Paul de Denus

Dark Black

The world ended on Saturday evening as Clayton Dill danced and weaved in the sand, a glass of red in one hand and a cool brunette in the other.

I was chuckling at his nonsense, eyeballing Laura Lang, Clayton’s tightly held girlfriend when the block of frigid air dropped and plunged the sunset atmosphere into a deep freeze, the sky dimming ultramarine as the red ball fell over the horizon.

Beach goers who had clustered along the water’s edge to enjoy the fine wine and light conversation stumbled about, bodies stunned and stiffening as if hit by ice-blue electricity, some looking to the water… others to the sun’s last slash of gold glimmering along the rim… then to each other as shoulders hugged and shivered and I heard Clayton drunkenly say, “for fuk-say, sum-one turn on the heat” but I was already down, driven to one knee; the startling slap of Siberian-like cold wrapped my body in an icepack, Laura Lang grabbed wildly for my arm, her brown eyes confused, her fuck-me smile disappearing in panic and she collapsed near Clayton who stared quizzically at the people staggering from the beach.

I stood, legs shaky and unsure - that of a toddler - and lurched for the access ramp into the parking lot, the hazed light receding in diminishing shades with each passing second - faster than my mind could comprehend - but one thought formed clear: the sun has gone out.

My teeth ached from the cold and I nearly passed out as I fumbled with the car keys, my hands like frozen rubber, the white chill touching hot marrow, shocking nerve endings; the fading light turned a deep blue velvet coating my skin like cold molasses, weighing me down and I scrambled to hold back panic wondering if I were having a heart attack.

My limbs numbed, my legs moved in slow motion and my arms swam in the semi-darkness… a darkness that felt alive and lurid like a child’s voice in a well and I wanted to go down the well into the dark where the voice, now spoiled and bleak echoed: the sun has extinguished… come to me… but I held my concentration - thin as it was - fragile as loose cobwebs and I shivered and sped through indigo streets, the look of disbelief on the faces I skimmed by, their feet slogging as if encased in cement, their bodies dimming as the remaining light of day slowly winked out; from above, birds - heavy as bricks - plummeted from the blackened sky onto the street.


2

I found myself home, staggered inside and pawed at the hallway switch; the room illuminated and I felt better almost immediately as if a light had flicked on inside my body and I moved freely then, lurching into every room as my body warmed and my brain cleared, turned on every beautiful light, wondered how long the electricity would last.

In the kitchen, the window over the sink hissed like air escaping from a tire and a memory from childhood bloomed in my head: I bounced inside an inflatable fun house… the structure suddenly losing air and I sank down… into cascading plastic waves… deep and overwhelming… grasping at smooth walls… the dark roof descending. I slammed the curtain over the hissing window and scrambling into every room, pulled the drapes and shutters fast on the rest of the gaping black mouths that now shrieked.

Searching the bureaus and closets, I found two working flashlights, a scattering of batteries - old and new - a half tray of eleven-inch taper candles, several matchbooks and in my bedside drawer, my handgun.

I clicked on the television, only to be greeted with pure static and white snow on every channel and I jumped when my cell phone rang – just the once - but there was no one there, only the darkness of dead air.

There was a fleeting second - only a moment - to ponder that someone finally did something crazy… a terrorist plot maybe… a government mistake… some asshole pulled the wrong switch, pressed the wrong button… and then more frightening, a simpler answer; this was just the nature of things.

I stoked the kindling in the fireplace and let out a child-like cry when it offered an encouraging flame and after several dry logs caught on, I tore into the furniture around the room.


3

According to the battery clock on the wall, it’s after nine in the morning and the sun should be up but it’s not.

It is beyond dark outside … I don’t have to look… through the numbness I can feel it; the house is ice and I can hear the outside skin cracking, falling; I have no power.

The living room windows bulge, the drapes push inward and I wonder if I’m imagining it or if it’s my alcohol consumption zanily taking control of things.

Wrapped in cold comfort, I drift but stay awake – why I don’t know – I should just let sleep take me but I don’t and I’m crying again… calling for anyone but there’s no one home… no one anywhere.

I can’t get my head around what has happened and I slip into a tearful giggle; my head feels swollen, my numb hands form into bent claws and I imagine myself T-Rex with the same damn look on its swollen face when the world disintegrated around him.

The fire is dwindling, the light all but gone; it’s a lost cause as the dark moves in and I fondle the handgun and yawn… Laura Lang leans in next to me and I pull her closer, the handgun too and force a smile knowing the flash in her brown eyes will be the last light of the world I’ll ever see.

© Paul de Denus 2012

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (The Love Book, Word of Mouth, and 6S Vol 3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut, and Espresso Stories.
Paul's writings and self published books appear at his blog: Me, the Other Twin.

Paul de Denus

The Attraction

He’d passed the same attraction three days running. Down the dry leafy back road, just off the golf course and up around the bend, it waited patiently for him like an old friend ready for play. The monument of snapped limbs and discarded brush stacked high, a rambling golden pyre, bone-dry, quivering like an expectant lover. He had hoped running would alleviate the burning need, create another game with less to lose. He slowed to a trot as the mind game caught hold; a glowing ember of it circled - wanted to touch with one strike of a match, one finger-flick of a clean cigarette - lightly crackle “you’re it.” Later, from his spot on the hill, he watched it run and play, quietly glowing hot and bright, pleased with what it had started.

It was faint at first, like a distant train whistle calling from somewhere along the darkening horizon, but now the sound was louder. It was not a whistle but the blare of wailing sirens and he relaxed a bit. The sirens smothered his pounding heart with a blanket of relief like that of cool rain and he licked his dry lips.
“It will be alright,” he whimpered, almost collapsing. He turned to leave and his eye caught a glimpse of something that did drop him to his knees: a surging wall of orange flame boiling through a row of trees that kissed along a ridge of large homes hugging the golf course.
“What have you done?” it said.

The first engine arrived and a fireman heavy with gear stumbled from the side railing. He was shouting instruction to the other firemen as they scrambled from the vehicle, serpentine hoses uncoiling over the road like spilled guts from some reddened beast. On the hill he watched them play, mesmerized as flames took the first two houses. They flowered, a hushing sound like marshmallows to the flame.
“It’s just a game,” he whispered, his face shiny, angelic. “We can stop anytime.”

There had always been an affinity with fire. When he was very young, it spoke to him, drew him like moth to flame. His mother had seen it in him too - this calling - had noticed how his eyes would light as they stared blankly into the blazing fireplace. In church she would encourage him to light a votive candle for lost souls and the dearly departed. She believed it was goodness he saw, some guiding light, the flame a source of warmth and comfort. She was wrong. His father, a heavy smoker, a heavier drunk, saw it exactly as it was. “You’re it,” the old man would say, flicking a flaming match toward him as the boy played on the floor with his older brother, Davey. “Oh you’re it alright,” he’d slur and laugh between pulls of the bottle and drags on the hand-rolled smoke. It was a contemptuous laugh, malicious. But it was quickly silenced the first time the boy - quick as a viper - snatched the lit match as it bounced off his chest. With widened eyes, he felt the sting of the flame, then overwhelming sadness as it quickly extinguished, the burn searing his palm. The boy didn’t mind though; he liked it… this new game. “Fire’s a motherfucker… a beast,” his father grunted, holding the shaky cigarette up close to eyes. He lightly blew on the smoldering orange ember. “It’s like you. It’s tricky.” His eyes faltered, then drowsily dropped down upon him. “Unplanned,” he mumbled. “Unplanned and tricky. That’s it.” The boy didn’t understand all the things his father had said but he trusted the man knew what he spoke of. He and Davey rolled and played about on the floor, dumping plastic soldiers and Tinker toys into their father’s stained fireman’s helmet. Crinkled matches lay scattered about the carpet, as black and as brittle as torched bodies.

He started setting fires when he was eleven. The attraction was a rough clearing out in the old dump near Rollins Swamp. It seemed a safe place to play, with so much ready to burn, so much smoldering there just beneath the surface of discarded trash. It was a game - “I’m it… you’re it” he’d say - and flick matches one by one from the long matchbox, each one tumbling, some flaming out, others burning bright as they landed in a scratch of bramble and oily boxes. They quickly caught on. He always heard the voice in the crackle - his father’s voice - a soft whisper at first that would detonate into a terrifying roar. “YOU’RE IT!” it would boom.

He controlled the fires at first, kept them small but the day came when the winds seemed to shift out of nowhere, the world opened wide and he was confronted with the beast. It stood before him, alive, taunting and unstable. He was not afraid. He was terrified. It ran around him, leering, its fiery tongue lolling and whispering around his ears. It quickly turned and rolled toward the swamp, like some living creature eager for water to soothe it, to cool it. He followed and waited. Instead of water, it found fuel to feed. The dry bramble swamp exploded and it consumed everything, its gaping maw, red and hot.

He had run then, somehow escaped through the thicket, excited and horrified, sprawling flat in a ditch as the fire engines screamed past down the smoke-choked road. As the last truck flared by, he glanced up in time to see his father riding the top of the engine’s cab, saw the terrified look as their eyes locked. He never saw him again. Outmatched and trapped in the swamp, his father and three other firemen were consumed by the monster’s fury.

There was no other consequence, the origin of the fire blamed on conditions at the dump, on shifting weather, an unfortunate and horrible accident the papers said. After that, he ran in a futile attempt to outrun what had happened. Then in his mid-teens, he started running with the fire, hoping it might grow tired of the game and burn itself out on its own. But it circled… circled and chased him. Always.

The fireman stood frozen. The blaze towered above him, the heat an open oven wrinkling the air. It had taken hold everywhere, jumped the street to the left of the golf course, rolling like a wave toward the opposite curb. Smoke churned between the remaining houses, hugged the gravel in a low thick fog as orange spikes flickered and peeked through like demon eyes in the night. He felt his partner then - Conrad - at his side grabbing his arm; he was shouting, barely audible through his mask over the roar.
“We gotta go… go now!”
For a moment, he thought he might faint. His vision blurred and he felt disorientated as if falling down a funneling dark tunnel. He thought he heard Conrad again but the voice was different, familiar.
And he knew.
It was a voice coming from the hill high above him somewhere, his brother’s voice screaming, screaming. He turned to look but all he saw was Conrad’s face wet and pleading, the beast rising behind him.
“We gotta go Davey,” he shouted. “We gotta go… NOW!”

© Paul de Denus 2011

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (The Love Book, Word of Mouth, and 6S Vol 3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut, and Espresso Stories.
Paul's writings and self published books appear at his blog: Me, the Other Twin.

Poet: Paul de Denus

Yard Sale

the boy, maybe ten
has a chipped toothbrush holder and two Scooby-Doo cups
which I tally at two dollars
and he gives me five for the three.

his companion stumbles and twangs
over my dented guitar,
asks how much and I say, depends?
do you play?

men and women in shorts and long faces
pull up in beaters and Volvos alike
to run the tables and gamble
on my cheap winners.

I got most everything
worthwhile
to someone else
but not for me, no more.

I’m out of here
after they’re all done
ransacking
my life.

A Cop Can Make You Twitchy

a cop can make you twitchy
his lights an intermittent strobe
flash disco

your eyes cock crooked in the rearview mirror
fingers tighten snug
in the glove compartment

you’ve seen this movie before:
the tap on the window, the click-
HANDS IN THE AIR ASSHOLE!!!

you’ve done nothing wrong,
well, maybe a mile or two
of speed

the cop looks shaky; he’s a drinker too
you can tell
his hand trembles proudly

as he issues the citation
- you’ll throw it away later -
bars cross your minds

Tossing Cards

in hand,
my extra deck,
- doubles, singles and triples -
bent around the edges,
some plain worn out
lesser players
I’ve already saved,
held together with
a thick rubber band
like a wad of pure cash.

they sail through the air
like lazy fly balls,
good sports hoping to
hit the wall perfectly
as close as possible
for a win.

Wilson flips his own deck of losers
he’s hard to beat
I hope he’ll make
a rare mistake
like a Hank Aaron
in the outfield.

© Paul de Denus 2011

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (The Love Book, Word of Mouth, and 6S Vol 3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut, and Espresso Stories.
These poems have appeared previously on J.M. Prescott’s blog as part of her April Challenge. Paul's other writings and self published books appear at his blog: Me, the Other Twin.

Guest Poet: Paul de Denus

This Old House

in need of attention
these aged timbers lean
worn and stressed
a weathered exterior stained
standing on unstable ground,
long exposed to unkind elements and words
until your touch,
as smooth as simple silk
bares the framework and exposes an interior
broken but salvageable
and lovingly rebuilt
restored with such surety
leaving no trace of ever being condemned.

On Blue Paper

wrens
drawn to bare branches,
dark and inky silhouettes
against the new morning sky.

the branches fork and fissure
in a thousand directions
like a sketchy rural roadmap
on blue paper.

and between circumstance, truth
and the great divide,
we wait to fly
to a different drift of senses,
bare feet at an easy pace,
warm sand and the glass ocean.

© Paul de Denus 2011

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (The Love Book, Word of Mouth, and 6S Vol 3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut, and Espresso Stories.
Other writings and self published books appear at his blogspot: metheothertwin.blogspot.com

Guest Writer: Paul de Denus

Going to Find Out on Christmas Morning

Late Christmas morning, Nick slid from his crumpled bed. His head was afire, his cider-filled brain shouting and pounding like an aching old tooth. He sat with his feet barely touching the floor and scratched his belly. He wondered if he was going to puke, and then decided against it. “Always too much,” he thought. It was always this way. Downstairs in the kitchen, he could hear his wife frantically preparing hot pots of coffee, working up “the perfect breakfast feast” just to please him and the guests. He stood and tottered to the window. A carved coo-coo clock ticked loudly next to him on the wall, its monotonous tocking hammering a spike through his swollen brain. His eyes, thin as dimes stayed locked on the horizon as he raised one large craggy hand and with a full powerful grasp, crushed the clock to dust. “That… will be… enough… of that,” he growled.

A white fog had settled over the barren snow-covered fields, leaving them flat like white canvas awaiting lines to be drawn. Below, the trees in the yard hung heavy with snow and ice, their branches bent, about to break. “They will break,” he said softly. “Everything breaks. Eventually.’ Last night during all the festivities, he had seen many things broken: hearts, dreams, homes, bodies, promises. Yes, promises. Every year it was the same. It wore him down and there would be a steep price to pay.

As he rubbed his head, he caught his reflection in the pane. It painted him a ghost, almost transparent, his white hair exploding up, his long johns pewter gray and as thin as his thoughts. His weathered face was heavily lined with what his wife called ‘smile’ lines. “Not for long,” he scowled and turned away quickly, grabbing for his boots. “Take care of the dear ones first,” he muttered, his body aching, his back cracking as he straightened up.

On a bench in the kitchen near the cellar door, a group of elfin figures much like young boys huddled and waited nervously. Through a window, they watched Nick stomp past on his way to the shed carrying two buckets, one of fresh hot gruel, the other warm flavored milk, the way the reindeer liked it. The ground under his boots crunched loud and firm like crisp cornflakes. The missus was busy cutting up loaves of bread for her guests. She hummed a familiar Christmas jingle, “he knows when you are sleeping… he knows when you’re awake… he knows when you’ve been bad or good… lada-deeda-lada-dee!” One of the elves leaned and whispered. “I watched old Nick last night…he had that list again… longer than last year’s. He took his time going over it. He checked it twice.” His small voice shook and cracked. “He’ll show no mercy. He never does.”
Then the kitchen door flew open and Old Nick was upon them, flying past, bellowing:
“OHH I KNOW WHO’S BEEN NAUGHTY!… OH YES I DO!!!”
His face was a red blaze and he swung a heavy switch in his trembling hand as he roared like a fire down into the cellar.

Along the frozen basement floor, thousands of burlap sacks tied with heavy rope writhed and squirmed like boiling serpents. From within, soft moans and child-like pleading hung suspended, frozen in the frigid air. Old Nick glowered over them, his dark switch racking stiff against his knee. “So many promises broken. Now a price to pay.” He moved slowly among them tapping his switch along the bags. “Everything breaks eventually,” he said lovingly. “Everything.”

© Paul de Denus 2010

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (the Love Book, Word of Mouth & 6Svol3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut and Espresso Stories.
Going to Find Out on Christmas Morning and other writings, and self published books appear at his blogspot: metheothertwin.blogspot.com