The Monster Still Gets You In The End

And My Axe

The sky is the color of blackberry stains as I drive home; the early autumn breeze is still warm with the remnants of summer. I'm riding along one of the backroads that runs between the old townhomes, and there are square yellow lights that peek out from behind tall oak trees. My new used car is drifting along the road, flowing through the turns, as my hands move with the wheel. My mind drifts back to that twilight drive a year past, but that was back in Carolina. Something acoustic and faint is broadcasted through the speakers, and if pressed to the fire I couldn't tell you if it was a stripped-down country or some coffee shop anthem. Then I'm fumbling for my keys on the cement stoop of my apartment, and the blackberry stains have dried and darkened. The breeze has picked up, bringing the smell of petrichor with it.

Sometimes when I wake, I think I'm in the place where I used to live and other times I know it's a nightmare because when I open the door to my apartment, the stranger's standing there at the end of the hallway with an axe in hand. It's always dark when I come home, but he's standing there again at the end of the hallway with the glass door behind him and the yellow from the outside streetlight silhouetting him. And in the strange all-knowing certainty of dreams, I know that is my axe that I bought for him that he holds.

I turn to lock the front door and tug the wallet from my back pocket and place it, along with my keys, on the cabinet beside my late mother's beloved house fern. From beneath the green two yellow eyes stare up at me and meow. My sisters calico murmurs another complaint as I pull him from beneath the leaves and hold him close to me. I glance back down the hallway, and he's still standing, and I'm headed to the kitchen and placing the cat down and opening the white fridge door. I took all the magnets off months ago, and I bought two six-packs last week. The white light is spilling over the floor as I look at my black boots and the jeans that I bought for him. Tom hisses at the smell of phosphorus and formaldehyde.

The first drink goes by and then the second as I stand there staring at those boots. Then I'm at the round wooden table in the corner beside the stairs with the case next to me, and old Tom curled around my leg glaring at those boots. I'm touching my face as the rest start to go down. I try to do the job for him who is standing. I feel, for a moment, the urge to read over the books that I keep hidden again. Maybe there's something in the order of things that I missed. Sometimes when I dream I'm in the place where I used to live, and I know it's a nightmare because when morning comes I'm still here in this apartment and my axe is still dry and abandoned on the linoleum floor.