THE K FILE

Sleepy, my friend?

Let me wake you with a thought

What of the ocean and the seas?

The magnificent walrus pups

drowning above

and the starving bears

waiting for scraps

Sorry to interrupt so close to your dreams

but I wanted to ask you

What will you do?

What have you done?

What can be done?

Let me ask you one more thing

What about your life - where are you going?

What are you doing?

You're not doing much

Are you asleep yet?

I spent part of my morning at the art supply warehouse in the pen and ink aisle, testing out pens by writing profanities on those scraps of paper the employees leave out for people like me. My toddler scribbles paired well with the flow of the ten dollar pen. Further down the aisle, I found an old friend, the Pilot G2, but this time I tried out the ten instead of the five. I reached for another scrap and dragged both pens to feel them together. I drew a cube with one pen and that house with an X in the center without lifting the pen - that trick my tio taught me. I scribbled more profanities, grabbed another scrap paper, turned it around and in gold gel ink, the paper said to me

It was so hot that summer. I was stomping barefoot around the dirty green carpet, opening every stiff window and turning on every dusty fan I could find. It was humid too – that wretched kind of humid that makes you feel like you’ve pissed your chonies. I took a cold shower, surrounded my room with multiple fans and sat in the dark watching Gilligan’s Island in my underwear. I played solitaire with actual cards because I love the clack sound a card makes when you’re putting it down. I had taken time off to recuperate and “find myself” but by the fourth month I was in a routine and both my mom and I began to get irritable about the situation for obvious yet different reasons.

Around the time Threes Company started, the air cooled and entangled between the fans, forcing me to dress. I closed some windows, turned off most of the fans and quietly fixed a drink in the kitchen under dim lighting. I would see shapes out of the corner of my eyes and the screaming faces stretched within the grain of the wooden cabinets. If I was still up around the time The Jeffersons came on, I would hear a woman laughing far off into the distance.

Hillside Memorial was deep down San Timoteo Canyon Road and petrichor lingered in the atmosphere. If you wanna get there... the man paused as if conflicted. He spat sunflower seeds on the ground and continued

Take that road down there...

He spoke with a heavy Polish accent and wore a distressed white tee with equally distressed, grass-stained denim. He pointed straight ahead towards a windy road with black clouds hovering above it. He spat again.

Now take that all the way down until you hit Redlands, then make a left. If you’re lucky, you’ll beat the train.

Spit.

I’d just park and get cozy ‘cause you’ll be there a while if ya don’t beat it.

Spit.

Now when you see the schoolhouse - its gonna be on your left, okay?

He said this with great emphasis. You're gonna keep going down that road until it turns into dirt - okay? And then... He paused, spit, then said: you should write this down. 

He continued.

Keep on that road and eventually, you’re gonna find yourself, well basically in the middle of an orchard - now don’t worry he said immediately. That's city property - the city don’t want to pave that road – now we’re fightin’ that at the city council meeting next week believe me. Now just continue on that road between the orchards until it turns to asphalt again. Then…

He paused to spit.

You keep going down the paved road until you see the black gates. They’re tall and on your left. You’ll see 'em.

Ellis thanked the mechanic, and the man sighed. My date will be here soon. You know how they don’t let ya forget, he laughed as he tapped a blurry, blackish green number on his forearm. The man, noticing Ellis’ visible discomfort, patted him on the shoulder - the man’s hand was heavy and the resignation in his life was palpable through his touch. 

/

Ellis drove in silence. The black gates were massive and ornate. Ill-fitting and outdated from the days in which these ceremonies were mournful rather than festive. Although now it was still mournful under the guise of festive. People celebrated but deep down the underlying gloom lingered and fear was especially palpable during The Ceremony. Ellis drove through the iron gates of Hillside, which lied on the foothills of the rich folk. An owl perched atop a headstone marked SMITH gave a quiet hoot. Ellis wondered what made Smith’s grave so special and his explanations ranged from the most logical – that Smith was beneath the right tree at the right angle in which any old owl could target its prey to as symbolic of an explanation as to say that the owl was a representation of Smith’s forgotten yet infinite wisdom and nocturnal lifestyle. He stood and pondered Smith’s Ceremony, and in his thought figured anything could have been said about Smith but few things were. Smith’s funeral was probably brief and relatively empty. Immediate family wept but there were so few of them in attendance. If Smith had been alive to see it, his or her ego would have taken a blow. Smith’s mother would have wept the most had she been alive. Ellis imagined Smith’s eulogy read by the youngest mortuary employee, who gathered random particles of information to fill in the blanks on the standard eulogy template. Nonetheless, people paid their respects simply and drove home to forget Smith. 

/

She sat up at three forty-five frustrated after half an hour of trying to force a dream, her stomach grumbling. Normally, she never looked at the clock but today she did. 

The time shift was still affecting her sleep, not that her sleep had been conventional when she lived on the other side of the world. The urge to flee to the little flat on Madurastraat 16 came with no promise of personal change only the hope of it. She looked outward to the dark street staring at the crowd of bikes with rusted chains, listening to that same relentless voice she hoped to escape. It would tease - this isn't going to fix it; and so, with that thought, she read until dawn to escape it. 

The night before, she had slept well despite the nightmare. She was back on the farm, her mother, father and brother all together again but now as adults and none forgetting what had happened. It was as though they were being forced to live together in the trailer from which the clan had begun. Nobody seemed happy about it. All of them once more under her father's dictatorial regime, her brother closely watching him with a despicable respect. Her mother depressed and longing to leave. And then there was she - no longer timid and now acting like the bug in her mother's ear urging her to escape. Now everyone was back together as though this had not happened already, oblivious to the fact that it would happen again, to the same effects only now faster and perhaps with less pain. In the dream her mother bought a white convertible, picked her up and fled, leaving her father and brother in the literal dust as she and her mother booked it away from the farm. A goose flew by with its loud squawk. The neighbor across the street had his light on. The bed, always too hot or too cold. Now the streetlights aided with the oncoming dawn glow through the canvas shades and invaded the room slowly. All hope was lost for sleep. It was now 6:54am. 

I left my house today. I didn’t say anything to anyone. I don’t know why, but I just felt I had to leave. I began to drive. I don’t have anywhere to go, nowhere I wanted to be, but I just felt I had to leave. The urge to drive so far away, to vanish… completely vanish from my current life was so powerful.

The ringing in my ears has gotten stronger and the twitching from the meds has turned into a weird spine chill.