Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 17

Thread: shep.

  1. #1
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    the alcoholic was thinking up new ways to kill himself when shiva came tromping up the stairs and in through the door, throwing herself around with shrieks and angry fists, fingers whitewalled into weak harmless junkie balls. red hair went screaming along with her in the kitchen, cabinets slamming against their rattling backbones.

    "oh god, why're you havin' a fit?" slumped on the couch, shep took a drag of his cigarette and then pointed the lit end to his skin, pressing down to follow suit with a series of burnscars, rounding along with the spiral tattoo around his belly. he exhaled, eyelids twitching as the stink of burned flesh sizzled up into his nose. "did that little twit go out and fuck someone else, make you mad? i met that norma girl, you know."

    apparantly they didn't need a dog, shiva was growling enough for an entire pack, rabid with cracked lips and a coated-over tongue, a wild fretting in shit brown eyes. "oh, yeah?" she came around clutching a jar of half-gone peanut butter and stared at him. "whatever. we're not even having sex, so shut up with that shit. i'm fuckin' sick of it. of course he's fuckin' other girls! you think i'm a --"

    she dropped the jar in her hand and it bounced off the floor, the big tigerstripe cat running after it to play. shep was always surprised by how fast shiva was, like desperation made her bones and tendons react as fast as a regular person with emotions and feelings, and before he knew it she was tackling him with a hand slapping away the cigarette in his. a shame, the boy was mid-burn.

    "what the fuck!" he yelped and grappled to the side, blue eyes moaning wide. "it's gonna burn the couch, shiv!"

    "fuck the couch!" she screamed in his face and spat a palm against his chest, the crumpled upwards mass of his shirt lazing down his abdomen. "you gotta quit doin' that shit, man. it's fucked up! you need to.. you need to.. to see a therapist!"

    "ohhh a therapist?" he sneered back to her with a vicious curl of lip, both hands reaching for her sides and shoving her into the corner of the couch, leaving her to bounce harmlessly on the cushions. "where'd you get that brilliant fucking idea? tellin' me to see a therapist.."

    "well, renton."

    shep went snorting, rolling his eyes as he lit another cigarette, squeezing his hands between the cushions in search of the remote control.

    "no, seriously! he's been goin' to one and he suggested you do too. you know.. it's not normal that you try to kill yourself." the gutter princess fumbled for a moment as she resurrected the half done smoke knocked from her cousin's hand, putting it to her lips and lighting it up.

    "yeah well, it's not like it's even worked. it's just an experiment, shiva." shep twisted his head to the side and tugged the remote from it's cave, switching on the television set, a beautiful glow of daytime programming basking his face and mind in it's useless shit. "besides, it sounds like a big waste of money, and i'm not going to stop, anyhow." he was referring to the burns, the healing wounds on the insides of his wrists, the replacement teeth in his mouth from slamming them together when he tried to take a bath with the toaster. the english muffins had gotten all soggy.

    "you've gotta stop! or else i'm gonna move out." that little shit wasted no time with her threat, glaring at him and kicking a foot onto the coffeetable, mounds of paper trash littering to the ground. in the kitchen, the cat was purring fiercely while rolling the peanut butter jar around on the battered tiling.

    "move out?" shep took a moment away from fat black women nosediving to the floor because man number seven tested was not the father, meeting the grip of his cousin's eyes. "move out? or do yah mean.. in with someone else?" he dragged angrily at his cigarette, gnashing away smoke and nicotine stench, thinking of junkie fucks he hadn't even met yet but hated, hated because they were taking her away from him.

    "no shep, just out!" she softened some, winding both legs underneath her, bloodshot eyes with crusties still rimming around them opening wide and doe-like, leaning forward towards her cousin. "c'mon this isn't right, it's drivin' me crazy -- the fuckin' animals, your fuckin' experiments, i can't take this shit no more."

    "alright," shep said as he drew his lips into a controlled line, a heavy weight in form of black fuzz settling around his head from the top, pushing down and buzzing into his ears. he was deaf. he was blind. nothing existed except for the former shell of himself, and anything that came out of his mouth he could not be responsible for it. "get out then, you fucking cunt. i hate you. i hate you, and your fucking life. get out. get out get out get out out out already."

    her voice faded, she was nothing but a wall of fake plasma. he didn't feel her steps vibrating her ground, nor hear the front door slam shut, plaster drywall flaking from the wall above his head and snowing onto shocks of blueblack hair.

    <font color="#000000" size="1">[ September 22, 2006 05:12 AM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

  2. #2
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    <center>shep

    i am not eighteen and hiding my face anymore.


    shep3

    i tell you, i'm older and walkin' tall.

    all around the world everywhere i go
    no one understands me no one knows
    what i'm tryin' to say
    everywhere i go no one understands me
    they look at me when i talk to them
    and they scratch their head
    they go what's he tryin' to say
    but you speak my language
    oh yeah
    you speak my language.
    </center>

  3. #3
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    with one parakeet on the top of his head and two on his shoulder, he fed the animals bits of meow mix.

    "one for you," he said to the orange tigerstripe, who purred like a '57 chevy.

    "one for youuu," he crooned to the boy ferret, then to the girl. "and you too."

    "and go get it!" he cried gleefully to shiva's gimpy kitten as he threw a handful of food onto the kitchen floor, the poor ugly thing gangly as he skittered across cracking tile.

  4. #4
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    <center>43948c6fd82bd m

    sitting on a park bench
    eyeing little girls
    with bad intent.
    snot running down his nose
    greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.
    drying in the cold sun
    watching as the frilly panties run.
    feeling like a dead duck
    spitting out pieces of his broken luck.
    </center>

  5. #5
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    shep prowled the long hallways of the king avenue multiplex, comforted in his only love of the whirr and click of machines, film running their slippery miles through well-oiled projectors. he thought of who he would bring up to hide underneath the platters with, big white discs that held reels of films, built movies that shined bright through a xenon bulb onto a screen so customers could dish out fistfuls of money for overpriced tickets, cursing at the highschool concessionists as they bought their six dollar medium popcorns.

    there was a reason he didn't work downstairs; tattoos and stretched ears didn't go over well with the general public, and neither did the sallow blue abyss of his eyes. then again, all that didn't go over too well with studio executives, either.

    stepping out of the elevator, he avoided them and went straight to the radio station dj, slapping a microphone with a strip of blue tape running around it into his hand. "here yah go, just make sure yah stay more towards the middle of the theatre or else the feed won't come in as clear, i've been havin' problems with this house lately."

    "okay."

    "and remember to turn it off when you're done, i'll come lookin' for it after i start the movie. you fuckin' lose it somewhere along the way and the manager will have my nuts in a cheesegrater, and then i'll come looking for you." the alcoholic fumed fiercely into his face, narrowing his eyes and wagging a finger near his nose. "got it?"

    "g-got it." the dj stammered, the bristling black caterpillar on his upper lip quivering briefly.

    "good, man." shep grinned broadly, a mouthful of cracking teeth, a few off-color with the rest. he clapped a hand on the poor chap's shoulder. "i'll see yah in a few, then."

    as he waited the short moments in the elevator on the way back up to the booth, he clasped his hands together in silent meditation, thinking of a crazy girl with sunspit eyes, her smallboned hands as he went writing his address (and then some) on them in permament marker: 314 raleigh st. #29, scumhole of the earth, bring some colt45's for the picnic. he laughed, a horrible sound spewing from the depths of his throat, wildeyed as the ding up top sounded his arrival and out he went into the midnight hall, tromping to projector sixteen, fingers eager for the slice of a purple soundtrack under them, the kiss of metal filmpath gates and rollers.

    <font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 04, 2006 04:09 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

  6. #6
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    "hey shep?"

    "yeah?" he answered the walkie after choking out a rush of smoke, funneling it towards the air vent as the spin of platters sliced through.

    "can you come downstairs and help clean theatres?"

    the alcoholic twitched at the social aspect of this, the droves of ushers he didn't know, their penguin suits and stupid little black bowties. "uh, i dunno, i've only got a.." he fumbled with his clipboard, nosing down to peer at the times. "..fifteen minute break."

    "oh come onnnnnn, shep.." the manager's voice drawled through the speaker sweet as honeysuckle spaying in a summer's breeze, and he swore he could see her southern cheeks bunch as sets of eyelids fluttered, dimples popping cute.

    "okay, okay." he pushed to his feet, rolling the end of the joint in his fingers before dropping it among brother and sister cigarette sitting in a lucky strike pack, clutching the walkie while he muttered, stoned eyes lidding as he walked through sets of doors. "ushers where yah at, i've been recruited.."

    if he played his cards right, he could see the shuddering curve of her spine in the bask of the moonlight again.

    <font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 10, 2006 03:11 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

  7. #7
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    shep took great care to dive into a hole that would not spit him out whole. intead, it would serrate him into puzzle pieces that could be mutilated in the sadistic hands of women and posions, make him into what they wished as the weeks and years drove on, yanking at his shirt tails and pantslegs with beggar's fingers.

    he was too hungover to answer the phone, huffing stale whiskey breath onto his bare chest.

    "shep, this is your mother speaking..." she still sou!nded like a tinny bitch over the recorder.

    "hi mother," he croaked into the stagnant living room air from a set of cracked lips, a tongue curving out over them. hacks shook at his ribcage, spine curving horribly as he doubled up and spit grey matter onto the rutted hardwood floor with a groan.

    "..just calling to see how you were, we haven't talked in a while. how's shiva? your father said that she got a job at the theatre -- how nice of you!.."

    the son went snorting, digging onto the table for his pack of cigarettes, eyes crusted over and watering madly, the back of a shaking hand reaching up to swipe riddles of snot away from the bottom of his nose. here it came.

    "..you fucking son of a bitch you're just like him! one or the other is lying, and i know it. i know you're there goddamit, i know you're laying in a fucking pool of your own vomit or choking on it, laughing with your friends about what a senseless hag your old ma is!"

    shep could hear tears in the back of her throat, and soon they were pushing to her eyes, sobbing frantically. he imagined her makeup smearing, her lips so close to the phone that spittle bled into the tiny little holes.

    "s-s-s-ometimes, i just wish that y-y-you could understand, how m-mmuch i just lah-lah-loove you." there was a sharp intake of breath and the click of goodbye, a mechanized voice.

    end of message, 2:17 p.m.

    and shep had an epiphany at 2:21, pulling a threadbare black shirt over his head and running to his feet, tallying a mental shopping list of supplies, tools to help purge him of immortality for the eleventh time over.

  8. #8
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    another failure set him back into a pit of remorse, tears lidding through his eyes and arms wrapping around his cousin, telling her that he loved her and that he was sorry and that it would never happen again, that he was going to help her on the road to recovery. she always did the same thing, staring at him through shocked brown eyes, mechanical hands reaching to his hair to smooth back and rake through, put him to sleep like a little baby.

    "hey, what's up?" hours later at work and he was shuffing his feet in front of one of the four concession stands, roaming back and forth over the drink choices at the soda fountain.

    "not much. working." the uninterested floorstaff on the other side dealt with a customer, not thwarted by shep's cockeyed grin and puppydog pathetic blue eyes, bloodshot like a cracked robin egg.

    "oh, okay." he waited and bounced, the multitude of keys at his flank jiggling.

    "alright." the concessionist deadset her gaze to him, huffs coming from her mouth as she leaned heavily against her side. "what do you want, huh?"

    "just a coke."

    "okay. ice?"

    "yeah."

    the bowtie finished the pour and handed it to him, slant of eyes narrowing as she leered forward, peering at his neck. "what happened to your neck?"

    "oh.." shep glanced nervously left, then right, for any management staff that was lurking around, mindlessly putting a palm to the ropeburn stretching like rusted chain underneath his adam's apple. "uh, i just tried to kill myself, is all." he poked a pinkie finger down into the top of his cup, down through the hole in the lid as he tried at a slim smile.

    "oh, yeah? doesn't look like you did a very good job." the girl rolled her eyes and turned her back to him, snatching up a broom.

    "yeah whatever, i'm trying." shep scowled at the back of her vest, puffy white sleeves jumping in movement of her sweeps.

    "uh huh," she snorted and glanced over her shoulder. "why don't you just try a gun next time."

    the alcoholic's right eye twitched a couple of times as he stared at the tiling, hard at a dried splotch of sticky red. "you got an icee spill you might wanna clean that, too," he muttered before turning away, sulking off to find a straw.

  9. #9
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    after an early morning of honing his mind with hallucinogens while he crooned in the o-mouthed face of a gin-breathing girl stretched wide and pliant on his bed, he emerged from the dejected cave that was his room, ignoring the various chitters of creatures milling around in cages. life came to him in simplistic shades of color to represent mood and aura, mostly blues and greens around the apartment and it's surreal grasp around his ankles and wrists.

    but here was shiva, bathed in red, her body a crumpled spot of knocking limbs on the couch, two flat palms lighter than the rest of her skin smashed against her slippery eyes, the rathunch of her spine shuddering weakly.

    "oh, shiv," he said, but his soothing voice didn't sound like it belonged to him anymore. it was acid's fabrication, a zenlike trance that caused his slow-beating heart to swell in the trap of a scored ribcage. "are you crying?"

    "no." she lied badly, smearing her hands over her face. "just.. leave me alone." came the muffled defense, rubbing her fists to her eyes before stretching both arms around her bent knees, tucking them to her chest.

    shep approached her like he would a dying animal, eyelids twitching upwards above saucer-wide black abyss pupils, one hand carefully out to show he meant nothing but peace, good intentions as his bare feet slid over a dusty and sticky kitchen floor into the adjoining living room. "why?" he asked plainly, a mess of hair strewn above his head in a greasy halo of blueblack while child's eyes went honing on her, about ready to litter themselves with tears as he watched his cousin attempt to blot hers away. "i haven't seen you in days and i don't know what's goin' on with you." his lips felt like caterpillars, squeezing their way past the finish line. he took a glance around the room, it's white plaster walls with movie and band posters hanging by one corner, the only decorations either could offer, freebies from places of current and past employment.

    "i'm havin' a shitty day, alright? that's all." she wound the spit from her throat and leaned forward, chucking it in an ashtray long overdue for a cleaning, a couple butts falling from the table and onto the floor.

    "we should clean this place." shep stared at the ashtray, watching as the contents began to flutter like butterfly wings inside a cocoon, a fucking revelation. "it looks like a drug den, but could turn into something much more cohesive, tangible. maybe beautiful."

    "yeah?" her tone deadpan, she drove watery brown eyes up at shep, slumping into a corner of the couch as both legs came slapping down, feet propping up onto the coffee table. her shirt was short, the hem riding up above a brother of belts slung around the bones of her hips, the fading black india ink of ancient scripture posed above each jut.

    in a moment of holy rapture the halfbreed's cousin dropped to his knees in front of her, four fingers from each hand going to touch the tattoos stationed on a sand dune stomach, a stretch of dehydrated desert underneath a more fragile frame than the stubborn girl would ever admit. "you have the names of gods and goddesses on your body." he whispered while his eyes whipped up their own frenzy, a calm storm behind slightly fluttering lashes. "aren't they protecting you, isn't that what this is all for?"

    "raja put them there." she eyed shep warily, cautious of his sudden interest in her, his naive fascination, watching her reflection in his dilated pupils. "your right hand is on shiva, your left is on parvati."

    "oh yeah." he rose slow, the tendons in his knees cracking wisely to the clockwork of the rest of his body, the alcholic able to tend to all the movements of muscle and vein within the second framework of his mind, this state vastly different from the usual frenetic wash of lunacy and imbedded intention. "inseperable, there's not one without the other. did you know that?" he brought himself to the opposite corner, sinking in while calm hands tapped out a couple of pall malls from a softpack, lighting both of them before handing one to his cousin.

    "yeah." she clipped shortly, taking the cigarette and inhaling inwards, her eyes softening at the corners as she watched him. "why's all this, huh?"

    shep, the big mawing divide, the boy who worked so hard at detroying himself was unwillingly creating a bridge over troubled waters. he was open, the walls breathing in tune with the constant rhythm of his mortality. "i don't want you to move out, i want you to stay here."

    "i can't stay here." she grit her teeth at a tone that she knew was too brisk for anyone with a head full of acid, spewing smoke that made shep's eyes bug out of his skull. "we fight too much, i can't handle you and your.. your.."

    "uh huh? i'm listening." and he felt his heart thump shallower, straining from a day and a half of no sleep and the constant re-introduction of various stimulants.

    "your experiments. i can't handle bringin' yah to the hospital all the fuckin' time. yah know your mom called the other day, talked to me 'bout yah?"

    "no.." he hushed out, willing the courage to talk from the enlightened touch of his fingertips still greasy with shiva's skin, reincarnations from sanskrit ink screaming thousands of years into his veins, showing him lifetimes of sadness and joy. "what did she say?"

    "shep, let's talk about this later."

    "no, i want to --"

    "..later." the street rat pleaded with her watery eyes and quivering mouth, bringing a palm up to pat the stretch of thin thigh in front of her, hoping that he was highly suggestible, easily distracted. "c'mon, let's talk 'bout all the shit we used to do when i would visit as kids."

    "okay." her charm still worked on him, the measuring tape of his body unwinding itself, his neck cradling in her lap while his legs stayed straight and crossed at the ankle, up on the arm of the couch. "i'm thinking that this will be alright, that everything will be okay. my mom, she's a good woman, she doesn't deserve my shit."

    "shhh about your mom, shep." she canted her head down at him. "yah got anymore of the shit you're on, by the way?"

    "oh, oh you could tell?" he grinned jesterly wide, stretches of unbrushed monster teeth between his lips.

    "yah i could tell!" she laughed down at him, sucking on her cigarette. "have yah looked at your eyes lately, man?"

    "no, no not lately." he felt a burst of something inside of his chest that made him choke up with admiration, smiling as he dug into a pocket and brought out an ice drops vial, the label old and peeling off the side. "here, when's the last time you did it? just take a couple and you'll be good if it's been a while."

    "sure." shiva took it from the clutch of his filthy finger nails, unscrewing the cap with a thumb before handing her cigarette to shep, which he took with deliberate care. close to three with a bit of unintentional spray went to the tip of her tongue, glancing down at her cousin as he examined the possibilities of inhaling the smoke of both palls through one nostril each. "here, open yer mouth yah're gonna get more too, we gotta catch up with each other."

    his trapdoor jaw sprang open, a grotesque vision of swirling smoke from the depths of windpipe and ragged tonsil, shiva squeezing two more straight down. "there."

    "hey you know, yah never told me what you were cryin' about." shep said as he handed the cigarette back to her, the back of his tongue smoothing more deliverance down into his system, where the eager shell of a once able-body awaited further assasination.

    "no, i didn't. and i prob'ly never will."

    "shi-shi, you bitch, i love you too. remember when we used to go catch frogs by the creek in the back of my house? remember.. remember that old one missing a leg.."

    with the sun beginning to set shep could see everything through the glint of his eye and the moderation in his cousin, his mouth a chattermotor of the past and simpler times. he would find this, this solace in the unlocked secret hatch of his mind, and then he would squeeze it to his chest until the very last bit sputtered out so he could swallow it whole.

    to last him for eternity.

  10. #10
    HB Forum Owner killjoyed's Avatar
    Join Date
    June 7th, 2006
    Posts
    120
    Follows
    0
    Following
    0
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quoted
    0 Post(s)

    Post

    "he tried to kill himself?"

    "..yeah."

    "how? how'd he try?"

    "this is why i hate you sometimes, you have the stupidest fucking questions. why don't you go jerk off with a noose around your neck in the closet, see if i stick around to save you this time. it'll just make it all the more exciting."

    shep sat on the couch, counting how many steps it took his cousin to make it out of the building, opening his mouth in a yell that jesus christ would shudder for.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •