Never Eat Yellow Snow by Michael Seale (Short Story)

    I slowly edged my way home through the early morning streets. The day was bitter; the snow stuck to the streets in a thick blanket. My head hung, braced for the wind, my jacket zipped tight. There were few people out now, but still I rarely look up, preferring to remain anonymous. I don’t like their stares. But this time I did. Our eyes met. To me he was just a morning drunk, stumbling through the snow, his ripped jacket open to the bitter cold. His long grayish-white hair wet with what I assumed to be from drunken sweats and melted snow clung to his forehead. His beard was long, untrimmed and yellowed around the mouth, no doubt from the cigarettes that he smoked. I dismissed him, walked past him without another thought. That was until he yelled something at someone or something or perhaps at me. I turned, following the raspy sound. The old man screamed at the nearly empty street.

    “Mother-Fucker” the words raced out in misty breaths.

No one was there, no one stood behind me. Only the crazies are out in this weather, I thought. Laughing at myself, thinking that I must be one of them. The snow muffled some of his voice, but he continued to yell.

“Mother fucking fuck. You goddamned fucker. You could have saved them. Fuck you.”

I turned to continue my walk towards home. He was drunk; I thought. He’ll go home. But my feet froze to the ground. I felt he was talking or better yet yelling at me. I couldn’t be sure. His words were more garbled with his drunken tongue mixed with sobs and tears.

“Are you ok?” I finally asked.

He glared at me. “You fucking son of a bitch. You stupid, stupid cunt. You did nothing. Nothing to help. Fuck you.”

His voice rose and rose. It cracked and nothing more came out. He stumbled forward as if he wanted to attack. But he tripped over his own drunken feet and tumbled into the snow. He lay there for a moment, not moving. I wasn’t sure what to do. His crouch slowly turned dark. The powerful smell of ammonia filled my nose. I revolted. He shifted in the snow as if to stand, leaving a stain of yellow steaming on the melting snow.

“Sir?” I started.

“Go away. Fuck off, Matt” he whispered.

I wasn’t sure if I heard him.

Later that evening, as the icy wind howled outside, the same question danced before my eyes. How could he have known my name, I asked myself. Had he said Matt, the question repeated over and over. Maybe he said mate. Yes, that must have been it, he had said mate. No, another voice said shrilly in my head. You know what he said; he said Matt. He called you by your name; the voice continued. He knows you. Remember how he looked. But by then his face was more a blur. But I remembered the yellow snow. Never eat yellow snow. Another voice chanted and cackled with laughter. Who was he then?

Never eat yellow snow! Never eat yellow snow! Never, never, never... eat. The voice repeatedly chanted. My head ached. Jack hammers pounded my temples. My eyes were heavy with sleep and pain. Sleep took me, but not the dreamless sleep I had hoped for. No, this was sleep full of nightmares and pain.

The old man shuffled down the snow-covered street, oblivious to the cold. He walked past closed storefronts, windows blackened from dirt and grime. His feet shuffling through the snow, kicking up mists of powder from the ground. His hair wet and matted as he mumbled to himself. 

“Fuck off, Matt. You didn’t help them.” 

Over and over. He came to a large window, broken and jagged glass hung to its metal frame. The man looked at his reflection. He smiled. His teeth, black and yellow, rotting. His face covered in years of dirt. But yet I knew the face, it was older and wrinkled. The eyes were blue, almost gray with age, the left one was milky. His eyebrows were bushy and grew almost to one. Marking his forehead with a nearly black smear just above his eyes. A tiny scar marked the right one. I knew where the scar came from thought in my dream, because I have the same scar. He touched it and smiled.

I awoke with a fright in my bed. I lay there, head pounding, jack hammers going full tilt trying to smash the bone surrounding my brain into tiny movable pieces. My bed was stifling hot, the blankets too much. The room spun as if I was drunk. My feet found the floor, and I hoped the room would stop its dizzying track. I stood and steadied myself. Took two steps from the bed and retched on the floor. I looked back to the bed and there I was lying still. Eyes closed.

I made for the bed. What is going on, I thought. I’m awake. I’m standing here, so how can I be there? My hands found the impostor in the bed and I shook him.

“Get up! Wake up!” I yelled at my sleeping self. I wanted to jump on him and get the impostor to wake up, but he wouldn’t move.

I closed my eyes and felt something. Hands, hands shaking me. A voice yelling at me. Not a voice, my voice. My hands. Shaking and yelling. The bed beneath me violently bounced. As if someone was jumping up and down next to me. My eyes forced themselves open and there I was standing above myself.

Hair cow-licking and spiraling in sleep waves. Dark circles around my puffy eyes and my faced pained. This other me was staring straight into my own eyes or our eyes. His hands, our hands, reached for me. Confusion circled my head.

The old man forgotten. Now I was watching myself. I could feel myself in the bed, the blankets tangled between my legs. My soft pillow caressing my neck. But I could also feel the confusion set on my other’s self as well, not knowing what to do or how to make it stop. Trying desperately to return to the body that lay in the bed before him.

I closed my eyes again. And again felt the transition to the other body. I was standing, yelling, shaking the man before me. Not the man, no myself I was shaking myself. A double. This is a trick, not a dream, a nightmare. I must wake up. It isn’t real, is it?

Never eat yellow snow. Never eat yellow snow. Another voice chanted. I turned and looked in the oval mirror with the golden frame next to the bed. Yellow, black, rotting teeth stared back. Wet matted hair and milky gray-blue eyes stared back. Am I dead? The question dangled in front of me. I must be. I died. I am leaving my body; the idea clung to me. It had to be. There is no other way to explain this, I thought. I looked at the reflection that wasn’t mine, but was. Confusion danced again. The body in the bed was me, the reflection wasn’t, was it? I looked to my hands. They were mine, the dried cracked skin, the crooked broken fingers that I never had fixed, the scars they were all there. They were all mine. My hands here, my reflection not the same but the same, just older. The body in the bed with peaceful closed eyes, my eyes. I must be dead. I had to be. The hot wet tears spilled over my puffy eyelids.

The mirrored glass cut my knuckles as I crashed my fist through it.

I awoke sometime later in my bed, blood crusted around my knuckles. The jackhammers still pounding away at my skull. Glass covered the floor, but the golden frame still hung on to the wall in a desperate attempt at normality. There was no double. No other me, no old man that looked like me. No, I was alone again. My small rented room nearly bare. Alone in my bed with blood crusted fingers. Blood stains on my white sheets.

***

The coffee was hot and black, just how I liked it. The cafe wasn’t crowded, just how I liked that as well. My hand had band-aids that criss crossed my knuckles. The bleeding had stopped, but I still couldn’t clean the dried blood off as well as I should have. My hands warmed as I cradled the old ceramic mug. It was bitter, and sat too long on the heater. No matter, I thought. Nothing could make the day worse than how it had started.

My ex flashed into my head. What would that old bitch have said, I wondered. She would have called me stupid or looked at me with those belittling eyes. She never loved me, or if she had, it hadn’t been for long. We had fought a lot, even the baby couldn’t have stopped us. Over everything, money, work, no work, do the dishes, clean the house. I fucking worked all day. Why wasn’t the house clean when I came home? And sex, mostly we had fought over sex. I should have been understanding after the miscarriage. The baby barely a year old and the next dead in the womb. I tried to be understanding and for a while it worked. I took my time with our little girl, playing with her, bouncing her on my knee. My wife would watch with contempt in her eyes. I never knew, but I felt she blamed me somehow for losing the baby. She never spoke about it. Just walked around in a daze, unable to take care of the little one that we had.

Finally, after weeks of living with a shell, I presented our little girl to her. «Look,» I said. «She is here, all ten fingers and all ten toes, a head full of hair, and smiles nonstop. She needs you.» She broke down and tears fell... again. She said she knew, but she couldn’t get over it. But after my standoff, it all changed. She was now a fierce lioness guarding her young. Every fall, every bump and scrape now registered for later use against me. Woe to me if that little girl hurt herself on my watch. The lioness lay in wait.

Then came the money problems. I never made much as a cook, but I loved what I did. We had enough to eat, to pay rent, to do a few things, but nothing more. I watched over every penny, spending nothing on myself. But the bitch wanted more. My job wasn’t good enough, I didn’t make enough; the baby needed shoes; the baby needed clothes, the baby needed, she needed, she wanted. Not once did she ask what I wanted. The money disappeared faster than I could make it. I worked extra shifts. As much as I could. Soon I walked through the grocery store with a calculator, making sure that the money I had in my hand was enough. I would not embarrass myself by being unable to pay. I stole food from the restaurant so that we could eat. I stole tips from the service, if I could. I wanted them to have everything. But the bitch wanted more.

One night, I curled next to her in bed, both of us freshly showered, her head lay on my chest. I stroked her back. Even after all the problems, I still wanted her. I loved her. I kissed the top of her head and pulled her close to me. At first I could feel her body moving towards mine. She kissed me back. My hands moved under her shirt and up towards her breasts. She pulled away and glared at me.

“What are you doing?” she snapped. “Are you insane?”

It dumbfounded me. “I thought...” trailing off.

“You think I can fuck you? That’s all you ever want, right? To fuck. You don’t care about me or Janie. You just want to fuck, get yourself off.”

I can remember every word of that conversation. It was the first of many fights, the first of many times she told me to go fuck other women. If you want it so bad, go find someone else, she would say over and over. She didn’t care. That’s what she had said. Of course it was all a lie, but hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes it came without warning. Like at breakfast, my toast would be halfway into my mouth and she would just say, matter-of-factly, I should go find someone to fuck, so she wouldn’t have to deal with it. I tried consoling her. Telling her I didn’t want anyone else, but it was no use. Finally, after weeks of hearing the same thing repeatedly. I told her that if she didn’t stop, I would. She didn’t stop. And she cared more than what she had said that she did.

It was just more kindling on the fire that was ready to blaze. The lack of money, the lioness, the fact I slept with other women now, all led to our marriage going up in smoke. We divorced seven years ago. At first, I saw Janie every week. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I had had good intentions. I wanted to see Janie, to be with her, but life gets in the way. I haven’t seen Janie in months now. Before that, it had been six months. She is nine now. She doesn’t call me daddy anymore, not even dad. She calls me Matt. I know she hates me. I don’t blame her.

I haven’t thought of ex in so long. Why now, I wondered. The server, she looked like her, that’s all got the old ticker ticking again. I had loved her, but now she makes my life hell. I pay when I can, but there is never much money. What money I have, I invest in my favorites, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. Wasn’t that the old joke? My two best friends.

The coffee was cold now. I hadn’t taken a sip in the last fifteen minutes, just stared at the wall. Eyes not blinking.

“...you up?” the server had asked me something.

I looked up at her. Not replying.

“I said, should I warm your coffee up.” she said again.

I blinked, finally breaking the trance. “Yes, sorry. Had a rough night.”

“You and me both.” she replied. “Get you anything else, Matt?”

“What? What did you say?” I asked, disbelieving.

“I asked if I could get you anything else.”

“NO, you said Matt. Get you anything else, Matt.”

I had heard her. She said my name. How could she have known my name? She stared at me for a moment. Her eyes wide, as if I was the crazy one.

“Look, I only asked you if you wanted something else. I have no idea what your name is.”

She knew just like the old man knew, a voice screamed in head. They both know your name. They both know what you did. They both know. Never eat yellow snow. Never eat yellow snow, another voice chanted.

I stared at her. “Sorry, I... uh... nothing. I’m fine.”

She walked away without saying a word. But stared at me from behind the service counter, whispering to another server. I felt watched. I looked at the other patrons, I could feel them all staring at me. My head still jackhammered. The pulsing, pounding brain crushing migraine. My eyeballs hurt. They were all staring at me; I closed my eyes against the pain. Opening them to their glares, but no one watched me. No eyes were on me. The few patrons that were there had never looked up from their phones and their coffees. Not even the server watched me anymore. But I could still feel it. That feeling of being watched. I turned to the window as the shadow passed. It was him; I saw the same wet matted hair as yesterday. I ran out of the diner, spilling my lukewarm coffee over the table as I stood.

The old man huddled at the end of the street, strangely fast for such an old man, I thought. I raced towards him.

“Who are you?” I yelled.

He shuffled faster through the snow, sending puffs of snow mist up and around his ankles.

“Who are you?” I yelled again. No answer.

He knows your name, a voice said. He called you Matt. He knew you, said you could have helped them. Helped who, I thought. My head pounded with every step. My eyes felt as if they might pop out of head. This was no hangover, this was death. Death was stalking me. I could feel its icy grip over my eyes. I stopped chasing him. Rubbing my eyes. Pushing my fingers into them. I felt they might pop, explode beneath the weight of my hands. Bright yellow and red shapes exploded in front of them in the darkness. When I opened my eyes a minute later, the shapes still danced in front of them. I blinked over and over, trying to regain my temporarily impaired vision. He was gone. I stood in the middle of the alleyway, confused. The band-aids had opened and thick black warm blood trickled between my fingers and dripped on to the snow-covered street.

“What the fuck?” I said aloud. I wiped at my chapped lips with the back of my good hand. I was late for work.

I no longer cooked. Well, that’s not entirely true. I do some prep for the guys but usually I am in dish. I wash dishes now. It pays shit, but I always have something to eat. I’m no longer ashamed to eat from the plates that come back. I gorge myself at work. I pack food in plastic bags for later. People waste so much, ordering more than could ever eat and throwing it all away. Steaks, chicken breasts, potatoes, vegetables, cakes, so much goes into the trash. Others my trash, my treasure. I eat better than most. The chef told me to stop, I no longer eat it in front of the others.

They stare. They hate me; they see the failure. Of what will become of them one day. They know I was once like them. Cooking, cussing, whoring. I was one of them. I knew the dance of the line. I lived for the stress, the rush, the adrenaline that followed it all. I lived to be better than the others. Out cooking them, running the line. Running it all. And now I wash dishes and eat other people’s leftovers, other’s waste. I never talk at work unless they speak to me, and then I only say yes or no. I never look at the servers. They might see me, I think. I don’t want to be seen any more. I want only to survive. They look at me with pity. I don’t need that.

I walked through the back door and into the kitchen. I hated being late, it meant the others would watch for me. The asshole Bryce wanted me fired. The fucker, fucking cocksucker. Thought he was god’s gift to the culinary world, best thing since fucking sliced bread. The cocksucker, but I said that already. He stood waiting for me, as if he knew I would walk in at that moment.

No shit Sherlock, I thought. “Yes,” I said, my head down.

“Yes? That’s it?” shit for brains asked.

My head hung lower. I looked at my feet and my head jack hammered away. His words flowed over me. I heard nothing. I didn’t need to hear anything. It didn’t matter. I knew what he was saying.

My hands moved faster than I ever believed possible. The blood that had dried on them ran again, only this time it wasn’t my blood. It was Bryce’s the cock-sucking god’s gift to mankind’s blood. I decked him. Or I guess I did. I don’t remember. I had been looking at my feet, my wet snow dusted shoes. Then I felt something. My hand hurt. Screams rose. And then I was outside. The cold winter sun shining down on me. I still don’t know.

I suppose it’s all for the better. I hated the job, but the food was good. Not the first time someone had fired me, for sure. At least the cocksucker got what he deserved. He wouldn’t have lasted a night when I was in my prime. If only my head would stop hurting. The sun warmed me for the first time. I still felt out of my body since last night. Disconnected somehow. As if I weren’t living the life I should be. But this is my life. I am a loser.

***

My apartment or better said my room, that is all it was, stank. A small cot with a thin mattress, dirty sheets which badly needed a washing, an ancient TV too big for the table that it sat upon, a tiny kitchen that was actually only a fridge, a microwave and a sink and sitting in the middle of it all was a small table and one wobbly chair. The TV blared, not helping the pain that echoed in my head. I looked to the golden frame that still hung on the wall. Pieces of mirror had hung on, shards reflecting the world around it. All images, double and triple reflected. I dare not look again.

I tried to figure out what it all meant. My doppelganger in my bed, the old man knowing my name, the woman at the cafe calling me, Matt. Why hadn’t I’d been able to catch such an old man, shuffling his feet through the snow? Because one voice exclaimed. Because, because, because, because, because, because of the wonderful things he does. We’re off to see the wizard… the voice sang.

“Shut up!” I screamed at the TV.

Pressing my hands to my ears. I shook my head back and forth, wishing the voice would stop. Commercial jingles sang out, cutting the air, a figure appeared on the TV. Not a figure, my figure. I walked through the screen. Started on the left side, walked the width of the screen and exited on the right side of it. Never stopping, never looking up. Criss-crossed band-aids on my one cut up hand, blood-stained fingers and snow covered boots and all. I stared in disbelief the entire act happened in less than two seconds, but it was me I knew. I blinked rapidly at the screen.

Because, because, because of the wonderful things he does. Never eat yellow snow. Never... ever... ever... ever eat yellow snow. The voice cackled over and over. The songs and the chant clanged repeatedly in my head. It was worse than the night before.

I turned the TV off. Paced around my room. I couldn’t trust reality. Everything was askew. Perceptions, images, people, words, light, darkness. Nothing is right. Everything is wrong.

Never eat yellow snow. Never eat yellow eyes. Never eat yellow eyes. Because, because, because, because the wiz will swallow you whole.

“Please... please... stop.” I cried out.

The voice rang out once again through the pounding in my head. Because, because, because, because yellow snow tastes like shit.

“STOOOOOPPPPP!”

I hit myself over and over with my fists. Crashing against my head, banging it against the wall only to stop the sing-song voice in my head. I wheezed.

In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face. The water raced out of the faucet, icy cold. My hands instantly red as I cupped the water. It was cold, cooling my aching head. The pain lessened instantly. My head had ached all day long. I had thought that it would never stop. The voices, the sing-song chants, the strange happenings. The white of the bathroom was calming. The icy water, the cool tile on the floor. It comforted. I felt better, calmer, relaxed. So what if I got fired. So what if the old man disappeared. So what if I misunderstood the woman at the cafe. I finally felt better. The singing had stopped. I looked up in the mirror; the horror was worse the before.

“Oh god, oh god...” I cried.

The bathroom mirror is dirty with toothpaste and gunk. Reflected an image, but not mine. I had no face. No eyes, no nose, no lips. Just skin and hair. Flat blemish less skin, pale and sickly looking. I touched the false face. Nothing, no sensations. No feeling.

“Oh god...” I moaned. I clawed at the skin, determined to remove it; I know my face is there, buried underneath it all. Underneath, the alien skin that shrouded me. My fingers turned, talons scraping down the skin, peeling layer after layer off. I screamed in pain. I screamed in fright. The pain, the utter pain. Strips of skin lay motionless in the sink, red droplets of blood littered the rust stained basin. Blood had smeared the mirror and my face.

I looked again. My face back now covered scratches. My eyes gray-blue milky slits, my crooked nose broken from the many fights of my youth, both back sitting placidly between my bloody cheeks.

Stumbling back to my bed, I looked for the nearly antique Motorola. I needed to talk to someone. I needed to hear a voice that would calm me. Punching the numbers, I saw my hands shook and a small flap of my skin lodged itself under my index fingernail.

The phone rang, once, twice, three times. A woman answered.

“Suzie?”

“Sorry, mister, you got the wrong number.” the woman answered and hung up.

That can’t be, I thought. It can’t. I redialed.

The woman answered again.

“I... I... I am looking for Suzie.”

“I said you got the wrong number, Matt.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I don’t know your name. Check your number, my name is Amber, not Suzie.”

“But this is Suzie´s number," I insisted. "This has always been Suzie´s number.”

“Sorry, I don’t know a Suzie.”

I hung up, confused. My ex had the same number since she got a cellphone. She had never changed it. I dialed Janie’s number. Her mother had insisted she get a phone. You never know, she had said. You never know. Maybe some pervert will get her and she’ll need to call the police. It was more like all her friends had one and my bitch ex wife was just giving into another demand, so she would be the good guy and I would be the bad.

My cheeks burned from the scratches. I carefully put the phone to my ear, my hands still shaking. The phone rang and rang. No answer. Typical. Too busy for Matt. Too busy for her Dad. Probably sitting there holding the phone, saying nope not today asshole, don’t have time for your guilt trip today. Fucking loser. I know that’s what she thinks I am, a fucking loser. Oh god, Janie pick up the goddamned phone.

“Hello?” a sweet voice asked.

“Janie, it’s...” I wanted to say dad, but I couldn’t. “It’s Matt. How are you, sweetheart?”

No answer, silence. I cradled the phone to my torn face.

“Janie, what’s wrong?” Again silence. “Janie? Please say something. Where’s your mamma?”

I could taste the steely silence on my tongue. There was nothing coming from the other line except a low hum. “Honey, I think I am sick. I need to talk to your mom.”

The voice sang sweetly. “Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” the little girl’s voice repeated. “Ring around the rosie, pocket full of...”

“Janie, stop it.” I yelled. “I need to talk to your mom.”

The voice kept singing and singing. Growing louder and louder.

“Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, we all turn to ashes, we all turn to ashes, you mother fucking cock sucker.”

My mouth fell open. I lost my voice; I lost all control, my hand spasmed with shakes.

“Ring around the rosie, Janie’s head is under the bed and Suzie sucked your cock...” laughter crazy hysterical laughter.

Images of my ex wife and daughter flooded my mind. Their faces smeared with blood. A body broken across a wooden floor, blood streaked down the wall in small child size hand prints. My ex’s head sat neatly on the night table. Her eyes and lips sewn shut. My daughter’s feet poking out from under the soft pink blanket, not moving. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the images out.

I threw my phone across the room; it shattered on the wall. I left the room soon after.

The bar was crowded. I didn’t care. I wanted to get drunk. I needed to get drunk. Pushing my way up to the bar, I avoided touching anyone in the crowd. People stared at the scratches. I tried to forget them, but they burned. They burned in the brisk wind that howled outside, stingy when the snow brushed against them. Now they burned in this muggy room, with its heater blasting, the door opening and closing over and over, the mix of howling ice wind outside and sweaty hot bar, created more of a humid jungle of people, sweat and stale beer. Droplets of sweat appeared on my forehead even before the woman at the bar gave me the beer I had ordered.

I chased the beer with a shot of whiskey and that with another and another. My head hung most of the night, only looking up to order a drink. The sweating had stopped but had been replaced with chills. I felt safe for the moment, if not numb. The alcohol did wonders for the voices; they subdued and finally relented. When that happened I knew I could go, I paid my tab and pushed myself up from the stool. The room spun with my sudden movements. I realized I hadn’t eaten at all in the last twenty-four hours. A hunger pain ranged up my side. Its growls rang out over the noise. My drunken feet stumbled and bumped into a group of men.

“Sorry…” I mumbled.

They didn’t respond, only stared at me with false faces.

“What the fuck…” I screamed. I pushed past them and towards the door. Everyone I looked at was the same, the stared but they had no eyes, no lips, no nose, no face. Skin stretched over their features, covering everything.

“No, no, please god, no…”

The cold air shocked my system as I stumbled out the door. I landed on the hard packed greyish snow face down. It filled my nose and flowed down the back of my jacket. The noise from the bar flowed out of the swinging door over me. It’s not real, it’s not real, I thought. The drunken buzz I had paid and drank for now gone. The images of false faces raced before me. Taut skin stretched thin with blank stares. I covered my eyes and cried.

***

The dawn light came and woke my stiff, half-frozen body. The thick blanket of snow covered the streets, muffling the sounds of my shuffling feet. I had stumbled around aimlessly for hours until I collapsed on frozen and wet on a bench. The cold had crept in over my limbs, numbing them. My jacket ripped, my hair wet and matted. I need help. But everywhere I turn there are faces, voices.

One voice sang in a drab monotone: Because, because, because, all the wonderful things he does. An other's mantra had become never eat yellow snow, followed by a cackle of laughter. Another asked questions about things I could never in my life answer. The other cried about the false faces. There were others, but I have lost track of everything they all said. One thing I have not forgotten is the image of Janie’s feet lying under the pink blanket. I keep hoping it is just a memory, a fleeting moment caught from a father’s eye. I had watched her sleep the few times she had come to me. But somehow I know that this is not true. I know image means more.

If I stay here much longer, I’ll freeze. So what? said the voice. Then the madness will be over. I don’t want to die; I told the voice, and that prompted my feet to move. Pushing my tired, frozen bones up. I made my way towards the cafe, coffee, hot, black acrid coffee to warm me up. I thought if I could make it there, get warm, I would find help. Go to a hospital, check myself in. Get rid of the voices. Get rid of the false faces.

“What are you going to do about Suzie and Janie?” the voice asked, echoing in my head.

“What do you mean? They are fine. They are at home.” I yelled, not sure if I thought it or actually spoke out loud.

The image of Janie’s feet sticking out of the soft pink blanket and Suzie’s face with its eyes and lips sewn shut flooded my mind again.

“Are you sure?” the voice cackled with laughter. I fell to my knees. Sobs racked my body. What did you do? What did you do? What did you do? Because, because, because, because of all the wonderful things he does. The voice singsonged along in my head.

I shuffled past the cafe. I wanted to go home. Go home, call Janie, call Suzie. Make sure they are all right. I needed to know. It all felt so wrong, the world is wrong. The snow-covered street blew blasts of powdery snow, stinging my eyes. I looked up from my shuffle.

He was walking towards me. I caught my reflection in the bank's window as I stumbled by. I was old. Gray hair matted to my head, wet from the snow. My beard was long and unkept, yellowed around my mouth. As were my fingers, yellowed from the years of nicotine. My eyes were puffy and my mouth a sour drip. All this crowned with two bushy eyebrows that almost touched.

He was walking towards me, not he but me. Me, twenty, no maybe thirty years ago.

The truth crashed into me like a Mac truck. The images raced in front of my eyes. Suzie, Janie, the divorce, fighting, whoring, cooking, working, friends, drinks, parties, missing birthdays, long drunken nights, crying little girl, an angry ex, bottles crashing, beatings, hitting her, drunken angry fights, Janie not talking, not coming, Suzie blaming me.

Then the worst of it all. A drunken night, alone, angry, sad, lonely, the image of Suzie’s front door. Then blood, lots of blood. Janie screaming. Oh, the screaming it cuts me even now. I had to. I had to shut her up. Her screams, they would come. My hands, oh, fuck, what did I do. No, no, no. They had been watching the Wizard of OZ. Judy Garland sang in the background. I covered her with the soft pink blanket we had wrapped her in on cold winter nights when she was just a toddler. Her feet stuck out, I couldn’t bear to look her in the face.

He walked past. I screamed at him, “You motherfucker!”

He stared at me. “Mother fucking fuck. You god damned fucker. You could have saved them. You could have saved her. Fuck you.”

I wanted to punch him, throttle him. Get him to wake up. This was me before I killed them. I could stop him now. If I killed him, Janie would live. My Janie would live. I stumbled forward.

The snow was hard. My body couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.

“Sir?” he asked.

“Go away. Fuck off, Matt” I whispered.

I wasn’t sure if he heard me, but the voice inside my head was deafening.

“Never eat yellow snow!”