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“Summer Love”

Written By: Julian Lopez – May 2002 ©

You open the screen door to your backyard and step out. The sun greets you, a warm embrace you are glad to receive, but your eyes are more cautious and give a squinted look. Eventually though, as you take a couple steps away from the door, your eyes give in and open up.

A cool breeze gently urges you forward, towards a lawn chair and table waiting for you. You give no resistance and a smile as you are ushered along, a cool wind at your back and the sun walking you along. Your sandals flip flop loudly and your shirt and shorts dancing with the wind.

You reach the table and chair, but before sitting you pause to take a drink. You lift the glass of lemonade you carried out with you and take a sip. The ice chinks against the glass as if were a liquid wind chime. The lemonade is like ambrosia and your taste buds rejoice and urge you to let it linger a second before you swallow it down. When you finish swallowing, you let out an “aah” and set the glass down on the table. The condensation already forming on the outside of the glass.

You slowly sit down and the lawn chair, easing your way down, not wanting to rush anything. You lean back and kick your legs out in front of you. Your eyes drift up to the sky, the sun is too bright, so you raise your hand to shade your eyes. You then look at the cloudless sky which is so blue you think you think if you stare too long at it you might go crazy.

Closing your eyes and relaxing your muscles, you let the summer weather consume you. You can feel the sun’s heat soaking into your skin, warming you in a way nothing else can. Soon you think it’s getting a bit too hot, and then the breeze is back to cool your skin. As it flows over you it feels as if it’s massaging out the heat and you are sure you know what ecstasy is like.

Time ticks by, but you have no knowledge of it. It has stopped for you. All you know is the heat, the cool, the birds talking back and forth in the trees around you, and the cool lemonade sitting at arm’s lenght away from you. Your worries and tensions of the world have been melted away by the sun, and life is good.

Suddenly you feel something big and furry rest on your leg. You peek open one eye and look down to see your best friend laying his head on your lap, staring up at you. Although he’s in full adulthood, he’s still got those puppy dog eyes that beg to be loved and you just can’t resist. You stretch out your hand, which he licks lovingly. You then gently pet his soft fur, scratching him behind his ears and on his chest. You close your eyes again, as you continue to pet him, and you can hear is tail thumping against the ground as he wags it merrily.

You are in Heaven, along with your companion, at least for the moments time. But to you it last an enternity. This is summer, this is love.

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“Revenge”

Written By: Julian Lopez – April 2002 ©

“I hate this!” Johnny yelled, slamming his book shut. “Who needs Algebra anyway?” He walked over to his bed and laid there. As he laid there, he mumbled to himself about the preposterous amount of pointless information given to him.
Pap pap pap!
At first Johnny dismissed this as just a random noise outside. Then he heard it again. Pap pap! This time it commanded more attention. It had come from his baby brother’s room. It sounded like a cap gun firing, but quieter and muffled. Johnny got up and walked down the hall. Then Peter, his one-year-old brother, began to cry.
Johnny hated it when Peter cried. That steady wail could drive a person insane. He opened Peter’s room door, and both sounds were immediately amplified. He walked over to the crib and saw Peter, flailing his arms and legs about helplessly.
“I wish Mom or Dad was here, then I wouldn’t have to put up with this.” Johnny sighed. He then noticed something odd about Peter, his arms, legs, and face was covered with tiny red dots. It looked as if he had been repeatedly jabbed with pins. Johnny bent over to pick Peter up, but was stopped by a sudden sting on his ear. “Ow!” Johnny wheeled around and looked to see who had done that. On the shelf there was a lone toy standing there. “What the?” Johnny said quizzically. He looked closer to see it was his favorite GI Joe, “Snake Eyes,” holding a toy pistol. “How did you get here?” He asked rhetorically.
Johnny turned back around, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a quick movement. He quickly spun back to the action figure. Was the gun raised just a second ago, Johnny asked himself. He could have sworn it had been lowered. “Oh, well. Maybe I shouldn’t have seen ‘The Shining’ earlier.
He looked back at Peter. Peter seemed to have cried himself to sleep. That solved that problem, Johnny thought. Before looking away he observed another GI Joe lying in the crib. This one was “Night Crawler.” This one also had a tiny toy pistol. Peter had obviously dismembered this one he thought. Only the head and one arm was left. Johnny stepped closer to get it when he stepped on something. He looked down and there were many more of his GI Joes lying on the ground, also broken apart.
“Man, he’s been at my toys again. I’m going to have to talk to Mom again. I don’t know why she lets him get them.” Johnny moaned. He looked back at “Snake Eyes” and sighed. “Well, at least he didn’t get this one.
Suddenly the figure moved and pointed the gun at Johnny. Pap pap pap!  More tiny stings assaulted Johnny’s face. Then the GI Joe whistled. “I’ve got to be…” Johnny was cut off as the figure jumped onto his shirt. It was now wielding a knife, and stabbed his shirt. “Ouch!” Johnny yelled out as the toy cut his chest with that tiny knife. He tried to bat it away but it clung on tight. Without warning more GI Joes jumped on him. Johnny was now running around the room screaming in pain as hundreds of his own toys now slowly ripped away parts of his skin. Peter had, without Johnny noticing, been choked to death by more figures.
Johnny stumbled out of the room, bleeding profusely from thousand of tiny incisions about his body.
“Help! Help me!” Johnny cried as he ran to the stairs. More figures were waiting at the edge of the stairs. As Johnny clamored toward the stairway, the figures there pulled a tiny string taut. Johnny tripped over the string and for a split second, felt he was flying. He then tumbled down the stairs, rolling head over heels. When he hit the bottom, there was a loud snap as his neck broke.
Johnny’s last fading moments of consciousness saw the toys run and take ambush positions as Johnny’s parents stepped through the door.

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“Tuned In”

Written By: Julian Lopez – April 2002 ©

Martha glanced casually over at Tim. He sat there in front of the TV watching Barney sing and dance. “It’s amazing how some idiot show could mesmerize kids today,” She thought to herself, then went back to making dinner.
“Timmy,” she called, “Come here a second.” She waited to hear him get up and come over, but was given no such answer. “Timothy Andrew Peterson. I called you and now you better get moving”. She was now a little angry by his disobedience and even angrier when her favorite command didn’t work.
“Why isn’t he coming?” she wondered. “He always comes after that, but now he’s ignoring me.” She tried to look out the door but the couch blocked her view.
“You better hurry yourself over here, before I have to come get you.” Still no answer. “That’s it, this food can wait.” She shut the oven and walked to the front room. “Here I come.”
She looked at the floor and saw nothing. “Oh no, where is he off to now?” She whined. She slowly walked around the front room, checking all the nooks and crannies he could have crawled into. After she finished searching the front room, Martha moved on to the rest of the house.
“Timmy, where are you? Timmy?” She called, hoping for him to answer. When none came, panic had set in. She was now running through the house, looking frantically for Tim. She had turned the house upside down after a few frenzied minutes of looking for her child. Martha now walked slowly over to the front couch.
“What happened? He couldn’t have just disappeared like that.” She slammed her fist on the couch in frustration. “I had just seen him, right here. Where did he go?” She looked back over to the TV. Barney was still singing, and the camera slowly panned out away from his face.
“Won’t you just shut up already?” She picked up the remote and fumbled for the off button. Before she found it the camera was aimed at the kids. One of which, looked exactly like Tim. The camera zoomed in on that child and he looked right at the camera. With horrific realization she saw it actually was her own little Timmy. He waved to her and mouthed out the words: “Hi mom.”
“This can’t be! It can’t be Tim! No no no! Not him!” She cried, but she knew she was fooling herself. The camera once again was zoomed in on Barney. But now he wasn’t just laughing, he was laughing at her. Then he looked at her and sang,

“I love you, you love me, and now I have your Timothy!”

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“Just My Imagination”

Written By: Julian Lopez – April 2002 ©
(This poem is written in Shakespearean Sonnet form)

Over in the rural town of Daybeach
Lived a monster beyond comprehension
The lives taken with warning to teach
The monster was their imagination
Their worst nightmares and deepest fears came to life
There was no changing the evil curse there
Set by a magician killed with his wife
Now all the town’s people must now beware
The Boogeyman is real to these young kids
Unthinkable beasts prowl the streets at night
The screams at night can be capped by no lids
The people haunted by demons, can not fight
There is no escape from this eternal hell
And no hope to ever break this evil spell

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