Who are they that really get away? The ones who pass on from this world, a bleak despair ridden wasteland filled with inscrutable guys and gals all dressed up in nice overcoats hiding their true identities. Where do thee who separate from this planet be? The ones who pass on through to another world, a bright joyous development of smiles so large that they imprint into their ice cream cones a most jubilant depiction of themselves. Should it be that thee who pass on from land to sea separate the damned from the blessed and the tortured from the ones who still hold a beating heart in chest.
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Lester Merle never seemed to successfully interpret why people wanted to end other people’s lives. A firm believer in promoting due justice, Lester pondered, day after day, why anyone would want to kill another human being. Lester felt that murdering another person was the wrong answer when trying to seek out any sort of revenge. “Let the people suffer” he would often say as he paced ‘round his home. “Why give them the satisfaction of not existing anymore?” he would mutter. Lester gave every thought he had. He gave everything he could muster up to prompt the secession from his normal routine. If they died at the end of it all, wouldn’t that be more satisfying? Lester compared it to life in general, saying that everyone died, but it would be a waste if you didn’t go out having fun. To not have fun would be to lose. No one should get off that easily.
For those who have done wrong, Lester made sure their wrongs were to be given back. What was the reason for killing someone, he would think? The way Lester would say it, was that if someone was hurt so badly, or angered to the point of rage, why would they want to kill the person that evoked those emotions. He wrote in one of his journals one night, saying something along the lines of, “where do they go afterwards? No one really knows, but it would probably be a lot better than what would happen if they came to visit me.” Deep down Lester meant well, but no one would ever assume such a thing just by the look of him. Lester’s eyes lit up when his opportunities arose. Someone new to experiment on. A semi-professional revenge seeker, and one hell of a self-taught physician. Lester was smart. Others just never understood that.
Mrs. Merle was a lovely woman most would say. She lived on the east side of town in a small and particularly up kept yard. Her shutters were yellow, and the house siding was off white. The big, oak front door was painted light blue and the surrounding flowers beside the front steps reeked of greens and purples. Even her mailbox was adorned with depictions of beautiful flowers. That is what she used to call her little Lester. “Come on in for dinner now my little flower.” “Mom, I’m supposed to be a guy remember?” They had a cute relationship that always warmed your heart when you saw the two out in public.
Lester’s father left years back after he returned from working out of state. I’m not entirely sure Lester knew what his father did or why he wasn’t around. The Merle family had a good name, a very good reputation in the community, and the utmost sincerity when it came to keeping things prim and proper. Everything was splendid.
“Do you ever wonder why I’ve kept you here for this long?” Lester sometimes muttered to his guests. He never seemed to strike a chord and was ultimately left without answers. “You’ve done something very bad, and now that wrong doing is coming back to get you.” Lester said as he peered into the holes eventually laughing, and with an assuring tone, informed them that “I’ll get mine too, don’t you worry about that.” When they never responded it angered Lester and forced upon his guests the very things they had been trying to avoid. At times, Lester never spoke a word to his guest’s. He simply gave them the treatment he felt suitable and went on with his day to day schedule. But the past couple of months felt different. Lester’s words were getting more and more… large? No, they were becoming stronger, more intellectual. It would have appeared that Lester had been reading in his spare time, quickly accumulating a nice waist high stack of books by his bedside.
Lester never made a bigger fuss than the night he almost had to part ways with his beloved marbles. His marbles were there when he was young, and they were there when he was old. Lester’s father had brought them back from one of his trips before he left. Stumbling down his now slippery, steep, and treacherous basement stairs, Lester landed with a thumb, a roll, and there his marbles went. Set up with holes in the floor, for oxygen of course, a couple of marbles rolled over the plywood and down into the dark pits Lester liked to call his “Marigolds.” He had “planted” these flowers so delicately and with precision because he cared for them. As much as you may think otherwise, Lester loved his marigolds maintained them with the respect they deserved.
Lester had laid where he fell for much time. His head throbbed and once waking from his recent comatose state he had a look around. The cloth sack he held in his left hand felt light and disturbingly unlike the way he remembered it before. The sudden realization of the missing marbles drove Lester up into the air, onto his feet, eyes wide, and searching around in a feverish manor. The size of the holes he had drilled became very apparent to him and in between getting up and scratching his head Lester realized what had happened. For what Lester had to do now was one of the most uncomfortable things he wished he would never have to participate in. You see, the only time Lester had ever been inside his marigolds was when he built them many years ago. They have since changed much and developed an aura that would give even the busiest of morticians a chill.
The flower beds were deep, they were damp, and they were oh so very dark. Lester dreaded building them in the first place, but felt they had to be made. As Lester stood above marigold number one his eyes big, forehead sweating, and his left foot twitching, he reached down to the corner of the plywood placed over the hole. The flashlight was hung on the wall behind him and in a consecutive manor, Lester pulled the wood up, leaned it against the stairs and took the battery powered light source to further investigate his dreaded thoughts. For a second Lester stood above marigold number one without a sound around him, staring blankly through the darkness. He flipped the switch and illuminated his foot on the ground. Three seconds later the hole got brighter, more visible, and less ambiguous. Lester made eye contact with the woman.
On the fourth of July Lester’s mom always took him down the street to watch the fireworks at the high school baseball field. The whole town came together to celebrate the country’s oldest holiday. Lester would hold his mother’s hand, using the other to wave at his neighbors, and whistle his favorite song as his mother hummed along with him. For Lester, the highlight of the summer was the grand finale of the show. He would always lay back on the big blanket laid out on the ground, arms behind his head, and stare like no other into the sky illuminated by bursts of colorful explosions. The world was beautifully lit.
Her eyes weren’t opened more than a squint but he knew that she could see him. For a while Lester couldn’t bring himself to say anything, he wasn’t in the mood at that very moment. All he worried about was his marbles and the fact that they could be in multiple marigolds heightened his anxiousness. From deep down Lester finally spoke out loud. “Have you seen anything fall from the floor my dear?” The girl did not respond but instead looked away from Lester to the corner furthest from where she sat. Lester’s eyes, along with the flashlight, glazed over the bottom of the hole and to Lester’s surprise there laid one of his precious marbles. The green streaks with blue and white shined from the light and a small smile erected itself in the face above. One down and eight to go. Lester realized he had only found one piece of his much-needed puzzle.
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With what do we treat those who fall to repeat? The ones who tumble and spill into dark, damp, dangerous holes of the indescribable nature. Where do we draw the line from doubtless thought to mindless crime? The ones that elevate the social, spiritual, conscious decisions to interact, interfere, and envelope the sensitcal way of thee fellow flowerer. Should it be that thee who impose and break in spree separate from those who tolerate and forget the rhyme and reason of those who only create.
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The hoist he had made would not hold the marble without it rolling away and back down into the sludgy clay below. The girl certainly would not be of any use to him as she was unable to grasp anything without arms. Lester pondered whether he could live on without the marbles in the holes and wondered if this was karma finally coming down upon him. Lester’s claustrophobia had risen throughout the years, in part due to the construction of the very graves his marbles now laid in, and the shrinking of his living space above. The marigolds were Lester’s pride and his way of contributing back to the community, but they had begun to hanker other emotions inside Lester. The more people he took, the more holes he had to dig.
Lester needed to decide, and with the flashlight in hand staring directly at the girl, Lester forced himself to realize what he had to do. Lester had a 10-foot ladder in the corner of the basement - that would do. He wished never to have to use it, but times were desperate. The flowers in his holes always made their weekly appointments on the basement floor. Lester never had any trouble getting them out through the pulley system he engineered. Grabbing the ladder and fixating a light above marigold number one, Lester prepared to descend into the pit to retrieve his first marble. Trying to assert himself and seem frightening, Lester lowered his voice and repeated the words “I’m coming down there, stay where you are.” In the back of his mind Lester thought about what a woman with no arms could possibly do to him. Reassuring himself that the flowers in the holes feared him greatly began to comfort poor Lester immensely.
Lester had reached the bottom of the pit and with a glance back to the armless woman he gave the impression that he was not to be messed with. “I’m going to take my marble and be on my way, okay?” Lester knew this wasn’t one of his appointments, but instead, was a search and rescue mission. The feeling of not being in control filled Lester’s spine and made him shiver. His knees bent, his long brown hair hung in front of his face, and the sack of remaining marbles bulged out his back pocket. The woman sat silently staring.
The day Lester’s father left was bright from the cloudless sky and you could see the street signs gleaming like the neon ones in store windows. The blue front door Lester helped his father paint was open and the screen door was propped so there was nothing in his way. A Chevy pick-up parked out front was filled, including the cab. Suitcases, lamps, a table, the bookshelf Lester helped pick out four years earlier, and half a motorcycle were tied down with ropes. Lester’s father kicked the stick holding the screen door and the metal frame made a crack against the house. Lester jumped a little bit but held his breathe when his father looked back at him. A military haircut and the scraggly leather jacket framed the man looking back into Lester’s giant eyes. “Get yourself out of here as fast as you can son.” The moment felt a bit cliché, but Lester’s mother was out at one of her book club meetings so she wasn’t able to kneel down, take Lester in her arms, and whisper into his ear about how much of a worthless piece of garbage his father really was. Lester’s mother never swore, but once after three years of his father being gone, Lester overheard his mother on the phone calling his father a filthy asshole to one of her lady friends from down the street. A glazed face and a runny nose, Lester stood behind the screen door looking at his father as if he wasn’t really there. The gridding hurt Lester’s eyes, so he closed them, and before his father left, a silk, pull string bag, about the size of an apple, flew into the screen door. Lester jumped back confused and as the smoke from the Chevy’s tailpipe drifted away Lester saw the pick-up disappear. Lester’s father had left the marbles his father gave him when he was young. No there was no letter inside, and I think that helped Lester out in the long run. He took those marbles with him everywhere he went from then on. He later wrote on the bag in sharpie. It read “marbles for the deceased.” Things were bleak.
Marble in hand, and his eyes on the women with no arms, Lester climbed the ladder back to the basement floor. It looked like Lester had something on his mind, something in his eyes that told a story of a tragic mishap somewhere in time. The feeling of someone chasing close behind held Lester’s shirt like a parent clasping their child’s coat to keep them at arm’s length. The kind of feeling that makes you run up the stairs when its dark in the house. To his surprise though, the women did not try anything while he was in the hole. She sat like the good little girl he told her to be. The ladder was hoisted out and the light was placed back to its normal fixation. “Sweet dreams my dear,” Lester said as he stood over his marigold and gave a wave good night. The ply wood floated back over the hole making it dark once again for the woman with no arms.
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With whom do we feed the doer of horrible deeds? The ones who spit and squander on in the streets so developed in merciful doubt and greed. With what is there hope to deal with and to cope? A place to stand furvish in light and shade that brings together the ever looming contemplation of good vs bad and god vs the other guy. Should it be that thee who takes upon thyself a matter of penance, separate those who captivate and detain from the heart wrenching spectators that faithfully remain.
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Lester’s sixteenth birthday party was filled with stale cake, one balloon that read “Happy 60th Birthday,” and Lester’s friend Kyle. Mrs. Merle tried to make the party great, much like all of Lester’s previous birthdays, but after Lester’s father left, money seemed to be the one thing anyone in the Merle house couldn’t hold on to. Lester had quit his job at the local grocery store two months before and was now staying at school after hours. He told his mother he was a part of one of the clubs after class but was really going to Kyle’s house to do whatever a sixteen-year-old living with just his mother would do with his scrawny, troublemaker of a best friend. Lester told his mother repeatedly that he, along with everyone else, wouldn’t come to the party if she threw one for him. Lester’s mother never liked to act like there was anything wrong. So much had changed in such a short time, it was the most painful thing Mrs. Merle had ever had to swallow. Everything seemed wrong.
Lester’s thoughts were running in circles by now and his eyes would have been doing the same if they could. Certainly, dealing with the patients was easier when he had them in their hoists. Stepping back and seriously contemplating getting back to the marbles after a much-needed night of sleep, Lester reached to his back pocket and found nothing. Left arm to the left back pocket, right arm to the right back pocket, and again a couple more times in disbelief. Searching the floor with racing eyes and mind, Lester found nothing in the vicinity. “Son of a bitch” Lester whispered to himself as he realized the error he had made. Marigold number one seemed to speak to Lester and after verbally abusing the ply wood on top, the hole appeared to laugh a maniacal cackle. Lester’s confidence fell to the floor with a thud and the thought of a good night’s sleep flew through the window, down the street, into a car, and far into a different area code.
Lester picked his words carefully and with as stern a voice as he could muster, expressed towards marigold number one, “I’m coming for you darling, and you better be in a better mood.” A flick of the wrist sent the three-quarter inch plywood into the air and all the way towards marigold number 9 where it made the hole visible from the basement level. Taking a look at the woman in the pit Lester made sure she was on the platform that lined most of the bottom and pulled the ropes attached to his pulley system. I’m not sure how the woman held on and didn’t roll straight off back to her new home. She learned to use the strength she had left in her legs to keep her balance. As soon as the platform reached ground level Lester tied the ropes to the wall, grabbed the net he hung from the ceiling and proceeded to try and catch the woman like she was a giant fish that was going to win him the east conference bass fisherman championship. Jumping up from Indian style sitting the women ran at Lester, head down, and rammed herself into his chest.
Lester’s mother passed away on Friday January 3rd. He brought her to the grave where his grandparents were buried and placed her into the dirt with the reverend from their local church. A bouquet of flowers in hand and the regret of leaving his mother for another state, Lester stood looking down into the cold earth hoping that one day his mother would blossom again. Most of Lester’s relatives had passed and gone by then and the remaining people who once cared for the Merle's stayed in their homes around warm fires as the snow fell like heavy rain. Before the men hired to fill in the hole Lester’s mother was buried in, Lester placed one of his marbles on his mother’s casket and with the swift strength of his fist cast it into the wood. A piece of him was forever to be gone.
Lester flung back from his run, the net flying in air, connecting with the bare ceiling joints and shifting its flight pattern to reside deep inside marigold number nine. The exposed floorboards of the first floor looked exceptionally straight as Lester stared blankly from his back. His head throbbed and the pain running down his right leg gave an unwanted expression upon his face. On his feet now, Lester looked down at the woman with no arms, admiring her little nubs he had so carefully sewn together, and waited for something to happen as her motionless body leaned against the stairs. A cold look on her face and her neck sideways, Lester understood. He bent down with caution, reached two of his fingers to the woman’s neck and felt intensely for any sign of a pulse. “A valiant effort my dear.” Surely it would have been, if only her malnutrition didn’t cause her frail bones to snap on impact. Lester stood once again, grabbed the ladder, and placed it into marigold number one. Touching down on each step like it caused a shock, Lester made his way inside the earth, grabbed his bag, and climbed sloth like back to the basement floor. The air felt particularly heavy and the sweat building up on Lester’s forehead made him even more uncomfortable. The women had finally won, and who’s to know if she wanted to get away or if she wanted to end things the fastest way she knew how. With another flower wilted and fallen, Lester took the green, blue, and white marble from his front left pocket, looked at it quick, whispered something inaudible to himself and tossed it into the bottom of marigold number one.
The women with no arms looked peaceful as she sat up stiff against the cold earth wall. Lester had hoisted her back down, fixed her into a respectable position while repeating something he had written in his journal some weeks before. “I’m not sure where you have gone my dear, and my wonder may not save you, but I am sure you are flying high in the sky, above the clouds, with the birds, and far away from me, happily looking down on all in the world ready to be let go and saved from the terrible nature around them.”
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With what do we hold the sense of feelings so cold? The dark secrets filthy and indescribably gross that infiltrate the fibers that get us through the day. With what do we carry on the constant turmoil that refuses to be gone? The intrusive might of particular jabs and pokes that step deep into an uncomfortable nature that rip the skin over our eyes. Should it be that those who live with hope and faith be secluded from the dreary constellation prizes that hold high above their heads the devil like vises.
- Lester Merle
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