| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Bradley Mason Hamlin is a writer and publisher, born in Los Angeles and currently living in "Capitol City" Sacramento, California with his beautiful wife Nicky and their many amazing children. His poetry and short stories have appeared in several small press magazines in print and on line and he is the creator of the metaphysical crime series: Monster Zipper, featuring the Intoxicated Detective, available at: www.mysteryisland.net |
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| © 2005 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| ROMANCING THE DRUNK |
| by Bradley Mason Hamlin |
| Samantha sat at the table near the kitchen, glass of vodka in her left hand, held up as if an expensive cocktail at a swanky party, her right hand busy gesturing to the invisible person in front of her.
Her son watched the conversation. Alex kept one eye on the Foreign Legion fort on the carpet in front of him (the Arabs sneaking up the sides of the walls) the other eye watching Mom talk to the visitor. She liked the ghost. She smiled. Her private guest said something back. “Mom,” said Alex, “who are you talking to?” “None of your damn business!” He felt the blood rush to his face and the tops of his ears. He felt like crying but held it back. You didn’t want to lose control; not even for a minute. He had been distracted and the Legionaries lay dead inside the fort. On the television, the Mystery Machine rolled through the fog toward another haunted house. On the kitchen table, the clear liquid inside the water glass kept disappearing. Looked like water, but it wasn’t water. Alex knew she had the Jack In The Box “Secret Sauce” inside those water glasses. Maybe she was talking to the Secret Sauce Agent. Samantha got up and sort of floated into the kitchen, opened the bottom cabinet, moved a couple cooking pots aside, and locked her fingers around the neck of the vodka. She unscrewed the clear bottle (she always removed the labels, easier to hide them that way) and filled her clear glass. She moved back to the table, just outside the kitchen, sat and said, “I’m back …” Samantha listened and smiled. The invisible man thought she was beautiful, witty, and interesting, maybe worth leaving his world for. He would take her with him, somewhere else, someplace else, another time, another chance. “Come with he,” he said. Her eyes narrowed like a Chinese cat. In the background, somewhere else, someplace else, she could hear a laugh track and somebody making little sounds of violence. “Bang, boom, ahhhhh … You’re dead.” Some of the Legionaries had survived and struggled together a last desperate attempt to hold off the wild men of the desert. “I love them,” she whispered. “Of course you do. Of course you do, and you have given them that love, but what is the meaning of life if not happiness itself? Come with me … be happy.” He reached out to her. Shaggy pulled the mask off of the villain. The Arabs dropped into the courtyard and cut the throats of the last and lost men of war. He reached out to her. Samantha’s body fell from the kitchen chair and spilled onto the floor. The glass of vodka wobbled, teetering on the edge of the table, hesitating. Alex watched. If only I could stop it, he thought. If only I could control space and time with my mind. The drink slipped, and he watched the glass fall, and he watched the glass fall, and he watched the glass shatter into a million pieces. On television a bad man said, “And I could have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.” Laugh track … |
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| 51 |
| Oct. 2005 |