Stumpies

[burittodood]

so heres a story i have been working on. tell me whats good and bad and all that jazz and help me make it good. also ideas of where to go next could be nice. also, i would like this peice to actually look pretty, with all the indentations and everything. is there a way to do that? anyways, with out further adu i present: stumpies.... a story by moon halo.

 

 

I see people who don’t have heads. They have the rest of their body, the rest of their clothes; they just don’t have a head. Sometimes they have a hat floating over their stump of a neck or a pair of drifting glasses. The first time I saw a Stumpy I was Five. I’m seventeen now. I remember asking my mom why the guy in the gray trench coat had no head. She thought I was playing around, like little kids do, so she told me it was because he was so busy he lost his head. I believed that for a while but eventually I realized that I was the only one who could actually see them. I remember playing hopscotch with my friend Jen, when a Stumpy walked by.

“Look over there.” I pointed and whispered. “That guy lost his head because he was so busy. It might happen to you too if you’re too busy.”

But she just gave me a strange look and said, “Layla, you’re really weird sometimes.”

When I was seven my teacher thought I had some sort of psychological disorder, schizophrenia or something along those lines. She couldn’t handle my “lies” and eventually I had to switch schools. I realized then that telling people only causes trouble, so I don’t tell anyone anymore.

As I got older I began seeing more and more headless people. I used to see them every now and again. One might pop up walking down the sidewalk or I might find one sitting in a café, but that was when I was five. Now I see them every day. I see them jogging with their iPod headphones floating in their would-be ears. I see them in their cars waiting at a red light. I see them at the cash register checking items for other headless customers. I see them playing chess in the park, walking their dogs, reading in the library, in the movies munching on popcorn, talking on their cell phones, riding their bikes. I see them in my dreams. It is as if they are following me, invading my life. I feel like they are watching my every move so I avoid them at all costs.

You would think that I talk to them often, or at least often enough to know what they are all about, seeing as I see them everywhere, but I have only just talked to a stumpy for the first time a couple of weeks ago while I was waiting for the bus. He was carrying a black brief case and was wearing a matching suit. As he sat down next to me, I sensed the familiar, vibe that I get whenever I’m in close proximity to a Stumpy. I can only describe it as not human. I looked sideways at his headless body. My heart pounded in my chest. A small bead of sweat rolled down my arm. I shifted in my seat. I couldn’t keep from sneaking glances at his stump as we sat in awkward silence waiting for the bus.

“Wasamatta?” he said suddenly. His voice was deep and raspy and I smelled the distinct scent of garlic on what I could only fathom to be his breath. How was he talking? He had no head. I just looked at him dumfounded.

“Never seen a Stumpy?” he asked.

I shook my head stupidly. “What’s a Stumpy?”

“A headless person, like me.” I looked at him where I thought his eyes might be for a long time, trying to figure out how he knew what no one else could see.

“What makes you say that?” sweat was streaming like an ice melt down my sides.

“You keep looking at my head like it’s a missing limb. Not to mention you don’t have a head yourself.” He said it as if it was normal to be headless, “The name’s Jansen by the way,” he held out his hand so I could shake but I was busy feeling my head to make sure it was still there.

“I’m not missing my head,” fear gripped my heart so hard it stopped and paranoia flowed over me like lava. My fingers felt my cool flush cheeks. I let out a breath of relief. Thank god.

“I know you’re not missing your head. I just can’t see it. Which means you’re a Stumpy,” he rubbed his invisible temples as if he all of a sudden had a really bad headache but I sensed the disappointment in his voice. “Which means I have to teach you how to be a Stumpy. Damn it! This is the third time in two months!” By this point in time I was thoroughly confused.

“What do you mean I’m a Stumpy? Why can’t other people see that I’ve got no head? Why don’t I have a head if I actually do? What’s the third time in two months? What do you have to teach me? How did you know that I was looking at you if you can’t see my head? Why hasn’t…”

“Hold on. Slow down, slow down, one question at a time. Firstly, I can see that you’re looking at me, ‘cause you got a hat on.”

“Oh yeah.” Sheepishly I reached for the brown sherpa hat I had put on this morning. Just then the bus pulled up.

“Listen kid, ya got a name?”

“Layla.”

“Alright, Layla, get on the bus and I’ll tell ya everything ya need to know.”

Curiosity had taken me so I went against my better judgment. I talked to him for about an hour on the bus. He told me about Stumpies. He told me how they fade between this world and the dream world. The Stumpies are the ones who guide dreams, they don’t really make dreams, but they lead the dreams in the direction that it should go as if they were guiding a boat downstream. Everyone has a stumpy who guides their dreams. Only Stumpies can see each other for who they really are and only humans can see Stumpies’ heads. When one Stumpy meets another who hasn’t yet lead a dream, it is the more experienced Stumpy’s obligation to bring the new Stumpy into being. That is, to show the new Stumpy how to lead dreams. Apparently, Jansen was sick of teaching new Stumpies. If he actually took time to think he could avoid new Stumpies altogether, but he’s the kind of person who doesn’t really think before he acts. To tell the truth he’s kind of an airhead.

As I got off the bus Jansen grudgingly told me to meet him at the corner of 48th and Woodrow Street. I told him I would, just to be polite, but I wasn’t at all sure of it. Come to think of it I didn’t really know where that was and he never said a time. Now I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t meet him and that was that. I was kind of thankful I didn’t have to decide.

Thoughts pounded through my head like nails through a board that evening as I walked home. What had happened to my life in the past hour? I had no idea. I was a Stumpy all of a sudden. I had to guide dreams? How did that happen? My life had always felt strange, but now it felt as if that strangeness had been multiplied by five. Why was it so hard to except that I was a Stumpy. Most my life I had lived thinking that I was the only one who saw people with no heads, and now, now that I found out there are others like me it became harder still to live my life. It wasn’t so much the fact that there were others like me actually, it was the fact that I was now one of them. I was one of those headless people I saw everyday. So many thoughts raced through my head my mind was numb by the time I got home. I walked in the door.

“Hey hon. How was your day?” Mom’s familiar voice could barely be heard over all the thoughts in my head. I didn’t answer. I didn’t even care. I was too tired. All I wanted was to go straight upstairs and pass out on my bed. My eyes drooped and my feet dragged as I walked down the hall. Everything around me felt surreal. I felt like I was being sucked out of reality. Removed. Forced to be a spectator. Half asleep I opened the door to my room but it wasn’t my room. Instead it was an elevator with round glass walls that opened into an abyss. Eerie elevator music wafted out like the smell of pie on a windowsill. I was drawn inside. I didn’t notice it at the time, but the door did not swing shut like it had swung open, instead it slid lightly closed behind me with a soft ding. The elevator started to move forward away from my door. I looked around and I realized I was inside a huge black cube the size of a city. This much open space was almost incomprehensible. I looked behind me and saw that the walls were pock marked with tunnels that led off into oblivion. My own door had turned into a tunnel. Below me there was a large hole that flooded the cube with light. The elevator drifted across the cube toward the opposite wall miles away. I wondered where I was going. Where was there to go in this desolate empty space except to the other side?

As the elevator approached the wall I could just make out the tunnels in the wall. They were all black and smooth, except one, which was brown like the color of mud. I got closer and saw that it actually was made of mud, dripping and oozing down the side of the wall creating a mud-stained streak down the wall. The elevator entered the tunnel. The thick muck smeared across the window. It wasn’t long until the filth was all I could see out of the window. I felt gross looking at it. I moved my foot to itch my calf and there was a squelching noise. I looked down. I was ankle deep in mud. The floor of the elevator was mud. I was sinking. My arms reached out to the walls to free my self. My fingers grasped thick oozing mud. The windows had turned into mud. Then I felt something heavy splat on my head and then drip down my face. Muck. The boundaries that kept the mud from me had disappeared and I was being buried alive in the sludge. It was up to my knees now. There was no hope of moving. It dropped from above like mammoth bird droppings. All I could do was wait.

It was up to my waist.

Up to my chest.

Up to my neck.

It was at my mouth.

I was breathing through my nose.

Then, a deep breathe.

I was going to die. I was going to suffocate. There was nothing I could do, not even move an arm against the muck. It had clamped down on me like a vice, determined never to let go. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. Away it slipped. And then there was white.

It hurt my eyes. I squinted and raised my hand to protect my eyes. I could move? My eyes adjusted to the light and I looked around. All I could see was a flat expanse of white. What had happened? Where did the muck go? I saw that I was at an intersection of two roads that continued of into the horizon. The street signs said that I was on the corner of 48th and Woodrow Street. Oh, I thought, I guess this is where I meet Jansen.

[Quincunx]

Review located here so as not to break the flow of the story.