The Drive

"The Drive"

a short story

Gary Baker, January 2016

Brendan pushed the pedal and set them surging forward as Peal Jam came on under the dim roar of wind tearing through the open windows. "It's like this, kid," he gestured with his shift-hand while keeping the other loosely on twelve o'clock on the wheel, "how long's it been? What? A decade?"

The silence led on long enough that the passenger, sitting awkwardly in his would-be coffin, eventually mumbled "Nine years, three months, se-" with the speed of a viper Brendan backhanded the man.

"Right. There." Brendan pointed. "Right fucking there." He reached down onto Carl's side of the car and pulled a can of lager from the paper grocery bag there. He shook it vigorously and then held it out for the passenger.

Carl look askance, and took it with gingerly trepidation. "You want to drink? While driving?"

The driver shot a glance at his companion. "No," he said, "I want you to drink, while I drive."

"Whatever, man." Carl looked sideways out over the passing dunes to his right. The sky was breaking into a bright clear azure the longer they sped on.

"Again!" Brendan exclaimed. He slapped his palms onto the wheel as though tapping out a heavy-rhythmic drum solo from the stone ages. "What are you doing? Right now. What the fuck are you doing, bro?"

Carl shrugged. "Im... waiting for the beer to settle?"

"Fucking exactly." The driver shifted into a higher gear and the roar of the wind grew as they broke eighty. "Fucking. Wonderful. You just proved my point, bro. Right fucking there, you just did."

The highway began to veer slightly to the left, but Brendan just pressed on with the needle rising as slowly as the clouds passed by overhead. Dunes meshed with patches of grass and stones, occasionally broken by a thin ripple in the terrain where a dry creek bed once existed.

Carl finally shrugged. "Man if I open this now, the whole thing will spray me in the face. Do you want that to happen? Do you want your car all messed up with beer?"

Brendan smiled, his point having been made without the effort he had expected. "Bro that is your problem. You forgot how to take a risk. You forgot what it was like to just dive in and see what happens."

"And the beer?"

The driver shrugged. "It's a metaphor, bro. Fuckin wait if you want to, that's entirely up to you, but you'll never experience life by waiting. You won't get to taste the sweet relief that comes from expecting the worst," he took the beer from Carl's hand and popped it open without holding the wheel for the time it took. Amazingly nothing happened. Brendan gave his companion a knowing look as he handed it back. "...and getting the best."

Carl took a swig and leaned an arm out the window. "Well you timed that perfectly, you smug bastard. You knew it had been long enough not to worry."

"Did I?"

"Why would you do it, otherwise? If that had shot you in the face... while we are speeding, I might add...."

Brendan nodded. "Proving a point, bro."

"And this," Carl tossed back another swallow, "all of this. It was all because I'm not dating yet?"

Brendan kept his eyes forward, set his jaw, and kicked the car into the next gear up. In a blink they had broken into the triple digits, and the driver gripped the wheel with a new sense of security. They whipped passed dunes as if they were blades of grass, the whole desert turning fast into a blur in every direction but the general areas ahead of them

"It's been ten fucking years, man. You hear that?" The passenger took a swig that ended the can, threw it out the window where it disappeared as though it'd disintegrated into oblivion, then reached down and took out another. It was open before Carl's hand even had it out the bag. He took a long swallow, and wiped the drippings of his chin onto his sleeve. "Tabetha and I..." he looked long out the right hand window as if to try and understand the blurs he was seeing. "We were perfect together, man. We had it all."

He looked over to Brendan fiercely. "And you know what happened? It ended. It fucking ended. Just like that. Just like everything else. My life was ruined." He took another long drink and ended the can, sending it to the same fate as it's predecessor. Carl grew quiet and seemed to shrink in on himself. "And it was all because love doesn't exist, man. It never did."

Brendan went to speak but Carl cut him off before the driver could get a word out. "No. It. Didn't. It doesn't. It's all just molecules and hormones and bullshit energies at the atomic level that make this fucked-up contraption," he swung his finger about his ear, seeming to point to his head in general, "think that the concept of love exists." He spat out the window angrily. "But it doesn't. How could it, man? Tabby and I... goddamn, man, we.... If love really does exist, then why did she and I fail? How can something last for so goddamn long and not have some element of truth to it?"

Brendan waited. When he was positive Carl wanted an answer, he shifted down and brought them back down to one-ten. "What if it did?"

"What? Have some element of truth?"

Brendan nodded. Incubus began to play from the speakers, the song titled 'Agoraphobia', and the driver reached over to turn it up.

Carl seemed not to notice the music. "Fuck man, what if you're right?" He shook his head slowly, staring out at nothing in particular. "Man, that would mean that love can die. Man how fucked up is that? I mean, you always hear of it acting like a virus or something, but... but what if it actually is a virus or something, and we just haven't discovered it yet? What if being in love is just being mutually affected by the same strain of a malevolent nonliving organism that plagues most of humanity?"

He looked up suddenly. "What if love isn't actually that common, and we only think it is, because we are unaware of it's viral nature?" The passenger reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of brown cigarettes and a lighter, then offered one to Brendan. "Want a light?" Brendan took the stick and let Carl light it, then took a drag as the passenger did the same.

Carl shook the lighter to cool it, then thrust it back into his breast pocket and let his arm dangle out the window. "No, but seriously, man: this whole love thing is as fucked up as the world in which we live. Think about it. If it really is a not-so-common virus strain, then think about how many relationships are built on the lie that our species constructed entirely by itself? Think about how that would change things, man, were we to discover how to see it? To learn how to discern one strain from another." He took a long drag and tapped the ashes to the wind. "I mean, then loneliness: that shit would be nothing more than our brains crying about being addicted to the affects of a virus that we barely understand! Think of the drugs you could concoct to counteract that!"

Brendan shifted again and took them back down to the double-digits. "It'd be one hell of a realization, bro."

"Yeah it would. That's what I'm saying, too, man."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Brendan leaned back in his seat and relaxed as the road turned perfectly straight for as far as they could see.

Carl cursed, hitting the doorframe with his right fist. "Goddamn you, man. All I want to do is mourn over the loss of Tabetha, but here you got me convinced that I just happened to eliminate the virus within me right when I learned she had cheated, man. All I want is to fucking let myself go and to turn to dust and shit, and let this life be over with, but now I can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, my strain mutated to fit the needs of another strain, instead."

Brendan smiled, and inhaled deeply through the cigarette. He breathed out like a beast from hell, letting the smoke slowly filter out of his lips to be drawn out into the desert by the raging torrents of winds that fought the car with every mile. "Wanna try that beer trick again?"

Carl's fist struck Brendan's right arm loosely. "How 'bout you just find us a bar in the next town, up, eh?"

"Are you going to do some flirting this time?" Brendan asked.

The passenger glared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The driver shrugged, "I dunno, bro, just that last time you started bawling about-"

"Fuck you." Carl drew on his cigarette again and crossed his arms, "but yeah, I'll fucking flirt my bloody heart out. I'll flirt so hard, that girl's strain won't know heads from tails."

Brendan looked cross at his companion. "Bro, don't force things, alright? You know the rules. We go in, buy some beer, check out the babes, and hope like hell that we both go home to get laid tonight." He lifted a hand, pointer finger held out scoldingly, "and under no circumstance are we to-"

"Yeah, yeah, man. I get it." Carl mocked. "Under no circumstance am I to talk about Tabetha or what she did to me by fucking my-"

Brendan slapped the passenger again, right across the jaw. "I fucking said no, bro. Henceforth there will be no mention of exes; by either of us. Ever. Again. Capiche?"

Carl dashed away the last of his ashes and reached through the window to put the stub out on the mirror-housing. "Yeah, yeah, just get us to a bar where we can find some babes who aren't looking to get married and shit."

Brendan smiled, taking the car into a higher gear once more, sending them back into the triple-digits. "Fucking told you I could get you over her, bro."

Tremors of the Heart

“Tremors of the Heart”

a short story

Gary Baker, October 7 2013
(a special story to commemorate one full year of short stories, here on Stories by Baker)

It lasted for ages, the city swaying and juddering through hazy earthen convulsions. Standing at an open park bench, his book bag jostling in the grass at his feet, Ariel watched buildings begin to fall…

...and the screaming begin to rise.

The mall across the park from Ariel swayed, seven stories loosening in their gravestone foundations until, finally, one side buckled and brought the rest down in a cascade of stone and dust. The hideous screams rose to a crescendo, flooding Ariel’s ears like water breaking at the floodgates of a wounded dam.

Tablets, part 1

“Tablets”

a short story

Gary Baker, July 2013

(part 1 of 2)

Alright,” said the shaggy thin man through lips pursed around a thin cigarette. “Alrightalrightalright. Here.” He pushed a hand toward a well dressed businessman sitting against the brick wall in the midnight alley beside him and dropped a gray tablet into his hand as he reached for it. Seeing the speculative look on the businessman’s face, the shaggy man nodded, “the ‘calmer’. We call it ‘le neutral’, don’ever take s’m’others withou wonna these in between.”

The businessman, audibly referring to himself as ‘Cookie’ for the purposes of this meeting, looked to the two quiet men on the cement next to Shaggy. One watched him like a hawk from mascara-lined eyes and piercing-riddled features, while the other seemed entranced in his near-empty bottle of low-grade vodka, would-be grout-cleaner trickling down his chin to seep into the pores of his ragged coat.

Ára Bátur

“Ára Bátur”

a short story

Gary Baker, June 2013

Torn hearts echoed under clouded skies, faint breaths of wind caressed cheeks with the loyalty of a weary retriever, lapping at faces encouragingly while keeping quiet enough to respect the moment. Charlie blinked as the chill air drew his eyes down tight. Saline bridged the gaps on either side and rivulets of salt were borne over pale, freckled cheek bones.

Black oblivion held him in place, a color so void of everything else possible that it had become incomprehensible to think that he might dare interrupt such graceful threads in the combined fates of a solitary human life. Not one person could claim this man was alone, yet no one seemed to know him either.

They wept for him, sure, but what was there to show his life other than a casket and a few white and pink orchids lain over his heart, others across the polished black lumber. Charlie watched them all, watching women with veils slowly coming to terms with the end, some with mascara dripping like veins of oil down the sides of their faces, and men who acted stoic as statues with impassive expressions and eyes stricken unto the horizon lest the moisture be let loose by movement.

He recognized a few here and there, not that it mattered; it helped to sit at the back at times like this.

Here the sixth grade teacher whom had cherished Charlie’s wonder for the world, there a coach for the academic decathlon where Charlie had won several awards. He tilted his neck to see a row of

A Long Time Coming

"A Long Time Coming"

a short story

Gary Baker, April 2013

The door to Cafe Gruyer opened fluidly as Xander Belmont stepped into air-conditioning and out of the stifling summer heat. Once inside, the tang of effervescent coffee grinds coveted the newcomer, and he felt a wave of relaxation come over him.

This was his realm, this was where he could feel most at home after recent events at work where, despite all he had done, despite all precautions to guard against it, Xander had still fallen for one of his photographic subjects. Jealousy had grown and soon nothing but the self-preservation of his own willpower had been able to keep him from growling at the girl's partners each and every time they met in hallways and stage rooms.

But all that was in the past and, as he usually forced himself to do, when he entered Gruyer he chose to leave life at the door. This was a time for the moments of rejuvenating tea and thoughtful silence that would be enabled.

“Hey! If it isn't the Xander Belmont!” came the barritone voice of the barrista on duty. “Long time no see, stranger!”

Xander looked up to find his old childhood friend, Joss, working the espresso machines with coffee stains as dark as his skin streaking across the elbows of his white button-up. “Joss!” A smile lit his face despite his maddeningly sour mood, “good to see you – how've you been?”

Miss Ashura

"Miss Ashura"

an excerpt

Gary Baker, early 2010

(a piece from Losing Grip)

Hard air poured deep into Raspora's lungs, again causing her to arch her back in shock - yet
this time without a scream nor horrific pain. In short, she could think straight this time around. Not to mention how her eyes worked as well as they ever had, without the grey haze over everything over ten feet away. 

Looking around with her back still arched, she could see white lamps high above her and nurses watching closely, clearing any doubt in her mind about having dreamed the last encounter with this place. She sighed deeply once her heart returned to a normal pace, and sat up onto her left elbow to look about her surroundings with a more dignified posture.

Its still the same old room, she told herself, with the same old nurses and the same old
doctors from years ago. And it dawned on her just how likely it was that the nurses and doctors were annoyed with her consistent convulsions upon reentering the realm of reality. The realm of ruins, after all, was just a dream - “not even real” many doctors had claimed when she was still new to the experience. So why, then, did she feel so much pain while in that realm and upon waking up?