Immortalized In Wax
What price would you pay to be immortalized forever?
I awoke screaming in agony. The beautiful dark haired lady I have been sharing my art studio, loft apartment, and intimate moments with said, "look, I made a beautiful wax sculpture of your talented hands. Now I will have a piece of you forever." I slipped into unconsciousness from the searing, burning pain of the flesh of my fingers melting.
A horrible feeling wrenched me awake yet again. The terrible pain in my wrists started just as it had in my hands. The agony moved up my arms, encasing them in a napalm-like grip of sulfurous hell.
"I think I shall work on capturing the intricacies of your face as it captures the greatness of a masterpiece after I finish detailing your strong muscled shoulders."
I really wish that if my countenance was going to be highlighted forever it did not have such a grimace on it. I groaned, tears coming to my eyes, wondering what part of me was next going to be trapped eternally.
What price would you pay to be immortalized forever?
Saltwater Surprise
"Mmmmm saltwater taffy. I can't wait." I quickly looked around, then picked up the mostly full
New England Taffy box from the counter of the break room and headed back to my desk. "I
wonder who left these here...Ah well, their loss."
I opened the white box and grabbed a pink and brown piece, quickly unwrapping the paper and
slipping the candy into my mouth. A red and blue, green then black piece rapidly followed.
The sugar and confection ran down the back of my throat like pure heaven. Heaven, quickly
turned into hell; fire and a painful constriction in my larynx.
Pure, liquid wax seemed to burn my mouth and esophagus, choking me. A sticky vomitous mass
exploded from my mouth onto my desk calendar in the middle of the stack of candy wrappers as I
collapsed onto the floor.
Sometimes the biggest surprises are the worst.
Skin Art
I was sure the inks and tattoo needle could not be dirty or dangerous. The shop looked sterile and clean, maybe a bit too clean, but I was eighteen, and lots of friends my age already had tattoos.
Now I am in my mid-thirties, and every time I take off my shirt, the skeleton etched on my breast looks a little bigger and definitely more angry.
This morning, I woke up sore, and looked at my chest. It was scarred and gory, missing something. A deep, vile coffin shaped gash is ripped open; like looters tore a temple asunder searching for treasure. From my rib cage to my right breast was a gore covered trench.
Now, seconds later, a swinging harvester's blade cleaves the air above my face. Grave dirt peppers down, sticking to my tears of anguish and fear. First the man craved the ink, now the ink craves the man.
That Old Car
The old car sits at the top of Hall Hill in Robin's Field, alone and abandoned. It is forgotten for months and years as time marches on, until some errant boy or local hunter stumbles upon it, often peppering its steel hull with shot, to simulate death and destruction.
I discovered it long before I knew what a Chevrolet was and before I could contemplate an era known as the 1950's. My daddy and I had walked the trail over Tumbledown Mountain one Saturday in my eleventh summer. After four miles of rocks, bushes, and brambles, we came upon a twisted, mostly grown over logging road left over from an era where tall timber regularly fell to the woodman's ax and chainsaw, as they built Maine's paper mill dynasty.
"Daddy, what is that over there behind the bushes and tall grass? Can I go see?"
"That is Crazy John's Fleetline."
"What is a Fleetline?"
"It is a big old car, from back when they built them to last."
"Can I go look at it?" I asked, already edging closer, through the bushes and weeds.
"Well, I guess, but he killed himself in it, back in the late 50's."
"Eeewww..." I looked around quickly and fearfully, thankful for the sunlight and daddy's presence. You never know when ghosts and haunts are going to be around. The hairs on my neck stood up, begging me not to take a step closer, but my curiosity won the battle.
I pushed aside blackberry bushes, and skirted a few poplar trees, to behold the hulking old car. Sun glinted and played along dented chrome and a myriad of broken glass in open window spaces and windshield.
"Don't get too close...could be haunted..."
I laughed a bit, and tried to lean further into the broken front driver's side window, imagining I saw rust colored blood stains on the side of the cracked and torn wide front seat.
"Be careful or you will cut yourself."
"Damn! Ouch..."
"What did you just say?"
I cradled my left hand with my right. I was already dripping fresh blood on my t-shirt. I had pierced my palm on the jagged rust flecked remnant of a side mirror mount.
The drops had landed on the dull door paint, causing the oxidation to creep away, and be replaced with a shining black obsidian surface, deep and magnificent.
The wide door creaked open, moaning and protesting, a tomb sealed for hundreds of years, now hungry for the tasty new soul presented to it. Suddenly the interior of the car was all fresh vinyl and soothing big band sounds. A soft voice said, "would you like a ride?" Suddenly my hand no longer ached from the cut. I knew that everything about this car was a mystery that begged exploration.
"What the hell are you doing?" My dad's voice was loud, high, and streaked as he grabbed my arm, yanking me away from the car and clear of the creepers and vines that had begun to entangle my feet. I closed my eyes, and remember little else from the day, except waking, lying on cool white sheets.
My left hand, mantled in gauze and bandage burned from the cut, and I could see my daddy, sitting in a bedside chair, reading from the Bible, slowly moving his lips as he sounded out the words.
The old car sits at the top of Hall Hill in Robin's Field alone and abandoned. It is forgotten for months, except when some errant boy or local hunter stumbles upon it with extra bullets or shells to waste, and time to simulate death and destruction. Pray they do not get too curious or too close.
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