Kyle Muntz - Voices

“What do we do?” he asked, depending on me.

“Just listen,” I said, because there was loudness here.

And we listened.

From all sides slowly, silently, they came, like a party of old men playing checkers, the sounds of sliding, an ominous undertone. Our God had forgotten to wear a condom; our world was a sick wormhole of semen. I knew then that hundreds of miles away old men in tall hats were shopping for

bags of chips and gallons of ice cream at bargain prices, purchasing swiftly, and with character, less the gremlins come for them. Arrogant creatures with two legs and no sense of gravity left sets of footprints

obsessively, for the sake of leaving. We'd come to it here, in the dark,

the collective. Lime built up mineral deposits. Gristly strains of gravel

collected. The first, with hands, and the other,

esophagi.

And then, gloriously, the basement became a mural. Solid color etched the walls. It had the texture of chalk, and it flaked, fluttering as it fell. Size became color, became shape became memory. A tree, resilient in the autumnal wind, struck out at oncoming change, xanthus against searing amber. Farm carts peeling were parked forgotten by the barn. There was a house, strong and proud; a swing; another barn. In the distance a snaking, narrowing path led to town, matted after years of beating. There were no animals. Flooding out, a purple wave, tinged different shades along the edge, overwhelmed regularity, and the scene changed to a beach, under the same sky, rocking in the waves. Flat sand and winds. Patches of trees, further up the shore, stood patiently growing; spread back to what might have been a forest. Golden dust sprinkled Flowing in the. Time, life, dust, ashes, ashes in the dust, flailing, it had scars and hands, faces, darkness. Sewing, with a needle. Old games old old games. It might have been artistic if it weren't so blatantly pathetic: a plea for ongoing sequence. The extrovert crying hydrogen tears.

It wasn't

a mural, it had

never been a mural. I

didn't know

what to

say

.

Big, big clouds stretched

all across a space resembling the sky,

and groggy rain

looked like

it was about to fall

No, it had a body,

and it

was standing

straight

up.

It had

two legs,

(one on each side)

as though it were looking to support itself, this shadow thing, scrambling from a platform unto us. Rasping breath escaped it, and laces of blackness collected. Golden rings glowed in the center. It stumbled, unused to existence. It was

a

stranger here, and we feared it. Feeble torso, failing body. It came to life, here in the stagger, and called to us weakly. We heard,

but we pulled away. It had no arms. It saw we had them, and strove, sprouting appendages. Two. Three. Off balance, it fell.

The floor

was not kind to frailty, as it was made of cement, and it burst to shadow. Black, sagging mist, groping. It called

to us, weaker yet, and we

pretended not to hear.

::::::::::::::::::::

"So you're here?" Trey asked.

"Obviously."

"Did you bring anyone."

"I thought I was bringing Ashley," I said. "Though apparently not." Up on top of the hill, Markus was already high. Glazed over, he stared,

fascinated, at the mystery that was heaven, heaven being somewhere above, if it was. Heaven reminded me of old, old questions. I stood for a while against a tree, thinking. Then, catching a leaf, I tore it in two. Night fell, a gradual dampening in the light. All existence follows the same patterns.

"Wait for me," I said. "I need to find Ashley."

"The sky won't wait for you," Trey said. "You know that."

"Hey man," Markus said, "stay here… we've got… we've got earplugs, and

whiskey, and a mag-nifying glass." He waved them. He had all three- though there were actually two magnifying glasses, one for each eye, glass goggles for ogling the sky. Ogling

is such a strange word. Its meaning escapes me.

"It's fine," I said. "She said she'd be here."

Trey shook his head.

"Sometimes," he said, "you really aren't such a great guy. Always ditching us for

girls." Sounding so adolescent, unsurprisingly, like a teenage boy, half drunk, wearing goggles and sitting outside on a hill to watch the fireworks. He fit in, irrevocably, with himself.

"It's fine," I said. "Sometimes I'm really

not

a good guy."

Don't be giving me your sympathy, he said. If you're going to be like that, just don't come back. We don't want you here. Inside, we know you're nothing but the shadow of a shadow. In the light.

"Maybe I'll come back," I said. I found myself wondering who Trey was. I don't think I'd ever seen him before.

::::::::::::::::::::

"It's trying to stand," I said. Markus was too afraid. In our dark the shadows moved. It had flesh of spuming ash. Its existence was agonizing pain. I realized I'd been here before, or it seemed like I had. I'd painted this scene before, so many times, without painting. And I knew this ghost. I'd shaken his hand.

Markus tried to run. I held him back.

"Can you hear?"

But, facing forward, here where the whispers became accumulation, excess

drove him to deafness. He was deaf and blind, in weakness. Gravity pressed his skull against the ground. Repression dumped him in a pool of hardening grease. He broke the surface with a plunge, making the crust flake, but drank sickness, a pooling brown color, like shit. The muck flung handfuls and he sank.

Torrid breath, scentless, stained the cement. Wilting and crying. Dissipating smoke curled off limbs, like a cigarette with no filter, wasting away, in pollution. Contraceptive energies ricocheted within, stretching the torso. It gave birth to a death-baby, amniocentesis to end all sleeping, it nurtured itself poorly, in all ways absolutely at odds with the real: built up of silent voices. Hardness platformed decay. Putrefaction prefigures death.

::::::::::::::::::::

"You probably shouldn't have come," Ashley said.

"But you promised," I said, "that you would be there." "I can lie," Ashley said. "I'm a liar."

"If that's what you say." I held her hand. "Why didn't you come?" "I didn't feel like it."

"You didn't want to see me?"

"Yes."

"Why."(not a question)

"Because you'll just be thinking about her."

"Not true."

"You're right, it's not."

"Then what?"

"Didn't feel like it."

"Whatever," I said. "If you want, you can lie to me." "It's fine," she said. "I already have."

I stood with her for awhile. The trees blocked out sound. Thirty feet away, Trey and Markus saw through new sets of eyes. I didn't have to go far.

"If you want," I said, "you can leave."

"I'll stay," she said. "I want to see the fireworks."

As I held her, she felt absolutely, remarkably unreal. Above, the sky split, letting pour its great reserve. Brightness spiraling. Under the roar, I heard Trey scream, as though he'd been launched into space, atop a nuclear missile. Pirouettes of unbalance showered on high, hanging in sus-pension. I smiled, and thought of writing a poem. I wasn't on a hill, and they weren't the right colors, but it was almost as though the stars were falling for me.

The

b r i d g e was still here. There was still

very little flowing.

“I was wrong,” I said, raising a hand. “About you.”

“That's because…” the man with the afro might never have left, “it must be because

you're a horrible person.”

“Maybe.” “You throw rocks at small animals,” he said, “and

you have a big piece of

garlic in