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bones, chrome and the occassional odd butterfly - excerpt...
"Therapist…The Rapist- any way you spell it," the passenger says, shifting its enormous bulk towards the dashboard. The wind has not fully dried it. Its wings are mildew gray, plastered to its sides and reek of earth. It is an ugly thing, glistening in the seat beside me like a well-used tampon. I've yet to see its face. Maybe that's a blessing. If I had I might be frightened. Even with the convertible's top down and all of this wind, the passenger's antennae remain weighted. Every so often, when its pro-legs skitter along the dash, some part of me feels repulsed. But the sheer size of the bug is exciting. I imagine what it will do with me when it is dry and ready.
"And Madison, no matter what your family or anyone else says; you cannot, will not, swallow that strange title…"
I whisper. "Mommy."
"Yesssss. Attached to you like a parasite. Spilled into existence and fed daily with tantrums, juice cups and sack lunches. How taxing it must have been. Birthing those three whining entities you'd come to know collectively as despair."
heluk speaks...
American's have always romanticized the automobile. It's in our blood really; trapped just beneath the surface, somewhere between the sticky webs of sinew and cartilage and bone. And let's not forget the fat.
Oh, we're an ugly bunch. We buy into the glamour and hype. Faster. Bigger. Sexier. Gotta have it! But in reality, these super-sized vehicles just haul around our super-sized asses. We eat a lot in our cars- we eat and fart and scheme and pick noses and masturbate (yes, masturbate) while driving. Clogging the arteries and veins of America's vascular system. We the people, strangling life from the landscape like fatty clots. Eventually, something's gotta burst.
Early evenings, I'm involved in a writers dream. I have a fairly long drive from work to home and I use that traffic time as any wise writer would. I imagine. No radio. No music or cell phone. Pure silence. I'm not afraid of that. It keeps me focused. And focus I must, because, as I sit in this close-knit ribbon of gigantic suburban vehicles, I feel compelled to forge the blobs of flesh around me into, what I suspect, the characters they truly are.
For example, the numerous women who birthed Bones, Chrome and the Occasional Odd Butterfly. I see them on any given day, rolling alongside me in their SUV's. The scene is always the same. Vacant stares. 2.5 kids in the back seat. Music up, windows down. Fatigue and hopelessness etched on their faces. Oh, they smile...but their eyes are always dead and I suspect their souls have shriveled up with their dreams. Perhaps it is these expressions that are so telling- the emptiness beneath the dead skin masks they wear. They can fool their husbands, their children and even their siblings, but they can't fool me. Like I said, I'm focused.
At night, streetlamps leave sodium scars across their faces. This only enhances their sickly appearance; turns them inside-out so finally, everything matches. In the voids of absent light I can almost see their most ominous thoughts blooming. They think a lot in their cars.
How many have yearned for something better in their lives; dreamed of escape, longed for release from these empty, pointless existences. Change everything. And how many have had the thought of killing their children to accomplish this change? Ahh. Now there's the real question. I'm sure none would admit to it; but then again, we simply must appear civilized.
I feel for them. I do. How positively horrid it must be for these women; always wanting what they used to have, back when they were free. But there is an old saying that rings true here, 'You made your bed, now lie in it.'
And lie, they do.
I suppose I would thank all of these women if I could, for allowing me to glimpse their innermost desires, but, I don't think they'd like me very much for it.
heluk bio...
J. M. Heluk has been published in print alongside Bram Stoker Winners such as Jack Ketchum, Poppy Z. Brite, Joe R. Lansdale and many other popular horror authors. But J. M. does not always swim in the mainstream. He feels most comfortable drifting in the primordial waters of extreme creativity, where censorship and good taste are dirty words. J. M. Heluk has been included in the first two installments of the Chimeraworld series, for which he is thankful to have been part of.
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