To kick off our first week in the SoHo Neighborhood (they call this "Bohemian writing") here is an old story I dug up. Enjoy.

THE USER
November 8, 1994

The familiar gray speckled tiles burned down into him from a ceiling that had seen this cold and distant scene before. He'd been feeling so lost and foreign, he wouldn't have known his own hand even though he had been feeling its touch a lot lately. Erotic images cloudy and vile filled the void that tried to conjure up some image that would arouse him, to maybe allow him to complete his mission: to release that which was pent up as slimy/sticky love/hate.

He tried to think of anything to quench this thirst, yet he couldn't make his body cooperate with the being he wanted to embody.

He tried until he was sore.

Everything was so unrealistic, so far away and so wrong that it was impossible. Eventually he stopped trying, angry and disappointed. A cold, meaningless sweat accompanied him now, as he lay in bed limp and helpless. It didn't matter--more misery would probably make it easier. "See what you've done to me?" he hissed aloud, lips tightly drawn together. It was a last feeble attempt to fix the situation. For hours he just lay there, looking up at the gaps in the ceiling tile, thinking of the next step. "Shut up. Leave me alone", was all he would say. The tiles looked so perfect it killed him.

He recalled what he was: just a leftover tile that wouldn't fit into the ceiling or spectrum or mold that was expected of him. A mold that she had set.

It had been almost a year since they broke up. Well, broke up is the term he used; she said they were never going out to begin with. That is what made it so easy for her to tell him of the new boyfriend. He felt so helpless and worthless. He wasn't even worth being told it was over. She couldn't wait to tell him of the new man--her words would kill him, and she wouldn't even bat one pretty long eyelash over it. One guy didn't matter, she always had a full ceiling to choose from.

All the carefully placed squares must be just trophies for her, he thought. Where he ranked as a tile was unknown; probably half-broken and stored somewhere where she could easily use him as replacement for other more broken tiles. Maybe when spring-cleaning came around she would throw him away, or bury him with some shallow but new tiles.

"So what if I'm a little different, I love you more than anyone," he spoke aloud again.

Maybe he was more broken than he thought. "I'm broken", he announced. "I must be broken."

He continued lying in bed doing nothing. Why were there never any answers to his questions? Was he even asking the right questions to begin with? He remembered wondering why she never apologized for anything. He once tried to pin her down on things she said that hurt him. She would then only twist the facts, forcing him to apologize instead. Those eyes could do anything to him:

He would listen to whatever she said.
He could no longer stand all of her lies.
He would always love her.
She was so one sided all the time...

He was something beyond being confused; it had to be more complex than that. Too many drops of hate, love, and remorse in a bucket of milk may cause the handle to break. The original milk doesn't have to be sour either, the sickening drops will take care of it. That is what makes it so hard. From a distance, the milk looks sweet and tasty. It invites him to admire and taste. Later when the bucket handle breaks and the milk spills, it transforms into the most vile sour liquid, seeping and rotting the very essence of his existence. A spilt existence he is sick of crying over.

Pulling out of his confusion, he sat up and looked at the only answer he had seen in a long time.

Realism at last.

The .38 Special felt good in his hands as it always had. It's finely crafted dark iron wood handle allowed his hand to curve around it comfortably. Its shiny blued steel was cool to the touch. Its cylinder made the same perfect 'click-click' each time when spun. Its hammer pulled back with perfect tension and relaxed with a series of small springy ticks. The weight made its presence known. It all fit together perfectly. Predictable, cool, and in his hands. The perfect problem solver, for all the problems he was having.

He looked at it with longing.

He remembered how excited he would get when he went deep in the woods and practiced shooting it with her. It was scary it was to watch her shoot it. Such power in the hands of someone so delicate. She was a lousy shot but she never really needed a gun. She was much more dangerous without it.

"Why did you still call? Why wouldn't you leave me alone?" he thought over again and again. He tried so hard to get on with his life, but she wouldn't allow it. He must fit as a tile somewhere. He must mean something to her...

"I said shut UP!" It was all he could say. He knew it was over long ago. Somehow this torment must end.

He opened up the cylinder to check the ammunition. It swung out heavily revealing six hollow point shells ready, willing, and waiting to scream. Even though hollow point bullets were more expensive, he shot them anyway because of their effectiveness. When shot, the tip would hit the target and mushroom over (since it was hollow), creating a much larger hole than regular solid tip bullets. The excessiveness of his load was the extra boost he needed.

Satisfied with his ammo choice, he deftly flipped his hand that was holding the gun and snapped the cylinder close with a satisfying, resounding 'Slap'.

God, it feels so good in my hands, he thought again. Just like she had felt so good. "Damn it, leave me BE!" he screamed. This must be more satisfying. Nothing like a fully loaded .38 special with hollow points. This wasn't some game of Russian Roulette, this was three bars stuck on a slot machine. A winner with every pull.

After closing the cylinder, he decided to wait and think some more. At one point, it had been a good relationship. They did all the fun things, had the great sex, called each other all the time and so much more.

"I'll never forget how you make me feel", she would say, sometimes. One time in orgasm, she screamed out a name; though it wasn't his name, or 'Oh God' or anything like that. It was some old unfamiliar name of some obvious ceiling square. She laughed about it. He'll die with it always ringing in his head, falling on him and crushing him.

"Damn it, Shut UP!"

He looked at the gun objectively. He wasn't the type to rush into things, at least not anymore. On alcoholic nights she still called him. Why wouldn't she just let him move on? Why did she still call? Once she called and talked about how she was sad about getting caught cheating on one of her new boyfriends. She was so sad she got caught. While talking on the phone, he tried to make her feel better, let her know that he cared about what happened to her. He told her that it was all right, and that she should just try to move on. He told her she was beautiful. He told her she was special. He told her everything she wanted to hear. She felt better and decided that it was best to just dump the boyfriend.

"I can't have a guy mad at me for something so stupid", she said. Even though her words made him sick, he then saw a dim ray of hope, thinking maybe everything could go back to the way it was during their good days. She then described the man she cheated with: rich, handsome, and everything else he was not. Once again he felt lost. She asked him how she should go about dumping her boyfriend and how she could get her new partner to love her. At least he was getting dumped, he thought. Her words killed him, but yet he tried to help...

"Shut up, Shut up SHUT UP!!" It was becoming overwhelming.

He put the gun down and walked over to the stereo. His own voice coupled with the screaming he kept hearing was bothering him, and he needed something to clear the repeated thoughts from his mind. Anything to get her voice out of his head.

He hit the power and quickly twisted the volume dial. It thumped loud. The words and to the song 'Burn' stung him with great satisfaction: I never was a part of you... burn. I never was a part of you... burn. Over and over. It made so much sense to him. At this point, anything against her made so much sense. He sat and listened some more, turning the music up so even as he screamed the words, he couldn't hear himself. He was finally beginning to feel different emotions other than the hurt he had been feeling for so long. Even though the volume pained him, it was pain that was welcome. It was pain that wasn't from her.

With the stereo still raging full on, he walked over to his dresser and looked at the colognes lying on top of it. He picked up his most expensive one and opened the cap. The smell was not one that he particularly enjoyed, in fact he pretty much hated it. He only wore it because she knew it was expensive. She probably didn't like it on him either, but it showed he had some money, and she always liked that. He poured the remaining 3/4 of the bottle all over his body while singing the refrain to the song:

Something inside of me, has opened up its eyes. Why did you put it there? Did you not realize? This thing inside of me, it screams the loudest sound. Sometimes I think I could... burn.

While finishing the verse, he picked up the gun and put it to his head. His arm stretched out holding the gun to his temple, he cocked the hammer back. No, that's the old way, he thought. You can still live if you do that. He shifted his position on the handle and stuck the barrel in his mouth, now with his thumb on the trigger.

He looked into the mirror above his dresser, mouth over gun barrel. It reminded him how she looked when she blew him. For him, it looked so appropriate with a gun. He felt so sick with the sight that he had to take the gun out of his mouth because he almost gagged on the barrel. There was so much screaming going on, he couldn't think. He turned up the stereo louder.

He sat back on the bed and looked down the barrel of the gun, aiming it around the room. He pointed it up at all the ceiling tiles, imaging what it would feel like to shoot holes in them until they were damaged beyond repair. He then turned the barrel back to his head and wondered if it would yield the same result. Would she even care? He looked into the end of the barrel and noticed the faint light shining on the bullet waiting to be expelled from the chamber. He was just four inches away from the answer to everything. The swirls inside the barrel made him dizzy. He thought about the bullet twisting through the barrel and drilling into his head. Deeper and deeper it would drive until the mushroomed bullet cleared all thoughts and all problems. It was too easy.

He set the gun back down on the bed to think some more. He wanted to overload, to just end it all without a predetermined conclusion. He figured if everything was maxed out, an appropriate ending would follow accordingly. This started to make sense. Maybe this was Russian Roulette after all. His battle was half won. The room reeked so strongly of sick expensive cologne, the radio blared so loudly of Nine Inch Nails. Although two miseries were taken care of, it wasn't enough. He needed to fill the other senses to make it complete.

He left the room momentarily to get a bottle of cheap Vodka that he kept in the cupboard in the kitchen. Although he wasn't much for drinking, this would probably make things easier. A few good stiff shots would satisfy his need to overload his taste. At one point, he would have given anything to taste her again, as sweet as she was. Now she had turned sour, her sick milk making him want to vomit. He also thought of her tasting of other, more perfect men. Almost instinctively, he stood on his chair and looked up towards the ceiling. He started licking each ceiling tile until he became sick and dizzy once again. He downed a good quantity of vodka to wash it all completely out of his mind.

For sight, he was quite satisfied with the mirror. It didn't lie, but it showed just the opposite of what was happening, yet somehow it was reality. It reminded him of how he had been feeling for so long. Everything was completely backwards, yet it was real and he often fumbled clumsily with his problems. He took the mirror off the wall and began using it to look around the room. Maybe he could reverse everything if it appeared opposite of its true state.

When he thought about touch, he thought about feeling. Since he had been feeling ashamed about what he had been touching so much lately, he wanted to pass on this one but inevitably could not. Again, he thought at one time he could have died from just touching her: the smooth skin around her delicate, lithe waist, the sweet softness of her hair. The perfect roundness of her breasts and how they neatly fit one in each hand, creating a heat in him that spread like wildfire throughout his body. The play in her thighs that drew him insane, as she laughed, squirmed and teased him.... He snapped from this image.

If he had thought of this before he might have succeeded with his initial goal, but he no longer wanted to feel that. The only thing he wanted to feel was the cold steel of the .38 special sitting ready in his hands.

After being satisfied with the fulfillment of his senses, he sat back down on the bed and surveyed the situation. The music was still pounding away, shaking the room and driving him more than he thought was possible. The sick/rich stench, now saturating the whole room, pleasantly angered him. The Vodka made everything a little easier to accept; especially the "mirrored sight part" which was now getting a little hazy. And finally feeling. He was feeling very near a conclusion. He was feeling very near death.

He looked at the fine blued steel revolver in his hand. Such a finely crafted piece with such a good feel to it. Six hollow-point shells when only one regular one was needed. It was for effect, he thought. The screaming seemed to get louder even though the stereo was up all the way. He was growing tired of it all. The combination of everything made the conclusion inevitable. He slowly lifted the gun and held it for what seemed like an eternity. He cocked the hammer and closed his eyes.

I never was a part of you... burn.

Fire rang out as he squeezed the trigger six times, completely emptying the gun. The head on the girl tied up in the corner exploded as each hollow point ripped through her skull, splitting her head between those two beautiful, long lashed eyes. The echoing of the shots subsided as her body shook in fits and spasms in the corner, blood everywhere. He opened his eyes and threw the gun on the floor as he watched her sexy form squirm in an arousing manner. He looked at the ceiling above her dying body. There was a cracked tile above her there. The tile was now covered with her blood, which was dripping back onto her body. He stared at it for a while until he finally smiled, knowingly. Satisfied, he turned off the stereo, successfully masturbated, and went to bed.

Pleasant Dreams,

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