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Scary

Goblin rounds the corner onto Washington Street as the wind whips up with a coming front. Three homeless guys ask him for money on the home stretch to his apartment—even though he’s explained to them every day since he moved to Hoboken from The Forest that his money is different than theirs. The one with schizoaffective disorder assures him they’re the same race. Goblin doesn’t have the energy to argue with him, but as they argue anyway, he sees a cool-looking guy walk past wearing an Evan Kinori piece he’s really wanted ever since he saw it on r/throwingfits and subconsciously decides that this day has dipped below the threshold to officially be considered a bad day.

With a big sigh that blows up his awful leathery green cheeks he swings open the door of his apartment and tosses his backpack down on the vinyl wood floor.

‘Ghoul, are you fucking serious?’

His roommate, Ghoul, is lying on the couch taking a dab out of his expensive rig with an e-nail that his parents unknowingly paid for. On the floor, a Dirty Mountain Dew Baja Midnight from Taco Bell lays on its side spilled out onto the rug that Goblin bought for them at HomeGoods. He rushes over to pull it out of the puddle, but the purple soda has well since soaked in.

‘GhoooUUUL we can’t have fucking anything nice, man, how much of a burnout do you have to be to not even realize there’s an entire drink on the floor?’

‘Burnout? The guy who lost his job tending the livestock because he couldn’t stop snorting hydros wants to talk about burnouts? Hey, how was work today at Amazon you corporate fucking puppet? At least this ‘burnout’ is using his time to do something of substance with his life.’

‘Oh my god, your short stories are dogshit.’

‘Wooow nice, real nice. Hey, dumbfuck, guess whose prose just got accepted by Regurgitation Press today.’

‘Congratulations, and what do they pay? You still haven’t Zelle’d me back for April rent and it’s the fucking seventh.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Whatever?’

‘Whatever.’

‘Typical avoidant bullshit.’

‘Guess what Goblin, your therapist isn’t going to fuck you even if you use her jargon in normal conversations.’

‘I’m not trying to fuck her, and like I even need to? I’m going on two Hinge dates next week?’

‘Maybe one of them will actually show up this time,’ Ghoul mumbles under his breath.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard what I said.’

‘No, I didn’t, could you please speak up I can barely hear you over this fucking Bladee bullshit. You’re twenty-nine years old.’

Ghoul turns off his Bluetooth speaker and scoffs.

‘Because Geese is so much better. So much more age-appropriate.’

‘Cameron Wint—what the fuck did you say about my dates?’

‘I said maybe one of them will actually show up this time.’

‘Jesus Christ. You know what, Ghoul? You know what? Ever since I met you, you have been the most self-absorbed, entitled, rude asshole imaginable. You treat everybody like shit and like, especially women? You cheated on Z̵̾ͅa̵̢͐ḥ̸̬̾t̶̥͔͌ḥ̸̉ṟ̶͇́u̸̮̅̚s̵̯͔̓ạ̷̉ with Kelly and acted like you did nothing wrong because you were ‘off the Xans’ and here you are talking shit about my opioid addiction that I got help for?’

Goblin is aware that his voice is entering the high, choked up register that trying not to cry when he’s already crying produces.

‘And how about making fun of me for getting stood up when you know I’ve been having a hard time with dating? You know I’m self-conscious about my looks and that I took it really hard and here you are twisting the knife just to watch me bleed. Honestly. Honestly? Honestly, if I was your sister, I’d have multiple suicide attempts under my belt too.’

Goblin regrets saying it as soon as he says it, but the words have already left his awful leathery cracked lips. Ghoul’s jaw goes slack and a soul-chilling wave of icy air escapes his cavernous, razor-toothed maw as he glares at Goblin with his abyssal black eyes.

‘Ghoul, I,’

Ghoul punches him right in his nose and storms out of the apartment. Goblin goes down hard and keeps touching his face then looking at his hands to check for blood but there is none, even though it really feels like there is.

When the pain finally starts to subside after twenty minutes, he goes to his room and slams the door. Through tears, he looks at the holographic Daft Punk poster above his direct-to-consumer rubber bed and thinks about how he doesn’t like Daft Punk. He only likes Kanye’s ‘Stronger,’ but of course that has to stay a secret now. He doesn’t even really like music that much. Not lately.

He lies down and starts watching reels. The rain’s arrived and the wind blows it against his window. He wishes he didn’t feel like this all the time. He’s not sure if he wants to move back home to The Forest or if he’s just tired. So tired.

About the artist

Jon Vilardi is a writer and poet from South Florida. He has work forthcoming in Some Words and the Michigan City Review of Books, as well as bad posts forthcoming on Twitter (@jonvilardii) and Instagram (@jonvilardi).