untitled.

A succubus. A demon of his dreams. Shrouded in haze, parts of her speech audible, while her volume would drop completely at times, her lips still moving, while an overwhelming ringing start in his ears….

He woke.

Laying on his back, he slowly opened his eyes.

It was still dark, as the sun had not yet risen over the horizon.

He moved slowly, not to disturb the body next to him.

Swinging his feet to the floor, he sat on the edge of his bed blinking and rubbing at his eyes as they adjusted to the dark gray, pre-dawn shade of the room.

The room smelled heavily of sweat and whiskey with the underlying stench of a few good joints.

He looked back and gaze at the warm, slender body that had claimed half of his bed.

His eyes had adjusted by now and he could see the outline of the dark haired girl that lie there.

Even in the dim light, he could see how fair her skin was, perfect. With no freckles sprinkled along her shoulders or scars, or imperfections that he could see.

She stirred, moving from her shoulder to her back, showing the face that he had almost forgotten with the drinking and smoking of the night.

Her face was peaceful, as she was deep asleep.

She was pretty. If he could pat himself on the back, he would.

He sat there for a moment, taking in the features of her face.

Her thin lips, above which sat the only mark on her body; a small, dark beauty mark that favored the left corner of her mouth.

Her long lashes lay on the top of her cheeks and every few moments her brow would furrow slightly, she must be dreaming.

He slowly rose from the bed and fumbled for his phone on the bedside table before he wander towards the refrigerator.

He stopped in front of it and check the time on the small screen. 6:15 AM

‘Jesus,’ he thought. ‘Way too early…”

“It is, however, noon somewhere,” he muttered aloud as he dug through the freezer for a half-full bottle of cheap whiskey and some ice cubes for his glass from a few hours before.

Plucking a half smoked joint from the ashtray beside his bed, he moved across the room to a small office chair that sat at his desk.

He didn’t realize until now that he was completely nude, but didn’t care all too much.

He leaned back in the chair, lighting the roach before having a sip of his drink.

The cheap shit always burned going down, but it was good.

The horizon had now begun to glow as the sun was now attempting to begin its climb into the sky.

The room had changed from grey, to a very soft orange.

Her skin was now beginning to glow, even in this soft light.

He watched as her collarbones rose and sank with her breath.

From underneath the blanket, her legs lay exposed.

Slender, to match her profile, they sat at peculiar angles.

She looked as if she was trying to pose for the cover of some high fashion magazine.

Her hair lay in a fine mess on the pillows above her, but like she had meant for it to be that way.

She really did look like a model, lying there in the soft light, on his bed.

He chuckled to himself. It was probably just the pot.

The sun’s beams now reached over the edge of the earth.

Filling the room with a brighter, more yellow hue of orange.

She stirred once more, this time moving to her stomach, exposing her bare back, ass and legs to the sunlight that had finally crept it’s way into his window, across his floor and onto his bed.

Her outline was now shining with gold light.

Her skin was so pale, reflected so much sun that it was almost too much for his eyes this early in the morning.

He dropped the crutch of the joint into the melting cubes that had chilled his morning whiskey and made his way back into his bed along side the pale, dark haired girl.

A few moments later, she herself woke up.

She sat up and looked at the sunlight coming through the window.

She climbed out of the bed and set to fumbling, as he had, for her phone and after finding it and checking the time quietly said, “way to fucking early.”

She moved about the room collecting the clothes she had lost during a game of strip poker and shots of whiskey and began getting dressed.

He sat up in his bed now, watching her again.

She caught his gaze and they both smiled and giggled.

After dressing she came to the edge of the bed and sat down.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah,” he said and smiled back.

She stood and bent over to give him a soft, warm kiss on the lips before she made her way to the door.

He drew the shades, making the room a dingy dark.

Made another drink and sip at it while he rolled another joint to smoke before lying down to sleep the rest of the morning away…

“You’ll wander and wander and wander and wander… “ he heard her say through the muted breaks in her speech.

This succubus. A demon of his dreams.

Shrouded in haze, he could almost reach out and touch her.

And then she was gone. Leaving behind a painful ringing in his ears.

disaster / calm

A few days before everything went to shit, I swore I could feel the floor of my apartment shaking, very subtly, under my feet as I sit up at night. I would wake up in the morning and look out the windows that face east and see what looked to beclouds slowly swirling around the sun. The blue-bleached sky and this monstrous, red ball that sat in it, pulling the clouds in, slowly slowly slowly.

Riding my bike around I had begun noticing a lot of dead birds that lay all over the ground. In streets, in yards, everywhere. All kinds of birds. Small swallows and fat robins. Large ravens and putrid pigeons. People assumed it was because of the chemicals in the air, as SLC once sat in a bowl of a valley and collected a fine, tasty smog overhead, that the birds were merely falling out of the sky because the pollution that sat above. These birds weren’t dying due to chemical inhalation, they were killing each other.

I once sat at a red light and watched a group of swallow descend upon the nest of a pigeon, some began attacking the pigeons as others began pushing eggs out of the nest on the street below. And once the eggs were done with they all began pecking and scratching at this pigeon. Mauling it to a shredded pulp in it’s own nest which it had built to care for it’s young, before letting the carcass fall to the street. Just one of many incidents I saw before everything was different.

I remember watching the crane that was building new apartments on 200 S. fall while I stood in line waiting to buy Haribo Fizzy Colas and Vitamin Water at my favorite shop, a block away. Several of the men working there were crushed beneath the steel frame of the half constructed apartment complex and the collapsing crane. A day after that a Trax train derailed near my work late at night, sliding into the nearby music venue, killing damn near everyone.

Two days later I was at the DI on 7^th and State looking for a strobe light when a woman an aisle away fell on the floor and began to convulse. People, myself included, had naturally formed a circle around her to see what was going on, as is human nature. She began babbling in something no one understood as she was writhing around on the floor. She was foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back into her skull. As pink bubbles began spilling out her mouth I left in such shock that I had walked out without even paying for the strobe light in my hands.

Later in the evening I was doing laundry at my apartment complex when I ran into my neighbor, Leann. She had always been nice to me, let me keep to myself, shared a few beers, she was cool. But that night she chased me up four flights of stairs to my studio with a large kitchen knife in her hand.

The same night, after I had dealt with Leann, there was a huge sound. Indescribable. Like mountains falling apart. It felt like the old, renovated building that was my apartment complex was tossed 50 feet into the air. My studio was in shambles afterwards. The old organ that sat at the foot my bed had been tossed across the space into my closet. How had it not crushed me? The hatchet my father had given me, the tool I used to deal with Leann, was planted firmly in the wall about a foot from where I had fallen. How had it not hit me? Luck, I guess. A funny idea to think about at a time like that.

I slowly made my way to the kitchen window and stared out of it to the east.

Complete darkness.

Whatever the hell had happened had knocked out the power grid… and there wasn’t a single star in the sky that night.

I could hear car alarms and people screaming, but couldn’t see a thing.

I had noticed the sun hitting my windows earlier than usual the following morning and when I peered out my window this time, I realized it was because the mountains to the east were gone. I later found out that the ones to the west had fallen into themselves that night, as well.

And as for the rest of the valley, I’m not too sure. I don’t dare travel passed 900 S. from where I am right now. Looters, murderers and rapists from the prison near Draper, those of which were able to survive this long, have made the rest of the valley theirs.

The funny thing is, that now with mountains gone so is the smog that was once trapped by them. Even the winters are clear now, no more flakes of inversion mistakenly captured by my tongue, thinking it was snow.

A vicious fire took The Capital and much of The Avenues, burning so hot and so long that once it was done there was almost nothing left.

But now the land to the north is covered in vegetation and a few times I’ve even seen a deer and her fawns making their way through the grassy hills, creating small hoof paths through the tall grass.

That’s first time a path has been cut into them since there were streets and power lines and houses and cars that stood there.