Jimmy sat down on
the big

trunk, dangling his legs. his excitement bubbled within,
generating twitters of

nervousness throughout his body. Underneath,
trapped inside the trunk, he felt the

pressure of the ornaments
budding, their old dusty smell of christmas’ past

leaking out
through the cracks in the aged oak.

Outside, the

screen
door slammed, and he listened expectedly as the slow dragging sound
of a

tree became apparent behind the loud, pounding footsteps of his
father.

“Jimmy! Get
the screen, will you? This damn trees gouging my eyes

out!”
Frank yelled, his voice gravelly. It was the drinking that did it.
That,

and the cigars. Direct from his fathers ‘business’
partners… Although

what frank’s aluminum siding import
business had to do with huge sums of money

and freinds in the cubani
communista’s was far beyond him. It all had to do with

doing
what you had to do… One of dad’s favorite sayings.

Jimmy left the
trunk, reluctantly, and squeaked open the screen door. A huge

tree
pushed into him, grumbling and mumbling as it passed by, forcing
itself

through the tiny new jersey doorway. Once inside, it flopped
down with a

sigh.

“i tell ya,
jim boy. This is your job from now on,”

his father said, falling
into the complaining easy chair from which he performed most

of his
chores at home. “youre.. What, now. Seven? Good a time as any to
take

over the mans duties. Why, when i was seven blah lah lah
blah…” He dragged

on.

Jimmy hopped up
onto his lap. “dad, can we put the

ornaments on now? Can we?
Huh?” He said eagerly.

“sure,

just
decorate it on the floor there.”

“frank! Dont
give

the child ideas,” his mom called from the kitchen. She was
always worrying about

‘ideas’ he might catch like a cold.

A cloud

of
annoyance foamed across franks face. There were times, and christmas
was one of

them, when yelling and fighting rose to a crescendo. Frank
would dissapear, come home

days later. Or else he would force his way
and win. The look on his face now was one

of winning.

“margie, im
not giving the kid any

‘ideas’. This is about principles!”
He yelled, turning

red.

“go on up to
your room, boy. Ive got a feeling about this

one. I tell you..”
And here he leaned close, clouds of cigar smell wafting out

in
invisible odiferous waves, whispering.

“christmas…
Is too

damn normal. Well i promise you, jim boy, this one aint goin
to be. Not if old frankie

can do a damn thing about it.” Leaning
back, he scooted him on his way with a pat

on the butt. “leave
this one to me,” he said, grinning, as he heaved himself

out of
the chair on a mission to mom.

Jimmy bolted
upstairs, and

into his room where he closed the door. He didnt really
care about a normal or

un-normal christmas. He just wanted christmas.
But his dad, Jimmy knew he was crazy.

Sometimes the police had to
come, and sometimes, when he would act really weird, he

would have to
take shots of some medicine every half hour. Then, after a week

or
so, he would be back to normal for a while.

Going over to

his
desk, Jimmy opened the secret locked drawer where he kept all his
secret

chemistry equipment. Chemistry was the closest freind he had,
beside danny and beth,

who lived next door. It was part of why he
couldnt wait for christmas. For months now,

he had talked about
nothing but the super secret scientist chemistry spectacular,

the
largest chemistry experiment set sold in the world. Over five-hundred
and

thirty different bottles of powders, fourty different kinds of
acids and base’s,

a set of one hundred mixing tubes and a
booklet comprised of “1000 experiements

in chemistry!”,
Written by dr. Secret himself. But best of all was the

microscope
and glass slides, made by dick voigt industries.

Pulling

out his
old, beat up freind, the 100x eddie scientific, he turned it over
lovingly

in his tiny hands. It would be sad to part with it, but he
knew in his heart of hearts

that he had outgrown it. He had been
getting into the oaxacalic acid compunds lately,

complex organic
constructions, and they hovered just on the verge of being in

focus.
But with the xlm 3000x that came with the chemistry spectacular kit,
it

would be possible to go way past the oaxacalic’s, perhaps
even, his heart

fluttered, into the very heart of the micocylicic
agents!

Carefully setting
down the 100x, Jimmy heard the sounds of battle drifting upward

from
below. He knew that he was getting the chemistry spectacular, because
while he

had been seeing the matinee of ‘dollhouse of terror iv’
with danny and beth

at the old peroxy downtown, which was right
across the street from ‘young

scientist’s toy and supply’,
he had seen his mother park in front of the

store and walk in. Then
he had seen the store manager mr. Perry, reach into the front

window
and pull out the very set on display. In the end, his mother had
walked out

with a wrapped present the very size of the set.

After she had
driven

off, he pulled danny and beth over to the store. “why do
you wanna go

there?” Danny complained. “yeah,” beth
said. “you practically live

there.”

But they had all
gone in to see mr.

Perry.

“hello there,
Jimmy,” he said, smiling behind his

huge walrus-like pure white
mustache. His eyes were always lit up like christmas

bulbs. “what
can i do for you today?”

“i want to

see
the spectacular kit again, mr. Perry.”

Mr. Perry

looked
down for a second. “well, im sorry, Jimmy, but i just sold my
last

one.”

Jimmy’s heart
had leapt. Looking around, he saw

there were no other customers in
the store. It was mom! She had bought the last set!

Trying to hide
his secret joy, he frowned. “well, will you have any more

in?
Before christmas, you know?”

“im afraid not
Jimmy. But

i’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal, just
between you and me

and…” He moved his eyes over to the tiny
bottle set reverently upon the shelf

behind him. It was an altar,
which only him and Jimmy knew of. Mr. Perry had bought

the bottle off
of someone he had met years ago, a government man, a medical

doctor.
The bottle, the man said, contained a tiny slice of the brain of
albert

einstein.

Jimmy smiled,
leaning closer. Danny and beth were

looking distractedly through the
old comic book rack. “what, mr.

Perry?”

“why dont you
come back after christmas, and if

you still want one, i can get it
for you for one dollar!”

“one dollar!”
Jimmy whispered. His bets were covered now. If mom had messed

up and
gotten something else, he could take the money aunt emilia always
sent for

christmas and get his own!

“thanks, mr.
Perry! Youd really

do that?”

“i swear on..
The brain!” He had said,

reaching out to shake Jimmy’s
hand.

“Jimmy! Come
down for dinner!” He heard his mother yelling. She was

angry,
which meant she had lost. At the table, amid the glowers, he ate his
beans

silently. It was nice being on christmas vacation and all, but
he found himself

frequently wishing all the extra time he had to
spend with mom and dad would just go

away, since 90% of it was spent
in them fighting.

“ahem.

Ahem,
hem.” His father cleared his throat. It was time for a speech.
His

mother ignored the both of them, except to prod Jimmy into eating
the

broccoli.

“Jimmy, your
mother and i have had a little

discussion, and weve come to a
reasonable conclusion about this holidy before us,

christmas.”

He pasued, setting
down his spoon and fork

combination, the spork.

“christmas, as
you well know, is

something special. But how can it be special, when
its meant to be celebrated the same

way, on the same day, by
everybody at the same exact time? You follow? So this year,

were
celebrating christmas two and a half days early. Just beacuse. And
also, were

decorating the tree just where it is now. It is not to be
stood up, not to be watered,

presents will not be put under it. If
god so wishes us all to kill trees, then isnt it

better we recognize
it for what it is, and not try and ‘water the roots’,

or
bring a live tree indoors? Is there anything so absurd? No, we killed
this tree,

and so we will witness its death. Let it lie where its
fallen. Ahem. Do you follow my

logic?”

Jimmy certainly
didnt, but he nodded anyway. Two and a

half days early! Why, that
certainly he understood.

“and

by
celebrating the event three days early,” his father continued,
“we

shall be over the hump, well rested, and prepared to really
pay attention to what

chrsitmas is all about without all the stress
and dysfunctionality that plagues most

of the country today.”

Lying in

bed,
staring at the molecular construction posters that lined his walls
glowing in

the silvery moonlight, Jimmy counted. Three days early…
That meant… One, two

three, four.. Only four days till christmas!
He couldnt help feeling his dad wasnt

that crazy after all. Just wait
till he told danny and beth! Maybe, just maybe, they

could plan it so
they could all have two cristmas’!

Eventually, tiring,
he scratched the bump behind his ear. It had been itching ever

since
he had helped dad bring the old ornament chest up from the basement.
It had

been covered with some sort of silvery, moldy fungus, stuffed
since last year into the

corner of the basement with the dirt floor
and the damp smell. Ordinarily, that corner

was always empty, walled
off with an old piece of plywood. But since Jimmy had been

growing
out of all his clothes and toys latey, his parents had moved the
trunk over

behind it so as to store all the brown grocery bags
stuffed with the detritus of his

blossoming past. And when they had
gone down to get the trunk, it had become warped

and stained with the
moisture.

“put it
outside”,

mom had said, but dad had insisted it was a natural
smell, not a bad one created by

scientists in a lab somewhere. Frank
was constantly attacking science, even though he

kept getting Jimmy
chemistry books and physics experiments and things about the

stars
and cosmos. And once, he had taken Jimmy on a tour of betadyne
corporation,

and they had got to see all the men in white coats
mixing different liquids in little

tubes and containers, which, by
now, Jimmy knew all the correct names of. In

particular, frank
introduced him to jerry halmorth, who was working on devising a

new
compuond which would adhere to aluminum and be resistant to changes
in cold

weather. It was all part of dad’s plan to start selling
things to the

canadians.

When they lifted
the trunk up the stairs, Jimmy had

become coated in the fine silvery
white dust which clung to its outside. He should

have worn gloves
like his dad, mother had scolded, but he didnt care. But

now,
itchining, he saw the same silver powder come away on his hand.

Scratching the bump
some more, Jimmy waited for the snow banks

of tiredness to bathe his
eyes in the weightlessness of

sleep.

“Jimmy! Wake
up! Breakfast!”

Mom’s voice penetrated his dreams.

Jimmy popped up in
bed, the

smell of bacon and eggs already in his nose. Scampering
downstairs, he skidded to a

halt.

“wheres mom?”
He said to frank, sitting in front of

a cold plate of oatmeal.

“been out.
Went shopping.” Frank

mumbled through a mouthful of oatmeal,
engaged in his paper.

“but

i
thought.. I heard…” He must have been dreaming. Dejectedly, he
walked

towards the fridge.

“goddamn those
russians! Think they can

weasle in on the aluminum market… Fah.
Jimmy, get me the portable, will ya… Gotta

call jerry.”

Jimmy handed him
the portable from the kitchen

counter.

“are there any
eggs? “ he asked timidly, so as not

to interrupt franks
punctuated dialing.

“oatmeal.

Hi,
jerr, listen. You know the canadien deal. Well, the bah bah bah
blah…”

Listenening to his
dads businesspeak fade off into

unintelligibility, Jimmy wandered
into the livingroom, the option of oatmeal already

curdling his
stomach into a tasteless gob of dry hardened wood pulp. Walking

over
to the chest, his eyes still clogged with sleep, he sat down in front
of it,

letting it’s smells wash over him.

“damn them…”
Frank

wandered in muttering, slamming the phone on the t.v. stand.
Seeing Jimmy, he paused,

as if struggling to remember what this boy
was doing here. Oh yes, Jimmy saw the

thought struggle to the
surface; his son.

“Jimmy,

I’m
busy today. Gotta go out. Listen, its up to you today. I want that
tree

decorated by the time I get back. Deal?”

Jimmy nodded
silently.

Contrary to the newspaper reports, he cherished the moments
when he could be a

latchkey kid. Frank turned, gathering up his
papers and files scattered over the room,

and, grabbing his coat,
spoke over his shoulder on the way out the

door.

“Don’t
forget to eat something. Oatmeals in the

microwave.”

And then he

was
gone.

Alone, Jimmy turned
on the TV.

Captain Gemarvelous was on, the one with the wacky mutated
rabbit sidekick. To the

background of battlescenes and explosions, he
wandered into the kitchen. The frosted

pop-up cereal bars were behind
the peaches in the cupboard, but he had to climb up on

the counter to
get at them. Reading the package as he discarded the twelve

different
layers of foil/plastic/cardboard wrapping each bar came in, he
calculated

that one could live quite nutritiously off of only three
bars a day. Just like

astronauts, or submarine men, he thought,
feeling the excitement as if he were

one.

Munching on bar #2,
he walked back into the livingroom and

threw open the chest. Inside,
shiny objects reflected red, orange, blue yellow and

gold, throwing
their light up onto the ceiling. Reaching in and mucking about,

he
lifted the entire heap onto the floor. Everything was glued together
in a

Christmas synaptic mess. Tangles begun 7 Christmas’s ago,
woven into a knot which

time could never unwind, lay in a heap upon
the livingroom rug, its own history of

stains and abuse glaringly
evident beside the glittery reflections of the ornaments

and tinsel
kept bright by careful storage.

The morning passed
in

a timeless process of unwinding, refitting and untangling to the
backdrop of captain

gemarvelous, the three mouse-o-maniacs, and the
froo-froo machines. But in the end,

satiated, frosted pop-up cereal
bar wrappers scattered amongst the crumbs and loose

tinsel fragments,
he regarded the tree with more than a modicum of

pride.

Sitting on its side
had simplified the decoration process.

There were only really three
sides to the tree now. The newly discovered bonus was

that nothing
had to be hung; only placed on top of a branch, perhaps tied down
with

tinsel or popcorn wire on the thinner ones. In addition, the
bottom of the tree by the

trunk was now fully exposed to view.
Inside, Jimmy had built a small church of

Santa’s, all different
sizes, some green, some red; some fuzzy, some hard and

plastic, some
made from cloth. Arranged on all the branches as if in a

forested
cathedral, they paid homage to the large paper mache angel with

the
lightbulb inside, usually the tree topping.

Standing back

and
surveying the effect, Jimmy felt that somehow, something was missing.
The

ornaments had a heaped-on feeling, like snow had somehow fallen
too quickly and

haphazardly. And in between them, the branches, still
green and verdant, seemed naked

and bare.

Retreating to the
chest, Jimmy peered inside. If there

was anything left… But no.
Only tinsel shards, an old piece of wrapping newspaper,

some broken
glass from an unknown hanging… And a small bottle, gleaming

with
silvery whiteness.

Picking it up,
Jimmy held it to the

light, turning it around. It was old, antiquey
looking, with a glass stopper. Tiny

bubbles were trapped inside the
clear blown glass. It was the kind of thing he had

seen in museum
exhibits of old apothecaries or pharmacies, used to hold an

ancient
tincture of bumbastis or something. Some glitter clung to a tiny
crack on

the bottom of the bottle, whitish and fine, like powdered
graphite.

Inside, tiny waves
of glitter floated, slowly moving to internal currents.

Fascinated,
Jimmy felt his gaze soften as he stared into the patterns. Unlike

the
snow globes he had spent hours watching, in particular the one with
the empire

state building embedded in a watery, snowy grave with an
attached ashtray on top, the

glitter did not fall or settle too
quickly. Like lighter than air particles, for he

could see no liquid
whatsoever, the glitter particles moved with a life of their

own,
defying gravity. It would be the perfect thing for the tree, he found
himself

thinking, almost against his will.

Grabbing the
stopper, he

slowly worked it out, fighting a force stronger than
mom’s canned dried apricots.

Once, the vacuum-pack machine had
malfunctioned, creating such a tight suction inside

the mason jars
that they had had to resort to breaking the bottles in order to

get
out the fruit. And once, during a particularly cold spell, which had
frozen

even the honey in the pantry, a few had imploded in the night
like gunfire, causing

mom to call the police.

Eventually, the
stopper popped open with a

tiny spurt of smell, a smell of old moldy
socks, of too many people breathing in a

closed space. The glitter
flew into his eyes from the tension, filling his nose and

covering
his lips. Jimmy coughed, spitting, and set the bottle down. In

the
kitchen, he washed his face and mouth out. It was the same glittery
powder he

had gotten all over his hands from carrying the trunk, and
it clung with the same

tenacious feeling of tiny claws gripping
wherever they landed.

Taking the bottle
up again, he unceremoniously dumped its contents on the tree.

It
sparkled as if a cloud of ice crystals had formed. It was the most
beautiful

tree ever. Jimmy knew Danny and Beth would think so.
Scratching the bump behind his

ear, he let out a loud explosive burp
which, rumbling like thunder, seemed to create a

visual fog obscuring
the room. Yes, it was a burp captain gemarvelous would be proud

of.

Later that evening
when mom still

hadn’t shown up, frank slammed open the screen
door. Jimmy had been re-reading

his old, tattered comics. He barely
glanced at the tree.

“Where’s
your mother?” He spoke disapprovingly. “Ive got to

leave
tomorrow.”

“She’s
not home,” Jimmy

mumbled, trying to concentrate on doughboy
alien meatfest #4.

Frank

stopped
putting his coat in the closet.

“Listen.
That’s a fine tree there. Looking good. Let’s

have
Christmas tonight, ok? Ive got some stuff to do before I go. Why
don’t

you go upstairs and get all the presents outta the closet
where mom hid em. Bring em

all down. Kay?”

Jimmy nodded.
Standing up, frank ruffled his

hair as he rushed past to do the
bidding.

Mom came home
wearing her bowling shirt and stinking of beer. When she saw

the
tree, with the presents all around it like an island of ceremony,
unto itself

throughout space, time and history, she laughed out loud.
But not a funny laugh, more

like a cackle. A witch’s curse.
Moving into the kitchen with a blurry glance at

Jimmy, she ran into
frank, the table stacked high with his papers. As the sound of

combat
engaged grew, the door swung shut. Soon, only the sounds of cotton
filled

the livingroom like snow.

Jimmy sat and
waited for each muffled

word to fall, for every little rise in volume
to indicate some kind of resolution, but

it was all eclipsed by the
anger and tension balled up inside him. Whirling around in

confusion
like so many little numbered lottery balls, all the various

feelings
could find no real ground to settle upon. When would it all stop,

he
wondered, holding back tears. But secretly, he knew the answer; the
second he

got to rip open the cheap wrapping paper from the chemistry
spectacular. It would all

be worth it then.

The silvery dust
still clung to his hands,

even after he had scrubbed them to death in
the sink. It seemed to migrate in a

fascinating way, even though it
itched like nothing else.

The door opened and
frank pounded in, his face contorted into a percolating milkshake

of
rage. Jimmy’s heart jumped, startled.

“Jimmy,

you’re
on your own. Open em up, boy. Ive gotta run. Be back in a couple

of
days. Merry Christmas.”

He grabbed his coat
with a

vengeance off the rack and slammed open the door, moving
through like a whirlwind on

its way out of town. And then he was
gone.

From the

kitchen,
quiet sobs drifted out. Jimmy slowly moved to the door, not wanting
to go

through it, but compelled to. When dad was gone, mom was the
only other authority in

his life. Except for his chemistry, of
course.

Pushing slowly,

the
door creaked open. Mom sat at the kitchen table, her head in her
hands, quietly

weeping.

“Mom?”
Jimmy said quietly, the words barely escaping

his lips. The force of
emotional gravity seemed to suck everything back below the

event
horizon, not even light or sound could escape its pull.

She

stopped for a
second and looked at him through tear drenched eyes, and put on

her
best fake smile.

“Jimmy….
What is it,

hon?”

Her breath smelled
of beer and cheap

wine.

“Mom, are we
gonna have Christmas?”

She stopped smiling
for a minute. For a second, Jimmy seemed to recognize a future

self,
seemed to understand that things like confusion and situations were,
in a

way, timeless. When they happened to you now, they would happen
to you again. You

could always recognize the emotional space, could
name it, and classify it. But that

was it. Comprehension and
understanding stopped right there. And then, after that

timeless
moment, she suddenly spoke, shattering the instant into
forgetfulness,

relegating it to the past.

“Jimmy, mom’s
not feeling

well. Why don’t you just have Christmas yourself?
There’s a lot of nice

Christmas presents under the tree for
you.” And then, with a small guilty look,

she reached into her
pocket and pulled out ten dollars.

“Here’s
some money. Why don’t you go get yourself a pizza, or

whatever
you want? I’m going upstairs. Get some sleep.”

She hauled herself
over to the fridge, pulled out a six-pack of bud blue pabst label

and left silently up the stairs.

Jimmy stood in the
silent

kitchen, the humm of the fridge filling the space like smooth,
comforting foam.

Shoving the ten in his pocket, he sidled over to the
cupboard and pulled down the box

of frosted pop-up cereal bars.
Empty. Just like his heart. Just like his feelings. His

caring.
Setting his jaw against the injustices of the world, he resolved then
and

there to harden his pre-pubescent soul. This was the beginning of
a new career, a

budding nihilist devoted to televised distraction…
And chemistry.

Suddenly, his
skills began to take on a new light. Chemistry wasn’t

just
interesting, it could be highly destructive. And wasn’t
destruction just

another form of creativity, really? Explosives were
really just about breaking things

down, releasing the hidden tensions
that bound the universe together. Tensions which

worked against love,
against feelings, against caring.

In the

living room,
Jimmy confronted the presents. Frank had stepped on one little box

on
the way out, crushing it. Its paper lay torn, abused. Bending over,
Jimmy

carefully lifted it up like a wounded bird. Turning it over, he
saw his name scribbled

on it. “To Jimmy. From frank.” It
was his mom’s handwriting of course.

Sliding out the
inner wrapping from the torn box, he pulled

out a soggy plastic bag
dripping water. Inside, he could see a sno-globe, its perfect

sphere
cracked with veins of destruction. Within, in a half-pool of water
and

fallen snow, which would never rise again, a small family stood
in front of their

house, laughing and smiling.

Jimmy balled his
fists up. His hatred

of frank grew and grew as he struggled to hold
back the tears. Throwing the globe in

disgust, it shattered against
the fireplace with a dull ‘pfop’, sliding

slowly down the
brick facade, where it lay slowly bleeding like a crash test

dummy
filled with oil.

Jimmy turned with a
vengeance to the

biggest of the four presents. He knew what was in
it; everything else would only be

ruined fluff, like franks globe.
Kneeling as if before a religious idol, Jimmy felt

the package,
turning its mass lovingly over and over in his hands.

And then, in one
quick instant, the wrapping was off. The spectacular lay revealed

in
all its holy beauty. All the glittering twinkling tubes, the petri
dish’s,

the vials of unknown compounds, their surfaces waiting
the be explored, understood….

And of course, the xlm 3000x, the
super-ultimate microscope, its powers of

magnification so intense, so
far removed from the world of mom and frank and their

stupid
fights…

But Jimmy had no
need to think of them now.

Tearing off the clear crystal wrapper, he
pulled the scope out and lovingly ran his

youthful hands over the
black, streamlined body. A length of time passed, of which he

had no
recognition as to its duration. Everything seemed to slip, slide and
fall

into the beauty of the matte black finish.

Peering into

the
blackened depths, he slid his …

“Why”, little Tim Trubeth
cried, pulling on his mothers skirt. “Why.”

She pulled her dress out of his tiny
hands, and leaned down, smiling at him with her big mother eyes.

“What is it now? Oh Tim, you’re
so cute…” she pinched his cheeks and turned back to the stove,
humming. He waddled dejectedly back to the corner by the fridge and
sat down.

The door to the living room gaped
wide, beckoning to him like a big hungry mouth. He could see his
father, dressed in coveralls, painting the room bright white, his
silouhette disappearing into the luminous mist.

He had noticed it earlier, just before
the first coat of paint had been applied. It was like a dazzling
sunny day, a whitish mist that seemed to glisten from the wall like
steam with an inner light. He had hung on mothers skirt all morning,
watching as it seemed to pulsate and grow. Voices joined it at almost
regular intervals, expanding its borders. His father paid no
attention to it at all, listening to classical music and singing the
operatic parts out loud. Now it had advanced almost to the door of
the living room.

“Honey, do you feel like roast or
ham tonight?” mother called out. The music dimmed, and his
father appeared from out of the white cloud, rubbing his hands.

“I think the roast,” he
said, moving over to wash his hands in the sink.

“Oh honey, not over the food,”

“Well what do you want me to do,
track paint all over the floor?” he fumed. Seeing Tim in the
corner, he leaned down, smelling of paint.

“How’s Timmy doing, hah? hah
hah?” he poked at Tim’s stomach, grinning.

“Don’t torment him, Harry…”

“He likes it! Dontcha, Tim? Huh,
dontcha?” Tim started crying. He couldn’t understand why his
father was so happy. The white was pushing into the kitchen, and he
could smell a horrible damp odor which crept ahead of it like a
jungle miasma.

“Now look, you’ve made him cry,”
mother stood behind father, her hands on her hips. She gave him a
mean look and bent down, lifting Tim up buoyantly to her shoulder.

“There there now, its ok..”
she patted him, calming his tears.

“The way you spoil that kid,
Helen, I swear he’s going to need therapy.” “Harry, don’t
talk like that in front of him…” she said over her shoulder as
she set Tim down in the corner.

Tim stared at the throbbing mass of
shimmering that was creeping slowly across the floor.

“Why why, why why why,” he
cried, standing unsteadily, moving away, backing up against the wall.
“Why why why…” Why couldn’t they understand him? Couldn’t
they see the approaching cloud? Tim felt tremors from it, tremors of
fear.

Mother pushed the roast into the oven,
setting the dials. Father collapsed with a sigh at the table, leaning
back and cracking open a beer.

“It looks like Tom’s going to buy
that house next door after all,” he said, taking a long cool
sip, licking his lips of the foam.

“Why, that’s wonderful. Everybody
seems to be moving out here.”

“It’ll be strange, all right. I
haven’t seen Tom since…” he paused, trying to remember.

“Don’t they have a daughter?”
Mother said.

“Marjorie, yeah, two years older
than Tim. But he’s not sure… its going to be tight. If the escrow
closes… he’s calling me tomorrow.”

Tim edged along the wall, watching the
white mist. His tiny hand felt the edge of the door to the T.V. room,
holding to it for support. The white continued to advance. It walked
with the legs of a thousand people, had the heads and the mouths of
millions, a singular crowd driven by sunlight. He could feel the
hunger emanating from it like radiation, and he knew it needed to
eat.

Letting go of his secure hold, he
waddled as fast as he could, his speed propelling him on his stubby
legs towards father. He reached him, grasping his big leg with an
iron grip.

“Well, what’s up with Tim? What
is it?”

Tim pulled and pulled as hard as he
could, trying to drag his father out of his chair, away from the
tendrils of white that were already creeping up over the edge of the
table.

“Why, why, why…” he cried,
tugging, but father wouldn’t budge.

“He’s been doing that all day,”
mother said, walking to the fridge.

“Tim, go away. Daddies tired. Let
him relax,” father said, untwining his fingers from the pantleg
and shooing him away.

Tim turned to see his mother vanish
into the whiteness of the fridge, the hinged door seemingly reaching
out and consuming her, drawing her into the color of oblivion.

She gasped out in surprise, the fog
swallowing her breath before it even left her body. The Glistening
grew, moving faster, pulsating bright white light as it advanced. A
tiny echo of despair and pain escaped from the cloud like a small
burp.

“Wha.. Helen?” father said,
turning in wonder at the noise behind him but it was too late. The
beer-can flew off the table, oozing a venomous alcoholic foam that
quickly disappeared into the mist.

Tim’s eyes grew terrified, stepping
away from the table. Father tried to stumble back as licks of white
haze leapt out to engulf him, wrapping spindles of emptiness around
him, thrusting itself deep into his throat, stifling his cries, but
could not escape. The cloud attached itself to him like sticky
cotton, filling his mouth and eyes, encompassing his body.

Tim continued to move back, herded by
the encroaching fog which slowly consumed his father, swallowing up
the screams which escaped his lips. He cast frightened looks about
him, backing slowly away, seeking escape, trapped in a lonely world
with the light, by the light.

A contorted look of anguish spread
across his fathers features, and then he too was gone. Tim shook
uncontrollably, his eyes scanning the blankness, until he saw the
door to the T.V. room. His instincts lead him backwards, through the
doorway, one step ahead of the creeping fluidity which Tim could not
completely fathom.

“Why.. Whyt.. Whyte..” he
named it, and its front pushed up against him. His mouth opened to
yell but only a whimper came out. Pressure bulged against him,
squeezing the breath out of him, hounding his body as if it had no
weight. It pushed hard and unrelenting, squashing him up against
something cold and hard. He felt its pain sharp in his back.

Looking behind him, his mouth open,
gasping, he could just make out the dark gray television screen. He
struggled hopelessly, spreading against it, flattened onto its smooth
glass by the white which had expanded from room to room, which he had
seen and tried to stop, to warn mommy and daddy…. It had consumed
his parents, and now he knew it would get him.

A soft sound squeezed out of Tim’s
chest as he struggled against the growing pressure, as it became too
much to feel. His body slackened, his muscles crushed, there was
nothing more he could do. The Glistening pulsed white with a sudden
surge and a pop, and small Timmy Trubeth disappeared into the staring
blackness of the t.v screen.

Eventually that too faded out into
video blur, the static of a million nations, a million homes, a
million minds… and the white spread.

Barfing Flames or the Art of Muffler Repair

Publisher: Gerogia HotBike Monthly

Year Published: 1999

Bibliography Information and notes: “Technical Manual, but Pure King Barker“