And so here’s Stanley. He sees Milt walk through the door, and he’s no dope. I mean, just because you sat him in Milt’s chair doesn’t mean that he doesn’t realize he’s committed some big ass faux pas. Now do you see why Milt’s got to kick his ass? Stanley’s the kind of little pussy who uses words like “faux pas.” He deserves it. And here’s Milt walking through the door and for a second, just one brief second, Milt looks Stanley right in the eye and nods.
See? Was that so bad? All this build up and that wasn’t so bad, now was it? I’ll be straight with you: I didn’t think it was going to be good. I didn’t think Milt would be nice. Maybe Milt’s not such a bad guy after all. Maybe he’s a pretty stand-up guy who’s not doomed to go work at Wal*Mart when he gets older. Does that make you feel better? I mean, it sure as shit doesn’t change your pathetic life, but at least things are looking up for Stanley. Maybe all your musical theatre shit was worth it. Maybe everything will be ok after all.
Only, wait.
What’s that?
Fuck.
You really shouldn’t look.
the birthday cake (from Zach Dodson)
The birthday cake sits on the table. It was placed perfectly, purposefully, with a single knife and a single plate next to it. There is a napkin — square — folded in half to make a triangle. The napkin is a used blue. There is a silver fork on top of the napkin.
There is a single chair. The chair alone seems amiss. It is not in front of the napkin-fork combination. It should be moved.
The table is circular.
Everything seems quite ideal. But the birthday cake isn’t in the precise center of the table, which isn’t very big. The cake ought to be in the middle of the table.
When he hid, the cake was in the middle of the table. Now, it isn’t.
There must be a slant in the floor.
The slant must be fairly substantial.
He had intended for the burning candle to dissect the center of the table. This is now impossible, but the event is not ruined.
He is girlish with anticipation. He wishes he could wet himself with delight.
He sits behind a latched door. The door separating him from the cake denies him visual access to the other room. He hopes nothing has caught on fire.
He is in a room. He should be named Samson. He hates it when people call him Sam or Son.
Or when people add an additional letter to his name that clearly does not belong. The room has only one window. The window divides the room from the rest of the world.
Samson gets up and draws back the curtain — a green plaid exported directly from the 1950’s — slightly to peer at the street below. There must be many stories separating Samson from solid ground. Luckily, Samson has excellent vision.
Below, there is nothing but the usual chaos.
Above, there is calm, except the slant in the room holding the cake.
Here, the sun stabs him in the eye.
Samson does not squint. He does not close his eyes or allow the curtain to fall back into place.
After several minutes, he withdraws to his original position: sitting, in a chair, placed three feet away from the door, facing the door.
The room, now that it is absent of sun, is dark. It takes Samson some minutes for his eyes to adjust. For those minutes, he is blind, but his hearing is keen.
Sitting, he tugs at his motorcycle boots. They are out of style, he knows, but these are things Samson follows only to maintain conversation.
His boots are the color of spiders. He wonders if one could train a spider to weave a doily.
There is one under the cake: a doily, not a spider.
And it could be poisonous: the cake, not the spider.
There is something crawling at the space where hair meets bare skin: goose bumps, not a spider. He hopes.
The cake shifts back towards to the center of the table. Samson cannot see this, but it is something he wills.
Earlier, Samson gathered the materials to make the cake. He woke earlier than usual. In order to make a perfect cake, Samson knows, he must not apply icing until the cake has had adequate time to cool. He had to account for cooling time, which he had forgotten about the previous time he baked a cake. The result was disastrous, and last night, he chastised himself before falling asleep. This cake, however, is perfect.
Samson took care to buy only the highest quality ingredients. For example: he used vanilla beans, which he crushed with a small knife, rather than vanilla extract. He likes the way the beans provide a variance in texture. It is unexpected and truly pleasurable.
Also, the beans release a smell that traps itself in the ridges and swirls of his fingers. Even now, hours after he made the cake, it remains. Although: his nose delights in detecting scent.
For example: he used turbinado sugar instead of plain, white sugar.
This is not Samson’s home, but he has made himself comfortable in this room, while he waits.
This room is a bedroom. The person who sleeps in this bedroom did not make his or her bed after he or she rose this morning. Samson suppresses his desire to impose order on the bed.
In the bedroom, there is also a digital alarm clock.
It would be much more apt if it was not a digital clock but one that ticks. Things cannot always be perfect though.
Next to the unmade bed, there is a bedside table supporting the digital alarm clock, dogearred books, and a lamp. There is no light bulb in the lamp. Or else, it has burned out.
There is no wastebasket in the room, which Samson finds disturbing. He does not need a wastebasket, but every room deserves one.
There are things that make a room functionaclass="underline" a door, a window (preferably two, but one can be sufficient), a flat surface off of which things should not slide, and a wastebasket.
Every room in Samson’s home fits these requirements. Bathrooms are particularly tricky, but Samson installed two small windows to fill the space where one window belongs. This may be cheating, he understands, but small rooms, such as bathrooms, must be given some allowances.
Samson has been sitting in this room for a while now, and he suddenly fears he lit the candle too hastily.
After he lit the candle, the taste of sulfur lingered in his mouth. He has a particularly sensitive palate.
He wants to burst out of the room and blow out the candle, lest the flame burrow down to the edge of its wick, digging into the center of the cake. This would destroy the cake. The cake is perfect.