I sit on this bus. The inconvenience of getting off would set off a domino effect, pushing me from a bad day to a worse day. If I take an early stop to wait for another bus, my boss would punish me for being late. He would grab the Louisiana Slugger from his shelf and beat my head in. I could also be fired and take out my rage on my neighbor, whose feet are dipped in lead. Life is not fruitful, and I will not exit this bus prematurely. I hold my breath for 60 seconds 

The older woman in front of me smiles and eats her sandwich. Some of the spinach on it falls on her lap as she takes each precarious bite. Her polyester pants are not spoiled from the mess, but the visual is unappealing. Standing on the left of me is this kid— some punk—with a graphic T-Shirt, “Jesus is my Homie”. As the country goes downhill, the children in it become little shits, I suppose. The punk listens to some sort of rock or rap, which rages from his headphones. The last bus rider in my immediate vicinity is this little girl. Maybe 17 or 18 years old. She wears those tight little low-rise leggings, and even though her shirt is generally modest, I can see her little tits poking through the sheer fabric. If God exists, her stop is before mine. I hold my breath and watch my watch, fearing she must get off past Monroe. Bitch. 

The bus halts in jagged little shutters as it approaches the first stop on my route. In walks the Bearded Man with a messy suit. His tie dangles side to side against his shirt, his hands clutching at the side rails to pull himself up to the level of the bus. He coughs a nasty, wet hurl as his body weight slams down into the nearest chair. Collapsing to the left of the old woman, he sneers at her, breathlessly, as she continues taking bites of her sandwich. The mucus coating his maw drips. The Punk with those horrible stretched ears continues listening to his music, and the taut little princess reads her book, unfazed. I follow suit, sitting still, though eyeing the thick, bubbling fluid spewing over the center of the bus hallway from the coughing of the Bearded Man. Particles get caught in that untamed beard of his, he tries to adjust his tie and unbutton his shirt to breathe just a bit easier, but to no avail. The projectile continues. The crowd ignores it. I look at my watch and hold my breath. 

At the second stop, a new character comes in through the clunky bus doors. Two Tweakers lumber up the middle of the interior walkway, grasping for the handlebars above, missing the first few times. They twitch, moan, and grunt as they itch their necks and adjust the skin loosely transfixed on their bones. They make an adequate amount of noise, but the stink is fair noisier. Putrid. The only thing reminiscent of this odor is that of the ham leaking its decomposition on my kitchen floor. The Old Woman continues eating her sandwich, the Bearded Man continues his coughing cacophony, the Punk nods his head to his tunes, and the little Minx reads her book. They don’t care about the Tweakers, nor do I. I look at the long arm of my watch pulse past each checkpoint as my chest starts to hurt.

The Decrepit appears to have the mental psychosis on par to the mania in which a rapid dog mauls an owner. He scampers into the bus with legs moving impossibly fast for his displeasing condition. Elderly and sewn together more by the fabric of his clothes than the health of his mind, he tugs at his belt loop. The Decrepit undresses.  

The Minx adjusts her placement as the bus hits a pothole, groping at the bars and sliding as the bus jumps. Her tits follow suit. The Decrepit whistles with no help from his rotten teeth, and the girl perks like a dog. He pushes her head down to his filthy crotch, his mouth widening with a sick, depraved expression of hunger. The Minx helps him pull his pants to his ankles, then shifts her attention to her own. They fuck like rabbits. Or rabbit and bunny, I suppose. 

The Bearded Man balls his coughed-up phlegm and tosses it on the Minx’s back. The Old Woman’s eye contact is still on her sandwich, and as she takes in the last bite. Her fingers stay in the same position as she swallows, takes a breath, then another lean as she engorges her hands. Tendons and bones pop and crackle in the jostle of her teeth. Some pieces, whether that be her fingers or her teeth, fall to her lap as the blood spurts on her shawl. It is time to start counting again. Deep breath in and hold. 

One last stop to my destination. In walks a group of Respectable Young Men. They are affixed with ties, suits, and polished leather shoes. Their hair is neatly trimmed compared to the Punk’s spikes that irritate me. Compared to the poorer, lower-grade model of this new generation standing aside from me, these Respectable Young Men are a calming presence. I smile, hoping they sit next to me. They grunt softly as they tug at something large they navigate the rectangular box into the bus, half on their shoulders, half pulling at their waist. 

For the first time, the Punk takes out his earplugs to notice what is happening. One of the Respectable Young Men knocks over the Decrepit, who is pushed off of the Minx. As he falls, he ejaculates on the Tweakers. She crooks her hand and scoops the cum off of her thigh, laughing with a wheeze as she sticks it in her throat. The giggling of her and her partner is lucid and childish. The Old Woman has disappeared into the clots of blood drenching the seat. She is well through her wrists now. The Punk keeps his eyes transfixed on the Respectable Young Men’s box, that, now fully within the bus, is clearly a casket.  

“Sir, may I please borrow that for a moment?” One of the young men says to the Punk. 

The Punk lifts at the bottom of his obscene shirt to reveal the handle of a box cutter strategically between his briefs and his cargo pants. He hands it to the kind man in the suit. 

The Respectful Young Men use the box cutter and open the casket, aggressively pulling out the Corpse. A new passenger falls into a slump on the floor, languidly bouncing with the movement of the bus slowing, anticipating my stop. The boys kick, push, and prod the body, tearing at the Corpse’s eyes. They are pulling out hair in clumps with one jumping on its chest; the decomposition releases from the lung cavity. They hack off the arms and legs with the box cutter and use their feet to beat it to a thick, oozing pulp. The Corpse’s head jiggles back and forth as it is tugged off of its body completely; the nose has been bitten off in the scurry. One Respectable Young Man falls back into the elderly woman, she pulls him down to her lap and gnaws on his neck. 

Creaking like an unoiled swing set, the doors bend open. I adjust myself and walk over pieces of the corpse, the twitching body of the elderly man, formerly Decrepit, saying an “excuse me” past the Tweakers. Looking back just once, the Minx kneels against the Bearded Man, patting his shirt with a cloth. The boys chant a happy song, swaying side to side amongst the gore.

Stepping onto the asphalt, I check my watch. A long breath out. I look to my briefcase, relieved that it remains in my hands. Breathe in. 

The note read as such, 

Fuckers. 

Signed, 

Marla.

P.S. Feed. The. Cat. 

The periods feel a bit passive-aggressive, don’t you think? The “fuckers” thing was a little targeted as well. You know that phrase, “it’s always the ones you least expect”? Definitely did not apply to this situation. I called Jo about it the second I saw what happened. 

“Hey, something happened to Marla” 

“Killed herself, right?” 

“I mean yeah, but how did you know?”

“You know that phrase, ‘it’s always the ones you least expect?’”

“Yeah” 

“Doesn’t apply here” 

Jo never liked Marla much. Marla was one of those people who always did little ‘tests’. A question and answer was not enough, she needed to know how much people cared about her. I think her whole ‘thing’ turned out to be a sick obsession, but I’m sure it started harmless enough. 

Our first few months together, Marla pushed over the TV in the apartment after she found me watching porn. She said it was cheating, that it screwed her body image and made her feel ugly. I said that was ridiculous and that I find her to be absolutely gorgeous (that has always been true). Marla came home the next day with lip filler and saturated face. I complimented her and she screamed at me. “So you didn’t think I was beautiful!”

Another time she had walked up to me while I was on the phone with Jo. She slapped me across the face, yelling at me for some bullshit I probably didn’t do. She spat in my face, accusing me of cheating (again. She did that a lot). Threatening to leave me, she threw my clothes in bags. We fought until the hits became soft. During the cigarette, she told me that our sex life had gotten boring. She wanted to spice it up. 

Just last week she told me she had a tumor. I needed to cherish my short time with her. She was given four months. The CT scans elevated her pedantic performance and I nearly believed her until she started to cry. Marla always went a step too far. I knew that if she ever broke a bone or actually got cancer, she would be brainstorming every way to phrase her Go-Fund-Me bio. With a smile and cold, dead eyes. 

Watching the police and ambulance cycle the apartment, tossing her limp body into the bag, her floundering arms dangling lifelessly — it made me nostalgic. Marla was a mixed bag, but she had this way of —–

“SHOO!” 

The man with gloves waves the cat off of Marla. The cat, ‘Marla’s little demon’ jumps from the black bag with a pained (yet rather unenthusiastic) meow. If the cat were to speak human, I wonder what he would say. Jo would joke around about how if she would let it, the cat would suck on Marla’s tits. They had a special attachment reserved traditionally for a mother and child, a witch and her familiar type-of-thing. Marla got the cat originally to kill the mice in the apartment, but I think the cat was a pacifist. Figures. Honestly though, if it could speak human, it would probably give me the silent treatment and chose to meow if it needed food. 

The kerfuffle ended around 9 pm. Jo said she would come by with champagne, but she had a habit of taking sips off the top and getting lost on her way over. So I sit on Marla’s chair, petting Marla’s cat, looking at Marla’s blood on the carpet. Her prom picture stares at me from the side table. Curled hair half up in a bun with frizzy little flyaways. Deep maroon lipstick and downturned eyeliner, paint on a beautiful pig with a self knowledge of a tantalizing magnetism. Beautiful people never have to learn from their actions, never much need to be better. Marla abused her beauty, knowing she could usually bend others to her way. She said it was her “divine femininity”, but it just felt like manipulation. 

The cat meows as Jo walks in the apartment. She sways side to side. Jo snickers seeing the carpet, jossling her purse over her shoulder.

“Totally figures that Marla would ruin your chances to get your deposit back on her way out.”

The deep crimson seems to spread around the fibers of the carpet, the red flowing towards my chair. Blood in veins. 

Jo puts the champagne on the table beside me, turning the prom photo to the side. The cat meows. She runs her fingers through my hair, kisses my forehead. The cat yips more urgently now. Jo ignores it, turning her attention to unbuttoning my shirt. The cat makes a tragic guttural yowl, barking from the floor. Jo pushes the cat away with her leg, sucking my neck. The cat screeches, once again.

“What, cat, what?” I say, breathlessly exclaiming.  

“Food, please.” 

Bum, bum, bum, bum. The droning humm and babble in the language of tongues and evil. The bass recoil, the cold vibrato all of which put shivers down my back. The freezing tingle lodged itself in the back of my spine, unable to move. The icy hums weave their way into my veins, sewing themselves into my tissue, my blood. I am so cold. I am so many things completely void of descriptions, I am still. The hums and drone of the choir cement my shoes to this God awful floor. The men just a few dozen feet ahead of me hold their cloaks to their side and heave their horrible voices higher and higher. They no longer sing for God, no. They only sing to remind us of our damnation. The rest of the church goers must have forgotten the true Gregorian message but the bones in my body have not forgotten. Every time another one of those hums lurch out of their throats I know. Something primal in me sinks to the ground, pulling my current consciousness with it. No fight, no flight. Just drowning. 

“Hey man, are you alright? You don’t look so good” the voice to my right asked. 

I wanted to turn my head to respond “yeah no sweat I’m good”, but my head does not move as I request. It stays still, my neck paralyzed. 

With a twitch, the hums enter through my mouth, too. 

I am the congregation. 

My nose is bleeding. 

I am with the congregation. 

My teeth are falling out. 

I am so happy to be in with the congregation. 

My skin is peeling off. 

I have never been so complete with God. 

My body rejects me. 

Papyrus sheet: green pines scattered in the background, four stick figure people, and a big, bright sun smudged in its Crayola glory. The big man stands still on the left side of the drawing, holding a blank look. The thin lines that encompass him were sketched hard, much deeper into the paper than the others. He towers over the smaller figures, curled lines upon his brow and under his mouth. To his right, the mother stands. Her lines are thin and effortless, her expression is not inherent in observable angst, but vacant nonetheless. Adjacent to her stands the big lumbering tree, drawn admittedly with the most detail and focus of any of the other figures. Its branches reach over the family and boasts itself being the main visual of the piece. The children are playfully drawn on the other side of the tree, far from the parents, of questionable discernibility. The kids were of the same height; the only reference point for their dissimilarity lay in the color of their hair — red and brown. Rounding out the drawing is the large sun in the top left corner. Orange, yellow, and tints of red give some sort of life to the depiction. The sun, of all the figures, is unquestionably the happiest. The sun actively serves its only purpose to be the light that others bask in, unneeded to answer to their needs. The sun is joyous regardless of the expressions of the stick family. The two dots and the upward-sloping line of the face say it all. 

It is no Picasso nor within the range of an undergraduate art student, but the value of which is absolutely priceless. The markings of crayon by an otherwise not-so-adequate preschooler was given from household to household, racking in millions from varying curators, collectors, and profuse semi-royalty. The drawing inexplicably, maybe something in the lighting or the ingenious texture, would come to life. 

The past three owners of such a drawing were all in various articles and headlines over the past few years. The first owner is the only one that truly matters, however. 

Elliot Carnegie’s residence in Berkeley, California was the pilot high profile owner. After hearing something of its importance through his entourage, he was quick to make another investment. After all, that is what he did. While admittedly he had his doubts when he saw the elementary nature of the drawing, he could see the dollar signs spinning around his vision on the first night. 

“Margaret, are you seeing this?” He had exalted across the foyer. 

“Seeing what, darling?” his wife’s voice responded, still humming along to her music. 

“Th- the art! They- the children are dancing!”

They were flailing beautifully. The two little stick figure girls twirled and danced in the drawing. The trees and sun and parents stayed smudges of crayon- but the little characters were so full of life. It must have been a trick of the eyes. At least that is what Elliot Carnegie suspected, but reasonable doubt loses its reason in sight of inauspicious delights. 

Elliot and Margaret cracked a bottle of fine red that night, sitting just feet away from the drawing, adoring the children that frolicked in their 2D. Elliot was ecstatic to have such a gem. Margaret, sipped her wine, gleeful that they were about to make quite a bit of money. The reader will rejoin these first owners soon; the drawing must leave their hands before they come squallering back. 

The next hand that gained the drawing was the CFO of Weston Inc., a growing manufacturer of model cars. Andrew Miller put the piece in his office. He could tell there was something special about it, mainly because Elite Magazine wrote a very charming article about it. He, too, saw the children dancing while drinking scotch in his study. Mesmerized by the fluidity and impracticality he, too, wondered why his eyes were deceiving him. Maybe he had too much scotch, he thought. Miller rubbed his eyes and only after the moving images did not go away, he fell asleep. 

As he drifted to his comatose, the girls ceased dancing. They looked at each other with increasing concern, their lines chopping in and out; scattering around the page. They seemed to be wailing, trying to crawl up the pages to the right; but never near the motionless tree. After their bit of chaotic movement, the figures curled into the right corner of the drawing. Their lines merged and became indiscernible from the others while they held each other. 

When Miller woke up in his half drunk state, his eyes went straight to the drawing on his wall. He was so happy to see the girls still cowering in the corner.  

More money passed more hands. 

The drawing landed in the care of an art collector in Boston. Once he, too, started to see the movement, he invited the press to come and watch. 

Dozens of people at a time stood around and ogled the 8×11 paper. They laughed and cheered with every flicker of sentience, every twitch of agony. The crowd clambered even more so when the girl’s faces contorted with some mixture of fear or pain.

“It cannot be!” 

“C’est Vivant!” 

“¡Mira, ellos se mueven!”

The crowd jeered and tossed their bodies around. They lose their composure as the rest of the drawing quakes. An assorted few turn their heads, but most clamored to get a better look. 

 However, as weeks turned to months, the crowds flickered out. No longer did the collectors from Milan or the rich from Coppenhagen fly in to see the painting. The dancing girls were simply out of fashion, it began to seem. The people in the crowd grew increasingly more bored with only the sight of the two girls moving. Their childish fragility grew less dramatic, less “new”. Critics were the main people coming to see the piece, the only ones that would cough up the admission price besides the occasional rural folk that only just received word of the drawing. 

“Stick Figures” Mark the End of the Art World

Michelle Diderot

Two months ago, Boston’s premier art collector presented his new relic: “Stick Figures”, of an unknown artist. This piece gained much notoriety and attention, making its way through every media source with trending scores. While this attention was enough to lure me in, the actuality of it was a mundane, un-nuanced rubbish that had the potential to once be used for something better such as a disposable placemat. 

“Stick Figures” in its raw form is the work of a child. Truly just redundant lines that half make a comprehensible picture. It has no depth, no layers, and absolutely no eye for color. Great art stands for something, says something larger than itself. What does this piece say? It says that our admission fee was wasted to give someone a pat on the back. 

As many of you undoubtedly have heard, the little girls in the drawing shake and tremble in its corner. This aspect, as many other critics, drew me in to see the seemingly remarkability. Yet, upon my personal inspection of the piece my thoughts evoked nothing positive. The ridiculous lines did dance and cowered in the piece, yet did nothing else. Whatever immediate awe I initially experienced was replaced by boredom. Four characters and only two wanted to play. They did nothing more than dance or cower: derivative. 

While no one knows the author, I am sure it must have been by design; no one should ever be proud of something so intellectually redundant that unskillfully rips into the pockets of the elite. “Stick Figures” is no Rothko, no Duchamp. The fame and acclaim this drawing received in its early unveiling shows that our art world must have no taste, actively bathing itself in self contempt. 

If I were in the art buying market, I would spend anything to buy “Stick Figures” to burn it and protect future artists from laying any respect on its name. 

October 13th, four months after the first ticket to see “Stick Figures” appeared on the market, would be the last showing thanks to Diderot’s article and many more just like it. The showing was barely publicized, for whatever appeal the drawing had was replaced by sheer disinterest. 

Elliot Carnegie and his wife, Margaret, the first high profile owners of the painting took the red eye from San Francisco to Boston for a final adieu. 

“Can you believe this? She says it is ‘nothing that could be seen as remarkable’. It’s a crayon that comes alive, goddamnit, what could be more remarkable than that?” 

Margaret crooks her neck to see Elliot frustratingly bent over the paper, furrowing his brows. “Darling, I know you enjoyed the painting-”

“It’s a drawing, Margaret” Elliot cuts in. 

“Drawing” she corrects carefully, dancing her fingertips over the back of his hand. “But have you considered that maybe she’s right?” 

Elliot stares at his wife, the left of his top lip sneering upwards. 

“I mean, darling, the painting itself is so childish” Margaret continues- the plane bumps, displacing her hand off of his. The curtain between first business pulls to the left, air between the two slightly interchanging before the stewardess draws it back. 

“The drawing is sentient, Margaret” Elliot snaps, trying to gulp back the more feral of his anger. 

“It may be more interesting if the other figures danced, too. Or maybe if they did something else than dance. I mean it gets a bit boring.” The timbre of her voice got higher at the end. She readjusts herself, turning towards the window. Margaret has never been one to like any sort of confrontation, she was always more likely to cry rather than argue. Elliot adjusts his glasses and reads on, his knee bumping against the back of his hand.

Margaret and Elliot make their way to their hotel, wife so mundanely looking out the window, husband anxiously checking his watch. Elliot wants to head straight for the gallery, but his wife assures him they had time to stop by the hotel. Elliot wanted to just hail a taxi, but his woman alluded to their murder by the common people if they did not use their personal driving agency. The couple drive backseat of the BMW in silence.

In the luxury of their suite, Margaret adorns herself in a jeweled dress with straps thinly laced in and about her open back. The loose fabric rolls over itself, hanging generously down her bare skin. The jewels cascade liquid silver down her legs, the long slit showing the diamond bangles embellished on her upper thigh. The dress, however, seemingly outdone by Margaret’s blue sapphire necklace, bracelet, and dangling earring match; all glittering and glistening matching her blue eyes enriched by her thick black liner. 

Her husband wears slacks and a button down. He thinks that their pearl wedding ring would have matched her dress nicely. 

When the gallery first opened its doors, it was by invitation only that guests could buy tickets. Over time, the dollar amount alone was plenty. Since usually entry was upwards of $2,000, many of the poorer folk were unable to come. This being the last night being shown, the gallery owner only asked $800 for each head. At this new peasant price, the hoard tonight was suspected to be huge. The Carnegies heard a rumor the drawing would not even be sold, just stored away. Elliot was desperate to take a last look at his formerly prized possession edging into antiquated fashion.

Elliot and Margaret make their way into the open foyer of the gallery, immediately of which, “Stick Figures” was placed in the most honored spot, in the most delectable frame. The childlike drawing was all the same, just behind a new strong glass addition. Elliot had read that someone had thrown an egg onto “Stick Figures”, which would have ruined the delicate paper if not for that screen. 

As expected, Girls in the corner leap and fall, weeping in their two dimensional world. Father and Mother in the portrait stay stagnant in the confines of their crayon lines. Elliot’s eye begins to tear; how no one could appreciate its beauty, he did not know. 

“Aha, Elliot Carnegie” a voice to the side rumbles. Elliot turns, meeting a hand reached out. He obliges. 

“Hello, I recognize you, you own this gallery, correct?” Elliot responds, still firm on the handshake. 

“Yes, it is a pity that not more folks appreciate this cherished work” 

The handshake continues. 

“How did you know me, sir?” Elliot inquires, his hand starting to get moist. 

“You were the first owner, were you not? How you sold it, I don’t understand.” Elliot shifts his torso, his thoughts becoming elaborate with ways to break the handshake. He continues, “Yes, unfortunately my wife did not have the same affinity for it that I do. I would offer a price again if she was not so opposed.”  The handshake was not as such anymore, just the firm, nearly painful grasp of the gallery owner. 

“That your wife over there?” The man motions his chin up, towards the left. 

Elliot looks over his shoulder, unsurprisingly seeing Margaret laughing with her new friends, flippantly drinking her glass of champagne. She looks so beautiful. 

“Yes sir.” 

His grasp on Elliot tightens. 

“The things I would do.” 

He smiles ear to ear. With one last tug, the gallery owner releases Elliot. With a strong pat on the shoulder, he carries on. 

Elliot looks at his hand, the tips of his fingers white from pressure. He takes check of his palpitations and the fuzz in his head. He feels numb, looking for the gallery owner with his breath shaking. He cannot see him anymore. He cannot see his wife, either. Bones feel cold. 

The lady next to Elliot bumps into him, the weight of her body handed off completely. She takes a moment to re-center. Elliot’s focus turns to the fact that she does not apologize for her folly. He would have given her the displeasure of a word if the man to his back did not also fall into him. Then, the older broad in front of him steps on his shoe. Elliot pushes his arms out for protection, becoming more thoughtful of his surroundings, in a state of confusion. 

The gallery began a descent, the air turbulent. Erupting into chaos, the chamber echoes with cacophonous grunts and yells. The squeaking of shoes and floor bouncing off the walls back into Elliot’s ears. The fancy folk, all of which adorned top to bottom in their best dressed attire colliding into one another. The rumble of the room melding into a pit of motion, baron’s watches furnishing the hardwood, lady’s jewels slipping under the bottoms of other’s stilettos. 

It’s so loud. 

There must be a fire, Elliot thinks, but no alarm was going off. He pushes off the claws of a woman digging into his arm. His shoe comes off as he navigates out of the throws of the hoard. 

In the rampant disarray, Elliot hears, 

“It is so beautiful!” 

Elliot realizes the party is crawling and leeching towards “Stick Figures” hung on the wall. Slithering, climbing over each other on all fours, the high society scramble like rats in one direction. A stiletto heel pops through the eye of an older gentleman, the feral roaring of the clammer masks yells of pain. 

Elliot looks at its direction, but can only make out the edges of the frame. He pushes towards it, edging closer in. He grabs the arm of the bloke in front of his path, pulling him back and onto the ground. Elliot struts over his arm, feeling a crack under his weight. Yanking the ponytail of a woman and digging his nails into the back of her husband, he propels and thrusts himself ahead until him and “Stick Figures” are eye to eye.

The Girls continue to twitch and shift under Elliot’s gaze, but that is the only similarity of what the drawing used to be. Now the tree is cut to shreds, hanging in pieces as if something bit into it. The Father wields a saber of sorts with a sharp end- an ax! The properties of the drawing are so difficult to define, but Elliot was now sure the Father held an ax in his fingerless stump. 

The expression on the Father’s face was no longer vacant and distant- the straight line that was once a smile was now a red zigzag, stretching ear to ear. 

The gallery crowd crawls close, screeching for more. The chandelier plummets down on the museum floor. It crushes a waitstaff into a sludge. The crowd continues to surge. 

Father walks towards the girls, swinging the ax with vicious expression. Mother turns her back and traces her fingers up the side of the page, trying to climb, trying to escape. The sun no longer shows, He left at some point. The only remnants of His being there lay in the flame beginning to appear at the top of the page. The paper sparks, the small plume of smoke fogging the glass. 

The crowd yells, “MORE, MORE, MORE”. A lady lays on the floor with her eyes open- in a trance over “Stick Figure”. A broken wine glass is pierced through her cheek. 

Through the haze between Elliot and the drawing, he can make out the swings. The ax flies high above the Father’s head, swinging down on the Girls’ below him. The lines of the girls sink to the bottom of the frame, the paper oozing a dark red goo, dripping in a long strand down to the glass. With the smoke billowing, the blood slowly flooding the depiction, there is only a haze of lines that make out Mother and Father. 

A lady dressed in a white ball gown falls into the sinkhole opening up on the floor beneath her. Some in the crowd push one another into it, trying to minimize the competition.

Mother tears out her hair, her expression of lines turning to crooked O’s. Elliot can hear her bellowing, her screeching yelps; even amongst the discordance of the gallery people. She pleads on her knees with Father, throwing her hands up in a praying manner. The blood in the drawing crawls up the edges of the glass. Father hands her his ax and raises his arms to his sides, looking up to the flame that engulfs the top of the drawing. Mother, without any hesitation, turns it on herself. 

The glass encasing the drawing breaks with the shot of a rich man’s gun. The instant of the shatter, the smoke inside spreads out, setting off the alarms inside the hall. The great orange flame feeding off “Stick Figures” erupts up the wall of the gallery, the rain leaking down from above battling to put it out. The blood that at this point has covered the drawing completely, pours out with its dam broken. The paste runs along the floors, creating waves. Elliot stands in it, up to his knees, resisting the current it tries to drag him in. The drawing continues to pour its red ichor. The crows applaud with tears welling in their eyes from the beauty of it all, or the smoke clouding the room. Still screaming, still crushing one another the crowd thrashes violently with their arms above their heads, exalting the greatness of the work. The blood vortexes into the chasm of the gallery. 

Elliot’s veins feel run cold, he no longer searches for Margaret. 

He stares at the charred remains of the painting, a tear running down his cheek yet again. The gallery owner rests his hand on Elliot’s shoulder. Elliot turns his head, making teary eye contact.

“Are you still interested in buying?” He presumes, with a smudged red-lipped smile. His suit still unwrinkled. 

A lady screams as she slips into the blood-swelling pit. 

“Anything for it, please” Elliot says, his voice cracking into a soft whine.

The gallery owner smiles. 

“Start the bidding at $1.2 Million!” He exalts, turning his head to the people. 

The remaining guests hold their paddles high in the air, clambering for the ashes of the papyrus.

Hunched over near 90 degrees. I walk at a curve, slowly, with my face eyeline with the pavement. My friend struts in front of me the same way, occasionally bending even further to grab at the little treasures he finds. Under his tutelage, I would soon become a God at this speciality, but at this time, myself 14 or 15, and him about 16 or 17, I was just beginning to see the world around bumming. When kids are too young to buy cigarettes or too dumb to find the right channels, a sure-fire method of getting a few puffs is keeping eyes peeled on the ground. People litter their half-smoked butts on the street, their carnage being our treasure. Most of the time, I would find nibs of cigarettes that were basically garbage, but sometimes, if I was lucky, would find a butt with half the stick left. With a little bag, we would gather all of the remnants of tobacco we would find and all in all have the equivalent of a pack. This sport is a lucrative business. It takes a skilled eye to spot what we would seek; it takes a level of almost divine intuition to know whether the item looks safe enough to consume or worthwhile, from just a glance. Over time, one starts to know the ins and outs of this occupation, particularly the hotspots. 

Any sidewalk in the world is destined to have a few stragglers, but the money spots are gas stations, drug stores, and bus stops. Those places often have trash cans with ashtrays, harboring these little delicacies. Sometimes, I would find cigarettes just barely smoked, the stems of beautiful 100s. Even though cigarette beggars do not have the luxury of being so choosy, we had our preferences. Parliaments were nice, but so ostentatious. No one can go wrong with Marboro Reds, but the menthols never tasted quite as sweet, unless they were NXTs. We loved Camels, particularly the Turkish blends, but spit at the sight of Newports. American Spirits were fine, but only the blues. The bottom of our little bumming totem pole was Lucky Stripes. Blegh, what distaste. Hunched over 90 degrees, drooling at litter, eyes peeled and glassy, we were the sommeliers of ashed cigarettes, the epitome of taste for big tobacco. 

“I think I am going to move out to Chicago next year,” He says. 

Burning the edge of the filter and setting it to my lips I reply, “Good, man, hope you do it.” 

“Dawg, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He says, turning his shoulders to me. The cars rush by the curb we sit on, tussling our hair. I light another half-smoked nub.

I had been reading about the law of seven degrees of separation. Essentially, it says that any two people in the world can be connected by at most seven relationships. Me and a guy running a fish market in Copenhagen have invisible strings of interrelations. In hometowns, this becomes clear and universal to everyone. After any introduction you may as well say, “yo do you know…?” and they will probably clap their hands and nod. These seven degrees of separation turn more into one or two. All of a sudden the distance from me and everyone else in this city closes in, the sky becomes walls that thud against my skin.

Sitting there holding my cigarette (a filthy Newport, may I add), I see the lipstick on the filter. A soft pale pink, not too glossy,but not fully matte either. The spread out sparkles dispersed along the lines of the lip it creates, the lipstick overlaps itself. This lapping pink on the butt has the same opaque quality, as if the lady smoking it reapplied her makeup in between each drag. She ashed it with half the stick left, leaving a piece of her to disintegrate into the sidewalk. I like to think that the people on the other side of these pieces of trash were full knowing that a couple kids would smoke their remains. an act of philanthropy. Then, of course, looking at this shade of pink on the filter that I, too, put to my lips, I remember that law of the seven degrees of separation. Through our connections, I know this Soft-Pink-Lipstick girl and I feel oh-so sick. I take another deep drag, the menthol filling my throat, inhaling until the burn in the back of my mouth proves too painful. 

…

“Told you so.” 

“What do you mean?” He inhales, only this time with a cough. 

“Last year you swore you were gonna move to Chicago” 

He scratches his head with both hands. A snark laugh escapes his lips, his cigarette hanging out of his mouth, “Nah man there isn’t shit for me in Chicago.” 

“Is there anything for you here, though?” I ask, coughing at my drag. My hands scrummage in our snipe bag searching for another fag. My mind wanders to wondering whose cigs these are; maybe a cousin of the girl I hate in math, maybe the guy at the bus stop who lifted my skirt with his cane, or it may be a really attractive playboy with perfect hair and a killer smile. I purse my lips tightly around the filter. 

…

Another year later, we sit on the same curb, as the whirling cars passed by, the same clouds in the sky, the same person by my side. We can buy packs now, but we don’t even have $7 to spare. I scrabble around in the snipe bag for another cigarette. 

“DUDE.” My friend flicks the empty butt into the street, pushing his phone in my face. It is some news headline reading,

  Girls with ‘Bright Smiles and Caring Hearts’ are Killed in Murder-Suicide. 

He makes a deep gargle in the back of his throat, swallowing hard before saying, “Dude that’s fucking Canter’s family.”

I snatch for my own phone to read into it. Sure enough, it was. Her kids were gunned down by her own husband before he put the barrel in his own mouth. 

Adrien Canter, 36, on Dec. 3 murdered his children Lily Canter, 8, and Jane Canter, 6, before he killed himself. 

“That was last night holy shit”

“They live, like, not that far from here, man.” 

“Jesus Christ. I was at their baby shower.” 

“Adrien seemed so… normal …when I met him” I stare at the cig between my middle and index. It has a layer of chapstick on the filter.  Hunched 90 degrees, I walk home alone. Twirling the Marlboro in my fingers, I wonder if the Canters were smokers.