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| A 70�S REVOLUTION
By Charles F. Millhouse I met Jesus in purgatory at a smoke filled bar. He was drunk on whisky and playing poker with a one-armed hairy man whom had beaten him with a royal flush. I sat in silence; Jesus bummed a cigarette from me and lit it with a snap of his fingers. �Nice trick,� I told him. �But can you chew gum and walk at the same time?� He wasn�t amused. I reached for his bottle, but he pulled it away. �Get your own,� he told me, pointing at the bar. The dimly lit establishment was crowded and hard to get through. I ordered a bottle of bourbon and paid the bartender with a two-dollar bill I found rolled up in my jeans pocket. As I fought my way back to the table, Jimmy Hendrix stopped me. �Can you tell me where the crapper is?� he asked. I shrugged because I didn�t know, and he walked away scowling. Pouring myself a drink, I watched the Savior get beat yet again by the one-armed man. Jesus, pissed, tossed his cards on the table and took another shot from his bottle. �I�ve been waiting,� he told me. �What took you?� I didn�t have an answer for him. The last thing I could remember was driving my car off the road after leaving the concert in Hoboken. The fact that I was drunk and tripping on some kind of pill Ozzy had given me didn�t even enter my mind. �Sixteen years is a long time to wait,� Jesus said. �It must have been one wrong turn to miss this place.� �I remember standing in a long line,� I told him, �One that didn�t move very quickly.� �We�ve had a rush as of late,� Jesus said. �It doesn�t surprise me in the least.� �I appreciate the concern,� I said, lighting a cigarette. �But I really don�t know what all the fuss is about. I�m dead, what hope is there for me now? I�m just one step away from hell.� �Bullshit,� Jesus said, almost falling off his seat. �Hey, hey. How about a game of five card stud?� he asked shuffling the deck. �No cheating,� I said. �What�s bullshit?� �Going to hell�� he paused dealing the cards between the three of us. �Heaven, hell, it�s all bogus, bedtime stories to frighten children, nothing more.� I picked up my cards and looked them over; they were decorated with girls of the Caribbean and wore next to nothing�well I�m too kind. They were naked. I held a jack of spades, two of diamonds, king of hearts, three of clubs and eight of clubs. Not a good hand, but I was used to being dealt bad hands. Even now I was sure the Messiah himself was cheating me. �So what�s this all for�purgatory I mean, if there isn�t a heaven or a hell, then why this place? I mean it�s kind of redundant�if you know what I mean.� The one-armed hairy man laughed and Jesus gave him a smile. �What�s so funny?� I asked. �He thinks you�re dim-witted,� Jesus told me. �Just like everyone else who has come through here without the slightest idea about how things in the universe really work. �Why don�t you fill me in,� I said, pouring more bourbon into my shot glass. �Look around you,� Jesus said. �Go on�have a good look. You know many of the faces here, don�t you?� I nodded yes, seeing Janice Joplin and Elvis dancing next to the jukebox. I saw Jim Morrison sitting alone at the end of the bar, drunk off his ass and not giving a care...nothing new for him. �They�re not sure they want to leave here,� Jesus said. �They don�t want to give up who they were.� �You mean to tell me we can go back?� I asked. �Oh, yes,� Jesus said. �They all can go back. But the ones you see here chose not to. You see, to go back you have to give up who you were in exchange for your new identity.� I was, at first dumbfounded. Then a revelation fell on me like a ton of bricks. �That�s why the music on earth sucks now,� I said. The one-armed hairy man nodded his head in agreement. �But once you choose, there�s no changing your mind�it�s like a game,� Jesus said. �I�ve never been good at games,� I said. �My sister always beat me at jacks.� �There�s only one rule to this game,� Jesus told me. �There are no rules.� �That�s comforting,� I said. �Can I have time to think about it?� �Time is nothing here,� Jesus said. �But while you decide, have a look at your choices.� �I have �� �Three,� Jesus said, �like a game show.� �As long as I don�t become a pig in a poke,� I told him. �Let�s play.� I was led to three doors in the back of the bar, ironically each were numbered 1, 2 and 3. I stood before them waiting for Monty Hall to come out and offer me two hundred dollars instead of picking a door, but Jesus had other ideas. �Behind each door is a life,� he said. �You pick one and you go back to earth. Simple, don�t you think?� �Do I have a choice or do I just pick one�like pot luck?� I asked. Jesus |
| PLEADING IN SILENCE
Charles F. Millhouse It all started in the 1980�s when a few restless senators� wives decided to clean up the music industry by adding restrictions to how songs were written and performed. Although their attempt failed, it did garner a warning label, telling people what albums contained questionable lyrics. The seeds were sown. Abby and Melissa Granger rushed up the stairs of the old Liberty Hotel, both gasping for breath, as they fought the smell of alcohol and urine. The hotel had been condemned, becoming a refuge for the homeless and the oppressed. It had become the same for the twin sisters, but as fate would decide, it would not be safe for long. The sound enforcers had chased them both, since Melissa escaped from the city lockup with help from Abby. Melissa had been suffering since her arrest. Her neck had become infected from the torture the Reverberation Community had inflicted on her. Cutting her tongue from her mouth as an example to all who would break the allotted sound decibels for their district. From the growing disease that lived in her throat, Melissa had lost the use of her voice box, and her mind, causing her to become mute and mad. Tears constantly hung in the bottom of her eyes, her mind locked away from the world in which she lived, unable to cry out in rage over the insanity that had invaded her soul. Strong with resentment against those who had harmed her sister, Abby pushed on up the stairs, her tight grip on Melissa unrelenting. Knowing that if she relaxed it for but a moment, her sister would buck and run like a wild horse released from its stable. Echoed footfalls of the sound enforcers could be heard several flights down and Abby fought to continue on as Melissa pulled on her, pleading in silence for her to stop. Up to the next floor, Abby recoiled in fright, being approached by a man, that smelled like he had been dipped in a vat of whisky �I could sure use a hit,� the smelly man said, reaching out for Melissa. Slapping the man away, Abby tried to enter the next stairwell, but the outer door would not budge, it fought Abby as she pushed against it. With the palm of her hands red from the unproductive battle with the door, Abby pulled Melissa into the closest apartment, closing its door behind them. She took time to rest her back against it. Rats crawled along the base of the bare wall. The uncarpeted floors were stained, and the paint of the ceiling had become brittle with age; hanging like flaking skin. The empty dwelling echoed as Abby pulled Melissa across the bare floor, stopping at a window, barely large enough to fit a man. Abby rubbed the years of dirt from the glass and peered out to find a rusted fire escape. Pulling hard with her free hand, Abby forced the window open with hidden strength; able to break the seal of paint and grime that held the window, grunting as she lifted it. The deafening silence outside made Abby nervous, but she thought only about reaching the top of the building before the sound enforcers could finally catch up with them. Abby went through the window first, refusing to release Melissa�s hand as she tested the strength of the rusted metal. Helping her sister out, she followed Melissa up the ladder, shoving her along. At the next landing, Abby broke back into the hotel; unsure she wanted to continue on the fire escape that seemed less safe then facing armed policemen. Once in the empty apartment, Melissa rushed ahead of Abby. Abby fell, trying to catch her fleeing sister. Standing back to her feet, she ran to catch Melissa who had made it out into the hall. Sorry for her actions, Abby dove towards Melissa forcing her to the floor. Abby then noticed her left pant leg ripped and blood oozing from the material. As she limped, Abby led Melissa back into the stairwell; the two continued their ascent. But Abby stopped. The footfalls of the approaching sound enforcers had stopped and Abby, concerned that they were up ahead hesitated. She looked up, listening. The sound enforcers never gave up. Abby knew for a fact, once they started coming for you, they didn�t stop. As they continued, Abby tried to keep her thoughts focused on better times when they were young and lived with their grandmother. The pair had loved living on the farm with her. They would wake to the smell of blueberry muffins baking in the oven and the sound of a rooster crowing in the distance. Both Abby and Melissa worked their share and never once thought about how things were in the city; their grandmother had kept them oblivious of those evils. But the sisters had found out, the hard way. Abby fought back her desire to cry when she thought of their grandmother, who died holding both their hands. She told them: �I don�t want to go, but I can�t stop it. Remember,� she said in her final breath. �While you live, you have voice.� Abby stopped on the stairs, her knee soaked in blood and Melissa pulling on her arm, wanting to go. Melissa pointed down the stairs; her feet swayed back and forth like a nervous cat. Abby shook her head NO, and pulled Melissa on up the stairs. They entered the sixteenth floor unchallenged. Abby knew if the sound enforcers were ahead of them, they would have surely doubled back by now. With only two floors before the roof, Abby became more confident that she and Melissa would make it. Then it would be all over. Continuing on, Abby�s thoughts again wandered back. She could remember the first time they seen the city. Their grandmother had left it in her will that both Abby and Melissa should be warded to her half sister. Abby had hated the old witch from the beginning. Rules, rules, and more rules had been put on the twins. Living in the country the two lived in wide-open spaces, without a police official or a Reverberation Community outpost anywhere to be seen. Living away from the city, Abby never had to worry about speaking up, or how loud to play her music. Abby had felt trapped. After two hundred years of oppression, many in the city felt the same as Abby. The censorship of the early twenty-first century had spread, normal life had succumbed and society had learned to follow the rules put before them. The government would tell you what to think, what to listen to and how loud you to listen to it. The sound enforcers upheld the laws put into place by the Reverberation Community that answered directly from the government itself. Finally after years of the government thinking for her, Abby began to think for herself. She began to have hopes of a future free of control and a future of free voice. Melissa had become the focal point for Abby�s rebellion. Melissa pulled hard on Abby�s hand, forcing herself free when Abby least expected it. Melissa ran down the stairs. Abby gave chase, but her crazed sister leapt over several banisters, putting considerable distance between the siblings. Abby followed. Her leg ached and her left side hurt, but she kept on. Freezing when she heard the returning approach of the sound enforcers. Abby forced herself not to cry out and give her position. The thought of the inevitable knotted in her chest. Holding back, she watched. Hating herself for her decision. Melissa couldn�t cry out when she saw the sound enforcers, although Abby could hear her sister grunt her condemnation for their actions. Abby peeked around the corner from her hiding place, watching her sister fighting back the sound enforcers advance, but falling to their attack when she was shot with a affixation dart, a silicon compound covered her nose and mouth suffocating her into death. Abby drew back into her hiding place breathing hard and biting on her fingernails; fighting the realism of her sister�s death. Leaving drops of blood on the floor, Abby pushed on, fighting to climb the stairs, using the weak railing as a brace, trying to finish what she had started. So much had been lost, not only to her, but to the world. Breaking out onto the roof, Abby limped to the edge of the building. From the ledge she could see the entire city. She stood out as far as she dare and took in deep breaths. The sound enforcers followed Abby out onto the roof, advancing on her, their weapons in hand. Abby looked back. The fear that had been her constant companion since she helped Melissa break free from jail had diminished. For the first time since she came to the city she would not be afraid of what to say. She heard the charging of the sound enforcers� weapons behind her, when she took in her final breath. �I have voice!� she shouted out over the city. It echoed out like a sonic blast, pigeons on rooftops took flight in fear. The few people on the streets below looked up, their heartstrings tightly pulled by her words. Abby met her death with a feeling of completion and satisfaction, knowing her voice had perhaps stirred the blood of the fearful. For someone, longing for a chance to be free, her rally cry had been heard. End. |