I Laughed Myself to Sleep

I remember it vividly, love
I've been walking erect
since the moment we met
and I caught your eye
to my suprise

That you're attracted to me is divine.

Shiksa(Girlfriend) - Say Anything

"I want that book."

                The lamp flickered. Addy paused briefly, irritated, and then set herself back to her work. She carefully copied the old, faded symbols from the book down onto the page. On every line she put a symbol, followed by every symbol close to it from all the ancient languages with their meaning written underneath. The next line down she’d write the next symbol on the page, on and on for over a hundred pages full of symbols. This had been her constant project for the past year, studying the book her obsession for nearly fifteen.
                The lamp flickered again and she looked up, glaring at it, irritated. It burned her eyes and she turned her head away, leaning down to pull another bulb from one of the desk drawers. She turned the lamp off and sat in the dark for a few minutes, then quickly unscrewed the hot bulb and replaced it with the new one. She turned the lamp back on and readied herself to begin copying down the symbols once more.
                The lamp flickered. Addy looked up in surprise and this time reached down behind her to check the power cord. She pushed the plug firmly into place and then turned back to her work. She screamed.
                A hand reached out towards the old book and Addy snatched it and pulled it tight to her chest with one arm, the other reaching under the edge of the desk to press the silent alarm. She slid her chair back against the wall and stared at the dark figure standing on the other side of the desk. It did not move.
                “The guards are coming. You’re going to be arrested,” she told him, “You’re not going to steal this book.”
                “Why?”
                “Because you’re going to be arrested,” Addy hissed. “How did you even get in here? This is a secure area.”
                The dark figure laughed. It was not a particularly pleasant laugh; it sent a cold shiver down Addy’s back. She looked at the door.
                “The guards aren’t coming,” the figure said. It – he – stepped around the desk, into the light of the lamp. He looked young, lightly built. He had tattered heaps of clothes piled on him, including fingerless gloves and a hat. Greasy black hair peeked out from the edges of his cap and fell over dark eyes. He had dark rings under his eyes and smears of dirt and what Addy hoped was not blood across his face. He grinned at her with rotted, sharpened teeth and she shrunk back away from him. He extended a hand with dirty, yellowed claws of fingernails towards her.
                Give it to me.”
                Addy slid her chair back and tried to escape around the other side of the desk. She tripped over the cord of the lamp and fell hard on top of the book. Everything went black before she even had time to scream.

"Mirrors Part One" 

                        Andreas turned the pages of the old, delicate book carefully. He studied  the fading symbols printed on its old, yellowed pages as he scrolled  through pages of images on his computer.
                        “Ray, sweetie, what are you doing?” his mother asked gently from the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. “Dinner’s ready.”
                        “Thanks, ma,”  Andreas said simply, sighing as yet another entire website catalog of old symbols proved useless. “Ma, when was this book written?”
                        “Oh, I don’t know,” his mother said gently, moving over to the table to close the book and pick it up, cradling it against her chest. “It’s a family heirloom. It tells our whole story. Everything in a little book, funny hm?”
                        “Everything? The end is blank, though,” Andreas frowned.
                        “Well,” his mother smiled. “We’re still living. They need room to write about us, too.”
                        “What? Mother, this book is all ancient! No one writes in it anymore. I can’t even find a record of this language.”
                        His mother grinned broadly. “When you’re older, you’ll understand.” She shifted the book into one arm, and put a hand on his shoulder.“Dinner, now.”
                        Andreas sighed and closed his laptop. He stood andleft the room. He glanced behind him to see his mother staring down into the book, open in her arms, with a blank look on her face. He frowned and hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen, pulling out a chair to sit across the table from his older brother Andrew. He scooped himself some mashed potatoes.
                        “Have some chicken,” Andrew said, offering him the plate of baked meat.
                        Andreas gagged a bit. “No thank you.”
                        “Why don’t you just eat like a regular person?” Andrew frowned. “And stop being late for dinner and making mom go get you. You’re wasting your time on that stupid book. If you spent half as much time working out as you do trying to read that stupid old book, maybe you could play some sports and not be a total loser at school. Hell, even if you spent that time on homework you could at least get good grades and be a nerd. At least then you’d fit in somewhere. Maybe even make some friends.”
                        “That ‘stupid book’ is supposed to be abou our family,” Andreas frowned. “Doesn’t it bother you that we have no idea what it says? It’s not like we have other family to ask abou anything. If we could read the book –“
                        “No,” his brother replied simply. “You know what I care about? Girls. Why don’t you find a nice girl to like and spend your time figuring out the mysteries of women?”
                        “Boys, please don’t fight,” their mother said as she came into the room and sat at the end of the table between them. “Andrew, your brother is still young. He doesn’t have to like girls yet. And  let him experiment with these little lifestyle choices as he pleases. If he wants to be a vegetarian, let him be a vegetarian. It can’t hurt as long as he still takes his pills. Have you been taking your pills, Andreas?”
                        “Yes, mother,” Andreas sighed, staring down at the potatoes he was pushing around with his fork as his cheeks burned.
                        “See, Andrew? Everything’s fine. Apologize to your brother, please.”
                        “Sorry, Ray,” Andrew grumbled.
                        Their mother smiled. “See, now we can have a lovely dinner as a family. No more fighting.”
                        They sat in silence for a few moments.
                        “What are you boys going to be doing after school this week?”
                        “I have football practice,” Andrew said. “There’s a game on Friday. It’s Homecoming. Are you going to come, mom?”
                        “I’m not sure, sweetheart,” she replied. “I certainly will if I’m feeling well. If not, your brother will videotape it for me. Won’t you, Andreas?”
                        “Yes, mother,” Andreas nodded.
                        “Lovely. We can watch it as a family, then.”
                        “Mom,” Andrew said. “I’d really like you to be there this time. It’s my senior year, it’s the last time Ill be playing for Homecoming. Please come.”
                        “We’ll see,” their mother said lightly with a big smile. Andrew glared at her.She stared at Andrew for a moment, then her face fell a bit. “What’s wrong, honey?”
                        “Nothing, mom.”
                        They did not speak the rest of the meal. Andreas ate his potatoes quickly and Andrew pushed the food on his plate around boredly. Both of them watched their mother as she scooped up the potatoes with her hands and ate them delicately, wiping her hands on her apron now and again. She was grinning and humming all the while. After a bit, she got up and drifted up the stairs, turning off the lights.
                        Andreas got up to turn the lights in the kitchen back on, and Andrew got up.
                        “Do the dishes. I’m going out,” Andrew said.
                        “Out? Out where?”
                        “Anywhere,” Andrew replied. “I need to get out of the asylum for a bit.”
                        “That’s not funny,” Andreas snapped, refusing to move from the doorway.
                        “No, it’s not,” Andrew said, shoving Andreas back out of the way. “At least mom actually has a problem, why can’t you just act normal?”
                        Andrew slammed the door on his way out. The picture frame on the wall fell and the glass shattered. Andreas rushed over and picked up the frame, cradling the picture carefully. It hadn’t been damaged, he was relieved to find as he brushed the glass away from the old photo. He stared at it, the only picture they had of the whole family. He was just a baby in his mother’s arms, and his father stood with his hands on Andrew’s shoulders.
                        Andreas’s eyes welled up. Why did Andrew get to remember their father and not him? Andrew didn’t even care about the family.
                        “Andrew? Andreas? Is everything alright, boys?”
                        Andreas set the picture frame down and began to gather up the shards of glass hurriedly as he heard his mother stirr. “Yeah, ma,” he called. “Everything’s fine.”
                        His heart beat fast as he gathered all the glass into his hands hurriedly. One of the shards dug into his hand, and blood began to drip down onto the floor. He snagged the lip of the small trashcan next to the mail table and tossed the shards in, gathering the rest of them the best he could as he heard his mother come down the stairs. He stood and turned around, holding his hand behind his back. He smiled at her.
                        “Ma, everything’s fine. The picture frame just broke, see?” he held up the picture frame with his uninjured hand.
                        “I heard something break,” his mother frowned. “It wasn’t a mirror, was it?”
                        “No, mother. There are no mirrors.”
                        His mother’s face was plagued with worry. “Oh, I hope it wasn’t a mirror…”
                        She began to look over every picture frame, move the vases on the mantle and sift through the mail on the table. She opened the drawer on the table and searched there, as well.
                        “Mom, there are no mirrors,” Andreas said again, but she continued to go into the kitchen and search through all the cabinets. Andreas heaved a sigh and went up the stairs into the bathroom to wash and bandage the cut on his hand. He moved as his mother came in and checked under the sink, between the towels, and in the shower for mirrors. She turned to him then, a petrified look on her face. She asked again, “It wasn’t a mirror, was it?”
                        “No, ma. It was just a picture frame. There are no mirrors in the house,” Andreas frowned.
                        “Mirrors,” his mother said gently. “You stay away from them, Andreas. You hear me?”
                        Andreas tried not to roll his eyes while she was looking. “Mother, have you been taking your medicine?”
                        “Andreas, do you hear me? You stay away from mirrors!”
                        “Mom, calm down. It’s okay. There are no mirrors in the house, alright?” he took his face in her hands, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Go to sleep. It was just a picture frame that broke. There are no mirrors.”
                        His mother hesitated as her eyes watered. She stared at him hard, and then nodded a bit, then more. She smiled. “Good night, Andreas.”
                        “Good night, mother.”
                        He frowned when she walked away.