Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,23

take a picture.

At this point, the woman calms down, and I finally feel comfortable enough to take a dump.

After leaving Sierra Library, I wander around and end up in Cruikshank’s Orchard, sitting on a fern-patterned bench next to the girl of my dreams. She’s wearing a T-shirt that says, Vegetarian Zombie. Below that, the zombie says, Graaaaaaains.

“You don’t mind me sitting here?” she says.

“No, not at all,” I say.

“It’s just, this is my favorite bench. I love the smell of the figs.”

I turn my head toward the old Mission fig tree, and sniff the air as loud as I can.

“Do you have a cold?” She opens her brown leather stash bag. “I think I have some Airborne.”

“No. No thanks. I’m good. Thanks.”

She retrieves a tin of Altoids from her bag and drops a few mints into her mouth. “So, are you a photography major?”

I look down at notice that I’m still gripping my Nikon in both hands. “I used to be. What about you?”

She shrugs, and stands. She approaches the fig tree. Then she picks up a moldy fig and holds the rotten fruit close to her thin red lips.

Time freezes.

No, I can feel the wind on my face. I can hear a boy laughing behind me. She’s the only thing in the world that isn’t moving.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“Posing,” she says, without moving her mouth.

“Um. I can’t take your picture with this camera.”

She drops the fig, which lands on her white tennis shoes. “And why not?”

I could tell her that the camera’s out of batteries, but the thought of lying to her makes me feel a little nauseous. “It’s hard to explain. It’s weird.”

“What’s a little weirdness between friends?”

When she says the word friends, I can’t help but grin. “With this camera, I only take pictures of…well, bad things.”

“And you’re assuming I’m not a bad thing?”

“Yeah.”

Then she runs at me, and wraps her hands around my neck. She squeezes, gently. Then she laughs.

I laugh.

And then she kisses me.

Her mouth tastes a lot like cinnamon and little like manure, but I don’t care.

On the way to my apartment, Teresa freezes on the sidewalk and points. At first I can’t see what she’s seeing, but then I spot what looks like a dead baby bird caught on a low branch.

“The fall broke her neck,” Teresa says.

“Must have,” I say.

The woman in my head whimpers.

I take a picture.

In my apartment, Teresa kneels beside my DVD collection. She runs a finger down the tower.

“You’re a geek,” she says. “You know that, right?”

“Right,” I say.

We spend the next hour and a half watching Bio Zombie and making out. And then I sit on the bed, reading my textbook for the psych test tomorrow, while Teresa rummages through my drawers and cabinets.

“Are you looking for something specific?” I say, smiling.

She shrugs.

After a while, Teresa joins me on the bed and massages my shoulders. Sometimes she squeezes me a little too hard, but I don’t tell her that.

“Take off your shirt,” she says.

I obey.

“Give me my gourd,” she says.

“What?”

“From my bag.”

I open her stash bag, and inside I find five tins of cinnamon Altoids, an egg timer, a simple wooden box, and a small decorative gourd. I hold the gourd close to my face, but even then, the carvings are too small and intricate for me to make out.

Teresa lifts the top off the gourd, and sticks a finger inside the hole. Her finger returns, covered with a dark yellow substance.

“Massage oil,” she says.

“Oh,” I say.

Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.

The oil smells a lot like cinnamon and a little like manure, but I don’t care.

“Don’t wash this off until tomorrow morning,” Teresa says.

“Alright,” I say, and she kisses me goodnight.

After Teresa starts snoring, I get out of bed and kiss her forehead. I get the feeling that I’ve known this girl longer than a day. Much longer. Of course, that’s probably just the love talking.

In the living room, I sit at my desk and turn on my Nikon. I stare at today’s photographs until the woman in my head weeps.

As my hands tremble, the graffiti and the dead bird swirl together in a whirlpool of ink and blood. The woman shrieks, and I caress the body of the camera.

I say, “I’m sorry.”

I can’t save her from all this hatred and bigotry and death, so I do the next best thing.

I delete the pictures.

After heaving my Del Taco into the sink, I search my mind, and I can’t remember what was on those