Pink World

A man completely covered in blue runs, leaving blue footprints on the pink road.

The sky is a lighter shade of pink. The conical felt trees are a darker pink. The grass is pink with white polka dots.

The blue man yells, "I'm gonna get you Mr. Green!"

He putting his hands on his knees, panting. Blue sweat drops like ink on a wet towel onto the ground, making blue snowflakes large and small around him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a green snowflake.

Growling, the blue man sprints ahead, making a left fist.

"You will pay for this!" He screams.

He runs and growls, approaching the top of a hill ahead.

The pink sky darkens as the darker pink clouds move in ahead. He hears a few squeals and squeaks.

Pigs.

Overlooking the flamingo pink valley that opens up to an Alpine horizon of pink powder, he sees a never ending herd of pigs (pink, of course) that cover the valley basin.

In the distance, a tiny speck that is anything but pink. A darker shade of something.

"You screwed this up and you're gonna pay for it!" The blue man yells across the valley, agitating the pigs.

The ground below shifts like a pink ocean.

Before he can say another word, the pigs are galloping like buffalo towards him, oinking and squeaking in an excruciatingly high pitch.

The blue man runs the other way where he came.

The pigs, unrelenting, charge after him over the hill.

He trips on a pink boulder causing him to bleed his blue ink all over the road.

The pigs trample over him and charge through, blue stains be damned.

Lying on the ground tending to his wounds, he sees two green bare feet in front of him.

A loud crunching sound. The road, the sky, the sun, the gravel, the trees all begin to turn blue through his eyes.

The Last One Standing

I've been walking straight for fifteen days.

Nothing.

Overturned vehicles, abandoned tents, and a steel gray sky. The post-apocalypse is a black and white photograph where one can only notice red hues that tease the corners of the eyes.

I smell smoke. Not the typical electrical fire, burning rubber kind that I still can't get used to. But that smell of cooking.

Off the side of the gravel road I see smoke coming from a tin hut.

I see an gray old man like myself, jumping up and down, flailing his arms.

First person I've seen in 389 days.

I wave back, but his wave doesn't seem to be responding to mine. I do my best to holler. He stops.

Planting my cane into the caked earth, I start to make my way towards him. I holler again. This time, he disappears into the tin hut.

"Hello" I yell again.

He comes out. This time with a shotgun. He shoots in my direction at random.

"Stop. I come in peace" I scream.

With one hand on my cane and one hand up, I move my way towards him.

He shoots again, this time causing me to hit the ground near a well about ten feet from the hut.

"God dammit. I'm not hear to harm ya" I yell as I lay down.

I look up to see him standing right above me.

He has sunglasses on, except one of the lens has fallen out of the frame - to reveal an empty eye socket.

He seems to be speaking another language as I can't read his lips.

"I am deaf" I say.

He moves his lips again, this time the barrel of the shotgun drifts away from me enough so I can grab it and to bring him down. I get on top of him easily.

With him pinned, I grab his hand. He resists but I manage to bring his fingertips to my right ear. I then guide his hands away and make an "X" motion in the air with his.

I do the fingertips to the ear and the "X" motion again just for good measure. The old accountant in me still likes to double check everything.

The wrinkles on his face open up into this wide smile. His body shakes from laughter. I laugh too and get off of him.

With one hand on my cane as support, I use my other hand to lift him off the ground. He pats me on the shoulder and points towards the hut.

I follow his lead into the pitch black. I feel the dirt on the ground, and the sweat of his palms that I grip tightly. He puts two tin cans in my hand. We walk out together, hand in hand towards the back of the hut where the smoke I first saw back on the road.

The tin cans: Ravioli.

We sit on log, taking turns blowing into the smolder as the other laughs in familiarity.

As the fire recovers, he pulls out a can opener chained to his belt. I offer to open his can of Ravioli, but he firmly holds his can and wags his finger and points at himself.

I open mine.

I make an obvious inhaling sound and a "Mmmm". He puts his nose over his can, smiles and nods. We laugh again.

We move to the log and sit there huddled together, our shoulders connected in union, with a sometime slap on the back here and there.

And we eat our Ravioli.

The Homeless Man

I was walking down Santa Monica Boulevard coming back from the gym like I always do when I pass by this raggedly old man in a raincoat lying on the sidewalk against a bike rack. "Spare any change brother" he says to me and I normally walk on by but I notice on his dirt black hand he has the letters "D O N E" tattooed on each of his fingers.

So I says to him "where you from?" and he says through his spit sorta like Daffy Duck, "Olympia Washington can you help out some God bless".

By now I'm standing there facing him, he smells like rotten pee. I tell him "do you know who I am" and now he looks straight into my eyes and I know he knows. I know he knows but he says nothing. I says "I am your son, dad" and he stares back at me with those empty fucking eyes of his like he used to when I was eight.

Those white eyes stare back, he says "I don't have a son" and I wanna say bullshit you do but standing there he makes me feel eight again so I don't say shit. I just stand there and he puts out his hand now saying "come on man, help me out" and so I pull out some bills and put it in his hand. I hold his hand for a moment too long I guess because he pulls away like an ungrateful bastard. I go to hug him and he starts to run from me.

He starts yelling, "get away from me" and I follow him down the street. He runs pretty fast for a homeless guy down one of those tree lined streets and its real dark but I can hear him scream over and over "get away from me you sick fuck". Suddenly I hear the sirens and the blue and red lights out of the back of my eye.

"What seems to be the problem" the officer asks as he gets out of his car.

"This sick fuck is following me. I think he was trying to rob me" my dad says.

So I go up to the officer thinking that he'd believe me because who's going to believe my dad who looks like a homeless guy. But the officer says "don't move" before I can even take two steps toward him.

Officer asks for my identification and so I give it to him.

"What's your name?" he asks my dad.

"Keith Schlein" he says.

"Is that the only name you've gone by" says the officer.

"All my life, officer" he says.

I don't know what to believe now because I coulda swore that that was dad. The tattoo. The eyes. From Florida. The Daffy Duck spit.

"The both of you just stay outta trouble will ya?" the officer says as he pulls out right away not wanting to waste time. As I walk back up towards Santa Monica Boulevard embarrassed and defeated, I hear Keith yelling "what's your father's name?"

I turn back not sure whether to answer or not but he waddles up to me with that shit eating grin so I kinda mumble "Nathan Krashinsky" and then he waddles up to me and says "good luck with finding him son" as he shakes my hand.

For that moment, I think I made his day.