Dark Short Stories and Poems - Dark science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, and poetry

My Story “Shackles” Was Published Today in Factor Four Magazine

October 1, 2018 by Adam

My first piece of professionally published flash science fiction, a piece called Shackles, was published today in Factor Four Magazine.

Factor Four Magazine is a new publication that publishes flash science fiction, fantasy, and other genres.

My story, Shackles, explores what it means to be human in the far future, when our bodies and our methods of communication are practically unrecognizable, and when having bodies and using methods of communication becomes a burden rather than a blessing.

With those ideas in mind, I ask this question:

What comes next?

Take a look at Issue 3 here—both print and ebook versions are available, and subscriptions start at $4:

Issue 3 of Factor Four Magazine (including my story Shackles)

My True-Life Recovery Story via Oral Fixation — What Addiction Is Really Like

July 10, 2018 by Adam

On June 19th, 2018, I was able to tell my true-life recovery story on stage at the Moody Performance Hall thanks to an incredible opportunity from Oral Fixation and with the shrewd guidance of Nicole Stewart as my editor.

The entire show, which featured many other performers in addition to myself, was based around a simple phrase, “All Over the Map,” which I felt was perfectly descriptive of what addiction is like.

You can watch my full performance here, and below, you can read the entire script, which I wrote and Nicole Stewart edited. If you’d like to watch the entire show, simply start the video over.

Thanks for watching, and feel free to share your recovery story in the comments.

My Recovery Story

It’s April 2008. I’m waking up dope sick at eight p.m. in the apartment my parents pay for.

They continue to support me because they believe the lie, the mask, that I’m a normal 24-year-old kid working hard in my seventh year at the University of Kansas.

They believe I’ve never done much beyond smoke the occasional joint. There’s no way I could be a drug addict.

I’ve slept through Kansas smashing Memphis in the college basketball game of a lifetime. My mom is down in Texas frantically calling me.

She’s not calling me because she thinks I’ve overdosed again or because she’s worried I’ve killed someone in yet another drunk driving incident. Despite the very real possibility of those things, I’ve managed to hide the overdoses and explain away the DUIs.

She’s calling me because we have a ritual of watching the game together. For her, it means connecting with her son.

For me, it’s a method of adding a layer to the mask that convinces her I’m healthy, hardy, and certainly not on hard drugs, that it’s totally fine to keep sending me eighteen hundred dollars a month for rent and food.

That’s a very specific number, because that’s exactly how much money Jeff, the sixty-five-year-old psychopath with a gun fetish, charges me each month for OxyContin and Valium.

Awake and dope sick, my body feels like it’s disintegrating. I’ve run out of drugs. The terror of potentially not getting what I need to get well crushes my guts. Kansas is celebrating a National Championship win, but I can’t care, because I have to get dope while I can still walk.

I wish I wasn’t like this. I wish I could be a part of life, a part of the community, a normal kid celebrating the game.

In a rare turn of luck, I find loose pills in my pocket, which means I can be sane for eight hours. I can go to Mass street and pretend to be normal.

But when I get there, surrounded by thousands of celebrating fans, I feel utterly isolated. They are not like me… and I will never be like them.

My mom is calling to see if I watched the highlights. I should answer if I want the cash to keep flowing, but concerns of keeping up the mask fade as I realize a perennial drug-addict truth: I need more, and soon.

Fortunately, I have options—I’m a small-time drug dealer. And though Jeff is the logical choice, I’m high. When I get high, I am filled with rage.

I think of how this old man manipulates me, a 20-year-old kid with a severe drug problem, and I think “Screw Jeff—I should go to Wichita and buy a bunch of coke instead.”

Or should I? Should I go to Wichita and meet up with New York, the 40-year-old felon loaded up with pounds of blow between prison sentences? Or should I go to Kansas City and hit up MT, the 400-pound pill dealer with sleep apnea? Should I go to the trailer park after all and meet Jeff and hope he doesn’t put a rifle to my skull? Should I go to Topeka and hit up the 75-year-old psychiatrist with bottles of Oxy, a lazy eye, and a limp from all her strokes? Should I just go to Texas and confess everything?

And in the midst of this madness, the monstrous thought I try so hard to suppress crawls to the surface—there’s only one place I truly want to go, and it’s six feet under ground.

But I know that thought is wrong. I’m not supposed to be depressed. I’m supposed to care—about my family, my failed education. I’m supposed to want to live, but being a drug addict is too stressful, it’s too dangerous, and it’s too exhausting.

In twenty-four years of life, I’ve fantasized about dying for thirteen, and today, in a crowd of thousands of joyful people, I have a vicious moment of clarity: The drugs are—inevitably, inexorably, and every damn time—not enough.

And they’ll never be enough.

So I might as well check out.

I call my addict girlfriend to help me collect the components of my suicide toolkit. As night burns into morning, we drive all over the damn map. We drive to Kansas City and pick up a bottle of OxyContin.

We snort a handful before we drive to Jeff’s trailer park with my rent money, where I buy Oxy, Valium, and a pistol. She must know what I’m planning, but she gets free pills if she stays quiet, and so she does. We go to Richie’s place, and he hooks up Adderall and coke and heroin.

We go back home, and she won’t leave, and my roommates won’t shut up, and I think right at the temple is the best way to do it, but I gotta be good and high first.

But she won’t leave, and we burn through all the dope in a few days, and then she leaves, and I’ve lost my nerve, and the horror of the situation hits me: I have to go back out there and get more dope, and I no longer think it’s physically possible to put enough in my body to feel OK.

But that’s a problem for tomorrow. I wake to a knock at 9am. Shirtless and sober, I open the door, and suddenly I’m on the floor with a gun to my head.

It’s a raid—the Kansas Bureau of Investigation has finally come calling, but they screwed up. Had they come earlier, they would have found my little smorgasbord. As it was, they found a few pills and a little weed. They take my drugs, they take my money, and they say, “Don’t call us—we’ll call you.”

My money is gone, my drugs are gone, and I’m magically unarrested, which is somehow worse because I have no clue when the ball is going to drop.

I’m still carless and jobless, my junkie girlfriend has had enough, I’m a complete failure, even at suicide, and my mind is racing, trying desperately to find a way out of this catastrophe.

But my mind can’t race fast enough to escape the truth: There is no way out. Part of me wants to get high forever. Part of me wants to try suicide again. But an old part of me, broken and beaten and screaming in a corner, wants to live.

And that part finally sees a chance.

It speaks. It tells me what I so desperately want and hate to hear:

“We don’t have to do this anymore. Ask for help. It will hurt less than this.”

I call my parents and confess. My dad shows up eight hours later. The mask is shattered now.

He sees the truth of what I’ve become, and he’s come to rescue me, and somewhere on a highway in Oklahoma, I take the first deep breath I’ve had in a long time.

But it doesn’t last. Outpatient treatment fails, and my relapse reinforces a cruel truth—I am utterly unable to stay sober on my own. A year later, I walk into a rehab.

Three days in, and all I can think about is getting high. I’m plotting my escape, and I’m changing my mind, and suddenly, this guy walks onto the stage of my rehab’s lecture hall. He says he’s like us, but he found a way out. He says I’m completely screwed: My disease is implacable, incurable, and deadly.

And he walks away.

And something in me breaks—the addiction, so absolutely powerful, has been momentarily crushed. The piece of me that never gave up sees its chance. It shrieks at me in desperation:

“Don’t let him leave!”

And I listen—because after all the darkness, I finally want to live.

I chase him down. He tells me that I can recover. And I believe him. And for the first time in my life, I see a wide path, and all I have to do, is follow this man’s map.

The End

If You Liked My Recovery Story, Read My Fiction About Addiction

If you enjoyed my recovery story, check out some of my fiction that explores what addiction is really like.

A Sci-Fi Story — And We Found It in a Dark Place

December 22, 2017 by Adam

“And We Found It in a Dark Place” is a sci-fi story about need. The more I think about this story, the more I see how it parallels my experiences with addiction — the main character faces a need, a desperation beyond reasoning, and she has no choice by to commit unspeakable violence to get what her people require.

This is a very short story — really just a snapshot at the end of something much longer, as I think sci-fi stories in the flash fiction arena often need to be. Sci-fi requires background that’s wholly unnecessary in literary fiction. You can get away with literary flash fiction leaving the background out, but sci-fi doesn’t really allow that.

This story was originally published on 365 Tomorrows — You can read it in full here.

And We Found It in a Dark Place — A Sci-Fi Story

“All of it.”

The creature’s look is quizzical.

My helmet inhibits no sounds; I feel that my words are quite clear.

My hands shake. My gloved fist smashes the surface of his table.

“I need all of it. Not some. Not a bit. Not most. All. Is this a problem?”

I had looked for so long. Its existence here was impossible.

And yet, here it was.

My heart throttles my throat.

Fear is a vice.

The creature must give it to me.

Underneath my cape, my gloved fingers caress a dagger of diamonds.

My breath comes in tiny streams.

My pupils envelope my eyes.

The creature shakes his head, mutters “No, no, no, n-n-no problem, no problem.”

My fingers relax. He twitches and scurries, wrapping, questions in his eyes. He hands me the package, paws nervously brushing whiskers.

“W-w-what will you d-d-do with it?”

I do not bother to answer. I give him payment beyond what he might make in five years time.

And I run.

I run out the crumbling door from the crumbling shop to the crumbling streets of this crumbling city. The bones of this dying country drip gas, remnants of ancient poisons injected into black stone. The twists and turns coil up and up, through darkness and disease, the streets tilting crazily to lead out of this wretched planet.

I burst upon the surface, and the gas lingers under a sky of ash and blood, and my helmet burns crimson as it tries desperately to filter the thick clouds of chlorine before they reached my lungs.

And I catch my breath.

And I look into the package.

And I weep.

For here, in this decaying place, in this infested fenestration into the bowels of a wretched, bloody world, this venomous hole bored into ebony rocks bleeding miasma from unhealing wounds, in the dark light of a fading star, here, in this most unlikely place, from this most unlikely creature, here was something that my people had sought for ten thousand years.

And the light from the package sweeps across my face, and my priceless cape flies from my suit, blasted by the violence of the light, and my helmet and breather and gloves and suit and boots and tools disappear into the ether, and a stream of particles dives deep into the sleeping parts of my mind, infuses my cells, twists my essence, penetrates an essential part of me.

Wrenches that part.

Until it cracks.

And the light breaks me.

And my body is destroyed.

And my ship cries out at my death.

And I rise.

And I whisper nothings into her mind.

“Do not be afraid, my love.

“I am with you.

“Always.”

And my ship smiles.

And I ascend on wings of light, and my body is energy and brilliance, and I ride particle beams across the black seas of emptiness, and my ship races around, over, and through me, her joy blasting through the universe on laser and radio, and I scream, and a message flies forth from my crystalline lungs, heralding my coming, and it rides to my brothers and sisters through the relays, and it contains three words.

And my joy repeats the words.

Over.

And over.

“We are saved.”

“We are saved.”

Read Another Short Sci-Fi Story

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A Poem About Modern Life — We Are Something More and Something Less

December 11, 2017 by Adam

Though this poem is not autobiographical, it is inspired by the experience of working in the modern age, of cubicles and time clocks, of wages and apathy.

Of working until your eyes bleed and then working some more.

It is a poem about modern life and the life that came before, of what we have gained and what we have lost, and in it, I wonder if things are better, today, or if they are worse.

I do not find an answer.

“We Are Something More and Something Less” first appeared in Déraciné in Volume I under the title “We Are” — you can read the issue in its entirety here for free.

We Are Something More and Something Less — A Poem About Modern Life

Get to this point in my day

Where my mind goes

Blank

Where my thoughts run like

Crisco

Where everything is

Encased

Where my eyes won’t focus, won’t focus, won’t

Focus

Focus on the screen

And I hesitate over

The last few words

And my boss

Black tie in his hands

Says

“Push through it.”

“Get the hours.”

“Put a stamp on it and call it a day.”

“If you can.”

If you can …

I wonder if my

Ancestors

Got to this point in their day

Where their iron ran

Crimson

With the blood of

Holy men

If their thoughts moved like

Melted tallow from the firstlings

And their eyes wouldn’t

Quite

Focus

Focus on the crushed skulls of the

Monks they’d raped

I wonder if

When the violence was done

And they hesitated over

The last

Begging thrall

If their jarl told them

With entrails in his hands

“Push through it.”

“Throw him into the sea.”

“Put a stamp on it and call it a day.”

“If you can.”

A Poem About Addiction — Summer

November 6, 2017 by Adam

Summer is a poem about addiction, a poem about the viciousness of my disease, a poem about the insanity that sits only under the surface, that has not gone away.

That will never go away.

Poetry about addiction is something we need in a world that wants it, and us, to not exist. Every day, I am grateful that I live where I live, that I was able to receive treatment with persecution, that I don’t live in the Philippines, where people like me are executed in the streets, or in Russia, where ‘treatment’ means going cold turkey and seeing if I survive.

Summer is a poem about addiction, but it’s mostly a poem about the truth of what we experience. The greatest problem addicts face is the absolute negation of our experience by non-addicts.

They think we’re making it up, I guess.

We’re not.

This poem was originally published by Anti-Heroin Chic — you can read it here.

Summer — A Poem About Addiction

It’s summer.
It’s summer and I’m crushing up seafoam-green tri-dimensional highs and mixing them with tiny blue buttons and clear capsules that explode into a million microscopic oranges and I vacuum them up with my nose and.
I’m.
OFF.
And I’m angry at Purdue Pharma.
And I blame Purdue Pharma.
And I love Purdue Pharma.
And I’m slamming the microwave door and I’m melting my pills and my bones are creaking-cracking-CRAWLING out of my skin-skin-skin and I can feel the electricity sparking through my synapses GOD and I can feel the sickness rising and I can’t wait forty minutes then in the freezer twenty minutes then chop-chop-chop for five minutes then JESUS IS IT READY YET scratch it against a hose clamp a beautiful fine white powder and ahhhhh …
And.
And it’s perfect.
And I’M perfect.
And it doesn’t last it never lasts and I wake up and I don’t know it’s summer and I don’t care and I smell burning hair and dripping blood and everything is burning and I passed out I passed out I passed out again again again AND–
And it’s empty again and I’m empty again and the bottle is empty again and my throat is empty again and my nose is empty again and I’m freaking out Freaking Out FREAKING OUT FR–
And I’m sending a text and my fingers shake as they type “where you at” and sweat drip-drop-drips across the screen and my stomach is a psychopath mauling my guts clawing my throat bursting my esophagus tearing scraping gnawing biting BREAKING HACKING BURN–
And the highs streak off into infinities of never more never more never more than twenty minutes twenty minutes twenty minutes of.
“I’m good, MAN.”
But-but-but it’s supposed to be eight hours that’s what Purdue said that’s what the reps said the reps the reps with their crinkled yellow-binders-brown-fillers-red-excipients pasted like death across eyeless smiles stretched across their shit-stained noses their teeth white pearls stolen from the healthy eight hours eight hours CHRIST WHY DOES OXY ONLY LAST TWENTY MINUTES?!
And it’s summer.
And it’s summer and I don’t know it’s summer and I wake up and maybe it’s winter and maybe it’s spring and maybe it’s morning and maybe it’s night and maybe it’s I DON’T KNOW WHERE I AM I DON’T KNOW WHAT MONTH IT IS I DON’T–
And I’m driving, and I make a phone call, and the signal is.
Collected.
And the pings move the white men in the black suits because the bitch ratted on us she told she told she told She Told SHE TOLD I TOLD THAT IDIOT NOT TO TRUST HER NOT–
And they wait, but I’m riding ultra-sleek neon white Xanax bars with their beautiful precious gentle imprints pressed so lovingly into their dissolving faces by the men the women the people in the factory their pockets checked as they leave work their things brought in the morning in clear plastic bags no stealing no diverting we need to make a profit Profit PROFIT WE–
And I go right past the men. And my veins pulse with health while my nose pukes mucous dot-dot-dotted with fillers and specks of coke and inositol and grey-green paint and the veins are next the veins are next my nose won’t last forever it won’t–
It’s summer and I smell wet metal and burning again and I go for pancakes and I wake up and the EMTs are screaming at me and I’m screaming at me and my leg My Leg MY LEG MY FUCKING LEG MAN WHAT–
But the screams come from somewhere else and I say in my head for the tenth-hundredth-thousandth-millionth time never again Never Again NEVER AGAIN THIS IS THE LAST TIME THE LAST SCREW IT I’LL CALL MT I’LL–
And the men are there at last and there is nowhere to run and there is a gun to my head and they’re taking my drugs They’re Taking My Drugs TAKING please no please stop arrest me take me to jail to county to prison to anywhere ANYWHERE JUST PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY DRUGS PLEASE JUST BLOW MY HEAD OFF PLEASE DON’T PLEASE–
And when they take us I scream-scream-scream because I can feel the sickness boiling in my gut and I know they will not help me They Will Not Help Me THEY WILL NOT HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HEL–
And I wake up next to a dumpster again.
And I hear a phone ringing again.
And I know the pills are gone again.
And my gut wrenches at the thought the first thought the last thought the only thought: how-How-HOW will I get more get more I NEED more the hunt begins again again dammit again.
Not again.
Please not again.
And I sigh.
And I am so DAMN tired.
And I have.
No.
Choice.
Because it’s summer.
And it’s always summer.
And no matter how hard I try to escape the circle.
I always end at the beginning.