W.I.P.

I'll be in Ohio this weekend and I'm really looking forward to it.

However, that coupled with the fact that one of our 3D Printers is down will seriously delay the progress on this piece. This is a new "Pillar" piece (see POS and Support pieces on my website).

Enjoy the work in progress.

What doesn't kill you.

You may have heard that Sue took a tumble. The Superorganism actually sheered at a spot in the spine and fell into an ugly pile.

Fortunately, like the Six Million Dollar Man, I have the technology. I've rebuilt it in a more stable pose, but it is not perfect and is still very VERY fragile.

The images below will now be on my website: tylerzeleny.com

Nailed it.

Nailed it.

As I type these words Sue (now the nickname for the Superorganism) is sitting up on all its own; the spine is intact. 

After battling with this project for over six months, it is finally in one piece and all that's left is to decide how to "finish" the surface. Leaving it white is an option and one that I favor at present, but we'll see. 

"When we reflect on this

struggle, we may console ourselves with the full

belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no

fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that

the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and

multiply."

-Charles Darwin, the Origin of Species

Take a Seat.

I'm still in the process of putting the Superorganism together; he's decided that he wants to sit (I use "he" but its genderless, I just don't have a satisfactory neutral pronoun).

You'll see that all the upper body is attached and is supported by a single connection at the pelvis - there is a crucial meeting of individuals at the center of gravity, the keystone of this construction. 

We're almost there. 

I was told that I've been very negative lately. Its hard to be positive when I'm so serious; I take everything seriously and think about everything critically. I had already been making an effort, I was simply not mentioning the shitty or difficult things that came up unless specifically asked about them. 

I'll try a different strategy going forward. I'll try to Look on the Bright Side of Life

I've begun priming the surface of the Superorganism. I'm printing the cervical spine as I write this and I aim to have this done is about two weeks time.

-T

What does it look like in progress?

Each segment of the Superorganism is printed in pieces. Here you see half of a foot being laid down layer by layer  with various support structures to ensure it doesn't collapse.

With a little bit of luck this will be part of the first foot my Superorganism needs.

Today

It's bleak in New Jersey today.

My Superorganism is coming along. I'm printing another tibia as I write this and have yet to design the feet, Lumbar or Cervical spine, but he's recognizable at this point.

In case you were wondering...

I suppose I haven't kept anyone up to date with what I'm doing.

And for that, I am sorry. I didn't mean to be secretive or discrete, it just happened that I kept it under wraps until now.

I'm in New Jersey, in case you'd forgotten, and my work has shifted into the 3D. There's still a familial connection to my old work - that seems obvious - but its very very different. This is because my (our) move to Jersey has also moved me into a larger focus on biology and the aesthetics of particular organisms, especially dictyostelid and ant bivouacs.

With these organisms and their structures in mind I am creating a full-scale figure comprised entirely of smaller figures, I have dubbed it the Superorganism. Each piece is created by means of 3D printing and will be 'finished' with a metallic patina - iron or bronze.

Below you can see the images of the Head, the Rib Cage and the Arms. I am about halfway through with the project and now I'll keep you up to date.


I'll see you soon, I promise.

-Tyler

Images copyright Tyler Zeleny 2014. 

Foam plug for an upcoming aluminum pour

Marshall dropped his forehead against the dull ceramic tile again. How many times? Fuck it, he lost count. His high-strength skull met the wall with a very specific and unsatisfying slap, a sound children under thirteen would be familiar with as it’s the one their bodies make when they hit concrete during street baseball.

The urinal walls elsewhere in the tiny, dingy bathroom were glaring with the reflection of fluorescence, but Marshall figured this one had seen its fair share of “face-palm” equivalents – men who needed a good punch in the face but could find no one around who could do a good job (or at least a good job without killing them). Sharpee signage and shittily made band stickers were plastered all over the three to five foot range of the entire bathroom, everywhere a drunk person could easily slam some slang, expletive, or epitaph. The best stickers were the band names that made a man laugh: Six Inch Foot-Long, Hittin’ Not Quittin’, Tube of Feces. There was a bit of graffito scrawled over a Reverse the Curse sticker just beneath Marhsall’s nose. Some piece of shit a few drinks in managed to inscribe: “Did you vote for a Terrorist?”

Marshall, most definitely, did not.

Marshall’s stream finally dried up with the usual series of light plinks, squeezing out every drop. Sixteen years ago, Marshall’s cousin had once said “Once you break the seal, man, you keep comin’ back.” This was a statement Marshall truly believed and clung to – he often avoided going to the bathroom while drinking as long as he possibly could.

He didn’t bother flushing, no one did. He passed three other urinals as he walked to the sink and two of them were full to the brim of dark yellow piss. Brown-yellow was probably a better descriptor, but Marshall found the idea of brown-yellow piss discouraging. His own streaming waste was strangely cloudy tonight, but it was as irrelevant as how many times he hit his face against the bathroom wall. The next unfortunate fuck to unzip his pants in the face of the Yellow Sea Urinals was bound to get boots covered in warm, cloudy piss.

The black rectangle that sat beneath each faucet argued with Marshall for a moment, adamantly stating that he – in fact – did not wave his hands beneath the faucet and he did not need to wash them. Disregarding its persuasive argument, he waved his hands again and was rewarded with cold, rushing water. It smashed into his ink-stained fingers and rained deflected drops onto his undone tie.

Marshall’s outfit had looked impeccable six hour ago – a light two-piece suit with a pale blue tie, gold cufflinks, black loafers and even a remarkably red handkerchief poking out of his pocket. He hoped the hanky said something like, “Oh hey, yes, I’m fancy enough for this handkerchief, but its’ perfect fold tells you that I – in fact – do not use it.” The hanky sounded remarkably like the faucet.

“Maybe you two’ll fuck…” Marshall mumbled as he ran the chilling water, trying to let it pool in his cupped hands, but only succeeding in directing the powerful stream onto the once-tucked portion of his shirt.

“Piece of shit….” He persisted and got enough water to splash on his face.

Prior to his visit to this bathroom, Marshall had maintained a decent appearance – he had been kept and clean, maybe a bit wrinkled, untucked and disheveled, but the illusion of kept was there. Now, that illusion was coming undone like the creased handkerchief that poked its red head out from his pocket.

The water stopped. Marshall went to wave his hand across the irregular black rectangle again and a single droplet of blood whipt onto the lower part of his thumb. His swiping hand stopped to the left of the faucet, but it happily triggered now, “Oh hey again, you need water right? Fuck yeah, come and get it.” This time the steady stream flowed without interruption as Marshall’s eyes watched the dark red splatters land, one after the other, on his hands.

Captivated, his head turned like a dog hearing a squeaking toy for the first time. ­The droplets fled lazily from his nose in an ever-increasing stream of crimson. Marshall moved his hand and let the bits of anima find their way into the drain.

He heard someone come into the bathroom, but fuck it.

The mirror in front of him played back the scene with impressive objectivity: a man with short-cropped hair stared down at his shaking hands as his nose begins to bleed. The man, instead of stifling the bleed, lets it drip into the running water at the sink.

Bloodletting, this was only the first step in his penance. There would be no leeches, only shitty bathrooms in unnamed bars at anonymous 3-digit exits along I-80. Marshall knew that somewhere – hundreds of miles ahead – was a town called Dix, Nebraska and he fully intended on finding out what went on there, but for now he was outside Sacramento on the first leg of his journey home.

Bloodletting, he wondered. 

In Progress

Here's a piece I'm working on now.

It will be completed and on view at Survival Kit Gallery at W78th Street Studios for their 3rd Friday opening next month!

Work In Progress

New piece in progress.

Arrival - Chapter 1, Part 1

The Follower Ignores the Signs - 31"x40" Inkjet Print

Little Cory stared down at the hard plastic dinosaurs beneath him. They looked back without emotion. The collection had become extensive and the characters were very well-rounded for a five-year-old’s stage plays. The tyrannosaurus had just learned to cross the blanket ravine in search of food. The stegosaurus recently defeated a pack of raptors which were squatting in his under-bed lair. Even the pterodactyls had finally learned to fly with the help of some yarn. But something had happened and Cory wasn’t sure what.

As far as he could tell, nothing had changed about the toys. Their strange painted eyes were as dead as usual, but he could still imagine them looking up in terror at his looming shadow. Their collective number had reached two-dozen individual figures and they were all present and accounted for. Cory let no one touch the figures; his friends were too careless with his subjects and his parents never asked to see them. Cory never realized the change in his interaction with the dinosaurs. At first he played – T-Rex would hunt down triceratops and their landscape was rather bleak, but it evolved and he no longer played. Instead he watched. The lives of these toys became intuitive and if anyone cared to notice they would have been impressed with the intricate relationships between the figures, a level not naturally possessed by a five year old. His watching became passive and the story evolved.

What had happened? Cory wondered. His shadow moved over the figures as he looked at each piece.

The change was not something you could see, not something Cory could see. He was simply bored with them. He was done. Their drama had played out and it was time to end.

Their demise crept over him, even if he couldn’t understand why he could feel that a drastic change was necessary. He stood and padded around the room idly looking, but for what he did not know. His sock-clad feet carried him out into the hall. The living room. The front door. The garden.

On hands and knees Cory searched through the dirt. His tiny fingers pushed aside grass and bugs and woodchips before he found what had compelled him so.

He considered the stone and its smooth surface. He needed both hands to wrench it from the earth’s grasp and cradled it like a bowling ball as he carried it back inside.

In his room, Cory rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, suddenly less sure this was the right choice. 

Could he undo this if he went forward? The consequences of his actions weren’t easily grasped under normal circumstances; five-year-olds might be able to understand that turning a screw would make it go down, but the exact ramifications were a little too abstract and the brain-function wasn’t yet there.

But it didn’t matter, he hefted the stone like a shot-put and hurled it down on the unsuspecting plastic dinos beneath.

The phone rang.

“Hi darling. Lunch time aleady?”

Cory’s mother didn’t hear the crash from his room.

“Yeah, okay baby. Which news? …Okay! Okay! Stop yel-“

The broadcaster’s terrifi ed voice came in over their surround sound.

“-has simply remained stationary as National Guard and Coast Guard continue to arrive at Liberty Island and shuttle tourists off via ferry.”

“John, what is that?” Cory forgot his toys and peered into the living room. His mother stared transfixed into the TV, phone loosely held near her head. She was in her Time to Clean clothes that Cory associated with his being forced to do chores.

“John?”

The broadcaster continued: “For those of you just joining, this is Harris Fields for NBC New York 4 coming to you live from our broadcast helicopter, hovering in New York Harbor. National Security forces and press have surrounded Liberty Island as we watch and wait. A …  what I can only describe as a “figure” has appeared at the base of the statue – witnesses saying it has been present since early this morning…”

“John!” Cory’s mother was losing color, already pale skin turning to stretched sheets of milk, “Don’t scare me like that… I don’t know - you could be right there in it.”

Cory felt disquieted by his mother’s voice, so he returned to his room. The plastic corpses were cast across the floor like a frog’s insides after a journey through lawnmower blades. The pieces – to a less familiar eye – would be unidentifiable bits of green, yellow and brown. Cory surveyed the destruction and was satisfied. The stone dented the floorboards but it was a necessary sacrifice. Time to start over.   

Muffled words would drift through his door, “… you… No!... of there…”

The broadcaster talked back: “we’re being told… the area… -tional Guard…”

Maybe Cory would ask dad for new toys when he got home.

Chapter 1 – Arrival

Dusk had shown its orange face to the Upper Bay, the Statue of Liberty’s long shadow draped across the island like a rook dominating its corner in Chess.

The Guard brought in spots and started flipping them on one by one. It helped that Lady Liberty already demanded a small corona on any given New York evening; there would be no darkness there tonight. The press had been fully cleared off the island, but they kept up pressure with boats and choppers. The last civilian ferry made it across the water two hours before.

The statue has a live-streaming camera on her crown. It faces down her front like a tall guy trying to sneak a peek at some cleavage. Thousands of New Yorkers and even more Americans at large had their computers, phones and tablets displaying the same screen as they watched a thirty foot monster lay waste to dozens of men and women on Liberty Island. The camera was hundreds of feet in the air, but the images it displayed were crystal clear, outlined by countless lights beneath. The collective silence across the harbor – in apartments, penthouses, ghettoes and subways – was one of complete dread, peppered with rage. The husbands and wives of those soldiers, the mothers and fathers who sat down at their desktops and gaped at the flying bullets and exploding bodies were paralyzed by the massacre in the harbor.

They had all heard the words: “…claims this island of Manhattan, it is no longer the territory of Man.” But no one understood why or how or where this monster came from. The few who could rip their eyes from the screen would call relatives and text friends from places near and far. Boyfriends in LA and children in Houston, most of them didn’t respond because they had crises of their own.

Henry Pierce watched his two desktop monitors – the one on the left showing the LIVE Torch Cam from Liberty Island and the one on the right his basic cable news in the City of Angels – with growing pleasure.

The pier in Santa Monica had a similar being standing near the shore, still draped in daylight and setting the boardwalk on fire. The banner across the bottom of the screen told him that the islands in Lake Erie were under siege, parts of London, Tokyo and Dubai were meeting similar fates. Small bits of the world were being taken from humans and it looked like our reaction time had been a bit slow.

Click. CNN. The President says he’s mobilizing troops to New York and LA. That’s a shame. Pierce read on with dismay: “… our nation has come under attack from an unknown foe and will be met with the force and strength of Amer-…” Boring. A video clip on the same article showed past footage of remote controlled drones commencing air strikes and speculated on their presence amongst civilians.

“So, I bet the police won’t be looking for you much longer; they’ve got their hands full.” Pierce let the monitors go on amusing themselves and turned back to his guest.

The girl – tied to a wooden chair, bolted to the ground – looked on with her own brand of confusion and disappointment. Pierce had been letting her watch the news stories unfold as the legend of her kidnapping grew: Hannah Walker, daughter of multi-millionaire industrialist Bernard Walker vanished from her high school Wednesday afternoon. With signs of foul-play littered around her abandoned Civic, police investigators and hired detectives have begun a city-wide manhunt for the sixteen-year old heiress. The effect of twenty-four-hour news coverage was the saturation of small details and their subsequent exaggeration and transformation into myth. Hannah got to sit back and absorb the grey-haired newscasters tell her how the police found her diary detailing her depression and thoughts of suicide (planted), how her friends thought she had an older boyfriend (lies) and how she may have been experimenting with designer drugs (… maybe that was true).

Each story made her seem more desperate, more likely a runaway even with evidence to the contrary. More and more people were convinced she was some snobby rich girl who just wanted to piss off daddy, slowly media covered died off and she got only a few mentions a day. It took only three weeks for her to go from precious victim of deranged kidnapper to filthy slut who deserved it. 

But then this happened. The appearance and attacks from these interlopers demanded immediate and full media attention. National coverage of Hannah Walker would vanish over-night and local fascination would fade soon after. Of course it was disappointing to Pierce who hadn’t fully convinced Hannah that she was forgotten, but it certainly had an amusement level all on its own. Pierce lived near the 405 between LA and Santa Monica, he could probably get in his car and be at the scene of the devastation within ten minutes, but Hannah had to be fed soon and watching from a distance was okay.

“Thoughts?” He removed the cotton gag he kept fed in her mouth.

She tried to spit on him, but Pierce kept her fairly dehydrated and all she managed was a light misting.

“Now, now, be nice.”

“I hope they come here and kill you.”

The embers still glowed in this one. Pierce was technically known as a serial kidnapper, but since his victims came from such diverse backgrounds there was little or no speculation that they were connected. Girls he took usually broke down quickly, they saw their family and friends turn on them and just wanted it all to end, which Pierce was more than happy to do, but Ms. Walker here looked like she still had hope. “What do you see in this?”

He offered her a squirt of water from his Camelbak water bottle.

“They’re coming for you. All the rest of it is just for show. These monsters were sent by God.” Oh, come on. Only in the last few days did she decide that God would save her. There was no God, at least not in Pierce’s basement.

“But will they save you? Or will they be too late?”

“Doesn’t matter. You get your eternal punishment whether I live or die.” The monitors dimmed because of Pierce’s inactivity. “I will watch you burn from the right hand of Christ.” It was weird because this girl didn’t seem the God-fearing type. She did drugs, messed around with boys and was overall the prime example of a contemporary teenager – an archetype which thoroughly bored Pierce. That was the whole point of this exercise after all, wasn’t it? To show how fragile such an easy life is to shatter and how pointless it all becomes.

Upstairs, Pierce’s house phone rang.

“Excuse me.” He stuffed the gag back in her mouth and hustled to beat the four ring time limit.

“Hello?” Who was calling him at a time like this? Sure there was a world-shattering event happening, but really…

“This is an emergency broadcast recorded message. Citizens in your area are being asked to evacuate to your nearest shelter. Your nearest shelter is… the Los Angeles Convention Cent-“ Pierce hung up the phone.

“Waaaay too busy for that, sorry telephone robot.”

*******

Texts from Manhattan, New York:

Hey, can you see the island from your roof?

-Ya, I found my telescope. where are you?

OMW, I shouldn’t have to tell you, but traffic is fucking fucked

-You think the Cash Cab is running?

Lol yeah someone is getting trivia’d right now, question for our contestant?

-Uh, ya, ‘what the fuck, bro? get out of my cab’

LOL.

-‘RED LIGHT CHALLENGE!!! Name all the places you’ve shit yourself in the last two hours!’

Oh, Ben Bailey. How I loved thee.

-Holy shit, stuff – STUFF – is happening. I’m calling you.

 Texts and Voicemail from Kelley’s Island, Lake Erie; Cleveland:

Hey Mom, you didn’t answer your phone so I hope you read ths or get my voicemail. W/e. Some other residents and me have driven into the east quarry and are just hiding out. The rest of teh island is burning and most of the police are here wi-

(continued)  -th us, they look just as scared. Someone brought a bottle of wine and is now completely drunk. Im scared. I just wnted to see what you knew from the outside and tell you I love you. I know we’ve been a little fucked up and being apar-

(continued) –t didn’t help, but I still love you. Call me.

(Later) “Krista, Krista! Call me back immediately. I don’t know when your text was from, I can’t…I can’t figure it out. The news said the Coast Guard was moving to the island, but they spend all their time on New York and Los Angeles and those stupid, stupid places. Baby, oh c’mon call me back. Please. I love you.

Texts from Ota, Japan:

(Translated from Japanese) Send me that picture again, I accidentally deleted it.

-the one of the titan?

Titan, whatever, yeah. I want to show it to my brother.

-(Picture, from the vantage point of a high window showing a three-story tall figure wading through burning cars and debris on a well-lit street. Covered in flowing fabric and metal plates, the giant is splattered with dark stains) Here ya go.

It still blows my mind, you’ve gotten out, right?

-Ya, we’re clear. We got to the train before they stopped running.

What time is this photo from?

-14, a few hours ago. Why?

Just trying to imagine what the hospital looks like.

Texts from Houston, Texas:

Are you at the airport yet?

-No, they won’t let us pass Tiki Island. We’re stuck on the causeway

Okay, try and find a way around. Get back to me within the hour.

(later) – We left the van, took one camera and made it past the barriers on foot. Keep an eye on your computer for our footage.

It’s about time, I almost sent out another team.

-Have confidence, Tom. We’ve got this.

********

KHOU’s monitor bank was sprawled out in front of Tom like a sci-fi monster with fourteen glowing faces. Each screen showed various footage and camera angles of the anchors as they discussed – obviously – the impending doom of mankind, or whatever. Tom tapped his pen rapidly on the one blank screen to his left, a black and glossy depths that should contain award-winning images of destruction, death and heroism on the part of a reporter and his cameraman. Rafe Dillinger and his chubby cameraman Terry have had all fucking day to get across a single bridge and onto Galveston Island where one of the interlopers has made camp, so to speak.

The last text from Rafe was at 7:33, forty minutes earlier and Tom – not normally the sentimental type – was starting to worry about them. He didn’t expect those two idiots to do anything particularly courageous, but they’d surprised him in the past. The entire broadcast evening – interrupting all regular programs and commercials and everything was coverage of this debacle. The Houston HQ for KHOU was a decent distance from the island and – even after requests to evacuate – the bare bones for operating the station remained: two anchorpeople, one meteorologist, two cameramen and Tom – single handedly filling the roles of three technicians. Hard work is in the dictionary as a picture of these six people with a footnote mentioning Rafe and Terry. Of course, KHOU – the Houston CBS affiliate – was telling viewers to evacuate and where their shelters were, but they all decided together that they were safe enough and they were responsible for manning the station in a time of crisis.

The grey-haired former jock on screen at present was babbling about the extent of the damage thus far, according to a National Guard Intelligence source, and pontificating idly about the origin point of the –what he calls – “invaders.”

It’s probably a good word for it, but Tom felt it was a bit terrifying (not that these circumstances aren’t terrifying).

“- claims that these invaders are visitors from another plan-“

Wow. Aliens. Tom wanted to just shut the whole thing down. The anchorman (broadcast name “James Wulff”) was pulling from his imagination and his imagination alone about these creatures being aliens. The station had no speculative influx so far, their only information came from their military source and he was confidential.

The abyssal depths of the screen filled with an orange glow. “-we ready? C’mon I don’t want-“

“Jimmy, JIMMY!” Tom blared into his microphone – patched directly into “James Wulff’s” ear bud, “we’ve got incoming footage, get ready.”

“Ladies and gentlemen I’m being told that our field correspondent - Rafe Dillinger – is filming live from Galveston Island. Rafe are you there?”

Tom hit one of a million buttons and the broadcast image flipped to Rafe standing in front of a dark body of water with a rolling wave of flame on the landmass across.

“Yes, James, we have bypassed military blockades and managed to travel on foot across the darkened roads of Galveston Island. We’re here near Jones Park and behind me is the Scholes International Airport as it burns. The interloper has arrived here on Galveston Island and claimed it as its own, from what we’ve seen the military presence here on the island is extremely heavy and –“

Automatic weapon fire popped in the audio of the footage. Rafe and cameraman dropped to their hands and knees, yelling expletives which Tom will try to snag with a bleep. The viewers would see the camera eat dirt and grass and hold for a moment before rising back up, zooming in on the rising cinders in the distance.

“Rafe? Rafe are you there?”

“We’re here, gunfire has erupted behind us. We need to get closer. We’ll keep you updated.” And the screen went dark.

“Powerful, frightening imagery. We’ll return in a moment, please stand-by for a list of emergency shelters and facilities in the Houston area.” Wulff held a somber face as the cameraman counted down from two. One. He gave the O.K. signal. “What the fuck, Tom? I swear it feels like my fucking ear is bleeding!”

Short Story 11 Parts 1, 2 and 3

The Worker Gives up on his Dreams [in progress]

This is all probably a dream, but if I never wake up it won’t matter. In fact it would be better that way.

God was saying to me, “You’ve seen the movie Bruce Almighty, right?” Which I thought was a stupid question. He’s God, he should know a fact so simple. I said something to this effect. “Yes, of course you have. Well, I wanted to try something similar.” God looked like Nathaniel Lees, the Samoan guy who played Captain Mifune in the Matrix movies: light brown skin, greying, but once black hair and playful eyes that told me he was amused no matter what his expression said.

“I’ve considered this for years, what would happen, and even being omniscient it becomes hard to tell. Interacting with another divine being so similar to myself is without precedent and thus the enigma we are at.” He stood amongst the infinite crossroad of some desolate nowhere, I don’t know how we got there, but I supposed we had to exist somewhere to have this conversation. “What do you say? Play God for a while?” What was I talking about? We didn’t have to exist anywhere, here was a being claiming to be God - I could feel that he was God – and I was trying to come to logical conclusions. It was pointless.

“Go for it, I’ve got some ideas.” Which was true. I’d considered this before, what I would do if I was God. It seemed like a cushy gig: all-knowing, all-powerful and capable of manipulating time and space. I could dig it.

I can only say now that God made a terrible choice by selecting me for this particular position.

Aman was seeing red, his wife was being such a stubborn bitch and she tried again to kick him out of the house. But not tonight. The garage was a living inspiration, swallowing him with ideas of how to get inside and show that back-stabbing whore how he felt. Her car – her car bought with his money – looked like a crouching dragon waiting on the concrete floor staring at him with its glossy red and yellow eyes, threatening to open its mouth and devour him in metal and engine parts. Aman’s truck was outside, lurking around the corner so she wouldn’t know he was fucking around in the garage.

He didn’t turn the light on, letting the moonlight bounce off all the metal to show him what tools he had. The surface of the blades and wedges were like diamonds and he wanted to grab them all and just throw them through windows, but the house didn’t need to suffer just because his wife did.

Screwdrivers. No.

Hammers. No. 

Drills, wrenches, shovels and saws. No.

And then he saw it, resting on its head and hiding in the corner, a wooden handle worn and flawed with time and use. The dull silver head flirted with the ground and tried to hide amongst its embrace, but Aman saw it. He saw the axe. It still fit perfectly in his hands as it had for fifteen years; a tool – no, a weapon – that could show him love like he loved it. Its head wanted to pull away, its weight reluctant to leave the garage floor, but he would show it that they belonged together. The axe and Aman.

Out of the garage. To the side door. He took the handle off the door with the flat side of the axe and kicked it open. Two screams. Aman’s daughter was home, she didn’t need to be here for this, but he was too far along. He was too far gone. He hefted the axe above his head and found his wife gripping the counter top with bone-white hands and struggling to find her feet. Her eyes were locked on him, she forgot her legs and how to run.  He swung downward with a strength he had long forgotten, a vigor of his youth. It felt so good to see the metal bite into her shoulder, then again into her neck; her back; her legs.

His daughter came at him and shoved him to the door, pushing and fighting to try and save her mother. She almost got the axe, his fury was unchecked and what would happen if his daughter got the axe didn’t matter, but he wanted it. He was in love with the metal and wood. Gripping it in a stranglehold, he fell backwards out into the garage. His daughter got the phone, 9-1-1 probably.

Fucking whore! Just like her mother.

Aman got to his feet again, the axe now his best friend, lifting him and lifting his spirits, ready to follow him in to battle. To die with him. The axe came down on his daughter, but she was smarter than her mother. She raised an arm to deflect it, but it split her hand in two. Blood flecked Aman’s face and the white and green linoleum; it looked like the freckled skin of a giant Irishmen. Her screams matched the wail of her mom’s, another trait shared between them. Aman hated it, the link between them was too strong; she had nothing of him. That was why it was easy to bring the axe down again.

He tried, but someone else was there, someone had heard the commotion. The pool of red around his wife was eight feet across and growing, she garbled some plea and flailed like a caught bass on the line. Aman was in a choke-hold, the axe clattered to the ground to be photographed later.

“Do you feel anything?” God was like a curious child in that moment. We stood across a black hole, staring into the darkness but still seeing each other and the billions of stars that surrounded our bodies. I could feel the dark matter of the universe between my fingers and the pulse of life itself on the edge of my hairs, like each follicle was responsible for a galaxy of lives. I told him I felt nothing, lying. “Really?” He seemed legitimately perplexed, which is what I wanted. It was all a test to see if the one true God could read my thoughts and see my future.

We stood on the surface of a star, a white dwarf somewhere in the depths of space. I knew – somehow – that this star was farther out than humans on Earth could see. Men in the twenty-first century estimated the universe to be sixteen billion light-years wide and we were farther. In the infinite depths of space I tested the gifts God gave me.

As homage: Light. We stood on the surface of a planet revolving around the star and the light grew brighter, the surface became tepid and comfortable.

Life. The ground swelled and up came water. A geyser like Old Faithful erupted and my feet; in its flows I could see the smallest bacteria, the single-celled organisms that thrived and crawled over the scalding hot water.

Darkness. The entire thing plunged. The black hole appeared in the distance and consumed the new planet and then receded into my memory, lost until I called upon it again.

Stealth. I didn’t want God to hear my thoughts. I wanted to be able to plan and scheme, to alter the world without his censorship.

Power. God would have no sway over me, now we were two. In the singular universe we were two Gods now. His was the first, mine was the second. He was the beginning, I was the end. Alpha. Omega.

The power to end God. A dagger appeared in my hand. I looked upon myself from outside and saw I had changed. I was a scrawny white man, short cropped brown hair and blue eyes that were cold as the depths of space. Now I was light, I was the burning energy of a life-powered dynamo. The dagger was darker than the black hole, it spat out lightning and the screams of the damned, I heard Satan laughing in its blade.

Time stopped and I stared at the first God: unmoving and frozen in time.

In 1996 a man left his father. Bob started the car and Pam sighed, “We’ll go back next week.”

“Yeah.”

His father, John, had been diagnosed with colon cancer long before and he lay on his bed. His death bed. Bob and Pam – his wife – had been at the house for a few hours, talking with family and trying to penetrate the blazing wall of sickness that surrounded John. They wanted him to know they loved him and they wanted him to get better, but by then he had been on Hospice and had outlived their services. He was still dying, though. He forgot his children, he forgot his wife and all he could talk about was his friends from 1945, during the war but while he was still too young to serve. John served in Vietnam. Navy.

“It’s fucking stupid.” Bob gave the same rant on each journey home. “I don’t get it.”

John had been a devout Catholic for sixty six years since his birth in 1930. He raised ten children, made payments on three different mortgages and worked until his diagnosis in 1994 for General Electric. When he did emerge from the fog that his mind had become, he only ever wanted to ask God for forgiveness, to forgive him his trespasses and deliver him unto salvation.

John’s grandchildren never got to see him, even though they were present. “When can we see grandma and grandpa again?” They asked from the back seats.

“Soon.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence. Bob, Pam and sons lived ten minutes away. They’re automatic garage door opener welcomed them with its normal vibrating hello and signaling their dog that they were home. The routine was comforting, familiar: opening the door, petting the dog, checking the answering machine.

A small red 1 blinked on its black screen, “Somebody loves us!” Pam trying to be funny.

The voicemail: “Bob. Pam. I’m sorry, can you come back to Arlene’s? John’s… Dad…He’s gone.”

Like lead-footed zombies they piled back in the car.