She was alone

And no one could touch her.

She was in flames

And her skin began to erode.

She bared a smile 

And it struck fear within us. 

Her pink polka dot dress was engulfed

And the flames turned it to ash. 

Her breasts charred 

And it didn’t bother her a bit. 

She was now bare

And her bones displayed her true fragile frame. 

She clutched at her rib cage

And her skeleton fingers pressed upon her still beating heart.

Her distal phalanges pierced into her heart 

And blood pooled beneath her.

She stood still

And the fire died.

She was now just a burnt frame

And the fragility within her was now gone.  

Polka Dot by Memo Masso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverpandering.tumblr.com.

The sun shined brightly upon the patio where Albert and Miguel both sat in their wheel chairs. Both of them looking across the road unto a middle school which had been rebuilt fairly recently. Across that said road they could see young teenagers laughing and horsing around, the exuberance of youth a nostalgic delight now lost to these two old men.

Valley Grand Manor was their home now. They had both been placed there because their families just couldn’t manage taking care of them and found that a nursing home was more adequate.

            Miguel was seventy nine; a rather short man who once ran a respectable factory back in his day, over the years he grew too tired to work and retired fairly late in his life. The years of hard work caught up to him and in a few years’ time he couldn’t walk anymore.

Albert wasn’t that different from Miguel. Albert worked in a German auto factory for the better part of his adult life also but had to become a janitor in order to work within the US where his children went to school. For many years Albert kept working but retired early due to severe back pain he had acquired on his job as a janitor.

As age began to take its toll on Albert he begged his children to place him in a nursing home once he became too old, they rejected the idea at first but knew they had no other choice. None of them could take time out of their schedules in order to properly take care of him. In the end they placed him in Valley Grand Manor and seldom visited him. 

School buses began to arrive in front of the middle school and teens began to amass within each one of them. Once they were filled the buses would slowly departure into the distance.

“Miguel, you awake?” asked Albert in a rather loud tone.

“Yeah.” Replied Miguel loudly.

“Never in my life have I seen so many children go to school at once, not even in my day. Back when I was their age my dad would say school wasn’t important, but working to feed your family was!” Albert said.

“For me school wasn’t an option. My father was always drunk. My mom worked as a cleaning lady but she never seemed to bring enough money and sometimes he’d hit her. It was terrible, so I decided to find a job to help out. Sometimes I would be running errands or picking crops, anything really just to pay for his booze and keep him from hurting my mom.”

Miguel then got a tissue and blew his nose loudly, he sat there looking at the breeze slowly pass through the trees and cause a flock of birds to fly off into the sky.

“No kidding. How long did that go on for?” Albert asked while placing his glasses on.

“Nine years. I was a teenager with without an education who worked his fingers to the bone for a useless father. Every time I would come home he would ask me for money and without a second thought I would just give him my earnings and he would waste it all at a bar somewhere. During the winters my mom would get extremely sick and I would have to work at night to pay for her medicine, one time I came home early in the morning and he was there waiting for me. He kept shoving me to give him the money I made and I told him I needed to check on my mom. He became infuriated and rushed into my mother’s room. He grabbed her by the hair and began yelling at her at the top of his lungs. She began crying and told me to give him all the money I made, I did as she said and he left cursing both my mother and I out as he left.”

Miguel kept a blank stare as he told his story to Albert. Albert on the other hand was surprised by Miguel’s composure in the retelling of his childhood.

“So what happened to your mother?” Albert asked wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.

“She passed away a week later. I didn’t have any money to pay for medicine and she grew more and more sick. The way I found out was really horrible. I had just gotten home from cleaning a school all night and I bought medicine on my way home in hope that it would relieve some of her symptoms. Upon entering the door I saw my father on the couch slouched over with his hands covering his face, he was crying. ‘Your mother is dead…’ he said blubbering. ‘Why didn’t you buy her medicine like you said you would?’

“At that moment I felt like I was about to murder him. Suddenly he began to care when it was too late to do anything and he made me out to be the selfish one. In the end I didn’t do a damn thing. I just went into her room and noticed that she had been taken away. So I laid in her bed and cried.”

Albert let out a deep sigh and just scratched the little bit of hair that remained at the top of his head. A minibus stopped by the nursing home right in front of the patio where Miguel and Albert sat and dropped off a new resident. Albert waved but Miguel did not.

“What did you do after your mom passed?”

Miguel then began tapping his index finger and seemed to have paused for a moment to gather his thoughts.

“Well, I had to continue working. My father and I couldn’t afford a funeral so we had my mom cremated and I spilled her ashes by the ocean without him knowing. By the time I was nineteen some friends of mine began teaching me how to fix up cars and in a couple of years that became my job for a while.”

“And what became of your dad?” Albert asked with interest.

“I let him die.” Miguel said coughing up some phlegm into his tissue.

Albert looked at him with confusion and shock.

“Did you finally snap one day? What did he do?”

Miguel wiped his eyes and coughed to clear his throat.

“He did a lot. One night I came home from working at the auto repair shop and noticed him on the recliner chair. He had his right hand gripping onto his chest right where his heart was and he was trying to reach the telephone with his left hand. Instead of calling for an ambulance I moved the phone further away from him. Then I reclined his chair so he would be lying flat on his back and all his weight could crush his already dying heart. I left the house that night again for a long while before I came back and found him dead with his right hand still over his chest and foam over his mouth. Only then did I call for an ambulance.”

“Do you think he deserved that?” Albert asked concerned.

“He deserved worse, but the Reaper had different plans for him.”

Miguel again cleared throat and wiped some sweat off of his brow with the same tissue he had used before.

“What about you Albert, was your father an awful man also?”

“No, my dad was hard working but he didn’t have much time to acknowledge all of us. There were fifteen of us in total and he worked all the time to keep us fed. He never hit my mom but he did beat us if we gave trouble.” Albert then began coughing into his handkerchief.

“So you lived a good life with no trouble, huh.” Miguel said in a contemptuous manner.

“No. My former wife caused me a ton of problems.” Albert said.

“Well spit it out, what did the old bag do to you.” Miguel said without restraint.

“She never grew to be old. She died right about the time my children were graduating from college.”

Albert paused for a second and began coughing again. As he wiped his face a truck had parked in the nursing homes parking lot and a family got out and entered the nursing home.

“It must be nice to be visited…” Albert said to himself. “Anyways, my wife began cheating on me when our kids entered college. I didn’t find out right away but I began to suspect a year later when someone kept calling my house phone and suddenly not being there if I answered.

“At first I was none the wiser but then my wife told me one day to not open the house door for anyone. I kept asking her why but she wouldn’t tell me. Then someone knocked on our door and I went to open it. A white guy about six feet tall began to shove me and ask me what I was doing with his woman. By that point I was really confused. What the hell did he mean ‘his woman’? Then I tried keeping him from pushing me and he took a swing at me. He got me right in the arm and although it hurt I took a swing myself. I hooked him right in the jaw and the guy just crumbled. My wife then ran to him and began yelling at me not to hurt him anymore. And that’s when it hit me. She had been cheating on me while I was working my bones to dust as a janitor and now she was cradling the idiot on her lap while he was injured.

“Needless to say we divorced and she ended up getting the short end of the stick. Do I regret leaving her? No, but I do regret not being lucky enough to find another pretty woman like her though”

Albert began to laugh deeply and it caused him to cough a bit.

Miguel looked over to Albert, “So you said she never got old. What killed her?” he asked.

“They found her cut up in a bathtub. According to the police the white guy she was with was a former mental patient who had been reformed but had bouts with psychosis.  They told me one night he just lost it and killed her. They arrested him but he didn’t remember doing anything. I didn’t tell my children about their mom’s death until after they finished college. I knew it would have devastated them so I kept it a secret for about three months.”

Albert’s expression changed and instead of looking outwards he began to look at the floor of the patio. Miguel then moved his wheelchair closer to Albert and patted his back slowly.

“You know,” said Miguel. “When my mother was still alive she would always have this saying when she was sick. ‘You won’t get me today Reaper, not today.’ It always stuck with me and even now I say it. We’ve both had it rough, but it is the difficult times that shaped us into the men we are. Don’t forget about that Albert. No matter how bad it gets, today wasn’t the day the Reaper came for us.”

Albert gave an acknowledging nod and looked outward towards the middle school. In the distance he could see a boy holding a girls hand as they sat quietly baking in the evening sun. Albert couldn’t help but think that nothing stood in the way of their innocence and no circumstances were causing them to grow up faster than they already were. In that moment they were faultless. In that moment they were eternal. 

Mephistopheles by Memo Masso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverpandering.tumblr.com.

              Tall timbers surround the coastal prairie of Palo Alto and the surrounding terrain is covered in slowly descending cannon smoke. The ground ceases to rumble as cannon fire subsides and from a distance the sounds of injured Mexican soldiers could be heard.

            Soldado Altomundo had been instructed to search for the wounded and assist them towards the infirmary tent as soon as possible. Having survived the grueling battle, he soon began to feel guilty after realizing the many that lay dead were younger or of his age. Disregarding this fact he took count of the dead while assisting the wounded towards medical help.

            The sun began to set and Altomundo had rounded up nearly forty wounded men. Feeling exhausted he sat on the dried grass beneath him and took out a small wooden case with tobacco and papers. He slowly rolled himself a cigar and lit a match with the heel of his boot. As he sat and looked upon the battle weary prairie he would inhale slowly and exhale in deep sighs. How could have the situation escalated so quickly he’d ask himself as he blew plumes of smoke from his cigar.

            Feeling like he sat long enough he stood and began to head towards the now retreating Mexican camp. While on his way towards the encampment Altomundo noticed from a distance that a man was pulling himself upon the grass using only his right hand. After realizing that the soldier was wearing a Mexican uniform he immediately ran towards the struggling figure. Upon arrival the man had ceased to move and was now on his back breathing heavily.

“You’ll be alright; I’ll carry you towards the infirmary!” Altomundo said trying his hardest to sound reassuring to his fellow brother in arms.

“You’d be wasting your damn time.” said the Mexican soldier as he struggled to say his piece.

“But it’s my duty, you’re injured.” Altomundo replied as he noticed the soldiers left arm had been blown off. “I can’t leave you here you will die.”

“I knew I was going to die today.” said the soldier while trying to reach for something within his satchel.

“Here, make sure this gets to my wife…” the soldier said out of breath.

Altomundo reached towards to grab the letter. Suddenly the soldier’s right arm collapsed onto the ground and Altomundo knew in that instance that the soldier had died.

Before leaving the body Altomundo put his hands together and said a quick prayer for the now deceased soldier. Once he finished, he looked at the envelope and noticed an address and the name of an Esperanza Gonzalez written on it. The address was to the south of Brownsville, a city no less than ten miles away from where he was currently.

Altomundo knew Commander Arista would be withdrawing the troops towards Resaca de la Palma in a day’s time. With his mind made up he took his horse and rode towards Brownsville to grant a dead man’s request knowing well enough he was momentarily deserting his army in doing so.

Nightfall came sooner than expected and Altomundo was close to arriving at the address on the letter. Fearing what the wife of the dead soldier might do upon reading her dead husband’s letter, he then began to imagine possible scenarios of what might occur. He first imagined that she might pass out due to shock and he would have to catch her or either she’d begin to cry and he would have to find someone to take care of her while she grieved. Every situation he would imagine involved him being able to deliver the news quickly and head back to the battlefield before anyone could notice.

Once he arrived at the home of the address written upon the envelope, Altomundo got off his horse and approached the front door. As he knocked he hoped that in delivering the letter he would be able allowed to leave. The door opened but to Altomundo’s surprise it was a little boy who had answered.

“Who are you?” asked the little boy looking up.

“I’m Esposito Altomundo, a soldier for the Mexican army. Is your mother home by any chance?” he asked trying his best not to sound surprised by the little boys presence.

“Mama, someone’s asking for you.” Said the little boy as he walked away leaving the door open.

Not having imagined that a kid would be involved, Altomundo began to fear for how the soldier’s wife might react and soon realized he might not have the chance to head towards the Resaca de la Palma encampment.

“Hello, how may I help you sir?” asked a woman now standing by the door.

“I have a letter for you Mrs. Gonzalez, from your husband.” Altomundo replied, hoping that would be the end of the conversation.

“Oh, excuse my manners you must have rode a long distance to deliver his letter. Please come in.” offered Mrs. Gonzalez, opening the front door of her home and motioning towards her small living room.

Altomundo knew that he would not have an opportunity to head back and thus entered the small home.

“Thank you ma’am, I greatly appreciate it.” Said Altomundo as he sat on a wooden chair and took a drink from his canteen.

“My husband had mentioned in his last letter that he would write us soon, but it has been a couple of months since he has. I hope he’s alright.” Said Mrs. Gonzalez as she tore open the envelope and took out the letter within it.

Altomundo felt his stomach sink as he saw as Mrs. Gonzalez eyes began to get teary.

“This is a joke right? Miguel wouldn’t just…I mean, he promised us he’d come back…” Mrs. Gonzalez fell unto her knees and began to cry.

Altomundo stood from his chair and noticed that her son came out from a different room and headed towards her. He began to hug her with his small arms trying his best to comfort her.

“Mama, please don’t cry. What’s wrong mama?” he asked.

“Everything will be okay…I promise.” Mrs. Gonzalez told her son as she took him in her arms and hugged him back as she sobbed.

Altomundo felt he was intruding on the moment of grief and began to walk towards the door.

“Please don’t leave.” Said Mrs. Gonzalez as she let go of her son and stood up from the wooden floor. “You went out of your way to deliver this letter to us, please rest. It is the least we can offer.”

“I don’t mean to intrude Mrs. Gonzalez,” Replied Altomundo.

“You are not intruding. What’s your name sir?” she asked while directing her son to go back into the other room.

“Esposito, Esposito Altomundo. That’s my birth name ma’am.”

“Call me Esperanza, please. Did you get to meet my husband?”

“Yes I did. He was a brave man even while facing death.”

Esperanza smiled at this, knowing well that her husband had always been a proud man and would never have admitted to fearing death.

“That sounds like my Miguel, always a fighter. Was his last request for you to deliver the letter to me?”

“Yes ma’am. I took it upon myself to come here to Brownsville to deliver it personally.”

“I appreciate that Esposito, thank you.”

Esperanza now gave a weak smile and began to head towards the room her son was in. She soon came out with a blanket and a small pillow in hand.

“You may spend the night here. It’s late and I’m sure you will need full nights rest if you want to fight this war at full strength tomorrow.” Said Esperanza as she unfolded the blanket on the floor and gave the pillow to Esposito.

“Thank you.” Esposito replied having no choice but to take up her offer.

That night as Esposito lied on the living room floor about to sleep; he felt a sense of relief having been able to fulfill a dead man’s last request knowing well enough he had no obligation to do so.

Morning soon came and someone began to knock on Esperanza’s front door. Altomundo was awoken abruptly by the noise and realized no one was answering. Instead of bothering Esperanza he headed towards the door and answered it himself. A Mexican man stood at the other side, wearing a Mexican army uniform which had visible signs of battle damage.

“Who are you?” asked the soldier surprised by Altomundo’s presence.   

“I am Esposito Altomundo. Is there something I can assist you with?” Altomundo replied as he noticed the sweat upon the soldier’s brow.

“I’m here for Esperanza. My brother Miguel died in Palo Alto so I’m here to take his place!” said the soldier with a loud boom.

Suddenly Esperanza appeared behind Esposito and the soldier barged in through the door pushing Esposito out of the way.

“Tuco, why are you here?” said Esperanza in a frightened tone.

“I’m here to make you my woman. Miguel has died and now nothing can stand between us.” said Tuco displaying a toothy grin.

“Sir, the lady has just lost her husband show some respect.” Altomundo said to Tuco as he stood between him and Esperanza.

“She may have lost her husband but I lost my brother. Now I am here just to care for the spoils of war.” Tuco said as he began to pull at a leather lanyard within his trousers to reveal a revolver.

“Uncle is that you?” Esperanza’s son said as he walked into the room rubbing his eyes.

“Miguelito, how are you my little nephew?” Tuco said loudly as he placed the revolver back into his trousers and hugged his nephew.

“Mama is uncle going to stay with us?” Miguelito asked his mother as she stood with a hand over her mouth.

“Of course I am! Your mama doesn’t want me to ever leave, isn’t that right Esperanza?” Tuco said displaying the same grin as before.

“Sir, this is unacceptable please leave.” Altomundo said demandingly.

Tuco suddenly took out his revolver again and placed it upon Miguelito’s head.

“As you wish my friend,” said Tuco as he lifted Miguelito with the revolver still pressed unto his head.

Tuco then proceeded to walk out the front door unto the dirt road in front of Esperanza’s small home.

“Don’t hurt my son!” yelled Esperanza in absolute distraught.

Not listening to what Esperanza had said Tuco then let go Miguelito and let him fall onto the dirt road.

“Mama, help me!” Miguelito said in pain as he lay on the dirt floor.

Altomundo then walked onto the dirt path as well, holding onto his revolver which was still within its holster.  

“Sir, I won’t say this twice. Leave that child alone.” Altomundo said with great severity.

“No.” said Tuco as he placed his boot over Miguelito’s head and began to press down.

Miguelito began to scream, “It hurts! Stop! Please!”

 Esperanza then began to yell also, “No, please stop!”

Esposito in that moment unholstered his revolver and aimed it towards Tuco’s head.

“If you shoot me, I’ll shoot the kid.” said Tuco knowing that Altomundo was aiming with intention to kill.

“It does not have to end like this Tuco!” Altomundo said nervously.  

A revolver went off and frightened birds flew out of the surrounding trees. Altomundo’s horse whinnied as it lifted its legs off the ground in fear and Altomundo stood trembling as he saw Tuco shoot Miguelito in the head. 

“No! Miguelito, no, please God no!” Esperanza screamed as she ran towards her son.

Tuco then turned towards Esperanza as she ran to her son and he shot her three times upon the abdomen. She immediately collapsed onto her side and began holding her stomach tightly.

“Esperanza, I am going to miss you.” Tuco said as he looked at Esperanza as she writhed in agony and blood began to seep through her fingers.

Altomundo snapped out of the shock he was in and aimed towards. Tuco caught sight of Altomundo as he was aiming and shot a round at him. Altomundo got hit on his left shoulder but regardless of the injury his aim remained true and the round he shot caught Tuco right in the throat.

Tuco gripped onto his neck and blood ran through his fingers as he fell over. Altomundo ran towards Esperanza and cradled her head into his arms. 

“Esperanza! Esperanza!” Altomundo began to yell. Esperanza’s body remained still and Altomundo soon realized she was gone as well.

Taking care not to disturb her body he laid her back on the dirt ground. Altomundo then stood and walked towards Tuco who was still alive but losing consciousness from all the blood he had lost. Tuco tried aiming his revolver at Altomundo but could not lift it for he was too weak.

Altomundo then stood over Tuco’s body and pressed his boot over his head.

“You deserved much worse.” Altomundo said pointing the barrel of his revolver towards Tuco’s head. In that instant he decided not to shoot. Instead he placed his revolver back into its holster and took his boot off of Tuco’s head.

Altomundo stood for a second and glanced at the devastation that surrounded him. Flies swarmed over the bodies and all Altomundo could do was place blankets over the corpses. Feeling guilty once more, he rode his horse towards town to buy a shovel in hopes of burying the dead who now littered the dirt road. 

il buono by Memo Masso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverpandering.tumblr.com.

Well I began writing as Moody just to keep some anonymity. It didn’t end up working out so I began to use my real name, Memo. To be honest my writing tendencies change every day and although I worked under a pseudonym that didn’t seem to affect the way I’d come about creating something. I’ll be posting two short stories tonight so you will be able to read more, hope you enjoy them.    

Thank you for following and enjoying my writing. And there is no reason for the way my stories are. They simply are. Personally all my stories are created late at night and usually I take less than thirty minutes to create them. From a writing standpoint my stories just answer the two most important questions in literature, ‘what?’ and ‘why?’. Answer those and you’ll have a million dollar story.

I don’t have favorites. 

The color in her eyes began to fade. 

She became limp,

And her body collided onto the ground. 

No amount of noise could wake her. 

No amount of care could bring her back. 

Her heart strings could not support the burden. 

Pop. 

They snapped. 

The once delicate warmth she held had begun to fade. 

Her fingers became stiff as I held her hand. 

Eyes wide open she stared at an empty street. 

Her head began to bleed as she laid dead.

Hemorrhaged emotions and bare regret now plagued me. 

Mortis; She died from lack of love. 

The rigor of my laments knew no bounds. 

Time stood still

And her tears froze above the icy concrete ground. 

Ἀφροδίτη by Memo Masso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverpandering.tumblr.com.

A woman with a red blouse smiles at me.

I smile back.

She approaches me and tells me her name.

Her words are transparent. 

I forget her name.

She kisses me.

Her lips are gentle,

But her soul is corrupt. 

She asks me to join her.

I do.

We walk into an empty alley. 

She then takes out a pistol and points it at me.

She tells me her name again. 

It remains transparent. 

Then she kills me.

My Brain matter paints the concrete walls.

She disappears. 

1029123921-093-1093  by Memo Masso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverpandering.tumblr.com.

You don’t matter. 

Everything you are is meaningless. 

You

             are

                               ugly. 

Every part of you will fade away.

Nothing of you is worth saving. 

Just please slip away.

I’ll watch you fall apart.

I’ll let you fall apart. 

No one understands you,

And no one cares to. 

It is too late for you. 

I will let you fall apart. 

I want you to fall apart. 

Find someplace so you can hide. 

To keep them from being on your side. 

Fragile little girl you’re nothing but glass. 

A simple crack and you’ll shatter into pieces. 

I want you to fall apart. 

I will see you fall apart. 

Ugliness by Memo Masso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverpandering.tumblr.com.

You are just a memory. 

A fading fragment of what could be. 

And now it’s hard figure out what’s real. 

I escape when I can, 

But I find myself thinking of you again,

                                                         And again,

                                                                             And again. 

If only I could break away from you,

But you’re still inside me. 

softly fade away by Memo Masso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverpandering.tumblr.com.