Justin's Creative Thinking

This is a page dedicated to some of my creative writing. I hope you don't hate it.

-J

Don't Let Them Watch You

This story would be printed and shown in a way that it was a classified government/medical document that was accidentally released to the public.

You ever think back on something realizing there were four other people, when you swore, swore there were five? And then you think to yourself “Shit, I’m going nuts” and move onto your merry way. You play it as a trick of the mind, some piece of information getting a little corrupted in its placement in your frontal lobe.

What if I told you your original thought was right?

What if I told you, at any time, you could disappear and be nearly forgotten by all those around you?

What if I told you it happened, but I couldn’t prove it?

What if I told you it does.

I realized it first in college. Studying at the University of -censored-, I was working on this longterm group project about the clarity of the water in lake -censored-. It was a shit load of work, multiple experiments and tests, and we spent months on it. Through all the hours spent, me and the other students on the project became pretty tight.

It first hit me towards the end, when we were starting to wrap it up. We had to compile our list of members and what we each did to help the project. So I gathered everyone, to get the four of us together. Only, there were only three of us. Shit, I thought, get some sleep.

The other guys looked at me funny when I seemed confused, and I quickly dropped the subject when I realized this wasn’t some kind of joke. But sure as shit, there were only three of us on record. I could have sworn there were four...

I couldn’t get it out of my head, this little lapse in my sanity, or perhaps a little lapse in the fabric of time or fate or something, so I looked at all the work we did. I realized we had done a helluva lot for 3 college guys...and I remember all the work I did, clear as a bell. I remember sitting at the lakeside, taking water samples on a canoe, talking to -censored- and asking her out to dinner at -censored-. I remember writing pages 7-19, and then going out to photograph lake -censored- but...that memory...its a bit fuzzy, like a dream, almost like it’s in third person...and I’ve never been one to good with a camera...

I thought this was kinda weird, so I kept thinking back, retracing the time spent on the project, and began to isolate those memories I knew I had from those which seemed to be in a dreamy third person. It’s harder than you think, because you can change memories at will. After a while, I had a good solid recollection of them, or at least I thought I did. I was able to begin to tell apart my memories told in first person, and my memories in third person.

So I started to figure out which work I know I did, and which work I believe belonged to these other, fake memories. The weirder part was, when I looked at the writing of these other memories, it seemed a bit off, like they were similar to my words but not...

And all the other groups were composed of four...I checked the roster, but the class never had another student in it, the groups broke even for the number of the class...Yet there were enough seats for one more...just enough seats... 

So I took this information, and I wrote it down, not knowing what to do with it. I just let it sit there in my notebook for a while, a few years actually. I completely forgot about it until I met this crazy professor -censored- at the -censored- College where I went for grad school. That’s when it all came crashing down.

He had all these crazy notions of people falling through the fabric of time and disappearing almost completely from history. He went on a rant about it one day in class until one of the students asked him to teach us something real. The lecture reminded me of my experience written down in my notebook, so I brought it to the next class and showed it to him after. We talked for hours.

He seemed pretty excited to have someone willing to not only listen to his idea, but to seemingly believe them. He told me all about the studies he had tried doing ever since it happened to him years before. He woke up one morning, swore he was a married man. But he wasn’t. Nothing pointed to it, no records, no direct memories, nothing. But there were things in that house, he said, that had a woman’s touch. Things he could have never done that way, even if he tried. The placement of some household objects. Certain paintings on the walls. A spectral smell of perfume at times. 

I got the whole story, or what there was of a story from him that day. He got all anxious and excited as he told it, and went on how he never had any kind of second occurrence to document alongside it, so he never did anything with it. 

He almost flipped a shit when I told him my story. He went on about how he finally had proof and all this, how he finally had his second story to go along with his, and how he was going to have to publish it.

I told him I wasn’t sure if it was right to do so, on the count that I had no real information, no real facts. There really wasn’t a story. He told me my story alone was fact enough, and that we were dealing with a science that had no basis in facts, because the facts could be removed at any moment. I was dumb enough to believe him.

So I let him have my story, on one condition, that my name stayed off it. I didn’t want to be taken as a nut before I got my degree and blacklisted in the scientific community. I worked too damn hard for that.

He didn’t publish right away of course. He did a lot of research. He had already done a lot of research, but this time had me to work with. I offered my services when I could, coming into his lab and talking about different theories, answering questions. Telling and retelling my story until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I swear, me coming to him was the worst thing that could have happened to him. He damn near lost his job because he spent so much time in that lab, studying shit that couldn’t be proven. A lot of people higher up got pretty mad, on the count that he couldn’t actually tell them what he was doing.

I talked to him about that one day, about studying shit that couldn’t be proven. He just went and told me that splitting the atom was said to be impossible, but that didn’t stop Einstein. I wanted to tell him he wasn’t Einstein. 

Eventually he came up with this idea, a way to protect people from it. Something to do with magnets. He claimed it did something where the electrons in the brain were magnetized in some way to help protect from being changed. None of it made sense to me, and stupidly I agreed to try it out with him. So he put me in this big machine that made a ton of noise, and 15 minutes later I came out a bit dizzy but nonetheless undamaged.

He was going off saying this was a victory and all and how much of a great step in science we took. I was just glad my damn head didn’t explode or something. 

It was after this things started to get a little weird. The prof got a little more vocal about his work, on the count that he now had this big machine in his lab and honestly thought it worked. He conducted more and more tests, many on himself, many on me. He said what we were doing was changing our brain chemistry and the course of history. It was all going pretty uneventful until the fifteenth or sixteenth test.

He said he started seeing strange people around, like they were following 

Something’s off about them he would explain, something not quite human. It’s like they’re there then they aren’t. It’s like they’re just hear to watch.

I kind of took his stories as horse shit, until he went missing.

It was a Tuesday night, and I had just come back from the gym in -censored- center, and I walked into his lab and yelled my typical greeting, but no one answered. So I turned on the lights and found the whole damn place empty. It was like none of the shit he had was ever even there. 

I looked around for half an hour, thinking this was some kind of weird trick he was playing on me, or some kind of weird experiment. It boggled my mind. After half an hour, I decided to call it quits and go home, figuring he’d call me in the morning

He never called me in the morning. In fact, he never called me again. After a few weeks I went looking through the school records and found no trace of a Professor -censored- at -censored- College. It was like he never worked there.

I even went back and looked through the files at the State University of -censored- where he said he got his undergrad through his doctorate in -censored-, but still no traces. Hell, I even looked into his hometown a bit in -censored-, but still found not a single trace of the prof.

It was like he completely disappeared. All his work was gone too. There was no trace anywhere on the paper he was about to publish.

So needless to say, I got a bit freaked out about this. I figured they came for him, they’re coming for me. Then I remembered how my name was left off of everything, and realized I haven’t seen anyone suspicious following me around and what not, but I still didn’t know what to do. 

After that, I decided to travel for a bit. I dropped out of -censored- College and kind of drifted across the country for a bit. I spent some time in -censored-, but soon moved out to the arid deserts of -censored- for a change. I even spent some time on the beaches of -censored-, though I always felt a little uncomfortable with that many people around. Especially because thats where I first noticed them.

It was in a big crowd of beach goers that I saw them for the first time. I’m not exactly sure what you would call them, but I took to calling them watchers. They weren’t so abnormal, in fact they seemed pretty normal and seemed to work about in society quite well, but they were always looking at me. And they had this grey palate about them, and their eyes seemed a little to dark. They seemed like they were full of air and controlled by someone who didn’t quite know how a person should be.

That freaked me out a bit, but I figured it might just be the fucking weird people in -censored- on some strange new drug, so I took off again, this time moving east towards -censored-. I saw them again there, fewer at first, but more as they seemed to catch up to me. I traveled from city to city all across the United States, and surely enough, every time, they caught up to me eventually.

It’s not like they did much...they just kind of stared at me. Watched me. They never made a move, and I was too damn scared too. Well, until one day.

I was in -censored- City, and finally got so damn tired of all this watching business. Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept in days, or because I hadn’t had a real conversation in months, or because I just felt the hundreds of eyes on me at all times, but I walked up to this broad in the middle of the street and started going nuts. Literally, I lost it, I went bat shit insane. I saw a video someone taped on their iphone on it later, and I can’t say I would have wanted me a part of society if I attacked a real person like that.

During the fight I guess I kind of blacked out, because all I remember is screaming at her and her dead eyes while she blankly stared at me, then a bunch of cops running up to me, and someone stabbing me in the arm with something and then a lot of dark. 

I woke up in this white room, with these nurses smiling at me in a much to fake way. They told me I was sick and was going to be kept her for a while for my own safekeeping. They pumped me full of drugs and kept me pretty damn fuzzy for a long time.

Eventually one of the doctors came in to tell me I was really sick, and had to stay here for a while longer. I tried to explain to him the only reason I was paranoid was because of those weird folk watching me, but he kept saying it was part of the sickness,it was part of the sickness and I wouldn’t understand. Luckily, he said, they had medicines they could give me to fix it. I tried to tell him I had to leave, that they were coming.

I pleaded with every doctor or nurse that came to me. No one would listen, no one would understand that no medicine would help. I wasn’t crazy, I was being followed and watched. It wasn’t all in my head.

I told them to hunt down Professor -censored- at -censored- College. I told them to read his paper -censored- that he was about to publish. They told me there was no record of him working there, or of any such paper. I told them no shit, that they erased him or something, and only I can remember because of his machine. They smiled and said they would help me get better.

I never needed to get better, I needed to get out. So I took their medicines, and honestly, for a while I hoped I was nuts, so this whole fucking nightmare could be over. For a while, it did seem to stop, or maybe it was just that I was safe here for a while. I played into their game, eventually nearly convincing myself it was just a game. I thought it was starting to get better...

It didn’t get better.

At first it was one new nurse. I noticed right away, the grey palate, lost eyes; she was one of them. She came in every day to give me my pills, which I took under her supervision. I took them, because like I said, I kind of hoped I was crazy and that these pills would make it all go away. She would watch me as I swallowed them, then would turn and wordlessly glide from the room

She was just the beginning. Soon I they were coming in all the time, looking in the doors, looking in my fucking two story windows. Every doctor, ever nurse, every orderly; they were all watchers. I couldn’t take it.

So one night I waited until the nurse came in, took my pills, and when she turned to leave I jumped her and slid out the door. I didn’t feel bad about it, it wasn’t like she was human. She was one of them.

I got out of the hospital pretty easy, without anyone seeing me. I needed some cash, so I borrowed some from a person I found on the street, and used it to buy some clothes. I also borrowed a car, and took off out of the city.

I can’t tell you where I am right now, because I’m pretty sure they’re after me. Not just the police, but Them. Some of Them are on the police force anyway. I can feel their cold eyes goring into the back of my head constantly. I know it’s time to leave a place when I wake up and find one of them staring in my damn windows. I need to do all I can to keep an edge on them. I never stay in a town longer than three weeks, and never stay the same amount of time. I switch cars and clothes a lot. I’ve acquired three different ID’s. I started carrying a gun.

Anytime I leave, I put myself in danger. Anytime I stay somewhere too long, I put myself in danger. Every time I sleep, I’m in danger, so I’ve learned to live off only 1 or 2 hours a night. Even writing this is a huge risk for me, but I wanted everyone to know. I wanted to warn you before it’s too late. 

Don’t let Them watch you.

PATIENT INFO

NAME -CENSORED-

BORN -CENSORED-

FROM -CENSORED-

PATIENT HAS SEVERE DELUSIONS OF BEING FOLLOWED AND/OR OF COLLEAGUES THAT DO NOT EXIST.

DIAGNOSED SEVERE PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIC. 

CONFRONT WITH EXTREME CAUTION. 

CURRENT RESIDENCY- UNKOWN. 

PROGNOSIS- 

Family Time

This was a dialogue piece I wrote for a class. I like how it came out, so I threw it up here.

We live in a little house in Beverly. When I say little, I don’t mean little where you come to my house and think “oh he was just being modest”, but little. It’s old as dirt, and kind of sags a bit to the right. It’s a breathtaking shade of “badly needs to be repainted light blue.” From the outside it kind of resembles an old man. I think so anyway.

When the wind picks up it scares the shit out of everyone inside. It feels like we’re in the Wizard of Oz or something. I’ve never been in another house that can orchestrate such pandemonium. I remember being a kid and terrified of thinking the entire house was going to cave in on me. I would be tweaking out in the living room while my parents watched and laughed. It was entertainment to them. We didn’t have cable.

You can hear every little thing that goes on in the house. On the few, rare occurrences when my brother leaves the nest he’s harbored in front of his computer, I can trace every step he takes towards the bathroom overhead. When the heat turns on, I can hear it. When the shower’s running, I can hear it. 

When my dog farts and wakes himself up, I can hear it. 

The house has its own distinct scent. A bit moldy with a stench of cats, which is a mystery because we have none, only this fossilized version of a yellow lab. His name is Elvis. He belonged to my grandmother. She loved Elvis. The dog too.  

The best way to describe my grandmother is that she was sane. She was the only one.

Her daughter, (my mother), is quite the opposite. Barbara “Bobby” Binkowski. I have no idea where Bobby came from, but people tend to get the wrong idea when I say my parents are named Vinny and Bobby. I tend to just refer to her as Barbara. 

She has a painfully loud voice with the timbre of a thousand screaming hell-beasts. Okay so it’s not that bad, but it gives me a headache. Her poorly died auburn hair is cut short, and is pitched on her head like some kind of highly trained cat-hat. Maybe that’s where the cat smell comes from. 

She’s not only the first one to preach to me about sobriety (which she does on a daily basis), but also the first to finish the cheap boxes of red wine she buys at DeMoula’s (which she does on a daily basis). She also likes to fight. With my dad, with the neighbors, with my dog, with her hair, with my teachers, with the news, with responsibility, with the police. She is the only person I’ve ever met that can get get into a verbal confrontation at a supermarket over the correct way to identify a ripe cantaloupe. She was yelling at an 83 year old woman. The woman couldn’t even hear her. When my friends ask what my mother does for a living, I tell them she fights. On her off hours she has a cleaning business.

For every ounce of fire in my mum’s blood, my dad has none. I don’t think Vinny has time to be angry. That’s his name by the way, Vinny Binkowski. His father was (you guessed it) Polish, and his mother Italian. Tensions from both families rose to carry on the heritage from “the old country” Thus created the multinational, mysterious hit of a name, Vinny Binkowski. Thankfully only had one child to name.

His work consumes most of his time, probably by his own choice. He’s in the business of selling exotic animals. You know, like pythons and bears and lions and stuff. I honestly have no idea how he’s still employed. 

He’s not a very imposing man. In fact, he’s a perfect example of someone who slips into the shadows of everyday life. 5’8”, 220lbs, with a natural physique I would call “round”. He has grey hair, and grey eyes. He usually wears a grey suit. And his skin is kind of grey too. He’s pretty passive. He’s pretty grey. He likes his beer and his 6 o’clock t.v. block and his overstuffed chair. When it rains, he’s in the chair. When it snows, he’s in the chair. When it’s a beautiful, sunny 75 degree day, he’s in the chair. (He’s quite partial to the chair.) I usually know where to find him.

My brother takes after my dad. Fives years older than me, he never really represented much of a role model. Comically built like a balloon, he keeps to himself.  Billy Joel Binkowski. Not William Joel, but Billy Joel. My parents literally named him after the singer. When asked why, they began to tell a story, I hear the word “consummation” and repressed the rest of it. 

Billy Joel doesn’t talk much. He usually just presents an ambiguous grunt as a response to any social stimuli. One time he went a full week without saying a single actual English word to anyone outside his online gaming community. I kept track.

Instead of a quiet love for watching Cops or reruns of Jerry Springer  like my dad, Billy Joel loves his computer. When I say he loves his computer, I mean he loves his video games. And whatever else he uses that internet connection for. Remember how I mentioned he didn’t say an English word for a week? That doesn’t count the strange fairytale language he and his online friends spoke over the computer. Sometimes I wish I understood it. Then I could hear his conversations and try to have a deeper understanding for who he is as a person. Understand his thoughts, his passions and feelings. Get in touch with his psyche and be able to connect with him on a deeper, spiritual level. Or to know what he says about me so I could go kick his ass. 

I only talk to my brother in a handful of scenarios on a daily basis: when I’m taking too long at the refrigerator, when I’m taking too long with the microwave, and when I’m taking too long in the bathroom. Especially that last one. Because of all the energy drinks he must consume to keep his edge in cyber world until sunrise, he pees a lot. A real lot. We don’t have much in common. In fact, I don’t think we have anything in common. He likes video games, I like cars. I like hanging out with friends, he likes playing video games online. I like girls. He likes playing as a girl in his medieval RPG game. He really likes video games. I really like everything else.

He’s never had a girlfriend. To the best of my knowledge, he’s never even talked to a girl. I prefer to view him as an asexual entity. The other option is sickening. 

As for me? I’m pretty normal. Well, as normal as someone could be growing up in that house. So not very normal. But the most normal, out of all of them. Isn’t normal relative? 

7 AM

“Steven, wake up,” my mother yells up the stairs in her cigarette laden voice. When I don’t answer instantly, she takes a drag, coughs a bit, then yells at the top of her lungs “STEVEN, I SAID WAKE UP,” and ends up in a fit of hacking, slowly making her way back to the eggs she’s burning.

“I’m coming Barbara,” I say quietly, more to myself than to her. I wasn’t really asleep, just laying in bed wishing I had woken up anywhere but here. 

I make my way into the linoleum green bathroom to brush my teeth with the disgusting Arm and Hammer Baking Soda toothpaste my mother buys. The bathroom still has the reminisce odor of my brother’s morning excursions, so I have to pry open the dust covered window the let the room air out a bit. I slide off my clothes, and hop into the moldy green shower.

Downstairs I can hear my mother yelling at my father for his lack of devotion to the lord’s morning service of saying grace before we ate.

“Vinny, by god you put down that bacon, we eat as a family, and you know this!” she yells at him. “If you don’t say grace before you eat, you will go to hell. To hell Vincent!” Her efforts end in vain, with my father still eating his bacon and blissfully reading the comics and obituaries in the paper, and my mother coughing as she lights another Marlboro light.

Meanwhile, I can hear my brother clicking away at his computer, quietly mumbling under his breath while annihilating all the stood in his way on his 19” monitor.

Five minutes later than I should be, I finish my shower, and slowly dry my myself looking in the mirror. Downstairs I hear my mother screaming at the dog.

“Elvis Binkowski, you get your fat ass up and move it out of my way, or I swear, I’ll put ‘ya down!” she screams in misguided anger at the ancient yellow lab laying in the center of the kitchen floor.

“He can’t understand you, he’s a dog honey,” Dad responds, without looking up from his paper.

“He damn well can, he’s a smart dog, or at least, he always was,” she replies, flustered.

“Then he can’t hear you, he’s deaf honey,” Dad replies, still more interested in the deaths of the day than the ritualistic fight at hand.

My mother proceeds to stepping over the dog in an overacted manner, stretching herself over him and resembling something from a Richard Simmons exorcise video. Just then, the ancient lab decides it’s time to move to a more secure location, nearly knocking her over in the process.

In her fit of curses, my mother nearly spills the plate of burnt eggs she’s holding on the ground, but saves it just in time, laying it with a clank on the table.

Through all of this commotion, my brother waddles down from his virtual reality nest to take his seat next to my father, his chair groaning as he rests his large body in it.

My mother continues her bickering, cursing the dog, my dad, the stove, the president; anything she can get a word off too to expel a bit of her anger. My brother stares at his food, not saying a word, not moving at all except for his hand methodically shoving the food into his chewing mouth. After a few minutes he walks to the refrigerator and grabs a beer, cracking it open and drinking it alongside his eggs.

And there I am, at the top of the stairs, stalling for as much time as I can before I enter the scene before me, the scene I wake up to every day.

“Steven, get your ass down here right now!” my mother screams, her over hair sprayed hair trembling with frustration as she aims her voice up the stairs. 

While many may view this as a chaotic household, that a scene like this may cause distress for the rest of the day, or long lasting mental repercussions such as PTSD, this is what I call “the Binkowski Morning Ritual Routine.”

I slowly creep down the stairs, awaiting the reprimand awaiting me due to my on schedule tardiness from the shower.

.....

“Steven,” my mother says to me as she swallows mouthfuls of eggs, dropping small pieces to the table in the process. “Since you’re out of school and out of work, I have an idea. I’m putting you to work today.”

This is never good. When my mother has an idea, it usually involves some kind of ridiculous plan that ends up with me in pain, whether it be emotional or physical. Like the time she signed me up to dog sit our neighbor’s 3 rescued pit bulls.

“You’re coming to work with me,” she says, with the brightest smile she can muster.

My day just got a lot less interesting.

......

“This is the correct way to scrub a toilet,” my mother explains as she shows me her “patented method” of circular scrub. I sigh as she hands it off to me. Honestly, how many ways can there be to scrub a damn toilet?

“Isn’t this nice? Just you and me, together for the day, just like old times. You remember when you were a bratty little sonofabitch and I used to take you out places? Nice places, like Burger King. You always ruined the trip by crying about something eventually, but we used to have so much fun Stevie,” my mother says in reminiscing voice.

What she doesn’t remember is how she used me as an adorable child to sneak cigarettes and beer out of the package store in hollowed out stuffed animals, and that I would end up crying because seeing your mother tear your stuffed bear apart at the ass so she can smuggle pounders of Narragansett out of the package store is a bit traumatic for a 4 year old. That’s not the kind of thing you can un-see.

“Good times. Great times. The best times,” she said.

“Mother, you do realize-” I started.

“Don’t ruin this for me you little shit, I’m reminiscing,” she barked, pronouncing reminiscing as rem-in-ist-ing.

I let her have her moment, not only for her sake, but for mine. The longer the silence, the better off my sanity.

“Steven, I’m worried about you,” she says after a few minutes of precious quiet, pulling out a Marlboro light as she speaks.

“Mother, you’re not supposed to smoke in the houses you clean...it kind of goes against all you’re doing,” I say.

“Oh shush, you don’t tell me what to do. I employ you, you never question your employer. You know nothing of the cleaning business,” she hastily replies.

“Barbara, it only counts as employment if I’m paid,” I respond.

  “Love is payment enough,” she replies, “and don’t call me Barbara, I’m your mother. You show the woman who brought you into this world respect, otherwise she’ll send you out too.”

She takes a pensive drag from her cigarette, while putting it out in the sink says “No, I’m worried about you Steven. You seem lost.”

I have no idea what she could be talking about. How could I be lost? I’m twenty three, living at home, single, with no college degree, a high school diploma I feel I earned only out of pity, and I was fired from my last job as a landscaper when I mowed the owner’s dog by accident. I sleep most of the day, go out to the bar with my two friends, then come home and sleep the night off. My life is amazing.

“Mom, I’m fine,” I reply, slightly confused that my mother would even be observant enough to notice if something was wrong.

“It’s just, ever since you broke up with Michelle...”

Oh god, here it goes. My mother wants nothing more than for me to get hitched and start making her grandchildren. I broke up with this girl four months ago, because she was a crazy bitch. I’m not just saying that from the point of view of the ex boyfriend who just says that to seem like the better half of the breakup. She’s the “I’ll cut your break lines so you’ll crash your car then need me to take care of you for weeks in bed” kind of crazy. Think Steven King’s “Misery.”

“She was such a nice girl,” Mom says as she starts to scrub the bathtub. “So pretty, smart, interesting.”

“If you mean by pretty that she worked as an dancer at Kittens, then yes mother. If you mean smart as in being vindictive evil bitch that tried to own and control me, then yes, and if you mean interesting in the way that she tried to sell my identity over the internet so she could buy it then rightfully claim me as her own, then yes mother, she was interesting. A complete ten, a total knockout,” I reply.

“Thats not the point,” she barks. “It’s that you’re twenty three, and haven’t had a girl since. You dated her for three years. It’s been four months Stevie. Don’t you want to get your pickle-”

“Barbara, stop right there,” I say sternly. “I honestly don’t want to hear the rest of that sentence. And have you ever thought that maybe I don’t want a girl right now? You know, after the last one tried to fake my kidnapping so I could be declared legally dead, so she could be free to hold me hostage at my will with no one searching for me?”

“For the last time, don’t call me Barbara, I’m your mother. The point is, that the reason for life is love, and the reason for love is reproduction,” she started, stopping her scrubbing at the bathtub. “Steven, I had you at twenty years old. Twenty. You know when I met your father? I remember it clearly, that night at The Old Oak, our favorite biker bar. He had just won the hotdog eating competition. That was back when he was a real man, back when he first got into the exotic animal business. It was when he first told her he had an 8 foot snake that I knew I was hooked..”

She kept going, but I dazed off. I couldn’t stand listening to this conversation, again. This was the second time this week, and the seventh time this month, only this time she succeeded in getting free labor out of me as well.

I Grew Up Down the Street from Death

There’s a funeral home a few houses down from mine. A big old white goliath, with a perfectly manicured lawn and a fancy hearse perched in the driveway. An entire house dedicated to dead people. They don’t even LIVE there. Get the humor?

My house used to be a funeral home too, back in the day. In fact it was two different funeral homes. My friends always get freaked out when I tell them that. It also may be because I wait to tell them at night, in the dark, in my creepy basement. I also like to tell them thats where they kept the bodies, which is a total lie. I have no idea where they kept the bodies.

Anyway, a lot of times on Saturdays and Sundays the streets would be filled with cars while the people were in at a ceremony down the street. It’s strange when you think about it, everyone gathering to look at a dead body. More people gathered together to visit that person dead than when they were alive. It’s weird how we only seem to celebrate life after it’s gone. I thought so anyway when I went to my first wake. That was when my Nana died a few years ago. She went into the hospital to make her life better and never came out. Ironic in a way, dying in an attempt to keep living. We were close.

My dad gave her eulogy. Out of all of my mother’s nine siblings, my dad, who wasn’t even blood related to my Nana, was the only one with enough balls, enough brains and enough wisdom to get up in front of all those people and say what needed to be said. I’m not exactly sure what a eulogy should consist of, but he got up and said some nice stuff. Went on about how they met, how much she meant to him and everyone else, and how much of a caring, kind person she was. He almost cried when he spoke. The first time I had seen him cry was when she died the week before. I had to give the old man props. He’s up there speaking about this person he’d give the world for, fighting back tears, while her own sons are sitting watching, too sorrowful to get past their sniffles and say a few words themselves. I don’t know how he didn’t call them on it. Had I realized it, I probably would have. If it wasn’t bad enough, she considered him more of a son than any of them, and he knew it. I think they knew it too.

I know, for a fact, that when my parents die I’m going to get up and say something. I can’t exactly say what I’ll say now, because I haven’t thought of anything to say yet. Maybe I’ll write something. Thats how I usually say things.

I’m not exactly sure what bothered me about my Nana’s funeral, but I kept expecting one of my uncles to get up and say a few words. I feel like it was their duty to do so, their way to honor her love and life she supplied them. I thought of it as kind of a disgrace to her, and know that she would have been disappointed. They should have gotten up to at least they loved her. I think she would have liked that a lot. I also think she would have expected the outcome.

After my dad, I got up and said a few words. I can’t really remember what I said, just that she was great and meant a lot to me. I didn’t think much of it, because I knew it’s what she would have expected of me. I learned a lot from her. Even after death. I like to think she learned a little bit from me too. 

Afterwards, my dad came up to me and told me how I was more of a man than any of my uncles for getting up there and saying something and how he was proud of me and all. Maybe I’m just better versed. Either way, I like the idea of it. I knew if I didn’t say anything I would regret it. I already had a lot of regrets at that time, and realized this was one I couldn’t live with. I’m glad I did it. Thanks Nana.

Anyway, it wasn’t a huge deal. I was used to it all. The motions of a funeral procession were part of my daily views. I grew up down the street from death. It desensitized me.