Samedi (Sam)

  I apologize for the rough nature of this story but I didn't have a whole lot of time for editing. It could either be a piece of crap or the begnning of something awesome. Here is story idea 3 out of 3 for my November novel, Samedi. Feel free to be harsh and unforgiving with criticism! I enjoy a challenge. 

Sam

            It was Sam’s 8th birthday when from seemingly thin air a cavalcade of poor decisions and sheer bad luck popped into existence. I will never understand why an object of such power and malice was gifted to a mere child, but that’s life for you. On that day, a Sunday if the memory serves (which it often doesn’t) Sam awoke full of a terrible queasiness and loose bowlery that can only accompany the dawn of a birthday party. At 6AM he brushed his teeth and bounded down the stairs to what he imagined would be a mountain of presents.

            In his mind the images ran wild. Boxes piled upon boxes, becoming a fearsome sight that only he could conquer. The floors would be covered with wrapping paper for days, and not one person could stop the chaos as it was his birthday, and covering the floor in colorful trash was how he wished to spend it.

            To his dismay when he reached the bottom of the stairs, a sight which he had not expected met his oh-so-expectant eyes. The living room existed at the bottom of an overly steep set of stairs. In it was a coffee table that had been purchased from Ikea for $50 dollars, a sofa that had been purchased at a neighbor’s garage sale for a steal, a rug that slightly resembled a flattened bear, a group of tapestries that were far too fancy for the room they were hanging in, and a large television which more often than not filled itself with images of large men smashing into each other for possession of oblong brown balls.

            None of this held any interest to Sam. What did was the lack of anything out of the ordinary about the room. As far as his young eyes could tell this was just an ordinary day, but that was just the thing. This day had no right to be ordinary, if anything it should have been extraordinary. On top of the bland coffee table that adorned hundreds of thousands of rooms across the world was nothing but the newspaper from the day before. It was Saturday’s newspaper, so it didn’t even have the colorful cartoons that only ever-so-often chose to grace the presence of an otherwise boring publication.

            Inside Sam felt pangs of sadness beginning to form where only moments before had rested blooms of elation. The warm red thumping of his heart turned to a slow, brown sludge in minutes. Then it occurred to him: The kitchen! With great glee Sam rushed out of the lackadaisical effort of the living room and into what could only be described as an austere attempt at mimicking a magazine cover of a kitchen. As he entered his socks came into contact with the vinyl floor and soon he found himself within the grips of the harsh mistress we know today as gravity.

            Quicker than a drug-addict to a spare dime he fell flat on his back and slid, eventually colliding with the dark wood cabinets on the opposite side of the kitchen. Due to a lack of proper parent-safety meeting attendance a block of loose knives began to quiver on the edge of the counter that Sam had struck. Dazed, Sam stared up at their glinting glory in wonder (the wonder of whether or not that was the moment his life was going to end). Fortunately due to a sudden shift in the physical rules of the universe that contained him (and an overly nosey narrator) the knives fell to his sides where they promptly stuck in the recently remodeled vinyl floor.

            While the thud of a child striking a cabinet was not enough to wake the boy’s parents, the sound of money flying out the window for repairs was. Footsteps crashed down the stairs. They were awake, and by the sound of their footfalls, they were angry. Somewhere deep within the concrete jungle that lay only twenty miles to the east of their house a repairman woke with a start, having a feeling that only soon-to-be income can provide.

            While the cacophony of events swirled around Sam he had but one thought. There are no presents in this room either. The truth was that Sam had never received gifts for his birthday, but every year the likes of Hallmark and the Disney Channel tried to convince him it would be otherwise. Most birthdays he was given a small slice of cake from his mother and a firm handshake from his father, congratulating him on surviving another year in a world that he could only describe as a “break-neck race between human beings and the inevitable death that was trying to catch them.”

            This may not seem a pleasant story so far, but I assure you, it’s getting there. For the sake of time and my own boredom at recounting tedious family arguments, I will skip to the afternoon after the moment where Sam was almost impaled by pricey kitchenware. It was tepid. Sam sat outside on a bench with a party hat he had fashioned himself out of leaves left behind by autumns cool embrace. It didn’t look much like a party hat, but it was something and it gave him the air of being festive. No one was around to see it, but it counted to Sam all the same.

            His parents had long ago left for the bars, or the mall, or somewhere that they could spend their hard-earned cash without a reminder that long ago they had made an unforgiving error in judgment with their recreational activities. Luckily for Sam they did not see the man in the black suit with the fashionably tattered black top hat meandering his way into the garden. Sam had never been taught the virtue of ‘stranger danger’, and as such was very cordial to the intruder now trespassing on his property.

            “Hello sir!”

            “Hello young man. Where is your family?” Sam merely shrugged as he hadn’t the faintest idea of where they might be at that very moment. “How could someone leave such a dapper young man alone on his birthday?”

            “How did you know it was my birthday?”

            “Your party hat of course.” No one in their right mind would have been able to tell that the abomination adorning Sam’s head was a party hat, but a liar has to have his lies, and they stay only between him and the God that sits behind the typewriter. “And where are your presents? I was told that birthday’s are supposed to have presents.” Ordinarily a man a face covered entirely in shadow and a bone structure that made him look more skeleton than man would have frightened a child, but Sam was no ordinary child. He was the byproduct of a generation that cared less about responsibility than they did about the length of their toe-nail clippings (not much at all, unless of course the person in question was Theodore Abigail, the man who held the world-record for longest toenail clippings, which in this case it was not).

            “I haven’t got any.”

            “Well, isn’t that a shame.” The man said, producing a box that rivaled the dark pallet of his clothing, topped with a bow that managed to be even darker. “Why don’t you take this one? I was going to give it to myself, but you seem like you could use it more than me right now. Go ahead, take it.” Without hesitation Sam reached for the box and pried it from the man’s fingers.

            “That’s it, open it.” Said the man ominously, brandishing his knifelike fingers in the afternoon sunlight. In his shadow the shapes of demons danced, bringing with them a tone of horror and mystery that was completely lost on the bland setting that surrounded them. Sam ignored all of the obvious warning signs that were thrust before him and tore off the wrapping paper.

            Inside the box was another box, small, dark, and wooden. Burned onto the cover in gold letters was one word: Voodoo. “What is it?” Asked Sam.

            “That my boy is something you’ll figure out in time. Just remember to be careful and to never show it to anybody.” Sam took one look down at the box and when he looked back up the man who had given it to him was gone. He was utterly alone. The sudden disappearance of the man was not an uncommon phenomenon for Sam. On many occasions he had been thrown a sweet only to find out by the time that he had finished eating it his parents had left for the tropics.

            “Have fun mister!” He yelled to the distance, hoping that the man had not yet boarded his plane for what could have only been a vacation. Sam took the strange wooden box inside and up to his bedroom. He had never had a proper birthday present before and was excited to discern the proper way to play with it. On his scratchy gray comforter he laid out the contents of the box: A small stuffed doll, a plethora of pins, two jars containing mysterious black and green liquids, and what appeared to be a dead frog.

            Gingerly Sam lifted the doll from the box. Wrapped neatly around its waste was a small roll of parchment. Red is for injury, black is for blood, blue is for sadness, and green is for floods. Sam felt a new emotion growing inside him. He had never truly felt resentment before as for resentment to form it is necessary for one to have a comparison. Now with the kind stranger who had given him such an interesting box in the mix he had an idea of what genuine human kindness was, and a method for retaliation against the hands-off parenting style that had left him in the stupor of boredom for eight years too many.

            As Sam looked at the doll he pictured his parents. Smug, cold, and bastards the lot of them. From this rage came an impulsive decision that would change his life forever. He picked up the black pin and shoved it into the doll with such force that it came through the back and pricked his finger. His own blood mixed with the fabric and he cried out in pain. Some believe that the power of voodoo can be measured by the amount that someone believes in it. I believe it can be measured by the intention of the user, combined with the amount of car explosions that follow immediately after the act of the ritual.

            With that Sam’s parents’ car that had only moments earlier pulled into the driveway took it upon itself to spontaneously combust into a ball of flames, high speed metal, and misery…