Chapter 01: Numero Uno
My stab at NaNoWriMo. Because all the cool kids are doing it.
KABOOM! The plane exploded. Bodies lay scattered on the concrete. They were all dead. Dead as donkeys.
It was a dark and stormy night. Such is how it always begins, and that night was no exception, for it was exceptionally dark and stormy. I woke, startled by a thunderous noise. It was thunder. I sat in the hammock outside, being buffeted by the wind. I cradled my girlfriend in my arms. Her pulse had faded days ago, but I still hung onto her. Perhaps that’s what she meant by “clingy”. Either way, it comforted me to have someone familiar nearby. A gaggle of geese frantically waddled past the gate, which creaked as it swung on its hinges. I listened to the weather report on the crystal radio I’d picked up at a bodega earlier. I heard my friends reminiscing about crystal radios from their childhood, so I figured buying one would make me seem pretty cool. Nostalgia was totally in chic. I guessed it was because our lives were so shitty, looking back to a time without responsibility, when people took care of us rather than having to take care of ourselves, made us feel better. Then again, it could’ve just been because Kurt Cobain looked so good in flannel and we all wanted to be part of the counterculture. My phone buzzed and started playing “Genesis”, the first track from French electro-duo Justice’s hit album Cross. Pitchfork used a lot of words in their review of the album, but I just liked the track because it reminded me of Carl Orff. I read the digital text off the backlit screen: “We’re watching Beauty & The Geek at mine tonight. Tasty brews/tasty girls, are you in?” I turned off my phone without replying. I didn’t have any credit left and my income was barely stable enough to pay rent, let alone warrant being on a phone plan. I rolled the pale corpse off my body and stood up, realising I’d need a shower. Then, I’d embark to my friend’s place.
After a quick scrub and a change of clothes, I’d left the house, carrying my phone, my ID and an empty box of cigarettes. Distant clangs and thuds in the night sky above me signaled the roof-top travels of the local vampire coven. I wouldn’t have minded so much if they’d keep the screeching down, but sometimes it became unbearable. The city council saw them as a pest and had made several attempts at getting rid of them, but various anti-discrimination laws as well as extensive lobbying and campaigning prevented them from making much progress. I was literally on the fence about the subject. After a half hour, maybe a little more, I turned into my friend’s driveway and meandered up the wooden stairs towards his bungalow. The blue light from his old cathode ray tube television created eerie silhouettes of my friends, their shadows heaving, twisting and changing as they chuckled. Opening the door, I saw what they were laughing at: Anchorman. “Seriously, we’re watching this again?” I sighed, disappointed. Nobody looked up. “I said-”
“We got that, H” said my friend, Guadalupe. He was the one that sent the text, and the resident of this bungalow. “We haven’t seen it in a while so we thought we’d watch it while we wait for B & the G”.
“Are you drinking PB in a B?” I replied.
“G in a B, D is drinking PB in a C” Guadalupe said, motioning to our friend D.
“You get an extra forty mils” D said, raising his C.
“Any CD in a B? I brought some V in an RB” I asked, drumming on the couch Guadalupe had inherited from his grandmother.
“We drank the CD during Rock of Love”.
I got a glass from the kitchen cabinet and poured some wine into it, adding half an ice cube, then another ice cube. I then stirred the glass seven times clockwise, then four anti-clockwise, adding another half ice cube. This was a ritual I had long observed and it never failed to achieve the desired results: A chilled beverage. While my taste-impaired companions watched their low-brow entertainment, I jumped onto Guadalupe’s PC. I made a mental note to bring my MacBook next time. Logging onto Tumblr, I spent the next few minutes reading posts I’d missed on my favorite blog, a blog belonging to a precocious Australian friend of mine. He was somewhat of a genius and a total role model, and all the girls were in love with him. Suddenly, a ghost possessed D and started scratching out the eyes of my friends.“Guadalupe, let’s GTFO” I shouted, grabbing his arm and tugging him off the couch. I dragged him to the door while he watched, stunned, as D molested the twisted and screaming faces of my nigh-lifeless friends. Slapping him out of his stupor, we rushed down the steps, along the pebbled driveway, stones crunching neath our feet. Lightning slithered across the sky, making it seem darker than ever. The visual metaphor served us no reassurance. There were no girls there. Guadalupe lied to me, I thought to myself.
