We inherited the worlds most wealthy country that had arguably the best government system ever made, yet everything is going down the drain. Like ya you can blame the government for everything but frankly the people here hurt themselves way more. Most of us are obese and ignorant fucks. We have massive issues that will never be solved because despite being a democracy 90% of people are too ignorant to read a book and understand what they are actually voting on. Everyone where I live just goes biden bad and everyone in Boston or whatever has a boogey man that trump is a KKK member Russian operative. No leading politician is talking about zoning reform or education reform anything like that. Its just narratives of how evil the other side is and they say that because they know we are a stupid lazy people. I mean most people my age dont even vote and then get mad they arent represented at all. How can you blame everything on the politicians when you voted for them? We have the worlds greatest universities and your telling me we got the two choices of Trump and Biden.
Also we have become incredibly ugly as half the country is obese. How do people let themselves get to that? how is it acceptable? No one gives a fuck. People wear stupid ass t shirts look like shit walk around never read a book. And dont give me shit like ohhh its the corporations fault they poison the food eat a fucking apple instead of oreos ok. We have become so stupid its mind numbing. In my classes at university no one gives a fuck, the poor professor asks good questions like "why did Toyota use this model" stuff like that no one bothers to raise their hand its embarassing I feel bad for the guy he works hard for ungrateful children whos ambition is to skate by and not learn. My parents have fucking graduate degrees and then they say shit like if Biden wins we will be a communist country wtf are you talking about. Like Americans blame the government for them being ignorant, they blame it for them doing drugs, they blame it for them being fat. How about you read a book and don't beat your kids you fucking hood rat jesus. I work a labor job and my boss is a big fat lady and then shes like hey you move faster then me because Im so big ya I have to do your work because of you making shitty ass choices which is acceptable? you werent born like that FUCK. Like the housing crisis is blatantly caused by local boomers voting against de regulation, its not the fault of shady corporations its the fault of ignorant greedy upper middle class geezers.

Context: My parents are both emotionally immature, my mom is what you would call an almond mom, she has a lot of self image issues and ED that she doesn’t recognize and believes a women’s worth is based on how thin she is. My dad has anger issues and is just always mad about everything. I’m 20F, I’m a med student and I moved away to college, this is my 2nd year and during during my first year of uni I gained 10kg (20lbs) because I started on anxiety meds. I was really skinny before this because my anxiety would make me loose my apetite, so when I got my anxiety under control I started to eat more and gained weight. Mind you I was still in a healthy weight. This was hell for my mom, to not have skinny daughter. She called me fat every single day, every conversation we had was about my weight and my appearance, she called me really ugly names and used to say she was embarrassed of me, my dad would also do all of this but he’s overweight. So they started to send me much less money so I wouldn’t eat. I decided to go to the gym and started eating healthy, went on nutri appointments, overall started loosing weight, got an eating disorder, and when they saw this they were so happy and started to send me so much more money as a way of positive reinforcement. The problem was it was never enough, there was always this celulite that’s still here, or the fact that you’re still wearing an “M” skirt, or the vegetables I was eating had to much “sugar”. So I told my mom it’s enough, you’re never satisfied, the only thing you talk about is my weight and what I eat. She hang up on me, sent me a paragraph saying I was a spoiled brat, ungrateful for everything she does for me, she’s sick of me and that I should quit uni and get a job to see how difficult it is (she always threatens taking my degree away). So they came to visit with no notice the next day and we got into this whole fight where I was saying “when I gained weight you called me this and this and it really hurt me”, to which she responded “I never said that, you’re a liar and manipulative person who twists the truth to make me look bad” and so I said “but you also called me fat every single day”, to which she shouted “BECAUSE YOU WERE FAT AND ALSO IM YOUR MOM SO I GET TO CALL YOU WHATEVER I WANT, AND IT WORKED BECAUSE YOU ARE LOOSING WEIGHT”, I swore on my life that she really did say those things and she said I would get cancer from swearing on fake things. She also said that I only remember the bad things she did for me, never the good ones like “working all her life to give me everything” mind you my parents are loaded, they wear 1000$ outfits and I never ask for anything but they still complain about having to give me money to literally survive at uni. btw my uni is like 90$/month. So yeah, the whole conversation about me being ungrateful because they put food on the table so I should have nothing to complain about. After that we got into my childhood and how I had to be independent because I couldn’t rely on them for anything because they’re so emotionally unavailable and my mom hit me with “you’re grandfather was there for you, but you didn’t even care when he died because you’re heartless”. At that point I got up and left the dinner table and went crying to my room. I didn’t cry at my grandpas funeral because I was still in shock and I had to be there to hold my grandma and my dad from holding onto the casket and throwing themselves into the hole. So yeah pretty traumatic, I couldn’t even process the loss. The next day I took them to the airport and my mom usually calls everyday but she hasn’t called in like a week so idk what to do.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

SABOTAGE?! And it all started out as such a nice idea… A cliche as tall as my ex-roommate’s erection live-blending Kelly Bundy Mike Kelley and Ted Bundy parafernalia wearing blondes to the sound of gekko’s mating in the Amazon. Cut the bullshit! There’s no such thing as a nice idea getting detourné by some smart art postpostsituationist pranker or right-wing gaswhitey flexfrat, no, my dear well-meaning peace dove friends, if an idea can gets turned into its opposite during its execution, it probably was flawed from the start! Sometimes people use Woodstock 99 - the limp dickshit rape and pillage slash and burn disaster edition - as an example of how a great, positive, wonderful, hell, holy idea can turn into the worst kind of evil in the hands of the wrong people. Well, dear naivopino’s, let me inform you: bull-shit! The whole idea of Woodstock, be it ’99, ’94, ’69 or 2219, is just batshit dumbwhat asking for the baddest kind of trouble right from the bat. Or, what? Do you honest-to-dogly think that during the original (I retrovulsely puke into my stomach even using that wretched word) edition of 1969 nothing was burned, stolen, no women were raped? What, just because there were no sperm dna tests, nigh to none options for women to speak up against sexual violence let alone the fact that speaking up against rape during that whole shitshebang of a weak acid trip’s campfire get-together was near to blasphemy in the hippie community means that no women were raped? Because men all of a sudden turned into meek little dickies lambs for three years from 1968 to ’71? Fuck that shit. Please. I don’t even want to spend a single move of a single digit of my old hands having to make anything about that largest circle jerk-off in history clear to you. Read your books. Do your homework. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about when a friend told me recently about another of those so-called great ideas gone hilariously wrong in a little map smudge of a town in of all fucking places Belgium for chrissakes. Let me admit to you, right here and now, no smirk no smile on my face: I laughed so hard when I heard it I shat my new Calvins. Framed them afterwards, too, in a nice little Nielsen A2 birch. It’s sitting there, stinking the fuck out of my storage, waiting for a good stock market crash to come. Never underestimate the potential of the future art market gold rushes. My shit, my gold, bruv. So, these two clowns of artists in Belgium (are there any other there? don’t get me started on rené ma bite or marcel bread arse here!) had the ammazing idea to get themselves funded by the local government in this hamlet of three houses called Watou which apparently would be part of - ok, stop me here. Not in the history of mankind has ever ended a sentence well which tried to explain any aspect of Belgian politics, topography or whatever the call the thing there where a man rides a horse stark naked and bites the neck of living goose hanging from a tree? (See, that sentence didn’t end well either, did it, what’d I tell you? Cursed stuff!) Let’s try that again: two artists in the Belgian town of Watou had the splendid idea to organize a festive event, in the middle of summer, whereby all the people of this little village (if you’re thinking of blue skinned vikings charging Roman legionnaires in a berry-induced bad trip frenzy, well, so am I) for one day left their houses, dropped the key of their house in a transparant bowl on the town square and all went to the field adjacent to their village to well be (as in: not fornicate) together and thereby, if I had a press release I’d quote this from it: practiced a performative experiment in hospitality and neighborship where no fixed rules are applied. I’m guessing if you’re sensitive like I am to the finer things a life, you might as well start looking for your nearest Nielsen frame too by now, but hey: we haven’t even gotten to the joke yet! This was all the serious stuff. Let me summarise it even more briefly for you, just to get it out of my haemorrhoidical system: Imagine a village. Everyone leaves their house at the same time. Leaves their front door open. Drops the key to said door in a large bowl. Drifts into a field somewhere off to do fripp knows what (no rules applied, but probably: no fornication whatsoever.) Got the mental image? Good. Now get the fuck out of that dream and imagine any sad little teardrop of a town you know. Imagine who lives there. Imagine all the people you know who live in a town, or rather, fuck that, imagine all the people you know. Now imagine that some dogoodydoodydoobywah wants to “bring the people together again” and “mend the social bonds which had been broken by” yaddah yaddah yaddah. Okay? Now imagine the fucking assholes - they might even be you - who get they absolute mostest pleasure out of ruining the naive, well-intentioned ideas of others? You see what I see? The doodygoodoo is a bit all alone on his white ivory hilltowertop, right? All the others apparently prefer to start mayhem, to jinx other people’s efforts, to laugh - loud! - at their friends tripping over their own feet. No? You think in your ‘reality’ people are ‘decent’ and ‘rough diamonds’ or ‘deeper than you’d think they are’? Well, my dear, that paradisiacal odor you’re smelling all around you is the smell of your own shit cause you got your head up your ass! Listen and suffer! Because what happened in our not-just-proverbial Belgian village on that sunny morning in July… a couple of the townspeople - we’ll never know how many but I’m guessing almost everyone except for the government-funded, from-the-city hippie artists was in on the joke - had invited some acquaintances from the town next door to quietly enter the village while everyone was not-fornicating on the idyllic field, to take all the keys from the bowl, lay them on the train tracks which run along the town, flattening them to perfectly unusable little steel flabs and placing them back in the bowl. So when our supposedly resocialised townspeople entered their village that afternoon, ready to get their key, run to their house and close their door for at least the next 364 days, the immediately realised they couldn’t close their doors anymore. Total mayhem ensued. Men started chasing women, people pillaged their neighbours houses, children and adults alike pooped on all toothbrushes they could find, underwear was thrown into compost heaps, compost heaps were thrown into unlawful indoor spas, hundred thousands of untaxed euro piles were find inside old televisions and grandmas paintings. There was no stopping them. Housewifes hung themselves after their portrait, tits out and all, was found hanging above at least three beds in different houses. It was bad. Real bad. By the time news of this feast of anarchy and murder had spread to the nearest villages and the police arrived, the artists had of course long disappeared, no doubt to narrativise their failure into a story of experiment and learning and cash in a couple of fat pay checks.
And you know what the name was the artists had given their beautiful day of harmony and collective connecting: Open Doors Day. They sure got it, their open doors day, they sure got it. Serves them right. Serves them damn right.
peace - out!

Yes.. Yess.. Alright there Daddy, I mean Danny. Yeah shut the fuck up.
Verse on Danny: Dear Tank I wrote you a letter. See my daddy wasnt there so now I crave attention. See I would do anything I can to ride your wave for mentions. Even pretended you dissed me just to create dissention. I dug through all you and Pop's songs just to find some ammunition, now im all out of lotion. So my dick burns and my hand is itching. I posted that Pop said some racist shit on Facebook, but changed the title cause I couldnt get your friends to listen. I cant do numbers and I need the advice. I paid my mom for her to advertise me, I need the hype. I hope you see this dog it eases me to sleep at night. Whats it like to actually be dope and have a buzz? I paid Gnat, but I still cant break 20 friends. I wear this crown but my throne is really full of malus. I cant picture me without the drugs.
Verse on John: Dear Tank, I kept tagging you 6 months ago you wouldn't respond. You owe me dog dont leave me here for long. While your out living life and doing things I wish I could, I spend all day on the internet trying to get some looks. I know I said I was straight but yet played victim hook, cause I aint killed nobody. Im not built like that I lived in hoods. Got too much hate up on my diss so I deleted it. I tryna bait me but I miss. So much for clicks and dislikes. I really hate that im a bitch. I cant do shit but diss right? I cant create a single hit. So I take hits from this pipe. Miss shells in the nozzle, got hit with the nasal spay. The Boogeyman of this Bu cocky shit. The only shots are on my face, Im prolly sick, its prolly jizz, I prolly need some molly shit to take this pain away. I just delay it shit. Eyes red, I feel my hood in your hoodie man. Im tryna weather days but im not Boogie Man. Critiqued you for your mental health cause I dont get complexities. Im a simple man with simple bars. I kill a man, Jarrott. it makes sense right? But when you kill a man get jarred hoe. Get sentenced for life. Im just a lonely man with no friends or bodies to show. And if I end it all tomorrow? Shit nobody would know.
Oh we just having fun now.. Let me show yall how to make a diss..
Verse on Gnat: Im waiting, im patient, you baited. You made a grenade on this paper, pull the pen ive been waiting. How you gonna claim wins from your moms basement, you aint got no Ems on your plate list. The crown you been claiming? It aint raining! 5 months Gnat still no reply. John asked about me when his own squad going poltergeist. Dont throw the fight. John started his rap rhyming rap shit 4 times. But you wanna claim im the one whoes lazy? Shit im bored of you poor rhymes. Gnat's masculine hardcore? When he the one clapping back with insults about Star Wars. Outrap me. Come on Gnat roll up. Its Ironic that im Emo. The fuck you killing yourself for? Zareem already murdered you, Stan aint nobody heard of you. Only time you fucks catching bodies in the morgue, you murdered who? Shit the first 48 hours. I know whoes missing. Pop already covered you, exposed you for your googling. Your bars dont connect, dont hide that phone when you spitting no? You need more practice. Unlike LLR this is real life. You claim I run but yet I still fight, outrapped you on your own rhyme scheme, Gnat just got killed twice.
Verse on all 3: Hold up change it up, something yall dont know how to do with that same old boring ass style. Lotta Danny, Got no time for your problems. The shit you spit is nonsense. Begged Ren to do a song with you then he robbed you. How many of us you paying money to gaslight you with fake praise and fake opinions. Gnat calls himself a king? Well thank the lord for me. Got a buzz off my name? now im claiming your royalties. John upset that it took me 1 month, dog it took you 5 months to clap back, you brag about that? 24 hours im back on the track. Get your fat ass back on the track and move quicker. Or maybe not cause your movements sus. And now your mad attacking me cause your raps all suck. Acting like these are lies? Bitch grow up. How about you switch that flow up. Coming with the same cadence dog? We be bored of your shit. You an obsessed little ex whoring for clicks. I feel bad man, Dont be mad stan. Heres a trash can.. For your diss. I stay living in your head without rent. Gnat, better learn your history.. Kings they get beheaded. "The the Boogeyman cause everybody scared of me". What a dope bar, your such a rarity. Talking like you next up. You been here since 2017 where's the check huh? Your best disses got my name in them, Im a Free copy right? Let me put my claim on it. Every time you tag me ill be monetizing you while you advertise me. And fantasize about my friends. Just know I got here without you. So keep on moving, you just a lame whoes pretending. Use my name for the ascension, but my reigns are too extensive. Stay in your lane, got no engine. You start clenching and your plugged in the rear, with no luck and no career. Whoes scared of this dude. Your times up..
Honestly I wasnt even gonna go after you. But theres certain lines you just dont cross. Tryna target my legitimacy? Going after my friends? Calling out anyone you can to diss me and paying them? Danny theres ways to move in this industry properly. You put your hand out and its gonna get slapped. Get back in your fucking lane.
Free's note: Tank is known for having a pen, hes known for his pen and his bars. Like if your gonna say that he doesnt have it cause it went over your fucking head.. You need to look in the mirror. John I did do a speech with you in 2022. That was before you became a big bitch. Bitch ass fuck with nothing better to do than diss. Go back to dissing your mom, cause thats your only good diss John.

DAY: MAY 13, 2024

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weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.

For reference: I'm fat (74KG) and short(158CM), not as pretty as the girls in our university :)
We've been together for a while now and the thought my boyfriend doesn't find me pretty always is in my mind.
He sometimes says it like a way of reassurance but us girls, we KNOW what's a real compliment and what isn't. I find myself pretty and satisfied. But when I have a boyfriend, it's absolutely normal to wanting to be pretty for him too.
Once I wore this top I really loved, it was a new one and he knows it too. I was so excited wearing it but he asked me "Why are you wearing this, it's too low", you could only imagine how my mood and self-esteem dropped. It wasn't as low, just a normal neck. The other time when I wore a top too, he looked like, I can't explain it but he didn't like it and thinks I look fat? You know from the way a person looks at you and I know very well since I grew up hearing all kind of comments and getting all kind of looks because I'm fat.
Since I'm fat, obviously my arms are big too. He once saw my arms after I took off my jacket and said "Wow" with a look and turned away. No smile, no nothing. When I asked why, he replied nothing while sounding emotionless. Then I was feeling insecure about my arms.
Today I posted a mirror pic of me which I took when I was out on my insta story. He just liked, no reply. But he's the type to ask me "Do I look good" or tell me "My friends told me I look hot". It's like he says that to hear it from me that he does look good. Is it bad I expect the same? I'm not the person to go around asking how do I look (I can always tell him he looks good tho) I just want to hear your words on me every now and then or at least once in a while too.
The other day a girl told me "You look pretty" when I was with my boyfriend. I'm just being delusional but he looked so unbothered. I'm not sure if I'm expecting wrong but at least something like "You do look pretty" because I RARELY even hear that. Once again I felt down that moment cause the same thought, my boyfriend does find me attractive.
We do have our intimate moments (not as extreme, always with clothes on) and it had always felt and been good.
He's never been in a relationship, I'm his first. When it comes to his actions, he's really nice. Took care of me when I was sick, brings us out, always wants to spend time with me and never fails to tell me how much he loves me. He expresses how I'm the woman of his his life, he imagines a future together with me.
But I'm a words of affirmation person, I like giving it and receiving it at the same time. Makes me overthink and be down. What should I do about this? I don't really wanna bring this up to him cause will make me feel like I'm forcing a compliment which isn't my point.

For reference: I'm fat (74KG) and short(158CM), not as pretty as the girls in our university :)
We've been together for a while now and the thought my boyfriend doesn't find me pretty always is in my mind.
He sometimes says it like a way of reassurance but us girls, we KNOW what's a real compliment and what isn't. I find myself pretty and satisfied. But when I have a boyfriend, it's absolutely normal to wanting to be pretty for him too.
Once I wore this top I really loved, it was a new one and he knows it too. I was so excited wearing it but he asked me "Why are you wearing this, it's too low", you could only imagine how my mood and self-esteem dropped. It wasn't as low, just a normal neck. The other time when I wore a top too, he looked like, I can't explain it but he didn't like it and thinks I look fat? You know from the way a person looks at you and I know very well since I grew up hearing all kind of comments and getting all kind of looks because I'm fat.
Since I'm fat, obviously my arms are big too. He once saw my arms after I took off my jacket and said "Wow" with a look and turned away. No smile, no nothing. When I asked why, he replied nothing while sounding emotionless. Then I was feeling insecure about my arms.
Today I posted a mirror pic of me which I took when I was out on my insta story. He just liked, no reply. But he's the type to ask me "Do I look good" or tell me "My friends told me I look hot". It's like he says that to hear it from me that he does look good. Is it bad I expect the same? I'm not the person to go around asking how do I look (I can always tell him he looks good tho) I just want to hear your words on me every now and then or at least once in a while too.
The other day a girl told me "You look pretty" when I was with my boyfriend. I'm just being delusional but he looked so unbothered. I'm not sure if I'm expecting wrong but at least something like "You do look pretty" because I RARELY even hear that. Once again I felt down that moment cause the same thought, my boyfriend does find me attractive.
We do have our intimate moments (not as extreme, always with clothes on) and it had always felt and been good.
He's never been in a relationship, I'm his first. When it comes to his actions, he's really nice. Took care of me when I was sick, brings us out, always wants to spend time with me and never fails to tell me how much he loves me. He expresses how I'm the woman of his his life, he imagines a future together with me.
But I'm a words of affirmation person, I like giving it and receiving it at the same time. Makes me overthink and be down. What should I do about this? Am I just overthinking? Is this normal? I don't really wanna bring this up to him cause will make me feel like I'm forcing a compliment which isn't my point.
TL;DR! My boyfriend's actions show how much he loves me but I don't think he finds me attractive. What should I do?

For reference: I'm fat (74KG) and short(158CM), not as pretty as the girls in our university :)
We've been together for a while now and the thought my boyfriend doesn't find me pretty always is in my mind.
He sometimes says it like a way of reassurance but us girls, we KNOW what's a real compliment and what isn't. I find myself pretty and satisfied. But when I have a boyfriend, it's absolutely normal to wanting to be pretty for him too.
Once I wore this top I really loved, it was a new one and he knows it too. I was so excited wearing it but he asked me "Why are you wearing this, it's too low", you could only imagine how my mood and self-esteem dropped. It wasn't as low, just a normal neck. The other time when I wore a top too, he looked like, I can't explain it but he didn't like it and thinks I look fat? You know from the way a person looks at you and I know very well since I grew up hearing all kind of comments and getting all kind of looks because I'm fat.
Since I'm fat, obviously my arms are big too. He once saw my arms after I took off my jacket and said "Wow" with a look and turned away. No smile, no nothing. When I asked why, he replied nothing while sounding emotionless. Then I was feeling insecure about my arms.
Today I posted a mirror pic of me which I took when I was out on my insta story. He just liked, no reply. But he's the type to ask me "Do I look good" or tell me "My friends told me I look hot". It's like he says that to hear it from me that he does look good. Is it bad I expect the same? I'm not the person to go around asking how do I look (I can always tell him he looks good tho) I just want to hear your words on me every now and then or at least once in a while too.
The other day a girl told me "You look pretty" when I was with my boyfriend. I'm just being delusional but he looked so unbothered. I'm not sure if I'm expecting wrong but at least something like "You do look pretty" because I RARELY even hear that. Once again I felt down that moment cause the same thought, my boyfriend does find me attractive.
We do have our intimate moments (not as extreme, always with clothes on) and it had always felt and been good.
He's never been in a relationship, I'm his first. When it comes to his actions, he's really nice. Took care of me when I was sick, brings us out, always wants to spend time with me and never fails to tell me how much he loves me. He expresses how I'm the woman of his his life, he imagines a future together with me.
But I'm a words of affirmation person, I like giving it and receiving it at the same time. Makes me overthink and be down. What should I do about this? Am I just overthinking? Is this normal? I don't really wanna bring this up to him cause will make me feel like I'm forcing a compliment which isn't my point.

So I got my belly button piercing almost a year ago, and I loved it so much, it boosted my confidence, I was really happy with it.But one week ago it started to hurt a bit, I take a look at it and it's red, and the upper ball can almost go into the hole where the bar is.I cleaned it with a wound spray, but other than that I almost ignored it, that I really regret now. Today when I woke up I took a look at it, and the skin there was so thin that I could almost see the bar.I got really scared so I texted a friend who also has a belly button piercing, she said that it's normal, but after I sent a picture of it she said that I have to take it out immediately.I tried to take it out but I can't, so she will help me with that, but my questions are:
1.Am I the problem?I don't have a really flat stomach so when I sit it's just kind of a "roll", so the only thing that I could think of is that I'm "too fat" for this piercing, and the hole loosened up because of this (I don't want to sound toxic or rude, I just can't word it in another way).
2.Is there a way I could wear a belly button piercing while the scar heals?There are fake ones, but do they work?I'm going on a trip in a month, and I don't have the confidence to wear a swimsuit without a bellybutton piercing, so a fake one would be really helpful.
3.Is there a chance that I could re-pierce it?It's obvious that it needs to heal for months, but after that, is there any chance?
I know I should see a professional piercer, but I'm really ashamed.I took care of this piercing but in this moment it looks really bad, so I don't think the piercer would believe in what I say.The thing is, this little jewelry gave me the little confidence that I had, and that's why I'm really emotional about losing it. I would love to see all your recommendations and opinions, but please be kind🥹
(The jewelry was surgical steel (I think that’s how it’s called in english), and I never changed it, because I liked the simple look.It’s also a curved barbell of course, but I don’t know what type of threading it has because I never changed it.For cleaning I used q-tips, the cream that I bought in the piercing shop, and I also used chamomile tea sometimes.)

(Throw away account, female (20y)
So this has happened for a couple of years, especially when I was a teenager ( I give her the benefit of the doubt because I was a shit teenager) but I finally moved out at 18 and went to university. Fast forward 2 years, I had a few things happened and I was going to become homeless. During the time I was living away from my mum she kept asking and telling me to move back if everything wasn’t okay and I finally did, I had no home and I needed somewhere to live. So after her telling me time and time again to move back with her to get back on my feet, I did.
I have only been living here for a couple of months, trying to find a job, paying rent with the money I have saved up because I can’t live here free. But since moving back I keep getting told “I never want you”, “when you move out again stay out”, “I wished I dropped you at a foster home after your dad passed away”, “you never do anything here” (I cook and clean almost everyday). I also get told about my physical appearance “jeez you have gotten big”, “you look fat in that”, “you look homeless, wear nicer clothes”.
And I understand a mother should never say stuff like that to her children but she is my mum and I love her. But recently it’s been more bad things than good things. And I don’t know what I need to do, cause I can’t really leave I need to stay here to earn money so I can move out again. But I also can’t leave the room when she is saying shit like that to me even though I have explained to her that I need to leave the room right now can we talk about this in 10-20mins.
And it’s also not just me that feels like this, I have three other brothers that agree. But I also believe she is worse with me because it a mother-daughter relationship and she never got along with her mum or even her sister.

He's been in a relationship with me for almost 2 years now. We have our ups and downs because of him still getting over the trauma of his ex girlfriend (who he dated for 2 years. I dated him around a year and a half after he left her) and were do our best to talk things out. I find it hard sometimes, trying to talk things out with him. Sometimes it's like I can only see one right answer and he only sees the other one as right. And I understand that we can't always agree but when our disagreements turn into hour long silent treatments, it gets tiring . The other day I went to go see him at his job, I wore a tank top, sweatpants and a jacket that wasn't zipped cause it was really hot out and I didn't want to take off my hoodie cause I was too insecure to take it off in public so I just let myself breathe while I visited him. I had bought him a spray from the store he asked me to get and he told me he didn't have a lot of time to talk to me because of his new boss and he didn't want to get in trouble. I understood and tried to just give him the spray and leave but a coworker said he was chill and just go ahead so I went up to him to ask him where he wants me to put it and he tells me to "zip up"" ive never heard him ask me to zip up before, I've seen him fix a bra strap, or fix a shoulder strap that fell but "zip up?" Was... different. He ended up just walking away from me again while i stood there baffled.I just ended up putting his spray in a cubby and left with him saying ""bye i guess" and I just told him "bye" When I got home he had texted me "just like that?" I told him that we'd talk about it when he gets home but he never wanted to talk about it. He didn't even want to talk to me that night. A few nights later and I apologize, I told him that I was sorry for just leaving like that but I was stressed out and worried cause of your boss and I felt rushed then you told me to zip up and it frustrated me because I'm wearing a tank top, witth a built in bra, it wasnt like I was showing anything so I got mad at just left. He explained that he told me as a man, he knows how a man's perspective is and they're gonna look at anything. I asked him if he looks at anyone else like that and he said no but he knows women are wearing more revealing clothing now. She then said that a man will look at anything, big fat small or skinny they'll look and so I asked him why does what a man look at, affect how I dress? He just said nvm and to wear what i want and I feel like I shouldn't be conflicted like this. I feel as a woman I shouldn't have to be worried about other men looking at me because ik other men look. I don't care. I'm a woman. It's gonna happen and it socks but what can I do? Sorry for the yap. I just feel like I'm going crazy thinking that every little thing I think is normal and healthy is insane and absurd.
Ps: I want advice. I want help. I want us to work I want us to talk things out and it's hard to. But I want us to work. Thank you and I appreciate your time

Well I guess that I have to start somewhere, so why not the end! I’ve been disowned for the umpteenth time by my parents (or rather by my mum because over the years, Dad has just learned to go along with whatever she says out of duress!) This has all been as a result of my having visited them in Hay ( a 700 kilometre round trip might I add) because my Dad’s brother passed away this week and it was Mother’s Day. I thought that I’d go to show my condolences and to wish my mother and sister who also lives there a happy Mother’s Day and bring them all some hand made gifts, I’m a bit sentimental like that.
I have taken to the craft of making pebble art. The gift that I made for my mother was of an image depicting my family with my parents, my sister and I and my brother who’s passed away, as he is handing my mum a bunch of flowers. I made one for my dad depicting he and my Nan (his mother) fishing at their favourite fishing spot; my Nan passed away just last month as well and I thought it’d be a nice gesture, then I gave my sister one as well with a quote about sisters being joined by the heart.
The first day, Friday, that my husband, daughter and I came there was okay. It always is especially when I’ve not seen them for six months or more! We catch up, mum talks about her very many health conditions, she then complains a little bit about everything and everyone but it’s not over the top at this point because she and my dad are kept busy opening gifts and seemingly happy to see us! But we had decided before coming that we were going to stay in separate accommodation for the weekend with the knowledge that things with my mother usually go sour very quickly! And if we’re not having to stay at their home when it does then we can at least retain some mental stability throughout our trip! This would normally be a point in which I’d let out a bit of a chuckle or if I’m texting or writing a social media post, that I’d add the LOL at the end of that statement, simply due to the stupid realisation that unfortunately it is so very true that it’s almost comical, remembering in my mind the very many times that her very predictable unstable behaviour kicks in at around the 24 hour mark and doesn’t often dissipate until well after we’ve left if not months later! I have no clue as to why I’m still surprised by this occurrence?! Perhaps it’s because it is so unbelievably erratic and shocking to anyone that witnesses it that still even now it’s hard not only to watch unfold but to believe!
But sadly as a result of these personally flips, she lashes out in anger, she can become nasty and callous, her comments are cold and uncaring, she can become physically aggressive, and the damage done during these times can be hard to ever overcome, especially if she aims any comment or remark at you! It is during these times that you know in your soul that she has not a single care for you, not an ounce, and that the only attention or compassion shown towards you as her child or friend is one of obligation out of her need to keep up appearances with those who are still weaved in her web of “social media” deception! She wouldn’t dare lift a finger for anyone in person! But just the fact that we pre decided to obtain alternative accommodation was possibly one of the triggers I was already prepared would set her off, as we would usually choose to stay with her and dad in their spare room over crowded with belongings of the past and present, not unlike the rest of their home.
With this alone, one would see that she has an overwhelming need to retain old memories, be them bad or good. She still literally keeps every ounce of clothing I’ve ever passed on to her since well before I had children which was 27 years ago! Looking in her wardrobe, there are outfits there I remember her wearing when I was a teenager! Her bathroom still retains the $2 gifts (still in their packaging) that us kids bought for her from school Mother’s Day stalls, and the Mary Kay makeup I used to steal when I was attending high school!
Her kitchen still holds the Amway cookware she purchased for hundreds of dollars before I can remember! And to make matters worse, even some of the food in her pantry is from supermarkets no longer operating! Over the years, her hoarding has been a bit of a thorn in dad’s side, having lived a life of drifting from house to house, town to town, moving around as often as they have, having to cart it all along with them and something us kids (myself, my brother and sister) have always found funny to pick on her about, but in writing this, it is easy to see that her need to keep the past fresh in her mind and under her nose is a sickness all In itself.
Whilst we were visiting, we visited my sister in her little unit. It’s like walking back into the 70s and equally as much as a step back in time like my mother’s house! My sister has been diagnosed with schizophrenia which when first diagnosed was apparently drug induced, however; going from the lifestyle we were forced to live as the children to my parents and their lifestyle choices plus my brother and I having been diagnosed with conditions and disorders of our own, putting the puzzle pieces together as to how we’ve all accumulated mental health diagnoses isn’t that difficult taking into consideration that neither one of my parents exerted any kind of maternal instincts at all! And not even as us kids have grown and struggled through our lives, we had always been told by them that once we turned 18 we’d no longer be their “problem” anymore!
My sister’s name is Julie. She moved in with my mum and dad after one of her countless admissions to the psychiatric hospital in Bendigo, having absconded from their independent living facility which is meant to be a monitored introduction back into society after a mental health admission, but she always left before she gave the chance for them to find her accommodation that wasn’t with her abusive ex husband and 4 children.
Sitting down with her in her home, hearing all about the time she’s lived in Hay both with and near my parents, how our mum would bail her up sometimes (which had happened recently) even physically, how she’s thrown dishes at her and how she abuses her denying her food for being overweight on a daily basis… how she calls her fat and crazy… there’s literally a Myriad of abuse in all its forms being dished out to Julie, and yet, because she has nowhere else to go, like the situation my brother was in living with them on and off before he passed away (under questionable circumstances in my opinion) she has no choice but to endure it… and it saddens me to hear about it all let alone see it going on right before my eyes! Especially when the exact same denigrating comments about being useless, overweight, a waste of a life and criticism about the way she’s living her life, the choices she’s making and what she chooses to eat etc etc was also drilled into my brother by my parents and whispered to all that they spoke too for many many years before by brother lost his life.
I know through my own experience having lived with her that her poisonous mouth can lead a person to questioning your mere existence, your reason for living and remove all self esteem in a single spat with her! In 2013 I took an overdose due to a gross level of mental health issues and past trauma which I couldn’t deal with. My parents were living with us at the time and my youngest daughter exhibited some challenging behaviours… my mum found it difficult to cope with her however she made no attempt at patience or compassion and so in a fleeting moment she’s said to my daughter “if I was your mother I would’ve killed myself a long time ago!”
Wow! Just WOW! The above mentioned examples of how toxic my mother is… after only explaining to you the very tip of the iceberg in these few paragraphs, even I am second guessing writing this at all, and I’m finding it hard to fathom how I can rehash the past and get into more detail about the really bad situations! Not to mention, go into my life right from childhood until now with her and my father which is yet to come!
Writing this down, whether I share it here or not is going to be a huge journey for me that’ll take a lot of courage and open some really raw emotions… bring back old memories that I’ve suppressed and disassociated myself from… there will undoubtedly be many trigger points that I will go into which some people might become affected by, including me, but mine is a life that was, is and continues to be a challenge day in and day out… it’s something I’ve had to survive, a life and reality that I still struggle so much with but least attempt to cope with and in some way, I hope that my story will be able to shine a light on just how the importance of love, attention, affection and nurturing in our childhood really do mould the person we eventually become…

Well I guess that I have to start somewhere, so why not the end! I’ve been disowned for the umpteenth time by my parents (or rather by my mum because over the years, Dad has just learned to go along with whatever she says out of duress!) This has all been as a result of my having visited them in Hay ( a 700 kilometre round trip might I add) because my Dad’s brother passed away this week and it was Mother’s Day. I thought that I’d go to show my condolences and to wish my mother and sister who also lives there a happy Mother’s Day and bring them all some hand made gifts, I’m a bit sentimental like that.
I have taken to the craft of making pebble art. The gift that I made for my mother was of an image depicting my family with my parents, my sister and I and my brother who’s passed away, as he is handing my mum a bunch of flowers. I made one for my dad depicting he and my Nan (his mother) fishing at their favourite fishing spot; my Nan passed away just last month as well and I thought it’d be a nice gesture, then I gave my sister one as well with a quote about sisters being joined by the heart.
The first day, Friday, that my husband, daughter and I came there was okay. It always is especially when I’ve not seen them for six months or more! We catch up, mum talks about her very many health conditions, she then complains a little bit about everything and everyone but it’s not over the top at this point because she and my dad are kept busy opening gifts and seemingly happy to see us! But we had decided before coming that we were going to stay in separate accommodation for the weekend with the knowledge that things with my mother usually go sour very quickly! And if we’re not having to stay at their home when it does then we can at least retain some mental stability throughout our trip! This would normally be a point in which I’d let out a bit of a chuckle or if I’m texting or writing a social media post, that I’d add the LOL at the end of that statement, simply due to the stupid realisation that unfortunately it is so very true that it’s almost comical, remembering in my mind the very many times that her very predictable unstable behaviour kicks in at around the 24 hour mark and doesn’t often dissipate until well after we’ve left if not months later! I have no clue as to why I’m still surprised by this occurrence?! Perhaps it’s because it is so unbelievably erratic and shocking to anyone that witnesses it that still even now it’s hard not only to watch unfold but to believe!
But sadly as a result of these personally flips, she lashes out in anger, she can become nasty and callous, her comments are cold and uncaring, she can become physically aggressive, and the damage done during these times can be hard to ever overcome, especially if she aims any comment or remark at you! It is during these times that you know in your soul that she has not a single care for you, not an ounce, and that the only attention or compassion shown towards you as her child or friend is one of obligation out of her need to keep up appearances with those who are still weaved in her web of “social media” deception! She wouldn’t dare lift a finger for anyone in person! But just the fact that we pre decided to obtain alternative accommodation was possibly one of the triggers I was already prepared would set her off, as we would usually choose to stay with her and dad in their spare room over crowded with belongings of the past and present, not unlike the rest of their home.
With this alone, one would see that she has an overwhelming need to retain old memories, be them bad or good. She still literally keeps every ounce of clothing I’ve ever passed on to her since well before I had children which was 27 years ago! Looking in her wardrobe, there are outfits there I remember her wearing when I was a teenager! Her bathroom still retains the $2 gifts (still in their packaging) that us kids bought for her from school Mother’s Day stalls, and the Mary Kay makeup I used to steal when I was attending high school!
Her kitchen still holds the Amway cookware she purchased for hundreds of dollars before I can remember! And to make matters worse, even some of the food in her pantry is from supermarkets no longer operating! Over the years, her hoarding has been a bit of a thorn in dad’s side, having lived a life of drifting from house to house, town to town, moving around as often as they have, having to cart it all along with them and something us kids (myself, my brother and sister) have always found funny to pick on her about, but in writing this, it is easy to see that her need to keep the past fresh in her mind and under her nose is a sickness all In itself.
Whilst we were visiting, we visited my sister in her little unit. It’s like walking back into the 70s and equally as much as a step back in time like my mother’s house! My sister has been diagnosed with schizophrenia which when first diagnosed was apparently drug induced, however; going from the lifestyle we were forced to live as the children to my parents and their lifestyle choices plus my brother and I having been diagnosed with conditions and disorders of our own, putting the puzzle pieces together as to how we’ve all accumulated mental health diagnoses isn’t that difficult taking into consideration that neither one of my parents exerted any kind of maternal instincts at all! And not even as us kids have grown and struggled through our lives, we had always been told by them that once we turned 18 we’d no longer be their “problem” anymore!
My sister’s name is Julie. She moved in with my mum and dad after one of her countless admissions to the psychiatric hospital in Bendigo, having absconded from their independent living facility which is meant to be a monitored introduction back into society after a mental health admission, but she always left before she gave the chance for them to find her accommodation that wasn’t with her abusive ex husband and 4 children.
Sitting down with her in her home, hearing all about the time she’s lived in Hay both with and near my parents, how our mum would bail her up sometimes (which had happened recently) even physically, how she’s thrown dishes at her and how she abuses her denying her food for being overweight on a daily basis… how she calls her fat and crazy… there’s literally a Myriad of abuse in all its forms being dished out to Julie, and yet, because she has nowhere else to go, like the situation my brother was in living with them on and off before he passed away (under questionable circumstances in my opinion) she has no choice but to endure it… and it saddens me to hear about it all let alone see it going on right before my eyes! Especially when the exact same denigrating comments about being useless, overweight, a waste of a life and criticism about the way she’s living her life, the choices she’s making and what she chooses to eat etc etc was also drilled into my brother by my parents and whispered to all that they spoke too for many many years before by brother lost his life.
I know through my own experience having lived with her that her poisonous mouth can lead a person to questioning your mere existence, your reason for living and remove all self esteem in a single spat with her! In 2013 I took an overdose due to a gross level of mental health issues and past trauma which I couldn’t deal with. My parents were living with us at the time and my youngest daughter exhibited some challenging behaviours… my mum found it difficult to cope with her however she made no attempt at patience or compassion and so in a fleeting moment she’s said to my daughter “if I was your mother I would’ve killed myself a long time ago!”
Wow! Just WOW! The above mentioned examples of how toxic my mother is… after only explaining to you the very tip of the iceberg in these few paragraphs, even I am second guessing writing this at all, and I’m finding it hard to fathom how I can rehash the past and get into more detail about the really bad situations! Not to mention, go into my life right from childhood until now with her and my father which is yet to come!
Writing this down, whether I share it here or not is going to be a huge journey for me that’ll take a lot of courage and open some really raw emotions… bring back old memories that I’ve suppressed and disassociated myself from… there will undoubtedly be many trigger points that I will go into which some people might become affected by, including me, but mine is a life that was, is and continues to be a challenge day in and day out… it’s something I’ve had to survive, a life and reality that I still struggle so much with but least attempt to cope with and in some way, I hope that my story will be able to shine a light on just how the importance of love, attention, affection and nurturing in our childhood really do mould the person we eventually become…