Note: I posted this on my tumblr a few months back. I wrote it one morning while drinking a Bloody Mary and looking out my window. I thought this shit was cold blooded but no one seemed to like it to much. What do you think?
“Hey Aryn!” I scream from the side walk. She was half way through the street walking that little rat dog. I hated that dog, It was barely bigger than a squirrel and it was always yelping and it walked funny, all bow legged like a horse. I just knew that when I finally collected the nerve to tell Aryn how I felt about her that we’d fall in love and then in our third month together, I’d say as she wore her paint stained overalls, with blotches of red and green paint smearing her light fingers and tanned cheeks, I’d tell her that the little rat dog had to go. That it’s yelping was waking me up and I tell her I couldn’t write without right amount of sleep. I’d lie and say that the dog bites on my ankles.
She swung her head around and her red hair had a glow in the sun. I’d been in love with a red hair earlier in the year. An internet superstar, she was tumblr famous. But our love never quite lifted off, she stayed a fantasy while I stayed a stranger. But I just knew Aryn was going to be different. Angel blood pumps through Ayrns veins. She turns around and the sun washes over her face and she looks great and I know in my head that I should savor that moment and way the sun rides your forehead and the way her smile grows slow on her face like that raindrop on a windshield that eats the other raindrops.
She gives me a wave and starts to turn around to meet me at the corner, dragging the rat dog behind her. It’s a fantastic day in Chicago, a Sunday in its infancy.
“Hey.” She says. I open my mouth but my eyes dart to the yellow blurring taxi. There is a clunk and a grinding noise, how you would imagine throwing a rock at a fan must sound. My jaw drops so low I’m surprised gravel doesn’t get stuck in my beard.
“Shit.” I say shaking my head.
“What?” I read her face. When she feels the tugging on the leash I watch her smile crack like an egg dropped from the sears tower.
The rat dog, Sid, is stuck up the taxi wheel. It’s yelping its final yelps. The engine revs and the car goes forward. You can hear grinding and tearing of skin.
“Shit.” I’m petrified, a profanity spewing statue. “Fuckkkk.”
She screams the dogs name; “Sid!” over and over again. It would be erotic if it was my name in that tone, but it is not me. It is the name of her mangled box terrier. “Sid.” She’s screaming and people are looking.
“Fuck.” I’m frozen on the sidewalk. I see what I now know is blood dripping from under the car. She is in a panic, on her knee’s reaching under the car. I remember her first day I’d ever seen her, eyes fixed at the ground, those baggy blue jeans, stained with paint. I was too slow to catch a sight of her full face but when I turn around the elevator doors are already closing, I see for the first time her face her bright brown eyes and her perfect skin. I see her mouth open and my heart bursts. It slices right through my heart, right through my ribs and my heart and guts poured out on the floor and as I struggled to pick them up and stuff them back into the fissure like cavern that was my chest I gasp.
when I turn around to get a full look at her face before the elevator doors close, but I can’t help but think she was looking at me. And those doors slide shut I see her face and a nature felt a flutter slice my heart, Right through my ribs and my heart and guts poured out on the floor and as I struggled to pick them up and stuff them back into the fissure like cavern that was my chest I gasped. I wanted her to like me, I wanted her to talk about me with her roommates, and her friends from back home over skpye. She’d talk about the boy that open his chest and painted the floor with his love.
But now as I watch her dog yelp, that little rat dog, Sid.
“Damn.” My face contorted as if Larry David smelled a Indian food fart. I want to help her. I want to grab the dog and pet its blood matted fur. I want her to thank me and kiss me. She is still screaming. The cab driver pulls off fast, I watch him as he speeds down the block, I see a bundle drop from underneath the cars body. The bundle doesn’t move. She turns to look at me. Tears rolling down, just like the raindrops on the on the windshield. She looks at me and I take off running.
I run for 3 minutes. Our love is that bloodied bundle.
