Dr. Gil

"Dr. Gil, you have someone in your office," the nurse at the front desk said as he walked by.

"Is he a family member of my surgery patient this afternoon?" the doctor asked.

"I...I'm not sure. He just walked in and told me that he would be in your office."

"And you didn't ask who he was?" Gil asked the nurse. Rennae was one of the more suspicious nurses in the hospital. 

"No. I felt like I knew who he was. But now I can't think of his name or where I saw him before." Rennae looked confused, as if she was trying to remember something she already knew.

He looked down the hospital halls. Orderlies and nurses walked around doing their jobs, guiding or pushing patients to their rooms, delivering medicine or food, or the few that were flirting. Occasionally, he would see a doctor walk down the hall rarely looking up from a clip board. 

"Thanks, Rennae. I'm sure it's just a friend or family member of my patient. I'll reassure them that..." he looked down at his clipboard, "Sarah is in the best hands." 

When the doctor arrived in his office, there was what appeared to be a funeral director. He looked to be in his early forties, perfectly fitted black suit and tie, and he was looking over the books on the bookshelf. When the doctor walked into the office, the man looked over and smiled at him.

"Shulmu, Dr. Gilgamesh."

He didn't think he had heard the man right, "I'm sorry. What was that?"

"Shulmu. I'm sorry, is my pronunciation off? So many words you have, I'm bound to get something wrong."

"No, that was fine. In fact, it was perfect," Gilgamesh said as he closed the door to his office. "How did you learn that?"

"There's only one way to learn languages," the man pulled a book on lung diseases off the shelf and opened it. "You speak to others who speak the language. So much information on how to avoid me for such a small amount of time. Even you. You've avoided me for the longest of anyone, but it has still been a small amount of time."

Gilgamesh knew who he was now. He had found a way to avoid him not long after his friend had died. 

"Why now?"

"Your patient this afternoon. There will be complications with the surgery. She's not leaving this place alive."

"...it's a breast implants surgery. I'm just giving an old woman with too much money a false sense of youth. No one ever dies here. This isn't even a hospital. It's just a place where rich people come to have plastic surgery. How?"

"I think she has an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. Not sure."

"And what about my career afterwards?" Gilgamesh asked.

"I'm not sure. It's honestly not my problem."

"So, after she dies you take me with you?"

"No. You've avoided me for so long that you don't appear on my list anymore. You used to be on it every day, but when I would make my way to you, you would just drop off of the list."

"So, what? You were just 'in the neighborhood' and decided to drop by?" Gilgamesh said with air quotes.

"In a sense," the man responded with a smile.

Gilgamesh didn't know what to say or do. He tried to think back to when he found a way to avoid death. It had been so long, he couldn't remember what it was. The way this man was talking about it though, it sounded as mundane as a glitch in whatever system he had. 

"What now?" Gilgamesh asked.

"Nothing special," the man responded. "You prep for surgery, you do your job, she dies anyway, and you go on with your life."

The comment sounded too nonchalant for the situation. The one...thing...he had been avoiding this whole time had finally caught up to him, but nothing would happen because of it. Gilgamesh realized that was exactly it. After all this time running from the man before him, it meant nothing to him. It wasn't a great victory, he hadn't become significant. He was as mundane as anyone else to the man. He wasn't even a nuisance. The time he had spent running was just as insignificant.

"I can see on your face that you've realized why I'm really here." The man put the book back on the shelf and began to walk out of the office. "I'll see you again soon Gilgamesh. To me, it won't be any time at all."

"Why did you even come?" Gilgamesh asked. "If what I'm doing is so insignificant, then why did you even meet with me?"

The man was already gone around the corner, but Gilgamesh heard his reply. "Because I get so few opportunities to gloat." 

Still Peckin

 "Now, fellas, I know Miriam ain't lookin' as good as she used to, but callin' her an abomination is just mean." 

"She's dead, Jeb." The man at the front of the mob said. It was the corner store owner, Owen. 

"She ain't never been more alive. I ain't seen her run around the yard like this in years." 

"No, I mean, she died last month. Now she's an undead corpse walkin' the Earth. It ain't right, Jeb. Look at her. She's eating a chicken." Owen pointed behind Jeb. A woman with rotting flesh in a sundress, was eating a live hen. The chicken was furiously pecking at her face.

"Well, who in the Hell don't like themselves some good chicken?!" Jeb declared.

"Not when it's still peckin'!" A voice from the back yelled.

"Well...it's our chickens! What we doin' with them is our business. It ain't like we hurtin' any of y'all."

"She ain't the Henley's dog yesterday." Owen said.

"Now, you can't prove that." Jeb heard Miriam heave. He turned toward her in time to see a red collar fall out of her mouth. "...um." 

Owen eyed him condescendingly. "Look, Jeb, we get it. When Miriam passed you got upset and consulted with evil powers to bring her back. We let you grieve in your own way. Sure, we thought it was weird when all of a sudden you started reading a bunch of books bound in human flesh-"

"I didn't even know you COULD read, Jeb," old woman Annette said, while cradling her ax.

"The point is," Owen continued. "This isn't really your wife. It's just her body with some evil kinda spirit in it. It's terrorizing the town. It's just animals now, but how long until she attacks a person?"

"She done ate Pastor Dave!" Loretta shouted , waving a rolling pin. Owen glared at her.

"Loretta," Owen said in a harsh tone. "Don't you think you should have told someone that? Had I known she'd ate the preacher, I probably could've LED with that?!" 

"I don't have to listen to this! I'm leavin'!" Loretta said and stormed. Just as she had left the crowd the rain opened up on the small town folk. The torches went out, and the crowd's feet started to sink into mud.

"Hey, Owen," the local mailman said. "I...I think I'mma gonna call it quits. I see ya tomorrow."

As he started to walk away the crowd started to murmur and shamble back to their homes. Owen took one last flabbergasted look at Jeb, before walking off.

Jeb turns to look at Miriam.

"All right now honey. Let's get you inside. 'Sides, the wheel is on." Together they walked into their home. 

The Hole

  I always wanted to be a cop. Call it a hero complex, but I wanted to help people, keep them safe. I wanted to be the person that when you were scared, in trouble, desperate, and you saw me, you’d feel safe. Like everything is going to be okay. That’s why I studied criminal justice. That’s why I started bouncing and working security at bars, venues, and house parties in college.

I started pretty mild, a college house party in a suburb, a venue in a nice part of town. As I gained experience, I started looking for jobs in progressively worse areas. It seemed like a better experience for me, given what I wanted to do. I thought that I should be exposed to bad situations, so that I would know how to handle the violence, the drugs, the crazy, desperate people. I found that I was able to deal with all of those things. I was the type of person who would run to the danger to try and help people. I showed patience and empathy with all those people I had to deal with. I could keep my head when the situation got bad. I could stand my ground when I needed to.

Despite all of those things I exposed myself too, I was never all that bothered by it. I guess I just expected all of it. I would see the same faces, doing the same things, and getting in the same trouble time after time. If they stayed in that life, they would all end up in one of three places. In the hospital, behind bars, or underground. Eventually, I didn’t see it as any different from 2+2=4. I never looked down on them. I wished the best for them, and sometimes I would see people start to get better. But I saw at least as many get worse.

But I never got hired. Departments weren’t hiring when I was able to apply, and as you get older your priorities change. I got a good job, got married, and started to talk about making a family. We even bought a house. It wasn’t on the good side of town, but it was far from the bad side. Stability is a hell of a drug. 

One day, I was working in our backyard. Through my headphones I could just barely hear bang…bang bang bang. At first I told myself that it was just a car backfiring, a stereo, maybe some kids setting off firecrackers in their driveway. But then I said to myself, “No. You know what gunshots sound like.” 

I rushed into my house and called for my wife. She came out of the back with the dog, and she had no idea that there had been gunshots. I grabbed my own gun, told her what I heard and to stay inside. I told her that if she didn’t hear from me in 15 minutes, to call the cops, and I rushed out the door.

She would later tell me that she kicked herself for not stopping me after I left. But then she told herself, “That’s who he is. In his heart, my husband is a cop.”

When I got outside, I took deep breaths. I wanted my heart to slow down so it wouldn’t drown out any noise I heard, that might point me where to go. I took in all the noise I could. From behind the row of houses across the street from my own, I heard a woman shout, “Mom? MOM?!” I immediately ran to the intersection.

When I got to the intersection I slowed down. Running straight into a situation like that was a good way to get myself killed, and I’m no good to anyone dead. I walked around the last house and headed up the street, pulling my gun out. At first, I didn’t see anything unusual. As I kept looking, I noticed a car parked in front of a house with its passenger door wide open. Walking towards it I took in all the information I could, from sounds, to smells, to sights. I could hear a woman yelling, “I warned her. I warned her.” When I got halfway to the house, I saw the first of the bodies.

When I got to the house, I saw two bodies lying face down on the front lawn. Both females. At first I thought it was a little girl and a teenager, but I would eventually find out that it was one little girl and her mother. I looked at the house. There was a middle-aged man on his back, maybe 20 feet from the house. Blood covered his face. A few feet in the direction he would have been facing, was a little boy. He was on his back, completely still and covered in blood. Slumped down on her knees behind her walker, adjacent to the man, was an old woman. She was still yelling, “I warned her. I warned her.” Her daughter stood over her, arms wrapped around her mom trying to console her. A few feet from the front door, an old man sat with his back against the wall of the garage. He just kept slowly shaking his head.

I would later find out that the man’s estranged girlfriend, and mother of their two children, had come to the house to get the kids. Some kind of dispute happened between her and the grandmother, and she began to hit the grandmother. I guess she knew her son was unstable, and that’s what she was warning her about. The son had come outside, shot her, both of their children, and then turned the gun on himself. Right there in front of his mother.

The part that sticks with me is the little girl. I saw the back of her head where she had been shot. The way she was laying, the hole had to have been where she was shot. Dried blood lined the back of the head from the hole, and brain matter had caked around the edge of it. The hole itself was just black. The hole looked so damn big. Bigger than any hole a normal pistol caliber would make. I felt like the hole was getting bigger. I had that feeling you get when you stand too close to a ledge and feel like you’re going to fall off. The hole started to swallow me.

I don’t know how long I stared at it, but I tore my gaze away from the hole when I heard sirens. Another neighbor had walked up. He had seen the whole thing from his kitchen and told the cop as much when he got there. He told me I could go since I didn’t see what happened.

I started to cry on my way back home. When I walked into the house, I pulled my wife in close, and told her we were safe. I explained what happened and told her I needed to make a phone call. She gave me some space even though the only thing she wanted to do was hold me. I called an old friend of mine. He’s a firefighter and his wife is an EMT, so they understood what I was going through. I’m lucky to have a friend to help me through that. The last thing he said to me was, “Just remember. That wasn’t your call.” Which means that I wasn't the one called in to handle that situation. It wasn’t my responsibility to help them. I hadn’t failed anyone. 

After the call, my wife held me while we called her parents and mine. I didn’t want either one of them to find this out second hand and get worried about us. She explained how she had wanted to stop me. She told me she loved me. I know she was worried about how it would affect me. She was worried about it keeping me up at night or changing my emotions. It never really did though.

This isn’t a memory that has ever kept me up at night. As far as I can tell my emotions or thoughts didn’t change because of it. I believe it was because I immediately talked to someone who understood, had experience with it, and I trusted. It’s been two and a half years now. It still comes to mind every now and then, and I still feel that hole swallow me a bit. But I know, it wasn’t my call.

The Seer

 The bartender places another Jack and Coke in front of me. My fifth since I sat down. 

"Thanks, Aiden," I say. Our eyes meet. I see a wrinkled hand holding the wrinkled hand of grey haired woman with gentle eyes. I see a grown man who looks almost identical to Aiden, with his same crooked smile, playing with a toddler on the floor in front of the couch we're sitting on. I can feel his happiness. "How's Jenna?" 

"We broke up a week back, Dex," he said. "Starting to wonder if I'll ever be able to keep a girl, you know."

"Trust me, Aiden. You're going to find a good woman, and she's going to make you happier than you ever thought possible."

Aiden smiled at me as if to say, 'what do YOU know, you old drunk' and went to better paying customers. I looked around to see if I was drunk enough.

I caught the eyes of a tall guy in a cardigan laughing with some friends. I see a lawyer saying, 'I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do. She won custody, Jake.' 

In the corner was a brunette in a red dress. She was flirting with a man with long, blonde hair. It was only for a second, but my eyes wandered to hers. I see a dirty, matted mess of blonde hair covering it's owner's face. Their arms outstretched, choking me, as I feel life fade from my body.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. I could try. I could walk over there and shoot blondie in the back of the head. Either he would survive, or some other dirty, blonde haired person would do it. What ever happens, will happen. I'm just a witness. I think back to the young man that was here every Wednesday. He had a tattoo of a Hot Wheels track all down his left arm. One night, I bumped into him on the way to the bathroom. I saw a needle sticking out of a checkered flag. He hasn't been here for a month now. I down my drink, and wave for Aiden.

He nods his head at me. He started my drink without asking what it is. He knew what I wanted. A double Jack and Coke with just a splash of Coke. I looked him right in the eye when he brings it over.

"I love you, Aiden," a younger version of the girl with the gentle eyes says. Now her hair is red, and her dress was white. A deep haze surrounds the rest of her. 'Now we're getting somewhere,' I thought.

The haze covered more and more with each drink. Eventually, I made eye contact with plump, but cute woman down the bar. I hear a long, harsh ring, but all I see is fog. 

'Close enough,' I think. Placing a $100 bill under my empty glass, I made my way out the door, and down the street. 

A block or two later I stopped. Vomit erupted from my throat and I bent down, spraying the ground with a dark ichor. When it was all up I started my walk home again. I immediately slipped, and fell into my own vomit. It seemed as good a place as any to sleep.

"Sir, are you okay?" A familiar voice said. I opened my eyes to red haired woman with gentle eyes.

"I had a really good time tonight." The haze covers almost everything. The only thing I can see of the person talking is a crooked smile.

"Is there anyone I can call for you?" The red haired girl said as she helped me up.

"Um, no. Thank you, but I'm alright," I replied as I dug into my pockets for a twenty. "Here. Take this and have a drink on me."

"Oh, no. I don-"

"Please, I insist," I said cutting her off. "I won't take no for an answer. The bar with the blue lights out front. Ask for Aiden at the bar. He's the best bartender in the state."

She thanked me and made her way toward the bar. As I made my way home, I kept looking back at her. I was satisfied when I saw her walk into Aiden's bar. I can't change anything I see. But that doesn't mean I can't pick what to encourage.