Mes­sage in a Bottle

The alarm clock thun­dered as it reported “6:00 A.M.” in crim­son dig­i­tal dig­its. Like a well trained dog, Con­nor reacted accord­ingly, and rose from his bed, more so out of reflex than out of will. He crossed his tiny apart­ment flat, and started the shower blankly. As the pound­ing echoes of water on shower floor refracted off the walls and vapors of steam filled the abysmal bath­room, Con­nor mind­lessly undressed and stepped into the shower. Like a machine, Con­nor method­i­cally scrubbed his body. At well timed inter­vals he applied soap, and sham­poo to the appro­pri­ate regions of his body. When his short list of show­er­ing require­ments had been exe­cuted, Con­nor imme­di­ately shut off the water and exited the shower almost as mind­lessly as he had entered it. From there, he applied a bleach white towel roughly to his wet and drip­ping skin. He rubbed him­self as dry as exact, and as well rehearsed as he had exe­cuted his shower rou­tine. Rep­e­ti­tion, redun­dancy, order, these words formed the essence of Connor’s life.

Break­fast was noth­ing more than a grey bowl of oat­meal, two cups worth to be exact. A small splash of milk sup­ple­mented the mix­ture to add mois­ture, while two ounces of raisins were mixed to add a generic fruity fla­vor. A half glass of orange juice accom­pa­nied the oat­meal, as the two rested plainly on a tin tray table besides the couch. The T.V. flick­ered on, just in time for Con­nor to track the only thing that ever changed in his day… the weather.

At pre­cisely six thirty, Con­nor spot­ted off his bowl of oat­meal, and sipped the last con­tents of his orange juice. The weather report finally con­cluded, and with this Con­nor picked one out of his twenty white, short sleeved, col­lared shirts to wear for the day. A bash­ful, pure black, tie was selected to sup­ple­ment his somber, ebony pants. Con­nor then made his way back to the kitchen plac­ing both the empty bowl and cup into the sink for clean­ing later in the day. Finally, he returned to the bath­room with­draw­ing a tube of generic mint tooth­paste, and an unso­phis­ti­cated man­ual, scrub­bing, tooth­brush. As metic­u­lously and as method­i­cal as ever, Con­nor pol­ished his teeth as he uti­lized every angle and every vary­ing degree of force in his brush strokes.

Four cylin­ders and one hun­dred forty five Amer­i­can horses roared, as Con­nor turned the igni­tion to his dark blue sedan. After the ini­tial com­mence­ment tones had sounded, quiet and peace­ful jazz whis­pered from the gills of the sedan’s two speak­ers at no louder than twenty per­cent vol­ume. Con­nor checked all three mir­rors, each one of them not hav­ing to be adjusted, the park­ing brake was released, the sedan put into gear. Silently, slowly, the sedan rolled down the dri­ve­way, Connor’s head turned back cau­tiously look­ing out the rear win­dow just as the DMV had instructed him to do so twenty years ago.

A red light sig­naled hun­dreds of feet ahead. Con­nor let off the accel­er­a­tor, calmly guid­ing the sedan to a peace­ful stop. His start­ing speed not an iota faster than the forty five mile per hour limit. There he sat, all alone, with noth­ing but the sheep­ish sounds of morn­ing Jazz to accom­pany him. At such an hour there were no cars beside him, no law enforce­ment patrolling, miles of empty road­way in front of him. Yet, Con­nor remained, bound by a four way stop light in the mid­dle of a clear road.

The pres­ence of monot­ony was all too abun­dant as Con­nor sat in his con­ser­v­a­tively dec­o­rated cubi­cle. Back and forth, back and forth, Con­nor shuf­fled paper. Input, out­put, input, out­put as Con­nor wrote and printed his mean­ing­less reports. Every fif­teen min­utes Con­nor reli­giously checked his email. Care­fully ana­lyz­ing and sort­ing each piece of new mail before min­i­miz­ing the pro­gram and return­ing to work. Key­stroke, key­stroke, key­stroke, a sound that one per­son should not have to hear eight hours a day.

“12:00” reported the prim­i­tive mechan­i­cal clock, as both of its’ obsid­ian hands rested on the twelve. In pris­tine, tran­quil, and absolute silence, Con­nor sat in the empty con­fer­ence room his rus­tic brown lunch bag rest­ing on the broad oaken table. As Con­nor meekly con­sumed his peanut but­ter and jelly sand­wich, he glanced at the twelve chairs which were closely asso­ci­ated with the grand table. Each chair was ele­gantly crafted with smooth brown leather, golden stitch­ing, and cloud like cush­ions. Each chair, one that Con­nor would never fill.

“12:15” reported the clock, this time it’s two hands spread at a ninety degree angle, the larger one at the three, the smaller on the twelve. A frac­tion of the lunch break had expired, but as mutely as Con­nor sat, he exited, leav­ing no impres­sion of his pres­ence. Key­stroke, key­stroke, key­stroke, a sound which returned all too soon, had once again entered Connor’s ears. Point­lessly, need­lessly, and with­out addi­tional reward Con­nor con­tin­ued to work, the ulti­mate prod­uct of his efforts, meaningless.

The risqué, almost exotic sounds of Latin Jazz oozed freely from the sedan’s stereo at a mere twenty per­cent. Cor­nered by cars in all four direc­tions, Con­nor sat in rush hour traf­fic, a num­ber, among the drones, among the masses. The sun was set­ting illus­trat­ing the heav­ens with bright flur­ries of oranges, reds, and pinks. It offered the only dec­o­ra­tion to ease such point­less con­ges­tion, and con­fine­ment. Yet, Con­nor donned his square rimmed shades, put down the sun block­ers just above the wind­shield, and blocked what­ever beauty the sun had created.

Rinse, wash, and repeat this cycle would be the cli­max of Connor’s life…

Luna hov­ered omi­nously over the night’s sky, her bril­liant, inces­sant, aura pre­sent­ing the only illu­mi­na­tion in an ocean of dark­ness. Con­nor mechan­i­cally sorted amongst the keys on his ring until he acquired the key to his apart­ment. With pre­ci­sion, and con­fi­dence the key pen­e­trated into the key­hole, and with a slight turn, the lock­ing mech­a­nisms released. “6:00 P.M.” read the crim­son dig­its of the clock, the only lumi­nous source within the abyss of dark­ness con­sum­ing the inte­rior of the apart­ment. Con­nor entered blandly, more out of reflex then of will. Auto­mat­i­cally, he made his way over to the light switch, flip­ping them on as light shot through the room forc­ing the dark­ness to retreat.

Like a glim­mer of hope, an unusual lus­ter caught the cor­ner of Connor’s eye. Some­thing spon­ta­neous, some­thing dif­fer­ent, some­thing out of the ordi­nary had a pres­ence within the room. Con­nor turned towards the dis­tur­bance and observed a small, corked, emer­ald bot­tle, no larger than six inches perch­ing peace­fully upon the tin tray table. Curios­ity tempted Con­nor, and for the first time in his life he yielded to it. Like a pre­cious gem, Con­nor cau­tiously grasped the bot­tle; he peered past the trans­par­ent, ver­dant glass, and into the con­tents of it.

It con­tained no liq­uid or edi­ble sub­stance of any sort. Within its’ con­fines the bot­tle held only a tightly rolled piece of paper. With­out tak­ing so much as the time to prop­erly acquire a cork­ing uten­sil, Connor’s grace­ful fin­gers wrapped around the top half of the cork. With a quick snug, and a pop, the seal was bro­ken. Con­nor soon tossed the cork care­lessly to the floor. Con­nor flat­tened his hand and shook the bot­tle over it until its con­tents came out. A plain white piece of paper landed peace­fully on his hand. Con­nor grace­fully placed the bot­tle back on the tray table, and used both hands to unravel the scroll of paper.

“If you can help me… I can help you… 343‑0021”

In an instant Con­nor reached deep into his pock­ets and with­drew his cell phone. As he read the paper, his fin­gers punched in the dig­its. Key­stroke, key­stroke, key­stroke, who would have ever thought such a sound could bring about res­ur­rec­tion? As the seven dig­its dis­played across the screen, Con­nor re-read the mes­sage one final time. His thumb slipped over the dial button…green light.

The Last Laugh

A sin­gle light pierced through the dark abyss of a room as it illu­mi­nated the monster’s face. There I paced, hid­den in the dark­ness, cir­cling around the mon­ster as a preda­tor stalks his prey. The mon­ster, his was face full of fear, beats of sweat dripped con­sis­tently off of his cleanly shaved chin. His deep black pupils dilated from the inten­sity of the light. His breath was shal­low and hur­ried, obvi­ously ner­vous, its vol­ume threat­ened the oth­er­wise peace­ful silence that the room held.

“Why did you do it?” I asked calmly as I remained hid­den in the shad­ows. His eyes shot towards the direc­tion of my voice, had he not been so tightly teth­ered his head would have turned as well. The mon­ster became star­tled, his voice hav­ing a hard time find­ing words. Within the depths of his vocal chords I could depict faint whimpers.

I silently changed my posi­tion within the abyss, being sure to keep my steps light as to not betray my location.

“Was she as silent as you are? Or did she scream shrieks of fear as you ter­ror­ized her? Did she shake with fear and ner­vous­ness as you held her down? Did she flail wildly but use­lessly as you spread her legs? Did tears of shame streak down her face as you ruined her purity?” I inter­ro­gated as his eyes shot to the new direc­tion of my voice. His breath­ing increased, grow­ing loud enough to echo off of the walls. I looked at his hands and arms twitch, not out of guilt, but out of excite­ment. The monster’s com­plex­ion rev­eled in plea­sure as he rem­i­nisced his actions.

Anger pul­sated through my veins as I swiftly struck my bat cleanly across his face. In an instant sweat and blood exploded from the sur­face of his head, trav­el­ing so far as to splat­ter against the walls of the room. Still a com­plex­ion of plea­sure remained. He tilted his head upward as he recov­ered from the blow. His tongue licked the blood off his lips as he spat it in my direc­tion. A wry, wide smile formed reveal­ing chipped teeth rest­ing in bloody gums.

“You see this tongue? It’s what tasted her as I sunk these teeth into her breasts”

Another blow from my bat met his response in an instant. This time it was a quick stab which con­nected squarely with his nose. It caused his face to recoil off the head rest of his seat. In an instant blood driz­zled from his ruined nose as his breath­ing grew bur­dened with wheez­ing. He snarled due to his blocked nasal passage

“And that was the nose which smelled her per­fume. Princess Cou­ture num­ber twenty seven… it’s some­thing a fifth grader would wear”

Rage shot through me as the mon­ster edged on my hatred. I swung wildly at both of his knees while my blood lust took the best of me. The mon­ster screamed as his knees began to crack and sep­a­rate. Fatigue began to set in as my swings slowed to an even­tual halt. I regained my com­po­sure as I observed the mon­ster squirm­ing with pain, his suf­fer­ing still not appeas­ing my desire for vengeance. After a few moments seren­ity was restored to the room as his hur­ried, painful, and bur­dened breath­ing ruined the oth­er­wise silent ambiance.

I con­tin­ued to lurk in the umbrage which the light had yet to reveal, pos­i­tive that the mon­ster had yet to see my face. Some­how, a gri­mace of plea­sure intruded on his oth­er­wise ruined and suf­fer­ing expression.

“And those were the knees that held her legs open as I pene-”

A gun­shot thun­dered as its sound refracted through­out the walls of the room, its deaf­en­ing vol­ume mask­ing the final syl­la­ble of the monster’s vile words. Blood soon poured from his mouth as a result of the bul­let which had rav­aged one of his vital organs. Plea­sure retracted from his face as the depths of hell began to engulf his malev­o­lent soul. I stepped into the lumi­nous light reveal­ing my face to the mon­ster for the first time.

I peered deeply into the dilated, dark pupils which made the major­ity of his eyes. In them I saw noth­ing of remorse, sor­row, or guilt, just the lust and excite­ment over the defile­ment of his final vic­tim. It was obvi­ous that the monster’s time in this world would be lim­ited to a few more moments and upon this real­iza­tion emo­tion over­pow­ered me. Noth­ing I could do to this mon­ster would sat­isfy my vora­cious desire for vengeance. Even killing him would not ful­fill me, and with this thought a tear streaked from my eye.

“She was per­haps the nicest, purest, and most inno­cent girl left on the planet. So beau­ti­ful, so kind, her heart infal­li­ble.” I started as I felt the need to explain my hatred.

“How did you know her?” he asked

“I dated her for a year in high school” I responded, notic­ing that he derived plea­sure from my emo­tional connection.

“You’re at least in your twen­ties now, how did you man­age to keep in con­tact with her?” he asked purely to sup­ple­ment his enjoy­ment in regards to my attach­ment with her.

“To be hon­est, I hardly said a word to her after we broke up.” I admit­ted, feel­ing dis­gusted as I real­ized the mis­take of my past actions.

“Then why in the world did you do this to me?” he prompted sarcastically.

“Because some­times, a rose is born with­out thorns. It stands unpro­tected as a sin­gle bea­con of pure uncom­pro­mis­ing beauty, wait­ing to be ruined by nature. From the sec­ond I met her, I knew that some­one had to pro­tect her, to be her guardian, her thorns.” I responded truthfully.

“Are you sup­posed to be this ever so noble guardian, her THORNS!?” he asked as humor aug­mented the tone of his voice.

“To be hon­est I don’t know. After I broke up with her there wasn’t much I could do to pro­tect her. All I know is that after I found out about what you did to her I felt that I had to make it right.” I explained.

“Well at least you did a good job at that!” exclaimed the mon­ster as he laughed heartily.

“Not really, even your death does not sat­isfy the pain in my heart” I con­fessed as I wiped the tear from my eye. His blood spread­ing across my face in the process.

“IT LOOKS LIKE I GET THE LAST LAUGH THEN!” ejected the mon­ster as he erupted with laugh­ter, chok­ing slightly on the blood which still poured freely from his mouth.

“Tell me… do you know the pun­ish­ment for rap­ing and killing your own daugh­ter?” I asked in the same calm voice which I had used since the beginning.

The mon­ster kept laugh­ing, ignor­ing my ques­tion as he tried des­per­ately to grasp more air to fill his vocal chords. I con­tin­ued any­ways, this time scream­ing so that he could not ignore my question.

“WHEN YOU’RE IN HELL DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY’LL DO TO YOU FOR RAPING AND KILLING YOUR OWN DAUGHTER?”

The laugh­ter faded from his voice, the last of his breaths drew near.

“What?” he asked, with the last of his words.

“Absolutely noth­ing.”

I made my way closer to him, his blood ruin­ing the bot­toms of my shoes. I leaned over and whis­pered into his ear, as he was faded into the clutches of hell “tell me who has the last laugh now?”