PostScript

Now that the story has ended, I wanted to follow up with some of my thoughts on the story and “the process”. Basically, what’s up here is a first draft. There are a few kinks I want to work out namely:


• Developing Lennie’s character more


• Figuring out a more realistic way for Dexir to be distributed (for example, it would need to go through the FDA and whomever else before they would just mass distribute) and describe how that would happen. I would probably need to do a little research for this.


• Describing the nature of the beast in more detail—I wanted the “afflicted” to be indistinguishable during the day (I think this is scarier); more scenes showing how this plays out


• Clarify what exactly happened to Lennie: unbeknownst to the reader until Lennie’s demise, the “afflicted” not only seem normal during the day but retain daytime memories after nightfall. Michael had ingested some Dexir before meeting Lennie, but it hadn’t taken effect until the third day. Presumably, he went to go find something (food, supplies, etc.) and went too far, choosing somewhere else to rest for the night. Then, he reanimated but was not mindless—he remembered that Lennie was around and probably returned to the barn to kill her. Not finding her there, he went to her house.


• Give Lennie a nicer death, or at least close the story with a nice memory of hers—the one I was considering was of her riding on the Coney Island Cyclone on a teenage first date


It’s a work in progress!

The End of Lennie

Three days later, Lennie was back at her house. Her stay with Michael had been relatively uneventful. The first night, they’d slept in separate rooms with the doors locked, paying tribute to the mantra that swept through the country in its death throws: “total isolation in a secure setting”. The next night, they drank half of the Jack Daniels handle Michael had taken from McCrary’s and ended up passing out in the living room.

A good fifteen years younger, Michael was passably handsome and good company—at this point, Lennie had mused, even a Labrador retriever would have been good company—but neither of them had felt up to the task of any sort of sexual entanglement. Lennie had always found that frenzied post-apocalyptic fucking ridiculous—the Medieval orgies behind gated walls while the bubonic plague raged outside; the silver screen strangers desperately smashing their bodies together while zombies broke down the front door. For her, sex was about focus and all she saw when she closed her eyes was Milo’s missing cheek.

Even so, in one boozy moment, Lennie looked fondly at Michael and wondered if anything might happen between them. She must have fallen asleep shortly after. When she woke up the next morning, mouth dry and head throbbing, Michael was gone. She had called out for him and waited until the sun had arched more than halfway across the sky before leaving the barn and heading home. Still slightly dazed, she tried not to consider where Michael had gone—for all she knew, he was out running errands and would stumble back in moments before the sunset, with some delicacy like fresh fruit in tow. She couldn’t risk finding out if something worse had happened.

Pulling her bike up to the house, Lennie surveyed the property, which looked undisturbed. She reached the back door and found it still locked, and in one panicked moment thought she’d left the key. Fortunately, after a few moments of fishing, she found it and sunk it into the lock—the shadows were already beginning to fall. She re-boarded up the door and went up to her room, shut the door and lay down in bed.

Suddenly, she was dreaming again. She was whizzing through town on her bike, waving to people as she passed. Everything was back to normal—she saw Norm Callaway mowing his lawn and, passing the playground, all of the swings were in use. The sounds of the living! She’d forgotten the music, the lifetime of background noise she’d taken for granted.

A faint banging noise, like a nail gun, grew louder as she approached the source. She turned the corner and saw Tracy Horton, Michael’s mother, fussing over something, bringing her fist down on something again and again. She got closer and was about to call out to her before seeing that the fist was covered in blood. Tracy had someone’s head on her lap, and she was punching their face repeatedly. The limp body moved only with the force of each impact.

Lennie opened her eyes but the banging didn’t stop. She rushed to her bedroom door only to have it fly open in her face: Michael burst into the room towards her. He had something in his hand but Lennie shut her eyes before she could see what it was. She prayed it would be fast and luckily, for her, the first blow to her head knocked her unconscious, saving her from the terror that lay ahead.

Ok, ok, there will be one more after this...

Occasionally, Lennie would hear someone walking outside her house. In those moments, she would freeze completely, holding her breath and not making a sound. She tried never to draw attention to her home—she’d been living off canned goods for a while now, so there was no need for fires, and, it being September, it was still warm. Last time this year, the leaf peepers started to show up in droves, booking all the rooms at Rosy Inn Bed and Breakfast. Lennie remembered one year when she nearly hit one of them with her car: camera glued to his face, the peeper was completely unaware of his brush with death, looking up only after Lennie honked to remind him that he was standing in the middle of the street. She’d been impatient that day but, looking up at the maple hanging overhead, with leaves of crimson and pumpkin pie, she’d understood. What she would give to see that peeper now! What she would give to see a face not warped by terror or fury.


Over the past few weeks, a knot had begun twisting in Lennie’s stomach: food was running low. Her pantry shelves slowly emptied, despite her efforts to conserve every tiny pea at the bottom of the can, each tiny morsel. She would have to venture out soon, probably to McCrary’s, assuming it hadn’t been completely plundered already. If she cut through the Adams’ back yard, it was only about a mile from her house. Taking her car was out of the question—the roads were choked with abandoned cars and other apocalyptic detritus—so she would have to go on foot, or risk taking her bike on the road. She decided to take the bike: if anything happened, she’d be able to get away faster. Plus, she’d be able to bring back more food in her bike basket, as opposed to just in her backpack.


Lennie had always been a biker. A former advertising executive and native New Yorker, she’d sought out Croydon, New Hampshire for its tiny population (724) and seclusion. Roughly the same time “Meat Me” was taking place, Lennie sat in her living room with a class of champagne: she’d successfully escaped the city for one year. She’d plowed (helmet on, head down) through Manhattan streets and enjoyed the constant battle between taxis, horse-drawn carriages, and those detestable rickshaw offspring that took up the bike lane. She called them the SUVs of the bicycling community—tourist limbs spilling out from all sides, they were usually manned by cocky young men who ignored you when you rang your bell to pass.


Though she missed her two-wheeling street combat, nothing compared to the long bike rides she took in Croydon. Sometimes going 20 or 30 miles, biking on those empty, flat streets that first autumn was like a slow sip of cool water—it breathed air into Lennie, made her feel alive. She would fly past the changing trees so quickly they looked like they were burning, the colors so vibrant against the clear blue sky.


Lennie closed her eyes, inhaling her stale bedroom air. Mentally, she traced her route and made a list of the essentials. Finally, she forced herself to stand and walk downstairs. Her bike was in the foyer, with her helmet. She breathed deeply again before heading through the kitchen to the back door, where, after peeking out through the cracks to ensure no one was around, she began removing the boards. Her stomach turned as each one came down. Obviously, she would lock the door, but if anyone knew she was in there, they would come for her regardless. She also considered the fact that, if anyone chased her home, the time it took to unlock the door might cost her life.


Wearing leggings and a tight black shirt, she hopped on her bike and began to weave through the streets towards McCrary’s. She tried to keep her eyes on the road while looking for any movement. Although the symptoms only manifested during the night, her former life had collapsed and the world was in chaos—people, afflicted or not, couldn’t be counted on not to act like animals. Halfway there, Lennie had to walk her bike through the intersection of Main and North Street: there was a four-car pileup. As the fall breeze blew through a shattered windshield, a rotting arm slumped out of the front passenger seat. Lennie’s heart stopped before she realized that the puppetry of the draft was behind its animation.


Finally, McCrary’s came into view, and Lennie was almost surprised not to see little Milo, missing cheek and all. She walked her bike into the store and leaned it against the front wall. She needed to check if she was alone. The thick silence of the store should have fortified her confidence, but instead it spooked her further. The scene was too familiar to her nightmare. The McCrary’s of her dreams was much better organized, however, with way more options. Lennie smirked at her dark joke, feeling a little more comfortable. She took her backpack off and went to the canned foods aisle.


Lennie was loading the last can of ancient SPAM into her backpack when she heard someone enter the store. She froze.
“Hello?” a young man’s voice echoed through the empty store. “I know you’re here. I saw you come in.” Lennie crouched petrified. The intruder walked further into the store, and she heard his footsteps first before his face came into view, “Lennie Hammerstien!” exclaimed Michael Horton. Suddenly, he suspended his excitement and said, “You’re not one of them, are you?”
Lennie swallowed, “Are you?”
Smiling reassuringly, he said, “I’ve been hiding out across the street,” Michael continued walking closer and Lennie tensed, her fingers tightening around some canned corn. He stopped his advance, held his hands up and said, “I’ve been vegan since college.” Lennie smiled and then started to cry.


“We have to go! We have to get out of here,” she said, glancing to the sky and quietly noting the advancing dusk. She wanted to invite him over, to talk to someone, have another body in the house, but she was afraid. She remembered the locked door, the vulnerability.


“Come stay with me tonight. It’s so close—” he paused, searching for words, “and it’s safe! I promise.” Lennie grabbed her bike and they scuttled across the street, Michael’s arms full of another load of cans.


Deep down, Lennie knew it was a bad idea, but she couldn’t turn away company after so much time alone. After seeing Michael, she couldn’t bear the thought of another silent night, her terrified thoughts rousing her from sleep over and over again. He hadn’t been a friend, but, in such s small town, people just know each other. Because she was new, everyone knew Lennie. She’d known Michael’s mother, Tracy, relatively well. She didn’t dare ask about her.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Ok, so I said this would be the last one, but things are playing out a little differently than I thought they would, so there will be one more. After that, no disembodied arms, murder or meat discussion for a bit...

Third Installment of "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes": The How

As the incidents of nocturnal violence increased, so did police presence—that is, until it became clear anyone, regardless of age, race, job or sex, could be the next perpetrator. People were advised to stay indoors, but then more families ended up killing each other. The last televised warning advised, “total isolation in a secure setting” i.e. no one, not even your toddler son or ancient grandmother, was to be trusted.

The general public didn't know how the information fingering Dexir was released, but by the time it was common knowledge—roughly three months after “Meat Me”—more than three-fourths of the American population had ingested Dexir in some way: used on nearly all commercial livestock, the chemical was not only in the beef, but in the chicken, the milk, the eggs.

At first globally assumed to be a contagious pathogen afflicting Americans, the rest of the world was hesitant to step in. These fears were increased by episodes like the group of Americans visiting Paris who, in the middle of the night, brutally murdered the front desk staff at their hotel. Again, they claimed not to remember anything, but after a handful more of similar occurrences—traveling Americans committing horrific nighttime crimes—the country was put on lock down.

The real difficulty with identifying the source of the problem was that, during the day, everyone was “normal”. The symptoms only emerged while the afflicted was asleep. Sleep was recognized as the enemy fairly quickly: stores sold out of No-Doze and pharmacies were looted for amphetamines. However, the necessity of sleep was impossible to deny and the population sought other solutions. One man handcuffed himself to his bed—neighbors found him several days later, having bled out after ripping his arm out of the socket and chewing it free. That is how the final solution became “total isolation in a secure setting”: protect yourself from everyone and protect everyone from you. If afflicted, the least thing you could do was take yourself out.

Not all vegetarians were safe—if you drank milk or ate eggs, you were vulnerable—but most vegans were. And, of course, there was the small contingent that only ate organic. Still, towards the end, before American television went dark, it became clear that it was something in the animal products. This message echoed through Terrence Grummer’s penthouse, images of the carnage flickering across the television screen as he ran to his computer—the internet held out about as long as cell phones—to send an email. The windows rattled as the loud banging on his bedroom door became fiercer, more desperate. He threw himself under the bed, laptop and all, typing quickly, his mind racing, trying to simplify the science of what was happening into a format that everyone would understand. His bedroom door began to splinter as he finished the email, sending it to the news station he’d been watching. He closed his computer quietly, hearing his wife finally break through the door, covered in blood from the effort but undeterred. Terrence had just started to pray—“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”—when his wife grabbed his leg, pulling him out from under the bed. They made eye contact. She was holding a brick.

TO BE CONTINUED

note: there will probably only be one more installation

Second Installment of "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes": The Why

Painting 1946, Francis Bacon

"If I go into a butcher's shop I always think it's surprising I wasn't there instead of the animal" --Francis Bacon

“The key question we have,” projected Nancy Carolin, President of Beef Producers of America (BOPA), “is will it change the taste of the meat?” Affirming murmurs echoed through the conference center as she returned to her seat.

“It will,” answered a commanding voice from the podium. Terrence Grummer, the scientist behind the chemical in question, raised his arms to silence the outcry that erupted after his answer. “It will enhance the flavor of the meat, not detract from it.”

This conference (“Meat Me in America”) in Tulsa, OK, would permanently alter the lives of every American—and eventually every person on the planet—but very few of them knew or cared about the introduction of the new chemical, Dx32h, or “dexir”, in American meat processing. It was a miracle drug, part antibiotic, part vitamin-laced elixir, designed to improve the quality and taste of the product. As “The Food Movement” advanced, introducing newer, more palatable competition—free-range hens; organic beef; acorn-fed ham—the larger industrial counterparts were suffering. Dexir was designed to allow them to sell meats equally tasty to the organic/hand-fed/hand-massaged product for half the price.

Needless to say Dexir was a hit. All the meat served at the conference was Dexir-infused, but there were also blind tasting stations scattered throughout the room so the representatives could see for themselves the astonishing effects. Of course, there were also stations explaining, with daunting charts and thick booklets of scientific evidence, how the drug worked, but those stations went mostly unvisited in favor of the widely popular “Foie-Gras” and “Veal Cutlet” posts.

Basically, using incomprehensibly complex science, Dexir affected the neuro-receptors of both the animals it was used on and those who consumed it. It employed the brain as well as the usual suspects—the stomach, liver, intestines—in the digestive process. The difficulty in explanation was far outweighed by the extremity of its effectiveness—factory-produced, low quality pork treated with Dexir was rendered as delicious as that snobby Spanish Jamón ibérico. It was the fairy godmother of the meat processing industry and the unwitting angel of death for the rest of us.

Dexir was not extensively tested on humans. They used dogs, rats and pigs, mostly, to test the effects it had on the brain, digestive system and body as a whole. In that way, the attendees of “Meat Me in America” were the first human guinea pigs of the Dexir experiment. One of these guinea pigs was chemical engineer, John Temmor, hailing from Jupiter Island, Florida. He would go on to murder his family in his sleep ten days after the conference. Another attendee was Marianne Dupre, of Ridgewood, New Jersey who, an evening just over a week after “Meat Me”, killed 13 motel guests and herself. In fact, all of the instigators of that night-time violence were somehow connected to thefirst batch of Dexir consumers. However, by the time those dots were connected, most of America was riding the Dexir train unbeknownst: it was widely introduced into the majority of meat producing plants just three days after “Meat Me in America”.

TO BE CONTINUED

Creature Feature

In the past month, I went to see a Hitchcock film at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery; watched countless horror movies—including, but not limited to, Killer Klowns from Outerspace, Terror Train and Delicatessen—and begun devouring The Living Dead, a collection of short stories about zombies. A hallmark of this season for me are these late-night thrills, something about the balmy weather drawing me to the macabre more than any other time of year.


Today, my one and only sent me “How to Structure Your Short Story” by UK author Nick Daws. He writes:

“A short story is not just a very short novel but a distinctive literary form in its own right. To write stories that sell, you need to understand short story structure ' in other words, what makes a short story tick…. I believe that, to be successful, a short story requires four essential ingredients: characters, conflict, crisis and change.”

Employing Daws’ strategy, I wanted to pay tribute to the ghouls, mutants and undead that populate my summer nights…

"Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes"

In her dream, Lennie’s back on the old Schwinn, cutting through damp morning air as the dew flies from the tires, wetting her legs. Sometimes she’s wearing a dress—it changes—but her clothes are inconsequential compared to the miracle of being able to bike freely, without protection—an activity taken for granted before The Change. Pulling up to McCrary’s Groceries, she doesn’t even bother locking her bike—that’s how carefree she feels! Even before reality melted away—the familiar yet unrecognizable faces contorted with feral hunger, the fires, the stink of death everywhere—she never left her bike unlocked.


The bells tickle as she walks into the store, basket in hand. It’s half full—fresh peaches! Annie’s homemade ricotta! Filet mignon!—before Lennie realizes that the place is completely empty. She turns around slowly—no customers, no managers, no one at the cash register.

“Hello?” she shouts.

Something’s wrong, she thinks, shifting the basket into her left hand and raising her right to her mouth, to bite her nails. A rank smell wafts up and Lennie suddenly drops the basket. All that fresh food! It’s gone bad, covered in maggots and smelling of rot. As she stares down at her ruined goods, there’s a thud behind her, something hitting the front window of McCrary’s. Her heart in her throat, Lennie begins walking toward the sound, and this is when the dream slows down to a snail’s pace. She tries to walk faster and quieter—or turn away and run—but she can’t speed up, and instead keeps knocking cans off the shelves, drawing attention to herself. The front window is almost in view and every fiber of her being is telling her to run but some silly voice is pushing her to see what the sound is, and, besides, reminding her she forgot to lock her bike.


What feels like hours later, the front window finally comes into view and Lennie feels silly for being so scared: it’s just Milo McCrary, the McCrary’s youngest son! Six years old with a bowl cut and huge blue eyes, he’s throwing a ball against the front window. Happy to see someone else, Lennie smiles and pushes open the front door, calling to him, “Hey Milo! You scared me half to death, I thought—” Milo turns, the left side of his face isn’t right. Her vision focuses and the world stops making sense again. A chunk of his chubby cheek is missing and she can see all his teeth, those little baby teeth. He’s caked in dirt and blood and his tiny fist is gripping the ball, which he throws at her smiling—or what looks like smiling, it’s hard to tell with his face like that. She catches it but it’s too malleable, too sticky. Lennie uncurls her fingers to reveal one of Milo’s big blue eyeballs.


The dream always ends there as the day always begins with Lennie bolting up in bed, gripping the .45 she sleeps with now. Those beautiful bay windows, one of the selling points her realtor kept harping on, were boarded up now. All the windows and doors in the house were. For the first few days after The Change, she hadn’t dared leave her room, even after she’d nailed and boarded the rest of the world out. She was lucky her house hadn’t been set on fire—she’d heard her neighbors’ screams, first as they began to burn before running out into the street, and then as they were torn to pieces by the awaiting mob. Either no one had known she was in her house or the loud explosion from the gas station down the street had distracted them, but no one came for her.


The world fell to shit in days, but Lennie remembered the first report in the weeks before the chaos: “Man Who Murdered Wife and Children Claims He Was Sleepwalking”:

Jupiter Island, FLA--John Temmor claims that he woke up last Thursday morning with no recollection of the atrocities he committed the night before. Temmor, 44, called the police himself and they arrived to a scene fit for a horror film. The bodies of Virginia Temmor, 41, Mark Temmor, 13, and Lara Temmor, 10, were strewn throughout the house, not only having appeared to have been dismembered, but also cannibalized by Temmor. He is being held, without bail, by local authorities who have refused to comment. Temmor appeared distraught and shouted to reporters as he was taken away, “I didn’t do this!” Friends of his, who requested to remain anonymous, said they were shocked at the carnage and would never have though Temmor, a “soft-spoken engineer and family man”, would be capable of committing such crimes.

Temmor was the first, but soon more and more cases like his—extreme, senseless violence after sundown—began emerging: “New Jersey Woman Slaughters Motel Guests, Disembowels Herself”; “Late-Night Hollywood Club Turns Into a Blood Bath”; “Five-Year-Old Shot After Gruesome Attack”. By the time everyone figured out what was happening and why, it was too late.


TO BE CONTINUED

Thoughts, suggestions, criticisms all welcome! Back tomorrow with either a middle or an end.

Beneath the Lilies

The qualities [to be sought in work] are: a meaningful coherence of form and content; the subtle but precise deployment of detail in the service of that meaning; vigor and clarity of expression; and seriousness of purpose.

- Daniel Mendelsohn How Beautiful it is and How Easily it Can Be Broken

I had the pleasure of watching the award winning film Water Lilies (Naissance des Pieuvres) recently. Using critic (and one of my personal heroes) Daniel Mendelsohn’s formula, I thought I’d try my hand at reviewing the film. Spoilers ahead…

Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, watching Water Lilies is akin to taking leisurely swim, sliding your face beneath the surface and opening your eyes. Much of the movie takes place in, under and around chlorinated water, but it’s the emotional aspect of the film that is most like the underwater world, where sight and sound are muddled and the need to rise—relieve the pressure, breathe, be free—is paramount.

The movie follows the ellipses of three adolescent girls—Marie (Pauline Acquart), Anne (Louise Blachère) and Floriane (Adèle Haenel)—as they respond to their nascent sexuality. Floriane and Anne are both on the synchronized swimming team that Marie aspires to be a part of, though Floriane is at a higher level. In the first scene, we see Marie, a tom-boyish looking brunette, watching the dips and spins of the swimmers longingly. The camera then switches to slightly chubby, short-haired Anne lingering in the locker room, waiting to disrobe till everyone has left. As Marie awaits in the hallway, we get our first glimpse of Floriane, a sultry blonde, and the two make eye contact before she brushes by. Meanwhile, in the now-empty locker room, Anne quickly removes her bathing suit only to have a side-door fly open to reveal a started Françoise (Warren Jacquin). Their eyes meet at, one assumes, the precise moment that Floriane and Marie make contact, and the world seems to stop as he takes her in, then quickly shuts the door.

Thus, within the first ten minutes of the film, the two feature romances are identified—that of Marie and Floriane, and, to a lesser degree, Françoise and Anne. Throughout the movie, these four characters bounce off each other, helplessly led by the ebb and flow of raging hormones.

As Marie and Floriane grow closer, a wedge forms between the Marie and Anne, as she tires of Anne’s “childishness”, emphasized by her shoplifting and adamancy to get a happy meal: “I want the toy!” she insists as Marie looks on, full of embarrassment and disapproval. In the end, it is Anne who ventures into adult sexuality first, losing her virginity to Françoise, who comes to her house after Floriane refuses to sleep with him.

Floriane’s character was especially tragic: called “a slut” because of all the male attention she receives, she defines herself by her sexuality, dancing seductively in several scenes and making out with strangers, as that is the role pushed upon her from all sides. For example, there’s this conversation between Floriane and Marie:

“FLORIANE: One day I was training alone, holding my breath under water and I saw two hairy legs appear. And…(laughing) he’d got his cock out, showing it to me. I suppose a hard-on in cold water is flattering.

MARIE: Gross

FLORIANE: That’s life. (pause) You must have stories like that. (pause, Marie looks down) Go on, tell. (pause) Really? Nothing? (pause, Floriane looks lovingly at Marie) You’re lucky, Marie. (pause) Very lucky.”

Initially in opposite roles, Anne, despite being younger and much less experienced, becomes Floriane’s guardian, stepping in and preventing her from having backseat sex after a night clubbing in one scene and “taking” her virginity in another. Marie initially refuses Floriane’s deflowering request:

“FLORIANE: I want to ask you something…not quite normal.

MARIE: Who cares about being normal?

FLORIANE: (long pause, Floriane grabs Marie’s hand) It should be you. (pause, they look into each others eyes) I would like…you to be the first. You get rid of it—remove it for me. Then it’ll be real.

MARIE: (shaking her head) I can’t do that.

FLORIANE: Please, Marie.

MARIE: (shaking her head, then softly) No (she turns and pries her hand from Floriane’s)”

Eventually, Marie agrees and, in silence, does something beneath the sheets—presumably breaks Floriane’s hymen—ridding Floriane of the barrier between who she is and who her peers assume her to be*.

As a woman watching the film, it’s impossible not to relate to at least one, or all, of the characters—Anne, the outcast still growing into her body; Marie, the underdeveloped and inexperienced; Floriane, beautiful and lacking self-identity. Watching them float and flounder, trying to come to terms with a tide of new emotions and a changing body’s demands and desires, takes you back to murky teenage years when you thought all the pressure and confusion meant you would never surface.

One of my favorite scenes is when Marie and Floriane are lying in bed, looking at the ceiling. Marie is wearing a sequined bathing suit, a gift from Floriane, over her clothes:

“MARIE: The ceiling is probably the last thing most people see. For at least 90% of people that die. For sure. And when you die, the last thing you see is printed in your eye. Like a photo. (pause) Imagine the number of people with ceilings in their eyes.

FLORIANE: (turning to look at Marie, then returning her eyes to the ceiling). Ceilings will never seem the same.”

After reviewing Water Lilies, I feel that, for me, pools might never seem the same.

*that is, a girl who has sex—to them, “a slut”