One Story by Huckleberry Shelf

This Torn Room

Owen sat under a large wooden structure. On top of this large wooden structure there were flower beds, which needed to be raised up because the George Washington High School garden was built in a ditch, and the natural sunlight was insufficient. Next to this wooden structure on Owen's right was another identical wooden structure, which was covered in fruits and vegetables in various states of ripeness. Then two other identical wooden structures, with various other edible plants, herbs, root vegetables. To Owen's left and behind his back was a tall fence that marked the outer bounds of the high school. Up past the ditch was a basketball court and two tennis courts, and past them the school building. It was five in the morning and Owen was the only one there. The sun was just beginning to rise.

At Owen's feet sat his iPhone and a .38 special. The .38 was loaded. Owen was crying. Owen unlocked his phone and he drafted a text message. The text message said "fuck you fuck you fuck you." He didn't send it. Owen opened a web browser and stared at it. He closed it and then closed his phone. The .38 stared at him, he picked it up, it wasn't heavy. It belonged to his older sister, she had a lot of old guns, she freaked Owen out. He pointed it up at the wooden panels. Then, at one of the basketball hoops. Slowly, he aimed and fired. The bullet missed the hoop and hit a stairway leading out of a back entrance of the high school. Owen picked his phone up again. He composed a text message that said "i'm sorry." He deleted it. He opened Spotify and put on a song by Elliott Smith. The song was called "A Fond Farewell." It played for about forty seconds and then he paused it. He wasn't crying anymore. He said "Jesus Christ." He picked the gun up and shot into the side of his head and before he died he regretted it.

Somebody found his body and threw up onto it. Then they found somebody else, who called somebody, who put Owen into a bag and the bag of Owen onto a stretcher and the stretcher into a big car. At some point Owen's ghost slipped out of his body. He looked like Owen. Owen's ghost was very embarrassed. He wished he had left a note but had no idea what the note could've said. Owen's ghost opened his mouth and made a noise like "hhghhhghh." It sounded just like the wind. All he could think about was how his friends would see that the last thing he had listened to was the Eliott Smith song. Owen's ghost felt melodramatic, and stupid, and small. Everybody went home from school for the day. Then there was the weekend. And on Monday everybody came back, because they had to.

Wendy can’t decide if she’s Owen’s girlfriend. Do dead guys have girlfriends? She doesn’t know. She’s so mad at Owen anyways, if he was alive she’d probably break up with him. Wendy’s read a bunch of books and seen a bunch of movies where people kill themselves, she knows it happens. For days she’s waited for knowing to become understanding. Every note and text message under scrutiny, she’s searched for clues and come up empty. Wendy knows Owen wasn’t totally happy but she thought he felt just like she felt. And she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t kill herself.

Her parents think she shouldn’t go to school and they’re probably right. But what would she do if she stayed home? Her Mom carries her backpack to the car. Wendy is wearing a long blue a-line skirt and a long black jacket. She likes the way they hang off of her and trail a little bit when she walks. The car door slams, and she’s aware that it was her who slammed it. But it feels like it’s happening far away from her. It slams again when she gets out of the car, and then the door to homeroom slams, and everybody looks and then nobody looks. Wendy thinks it’s funny. Or she thinks she thinks it’s funny. She laughs, anyway. August motions for her to sit with him and she does. He says, “bro,” and he hugs her. She doesn’t hug him and he stops hugging her. He says, “I’m so fucked up Wendy.”

Mr. Chau says something about Owen. Probably the same thing every other teacher is saying. But Mr. Chau is crying, his cheeks are shining like pearls. This makes Wendy angry. A tear is hanging off his chin, a big globby tear, no matter how many more tears run past and through it the tear won’t move. Wendy stares at the tear, she watches it wobble, she feels so angry. She looks at August to see if he’s angry too, but he’s deep in whatever shit he’s in. She looks at Jen, and at Mikey. They’re looking at Mr. Chau. Their faces don’t show much. Wendy wants people to scream. Her desk presses into her palms, the floor presses into her feet. Mr. Chau’s voice chokes at the end of a word. The word is “was.” Things feel like they’re aggressing Wendy. The room doesn’t want her in it. Why is Mr. Chau crying when she’s not? That’s not fair. She grabs August’s shoulder and says “we’re leaving,” and August follows her, and Jen and Mikey follow them. This feels stupid to Wendy too. What are they going to say? What’s anybody going to say? She runs out of the building, hoping that she can run away from them. They catch up with her quickly and she gives up, she lies down on the tennis court.

Mikey packs a bowl and lights it. He passes it around. Wendy takes a small hit but it’s enough to make her a little dizzy. She watches the sun make little circles. There are a lot of things in the sky, Wendy is surprised, she always thinks about the sky being empty. The sky isn’t empty, it’s just deep. Wendy watches birds and clouds and bugs and dust. She tries her best to flatten perspective, so that things are stacked on top of each other, birds splatting bugs, being swallowed by clouds.

August says, “now what?” Everybody knows that he doesn’t mean to sound so harsh.

Questions like “now what?” are hard because they’re complicated. All four of them are full of questions that they’re embarrassed to even ask. They’re embarrassed to ask them because they’re too complicated to possibly have an answer. Wendy and August and Jen and Mikey know that there are a lot of things people just wonder forever.

Mikey says, “he’s not dead. I know he’s not.” Nobody responds. Mikey says, “it’s not right. How could he be dead?” That’s a simple question and nobody has any more questions really after that.

Jen says, “do you guys want to hear a song I wrote?” The others nod some kind of assent so she grabs her cell phone from her pocket and plays an mp3 file. It’s a simple song, guitar bass and drums. The time signature is weird. Mikey sorta taps along with his foot. They let the song play without saying anything. They all feel roughly like Wendy does, and roughly like Mikey does. Things like gunshots and blood take feelings and spread them between people. There’s not much that they can do. A gust of wind sways the net on the tennis court back and forth heavily. It makes a sound like “WWWWWFTTT,” really loud. The song ends.

August spots him first, and doesn’t say anything. Then Mikey says, “I told you,” and Wendy and Jen look too and all four of them see Owen’s ghost. Owen’s ghost waves. They wave. They stare at Owen’s ghost, who smiles. August stands up. He says, “go away.” Then he shouts it, “go away!” He walks towards the garden and after two or three steps the image of Owen fades away, is dispersed. August walks all the way over to where Owen’s ghost was standing. It’s right where Owen died, but somebody cleaned it up so well that it looks like every other part of the ground. He walks back to the others.

August says, “that’s fucked up. That’s so fucked up.” And Mikey says, “that was Owen and you told him to go away,” and August says, “Owen shot himself in the head,” and Mikey is a lot smaller than August but he hits him hard. Mikey’s ring cuts August’s cheek and August gasps a little. Mikey looks like he wants to hit him again, but he doesn’t. They stare at each other. August says, “I’m sorry, Mike.” Then he says, to nobody, “I should get to class.” August walks away and everybody else is quiet. Then Mikey walks away too.

Wendy and Jen are supine and silent. Jen looks at Wendy and Wendy looks again at the sun. Wendy feels the sun make an impression in the center of each of her eyes. She looks to her side, and two dark and glowing circles obscure her vision. They dissolve and then Wendy looks up again. Jen says, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you or something.” Wendy says, “I get it.” Jen says, “I had a thing, like, written, to recite on the phone. And then I started to feel like a telemarketer.”

Wendy sits up. She says, “Owen and I dated for a year and a half and he never said he loved me. And I never said I loved him. We were going to break up at graduation and never see each other again. He was supposed to be just my first boyfriend, and now he’s something I have to carry for the rest of my stupid life.”

Jen says, “did you love him? Even though you didn’t say it?”

Wendy shrugs. “I liked him a lot. He turned me on.”

Jen says, “if I was you, I guess I’d be angry,” and Wendy says, “I’m so angry, I’m so angry I haven’t been sad yet.”

Jen touches Wendy’s face lightly. Wendy looks at her. Jen is short and her hair is bobbed and dyed platinum blonde. Fishnets squeeze her thighs, and a low-cut green tank top presses her breasts up and out. Wendy breathes quickly. The back of Jen’s hand is hot against the side of her face. She pushes her face into the hand until Jen pushes back. Then she slides her face forward, and leans it down into Jen’s face, and kisses her. Wendy feels illicit. She feels her body rushing with its wrongdoing. She wants wants wants. Jen shoves her hand up Wendy’s skirt and grabs her ass, and Wendy slides off Jen’s tank top and unclasps her bra. Wendy pushes Jen’s shoulders onto the ground and pulls off her shorts. She reaches through Jen’s fishnets and pushes her underwear to the side. She sticks her front two fingers into Jen’s pussy and presses up and out. Jen moans. Wendy likes the sound of Jen’s moans, when she and Owen fucked he was silent, and Wendy always wanted him to moan. Wendy says, “louder,” and moves her fingers faster, and Jen obliges. Then Jen says, “choke me,” and Wendy does, her knees are pressed into Jen’s thighs, her fingers are deep in Jen’s pussy. Wendy squeezes her neck hard, and Jen’s moans become forceful, pushing past the pressure of Wendy’s fingers. Owen’s ghost is back. He’s watching. Nobody else is, although all anyone at the high school would have to do is glance out of a back window. Owen’s ghost isn’t jealous, which surprises him. He’s not turned on or anything, either. He’s just watching, to see what happens. Wendy keeps fingering Jen, and for both of them it feels like a very long time before they stand up.

As they walk back to class Jen says, “I love you.”

Wendy says, “come on.”

Jen says, “I love you Wendy.”

Wendy says, “shut up. Please shut up.”

Wendy is a little stoned still. Time has passed. She’s walking without going anywhere. George Washington High School is a grid of hallways that are the same hallway. She doesn’t want to be high anymore, so she goes into the bathroom and splashes water on her face. She cups the water in her palm and pours it down her forehead. There’s a girl in one of the stalls and she’s crying. At first Wendy can’t tell that she’s crying, because she’s trying not to make any noise. It sounds like she has the hiccups. Wendy asks, “are you ok?”

The girl says, “maybe.”

Wendy says, “what’s your name?”

Daisy says, “Daisy.” Daisy stops crying, or at least successfully silences herself.

Wendy pats herself dry with a paper towel. She asks, “do you want to talk to me, Daisy?”

Daisy says, “about what.”

Wendy says, “whatever you want. We never have to look at each other. It’ll be like taking confession.”

Daisy says, “ok.”
There is a moment where they’re both waiting. Wendy sits on the sink. The bathroom doesn’t smell like much, which is a pleasant surprise.

Daisy says, “I hit a dog with my car on the way here. On purpose. It was tied up in its front yard. I had to drive across the sidewalk to get it. There’s still blood on the grill. I tried to get it off but all I had was my water bottle and some kleenex.”

Daisy says, “I didn’t bury the dog or anything, I just left it there. It didn’t look too much like a dog, I mashed it into the lawn, it was all red and green.”

Daisy says, “the girl who owns it, she’s always stealing my stuff, spreading rumors about me, calling me nasty names. She thinks I’m some kind of Jezebel I guess. And she’s a fucking Christian crusader. That’s not the dog’s fault though.”

Wendy says, “probably not.”

Daisy says, “I’m an awful person.”

Wendy says, “probably not.”

Daisy says, “I’m an awful person.”

Wendy says, “I forgive you.”

At the end of the day, Wendy walks to Mr. Chau’s office. Mr. Chau asks her to sit down and she does. Mr. Chau received an email from his principal identifying Wendy as a student in need of extra attention and care. He isn’t exactly sure how to provide extra attention and care. I’m sorry your boyfriend died, is something he never considers saying. Space in between them simmers and bubbles. Mr. Chau and Wendy are looking at each other. Mr. Chau moves his eyes a centimeter upwards. Now he is looking at a door in a wall. His focus is above the upper rim of his glasses; things blur. Hinges and wood. Wendy says, “last night I watched a spider eat something just outside of my window. It was drinking a bug, it had made the bug into soup. I was thinking that Owen’s like the bug. Which is stupid. Whatever. It’s stupid.” Wendy says, “The bug was pretty, or like, watching it be drained was pretty. These different articulations of its body, this gradual stiffening. And that made it feel ok, that Owen… And then I felt so awful, for thinking about him like that.” Mr. Chau says, “uh.” Wendy wants to say something about love. The word love is stuck in her throat. It feels like glass. Mr. Chau looks down. Then he looks up. He doesn’t know where to put his eyes. Wendy says, “when he was alive you didn’t care about him at all.” Wendy swipes her arm across Mr. Chau’s desk and a lot of things fall and make different loud noises that blend into one loud noise. Mr. Chau says, “ah.” He leans and starts to gather up his pens. Wendy watches him. Mr. Chau says, “I’m sorry.”

Wendy walks out of Mr. Chau’s office and out of George Washington High School. Wendy walks to the bus stop where Jen and August are waiting for her, and she walks past them without slowing down. She walks past the dried blood on the collar of August’s shirt, and past Jen’s rubbed-red eyes, the matching pale reds. She just walks, you know?

On Mr. Chau’s desk, his cell phone vibrates. He looks at it and sees a Grindr notification. The notification is for a message from BEN. The message reads “u coming over jon?” Mr. Chau walks to his red Honda Fit, and when he closes the door his name becomes Jon. Jon opens Grindr and he messages BEN “b there in a couple hours.” BEN’s real name is Ben, Jon hasn’t met him before but they’ve sent each other dick pics. Ben’s got a really big dick. Jon thinks about it while he drives home, in an effort to not think about other things. The drive is quick and beautiful, through a rich neighbourhood where big houses are nestled away behind front gardens. Jon loves the way bits of lives emerge through the various greens. He can see an episode of Jeopardy reflected onto half a ground floor window. Ken Jennings walks into and then back out of a rosebush. The mansions turn into apartment buildings, Jon parks in the back alley behind his.

Jon strips and turns the shower on, steps in before the water has heated up. He feels his body adjust as the water warms. Every part of his body feels hypersensitive. He feels faint in the steam for a moment. There is a bottle of lube and a douche below his shampoo and conditioner; he squeezes a daub of lube onto the nozzle of the douche and fills the bulb with hot water. The nozzle slides into his ass. The water is too hot, for a moment he’s full and burning, he bites his tongue. Rusty brown water runs out of his asshole, and then he fills the bulb again. It takes three times before the water is clear. Then Jon washes his hair, his armpits, and his balls. Shampoo runs down his face and his eyes sting. He leaves the shower, wraps his head in a towel and slowly opens his eyes. The steam has kept the bathroom warm; when he leaves the shock is the same as it was when he stepped into the cold water. He lays a second towel on his bed and lies down.

Ben sent another dick pic while Jon was in the bathroom. This one is even better. The phone camera is positioned at Ben’s thigh, showing the dick erect and leaning easily against a slightly soft belly. The dick is elephantine, and preternaturally curved. It catches the light from what Jon assumes is a window. The pink of the head is gleaming, almost glittery. Jon replies “ 🤤” and closes his phone. He tries to read but thoughts press against his focus. He doesn’t want to think the thoughts. With some effort, he pushes them out of his mind, feels them in his chest and legs. He gets dressed and walks to his car. Ben’s address is somewhere in their Grindr messages. Jon finds it quickly and copies it into Google Maps. It’s a short drive, he’s there half an hour earlier than he intended to be. He considers turning around but decides Ben will like the surprise.

There isn’t much talking when Jon enters Ben’s apartment. Ben’s moustache scratches against Jon’s upper lip. Jon’s clothes come off, his underwear literally torn. As Ben rips his underwear, Jon feels acutely aware of the performance of it. Nothing is done of pure feeling, everything is done with the consideration of the feelings it will provoke. If Ben was really so eager to get to Jon’s cock, he would slide his underwear past his ankles. Tearing them takes longer. Ben pushes Jon onto a bed and so Jon realizes they’re in a bedroom. Ben asks, “do you want to serve me?” Jon nods. Ben says, “I’m your master.” Jon nods. Ben spits on him, and Jon is taut. Ben says, “who am I?” and Jon says, “you’re my master.” Ben stands up and kicks Jon lightly in the balls. Then he kicks him harder, Jon doubles over in pain. And then he unfurls himself, presents himself. He is completely obsequious.

Ben stands on Jon’s balls, Jon rocks his head back so he doesn’t see Ben at all and then rocks his head forwards and sees his calf. His calf is strained. Jon knows that it is straining to hold some of Ben’s body weight off of his testicles, to avoid pain that reaches beyond pleasure. However he wants to believe the inverse, that Ben is grinding his foot into Jon as hard as he can, pushing. He tilts his head up further and looks in his face and allows himself to cry a little. Jon is not exactly pretending but also he’s not exactly crying. His pain is and isn’t a performance, just the same as Ben’s strained calf muscle is and isn’t a performance. Jon coughs, he contorts his body forwards. Ben’s toenails press into the most sensitive parts of his body. Jon’s torso snaps back down, he moans, pain fills his stomach, an ache, emanating from the middle of him. Jon cries again, because he knows Ben likes it.

When Ben turns him over and fucks him it’s a dream. He is everything Ben’s cock wants him to be. Every muscle in his body strains and loses feeling, until all he can feel is his prostate. He groans and Ben’s hand finds his mouth, stops it, like a cork in a wine bottle. His drool drips down Ben’s knuckles. The gag frees him to really scream, he has complete faith in Ben’s fist. The faith is rewarded, the sound that comes out of his mouth is a muffled “ouah.” He screams again and lets his legs slip and buckle, he collapses onto the bed and feels the weight of Ben’s body fall forwards onto him. Jon comes onto Ben’s bed and his own belly. Ben comes and grunts. Ben’s hand slowly slides out of Jon’s mouth and Ben’s come slowly oozes out of his ass. Ben hands him a towel, which he uses. He takes a few deep breaths.

Ben is up and out of bed. “Do you want a glass of water?”

“Do you have tea?” asks Jon.

They walk into the kitchen and Ben fills up the electric kettle. Jon takes his first actual look at the apartment. It’s small, and comfortably decorated. On every wall there’s at least one painting, all the kind of classic domestic or pastoral scene that feels at home in a vintage shop. Above the kettle a bitch tends to her litter. On the adjoining wall a woman sits in a rocking chair with sun on her face. On the wall across from her are two buildings, a barn and a large country home, both painted the same stately off-white. Jon picks a peach tea, and he drinks it quickly, as soon as it’s cool enough to taste. Jon says, “can I tell you a story?”

Ben shrugs. “About yourself?”

Jon says, “yeah, a memoir.”

Ben says, “knock yourself out.”

Jon says, “when I was a sophomore in high school I discovered the word ‘solipsism’ and fell in love with it. I explained that it was the manner by which I interfaced with a thing called God. God was a fullness I couldn’t explain, that condensed at the locuses of sublime experiences. To watch a sun rise from the top of something tall. To feel a man’s hand slide into my underwear. To write something that felt beautiful. The kinds of sublime experiences that introduce a teenager to the idea of feelings beyond words. These, to me, were God, and in being God reflected a deep connection between God’s experience and my experience. The only two things in the world could be me and God, because every other bit of the world felt stuck onto our communication, a universe of moss or dust. And so I was God, my perception created the God-feeling and then the world, and everyone was an aspect of this divine perception. This was true for me and everyone else, is what I believed. It was a seed that would fruit a divine empathy, is what I hoped. My boyfriend at the time saw it more accurately, as an egotistical assumption that nothing existed if I didn’t see it. I was not God or the world, and nothing was interconnected. That night he slept at my parents’ house and he was still angry. I curled my face into his armpit and said ‘I want you to dominate me.’ He slapped my ass and thighs until I felt like I couldn’t walk. He came inside me and I thought ‘I am God and you are God and this is a joining together of our spiritual understandings. When you hit me it’s as though I’m flagellating myself, as though I’m atoning for all the sins in my whole world.’”

Ben says, “and then you broke up,” and Jon says, “yeah, exactly.”

Ben walks Jon to the door and they kiss. Jon knows they won’t see each other again.

Jon Chau gets home and closes his eyes and has a vision. In his vision there is a vast expanse of green grass, wildly overgrown, waving in a light breeze, brushing his shins. He isn’t alone in the grass. Ten feet in front of him, facing him, is Owen’s ghost. Owen’s ghost is over six feet tall and has straw-colored hair. He’s wearing a Drive Like Jehu tank top and black cargo pants. Jon approaches Owen’s ghost and says:

“I know you don’t love me and I never thought you did. But I hoped you thought warmly of me. I thought warmly of you. I remember you wrote something about a Carson McCullers poem that moved me. Mostly, you didn’t try to move me or to do anything else. Not that you were some wellspring of untapped potential. Everyone has beautiful things to say when they try, and most people don’t. Is that a naïve sentiment? Am I too cynical? I can’t let myself be cynical most of the time, because it makes me a bad teacher. And a bad friend, a bad son, bad in bed. But I really think that most people don’t try, because they’re afraid.

“I was one of the people who saw your fucked up face. Before they got you in a bag. What I thought was: that’s one of my potential outcomes. Or even, that’s one of my fantasies. Something that I’m not brave enough for. Come on, laugh at me.” And Owen’s ghost does laugh; he laughs like a gorilla, in quick low bursts. Jon says, “what I keep thinking is, if you don’t love me, who does?” Owen’s ghost laughs again. Jon says, “why did you do it? Did you have a reason?”

Jon has another vision, he’s still in the grass, it still stretches forever, and Owen’s ghost is still across from him. But now Owen’s ghost is walking away and Jon knows that he can’t say anything to him to make him ever turn around. And Ben joins Owen’s ghost, and then other people, and Jon recognizes every one of them by the backs of their heads. They walk away, and they get small, until they form a black mass on the horizon, a row of ants on a wide flat leaf. Then Jon is alone.

Jon has another vision. He’s beset with visions. He can’t bring himself to open his eyes, he watches people drift away from him, lonely Jons bloom and spread over his mind’s eye like algae. His visions become fantasies, and he feels himself becoming bitter. The bitterness rushes through him just like another orgasm. He allows himself to hate, and he does. He has another vision, Owen’s ghost is tied to a rock, and Jon is whipping him with his belt. Owen’s ghost is bleeding. The invisibly blonde hair on his chest is made visible by his blood. Owen’s ghost is stoic and Jon’s arm saws the air until it hurts to lift it. Jon’s eyes open, although he doesn’t want them to.

He wishes anything could really be so simple.

He hums the Carson McCullers poem. Although he assigned it, and loves it, he remembers its shape more than its content. The only lines he has memorized are the final two. He says, “Tonight, this torn room sleeps/Beneath the starlight bent by you.”

Owen’s ghost sat in a patch of grass. He picked blades of grass and braided them into a long rope. The moon was full. There was nobody at George Washington High School. Owen’s ghost liked the empty space. He breathed and the air tasted good. There were a lot of decisions Owen made while he was alive. Owen liked making decisions. Owen’s ghost had never made a decision, there was only one decision he could make. The moonlight was faint, the bright green of the grass was mostly blue and black. This was a very small piece of the world. It was his last piece of the world. He decided not to be a ghost anymore, and then he wasn’t. And all that was left were the grass and the moon, working together to make the color of a bruise.

Huckleberry Shelf is a writer who lives in Chicago. He's had work published in The Baffler, among other magazines.

Instagram: @allyouropenspace