

The thing with photographs are that when they are taken you're never alone.

When there's a camera around, you never have the chance to wash away the blood running down your legs.

On the screen a scanned photograph of him sitting in the middle of the old living-room appeared.

He wrote,
”My life can start when this is over
my life can start when this is over
my life,
when this is over.”

Lars Gilmore

A lamp in the corner suddenly went out.
Across from Brian sat Jessica biting her lip.
He wasn't going to leave her,
not yet,
and it worked both ways.

Without knowing why he had said that their loneliness was the home they were living in.

This was ten minutes ago and desperate for a metaphor to explain he asked, "Do you remember Lars?"

Lars from college who died,
Lars with his failing pig heart.

He, Sarah and Scott had talked about going to Europe and two months after the party they did.
Constanly drunk and with Lars on a payphone they came back to the hostel with Lars already in bed, shaking to keep warm.

But this was before Europe, it was before Scott had to call for an ambulance in a foreign country.

Pale and skinny he got together with this girl at the Trash Bag-party.
From the other side of the room Scott had called him Heart Jerky and gave him the thumbs up.
What Scott remembered about him was that he never said much and when he did he said too much.
With a hand under the black plastic he frowned and gave him the finger.
So fucking childish.

And yes, Jessica remembered him.

When they came back from Berlin Lars tried to apologize and Sarah had to laugh.
The punchline would arrive two weeks later.

A calm face against the yellow rug of his apartment.

Jessica asked him what this has to do with anything?

The lamp came back on and in his mind this made perfect sense.

What the Trash Bag-party girl later told Scott was that Lars stopped taking his meds when they started dating
The pills that had made him sick, because a sick body won't reject even the weakest heart.
It's simple biology he said, she said and she was sorry.

Back home, While taking of his tie after the funeral he started crying.
He banged the walls and called him a stupid fuck.

After that he didn't remember.

Scott now knew that this simile wouldn't work, he said "Nothing" and they went to bed.

William Copsey

Before the accident Bill Copsey had a joke about his name.
Whenever introducing himself, he said,
”Not the black comedian.”.
He was a funny guy,
people told him that.

After Margaret died he tried to off himself but survived.

The concussions and the broken bones got better and the bathroom sink filled with bottles of pills.
At least he wasn't a pussy about it.

When he came home the house was empty.

His kids would from then on slowly scatter away from him.

He didn't mind, he had his memories and Eastwood videos.

On his crutches he paced the apartment and his tv showed a paused image of a dying adversary, with the pistol between his hand and the ground.

The hole in their ceiling was plastered and outlined hanging over him.

He wanted to finish the remodeling but wouldn't, Maggie was gone.

The days were not days anymore but minutes piling up.

One pill for the boredom, two pills for the muscle cramps and one more for eating them in the first place.

Whenever he dosed off on the sofa, he could hear the ceiling giving up again, the bricks would rain down, covering their bodies.

She was there and waving to him on his decent from the second floor window.

The comfort of death, freeze-framed in mid-action.

They were alone in their house and tried to not crack up.

And he woke up laughing.

Side-effects of a side-effect of his persistence of being alive.

He had a joke that he didn't have anyone to tell to,

what do you call waiting for sleep?

Purgatory.

Laine Abrahamsen

When the forth test still showed that she was pregnant she pulled out his cardboard boxes he'd left behind and found fifteen tapes.

This was Brian's way of haunting everything he'd ever touched.

She finished the letter and called Sarah for his new address.

Smoking up her stow-away cigarettes, she pressed play and listened to his old journals.
He was not one for privacy, his scraping voice;
an unfriendly and poetically partial recap.

She pressed pause and threw up.
Pressed the stamp to her tounge and pushed it down.

Through the old speakers he told her that he would miss holding her as she slept.

When the second tape snapped its end she changed tape and went for a drive.
The car interior echoed her snoring and his voice telling her a story about how wonderful it would have been.

Sarah sat upset beside her scraping the car-seat leather with her finger-nails.
Her brother would be gone for a long time,
this followed a very clear pattern.

These tapes, his DNA, snapped and always someone else left to rewind.
A worthy legacy passed down as they both kissed him goodbye

for now,

and now Laine would stand by as the footprints in the snow slowly disappeared.

Patrick Skinner

He knew Love was a word with little or no meaning if not put into context so whenever he met a girl, tonight a black hair hipster with a pale cigarette torso, he thought,

"I love her More than toothpaste, I love her Less than sleep."

The girl across the table on the other side of a half empty beer asked:
"If you had the choice to either increase your intellect or the length of your dick by
ten percent, WHAT would you choose?".

To this, rules applied.
And first impressions are all about lies.
This wasn't about the answer, he knew, this was about the question.
He was there with enough money to buy her breakfast in the morning and he laughed like he'd never had heard that question before.
This one taken from a magazine he also subscribed to.

He DID like this one and because of it it would only become a breakfast and a hugless goodbye.

Feeling time run out he heard her asking him, "So?".

He loved this girl, he did, More than his suit, Less than his CD-collection.

As another "Too bad" wiped out his hesitation, he knew and answered,

"Cock size, OF COURSE".