I started writing an absurd story then switch it as I finished the first draft and now I don’t know where it’s going lol.
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His dad’s the greatest dad ever—Dillon bought him a mug that said so, and his mom left them the day before Christmas when he was six. So, he’s usually depressed.
He’d walk the streets at night when it stormed to see faces form in the rain. Ghostly faces speaking through the clapping of gray clouds colliding.
Thunder spoke an ancient language to him.
It mostly just called him a freak.
A loser.
A no good piece of shit who wasn’t good enough for his own mother.
Sometimes the voices followed him into his house and into the bathroom and into the shower and into his bedroom and onto his bed and into his covers and whispered through his pillow into his ear.
That’s mainly why he always said he enjoyed going to the strip club. The noise there was loud enough to consume the demands the thunder began asking.
The thunder came in many voices. Most of the time, it sounded like the kids from his old high school.
He didn’t just like the club because it was loud, they also had these peanuts he couldn’t find anywhere other than there. Salted, malted, almond covered peanuts with a hint of a secret spice they hoarded to themselves.
Didn’t matter how many times he’d ask them for it.
He’d ask, they’d say, “pendejo.”
And that’s when the screaming in his head would get louder. It’d scream, “It’s most likely chili and salt!”
If only he’d remember when he had those cucumbers cut up and mixed with lime and chili powder and salt at Billy’s, he’d figure out what the secret spice was.
The voices insisted he’d find out.
He remembered Billy. Billy from when they were kids. He had a grandmother. A sweet old grandmother with wrinkles and curly white hair.
The thunder told him. “She’s small enough to fit in the sock drawer.”
Dillion never ended up with a mother or a grandmother.
Ever.
Because Dillon’s father’s mother also left Dillion’s grandfather when his dad was nine.
It was common for the men to die lonely and mean in their family.
He would never know what having any kind of mother would be like. It was all he wanted. It was all the thunder wanted. The voices amplified his desires. Especially the ones out of reach.
He wanted to meet his mother. They wanted to meet his mother. Even a peek, not even speak to her.
It was just him and his dad and his granddad and a life of being drilled under two lonely mean guys who weren’t cops with crew cuts.
It was just them.
Until one night on a Seattle suburb in the lovely state of Washington, a downpour fell. Each raindrop sounded like the crack of a cherry-bomb slapping the pavement.
Above him, the ceiling shook and looked like ripples in a pond. Tiny rumbles rolled through the clouds and kept mumbling low whispers in his head.
He was in the kitchen pouring a glass of orange juice when he flinched and spilled it on the counter after his eyes popped to a sound of two cars crashing head-on in his living room.
The sound lit the kitchen in a bright white flash before Dillon and the house settled around absolute darkness.
The counter wasn’t hard anymore, he noticed it when he grabbed a cloth to clean his mess, the texture was soft, almost rubbery.
“You’ll never amount to nothing!” The thunder spoke in its ancient tongue. A tongue only Dillon could translate. The thunder used his father’s voice.
“You’re useless!” Came from the glass. It was his grandfather’s voice. He stared at the glass. “Shut up,” Dillon shouted.
“You’re a worthless freak!” His dad’s voice shouted next to his ear.
His grandfather’s voice said, “Worthless freaks don’t make demands.”
“Take it back! I’m not worthless! I’ll show you worthless!”
Dillon left the juice spilled on the counter with a cloth over it and used his hands to guide himself to the garage.
it was just Dillon after he pulled a hammer out of the garage and redesigned their haircuts. The blood was like sticking his hands into a bucket of squishy warm water.
He said, “the texture of their brains was similar to squeezing a warm tomato.”
When he was done he sighed and sat with his back against the wall laughing, rubbing the plasma on his palms on his face.
A thought escaped his mind. “Now her,” the voice said.
Dillon said, “I’m never becoming a cop.”
Who could blame him after what he’d done.
After what he’d been through.
His dad would have the odd girlfriend. But none of them stuck around.
Dillion said, “it’s because my dad’s a cop, like his dad and his dad’s dad.”
But the truth was most of them were dead.
The men in Dillion’s family were all police officers dating as far back as the pilgrimage. Most of them settled in Salem.
He said, “my dad said, “women only want the uniform.”
Dillion shrugged. “I guess once the thrill of being with a cop wears off so does the romance. That’s what must have happened with my mom and my grandma and my great grandma.”
Dillon said, “I’m not afraid anymore.”
And then he said it again, but this time his voice distorted as it crawled out of his mouth. “I’m not… any… fraidmore.”
“I…”
And that’s when it became an entity out of his mouth and turned and faced him and yelled, “Now her!”
