The Ear THIEVES

Garrett woke up every day at five and drove to Cambridge High, where he taught as a mean biology teacher, famous for collecting and pickling dead cow fetuses for the class.  His favorite food was steak, which he now never ate because of all the health complications (like high blood pressure from a large temper) that came along with his hulking body.  Routinely at ten o’ clock, he would sleep, just as he did that Friday night, sprawled across his large bed.  Garrett closed his eyes and started to snore.

    The scent of roses filled his nose so suddenly that he sat up straight in bed, eyelids flung open.  Only he wasn’t sitting on his bed.  The cushy green stuff he sat on was a perfectly clipped grass lawn that stretched out as far as he could see.  The grass was paired well against a vivid blue expanse of sky. Sticking up in the lawn at random patches were vibrant, exotic flowers.  The most noticeable patch of flowers had striking orange and yellow swirls on their petals.  

He watched, amazed, as a hummingbird zipped its delicate beak in one of the flowers.  There was a sucking sound and the hummingbird disappeared in the flower.  The flower had a little bulge in the petals before the bulge traveled into the stem and disappeared.  The beautiful flower grew a little taller and brighter than its neighboring flowers and it wasn’t long before two more hummingbirds were attracted to its larger petals.  Garrett watched, amazed, as the flower opened up innocently and swallowed them.  There was a surreal and unsettling feel to the garden.  The strange flowers were slightly oddly shaped, like curled shells or maybe ears.  The flowers weren’t grown in dirt, but stuck in the grass like sticks.  Garrett could feel a cool breeze on his cheeks, but neither the grass nor the flowers waved in the wind.  

    Snip.  Snip.  Garret looked up.  A tall guy in a realistic Big Bird costume stood above him.  The Big Bird was holding a pair of black, wickedly curve bladed scissors.  

     “Uh, hi,” Garrett said.  Garrett noticed that his voice sounded different, higher.

    “Gremeeble,” said Big Bird in a strange falsetto.  

    “Yeah okay,” Garrett replied nervously, eyeing the sharp scissors.  The bird seemed to notice this and snapped the scissors in front of his face in a fluid, sudden movement.  Garrett instinctively whipped his head back.

    “Heeehee.  Heeehee,” the bird chuckled.  His head bobbed up and down as he laughed, but his eyes stayed wide open, perfect circles.  Garrett stood up to face the bird.  He wanted to say ‘take off that stupid costume and tell me where I am,’ but when he realized the bird was at least a head taller than he and still laughing crazily (“heeeheeheeehee”), Garrett took off and ran.  That Big Bird was one creepy dude.

    Garret was out of breath by the time the grass lawn was replaced by a rocky tile floor.  The tiles felt cool beneath his bare feet.  Up ahead was a castle; white, with red roofs.  It took another few minutes before Garrett was right in front of the white castle wall.  He saw a wooden door in the side of the castle and went in.  Maybe whoever lived inside could tell him how he got in this messed up place and where he was.  The inside of the castle looked surprisingly like his elementary school he went to when he was little.  The rubber floors were tiled grey and white and the halls were lined with drab lockers.

 “It looks like my old school,” he thought.  “Weird,” he said aloud, trying to comfort himself with his own voice.  It echoed back down the long hall; “eird eird eird…”  Garrett gave a nervous giggle, trying to break the silence.  His echo had sounded like it was saying ear, ear, ear.   He kept walking until the long hallway abruptly stopped.  

There was a white wall, mostly covered by an oval, framed mirror.  In the mirror Garrett could see his reflection.  He saw a skinny boy with spiky black hair wearing the pajamas (now oversized) he had worn before he’d fallen asleep.  He looked twelve.  He was twelve.  Garrett gasped, but he supposed he shouldn’t be so surprised.  He had been shorter than the Big Bird, which should have told him already that something was up.  When he was his regular adult age, nobody he met was taller than him.  Now, as a tiny twelve year old kid, he was just a puny five feet.  His thoughts sounded different, too.  “What kind of adult thinks like I do, right now? I even sound like a twelve year old.”

Suddenly, there was a SLAM.  Then a lot of SLAMs.  SLAM SLAM SLAMSLAMSLAM.  Garrett heard the door next to him labeled PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE open and shut by itself.  “Hello?” he called out uncertainly.  “Anybody there?”  He took a deep breath and braced himself for what was about to come, thinking, “Going in the principals’ office was stupid when I was a kid, and now I’m doing it as an adult (or sort of adult)? I must be crazy.  Or desperate to get out of here.  Hopefully the person inside knows where I am.  Hopefully it’s not another Big Bird.” Garrett walked in.
The inside of the office looked exactly as he remembered it from the many trips there as a kid for punching back when the others picked on him for his size.  

“Come in, Mr. Martinez,” said a voice from behind the plastic desk.  The man was sitting on a black leather swivel chair with the back facing Garrett, so Garrett couldn’t see him.  

“Principal Tadlock?” Garrett asked, disliking the little shake in his voice.  The chair swiveled around, and Garrett saw his principal, looking as Garrett had remembered him exactly, with his almost bald forehead, little short sprinkles of white hair here and there, grey eyes, white skin, and thin, thin lips.  The principal was wearing a black tie and white smile that didn’t crinkle his eyes but crinkled his raw pink forehead somehow, so he looked sort of like a smiling, really wrinkly, really old baby.  

“Mr. Martinez, I saw from my office window that you were, ah, aggravating our dear gardener while he was working on the lawn.  It seems to me that you wanted to pick a fight.” Principal Tadlock said this perfectly calmly, as he always started out his meetings with him when he was in grade school.  Garrett looked around the office.  It had a lot of things, like black and grey swivel chairs and metal filing cabinets, but no windows.  Principal Tadlock was still smiling that creepy old baby smile, so Garrett didn’t mention it.  

“You mean Big Bird?” Garrett blurted.  The principals’ smile disappeared. Garrett wondered if that was a bad thing.  It felt like a bad thing.

“You mean our gardener, Vulture? He’s rather sensitive about the name ‘Big Bird,’ as it does give quite a false image.  I would suggest you not mention that name again.  Two strikes and you’re out.  He has pretty good hearing, so I’m sure he heard you call him Big Bird.  This is strike one.” The principal held up one finger to emphasize.  Then he made the finger go across his throat in a slit motion, like a knife.  He popped one bleary gray eyeball out his socket and made a choking noise, like he was dying.  Garret wanted to throw up. The eyeball was veined and glistening, like a slimy white ball of mucus.

“Oh, sorry, I mean, I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry.” Garrett was sorry for ever coming here in the first place.  How did he get here, anyways? He felt so trapped.  And what did the principal mean, two strikes, you’re out?  Wasn’t it supposed to be three?

“What are you apologizing to me for? Go apologize to Vulture.”  The principals’ smile was back.  Garrett didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.  It didn’t feel like a good thing.  

“Yeah, okay, I’ll do that.” The principal nodded his head and turned sideways to swivel back around in his chair, showing his left profile.  Garrett saw the side of Tadlock’s head and slowly backed out of the office.  His legs felt shaky.  The principal had an extra, smaller ear on the left side of his head.

Garrett took a few steps down the hall with his wobbly, weak legs.  He was sure he had never been more freaked out in his life.  Three ears? That was so weird.  Then he was reminded of the echo he had heard when he said weird in the hall (ear, ear, ear…) and gave a tremendous shudder from his eyebrows to his toes.  Maybe if he kept walking around and avoiding people and yellow birds, he would find his way home.  

Garrett walked straight down the hallway the opposite way he had come, when the hall ended again at the white wall with the oval mirror.  “Hm. Weird.”  He turned and walked the other way, but he was soon blocked again by the wall and mirror.  “Eh, what? No!”  He felt a helpless anger bubbling up in his stomach.  He hated feeling trapped.  Hated being treated like a stupid kid by a principal again.  Hated being a stupid kid again.  Hated this stupid wall. “No! You stupid, stupid wall! Get away from me!” his yell turned into a scream as he started kicking the wall, bucking back and forth.  “Get out of the way, dreams aren’t this fucking real, get out, get out, get-” his kicking foot went through the mirror like it was made of liquid (his eyes widened when he saw his foot go through) and the kick’s momentum threw him into the other side.

He landed hard and found himself in a cramped classroom with orderly rows of red plastic chairs attached to desks and a black board at the head of the room.  The classroom had walls, ceiling and floor of dark, dark wood.  For some reason, there was yellow light drifting around the classroom, not unlike sun rays.  There were no windows or light bulbs.  “You may stand up,” said a voice.  Garrett whirled around, standing up as he did so, and his head would have crashed into the ceiling if it had not gotten higher all of a sudden.  

“Who’re you?” Garrett asked.  The voice had come from a tall guy, taller even than Garrett.  He was blond and seemed to have just recently used his hand to lift the ceiling up so it was a good deal higher.  

“I’m Sunday,” he answered.

“That’s stupid.”

“What is?”

“You’re name,” Garrett blurted.  “Sunday’s a stupid name.  Nobody’s named Sunday.”
“I am.”

Garrett could not think of anything to say to this, and if he had, Garrett doubted it would have changed the composed, slightly blank expression on the teens’ face.  “Where am I?” Garrett asked (maybe this would glean some information on how to get home).

“You are at the learning center.  If you wish to continue, you will be trained by all the information Syllabus and our crew of teens have to offer.”

“Um, what will I be learning?”

“Defense against Earieves and Vulture.” The blonde guy sounded flat and bored, like he had recited this same thing over and over again before.

“Vulture? You mean that big yellow creep that holds a pair of scissors when he’s gardening, right? And what are Earieves?”

“Earieves have extra ears.  They are creatures that eat children, often pulling off the child’s-” Sunday was cut off by an angry pounding sound behind the door.  

“Sunday!” said a girls’ voice.  “Stop scaring the beginner!”

Sunday sighed and yelled back (his face didn’t look remotely blank now, it looked annoyed); “Yes, Syllabus! You can stop pounding now! I won’t tell him about the Earieves!”

Garrett stared, bewildered, at Sunday.  “Earieves eat kids? Does that mean they could eat me? And what do they pull off of them? Is it a body part?” Horrible possibilities started to flash through Garret’s mind.  Sunday gave a nervous chuckle.
“It’s nothing,” he said.  “I was just joking around.” Garrett was not assured.  For some really strange reason, Principal Tadlock and his extra ear kept popping in mind.  
Garrett followed Sunday out of the classroom and into a dusty white carpeted room, where a girl of about ten was standing with a frown on her face and her arms crossed.  

“You should know better than to scare beginners, Sunday! How dare you?” she asked accusingly.  Garrett found it hard to take the girls’ accusing tone seriously.  Her voice was too sweet to sound angry.  She had navy blue eyes and a sheet of black hair that fell to her waist. She wore black jeans and a black tee.  There were multiple small silver hoop earrings on her ears and two navy blue piercings in her cheek.  Her eyes were lined with silver kohl.  Garrett found himself wondering if she was wearing mascara, too.  She had nice eyes.

“Hurry,” said Syllabus.  “We’re going to be late for the meeting!”

Grumbling, Sunday followed.  Garrett trailed uncertainly behind the two, wondering if he would finally learn what was going on once he went to the meeting.  
And he did.  He learned a lot.  

At the meeting, which was held outside of the castle on some tile, kids ranging from tweens to late teens had set up patio chairs and a small podium.  A guy with long black hair, green eyes and really tan skin stepped up onto the podium.  He couldn’t have been younger than fourteen.  Most of the kids were actually in their mid-teens.  Indeed, the youngest kid here, next to Garrett, seemed to be Syllabus.  Syllabus jiggled excitedly on one foot as she listened to the boy on the podium start his speech.  She was the only one not sitting in one of the chairs in this hot summer day, preferring instead to stand and vibrate off all her hyperactive energy.  Despite the hot, drowsy atmosphere, nobody, including Garrett, felt very drowsy.  Garrett sat up straight in his plastic patio chair as he listened intently to the boy start his speech.

“We are all gathered here today for a very important reason.  And that reason is Earieves.  For those of you who are new among us, let it be known that Earieves is the abbreviation for Ear Thieves.  These - these people are merely monsters in disguise, for they are cannibals and feast on human flesh.  I think they prefer to eat children.  And- and- damnIforgottherestofmyspeech.”

The boy mumbled that last part very quickly and quietly, dropping to the ground and evidently searching for lost notecards.  When he found none, he stood up again and tried to look as dignified as possible with half of the audience (notably Sunday) roll their eyes or stare impatiently at him.  

“And-” (the boy chewed his lip, trying to make up something to say on the spot) “and we have reasons to believe the Earieves rip off their victims’ ears, planting it on their own heads.  These ears make them better hunters; they rely greatly on their sense of hearing when they catch people to eat.  So basically, the more victims they get, the easier it will be for them to catch more and more victims.  It’s quite a vicious cycle and we have to stop them before they get so good at hearing that they eat all of us.  Um, if anyone has anyone suggestions on how to do this, please stand on the podium to voice it.”  The kid edged awkwardly off the pedestal.

Nobody made any movement to voice any suggestions.  Garrett, almost in trepidation, raised his hand.  All heads (there were about thirty) turned toward him.  “Erm,” he began, “does anyone know where I am?  I mean, what is this place? I was forty five when I fell asleep on my bed, and I woke up as a twelve year old here.  This place feels too real to be a dream.  Does anyone else feel that this whole situation is weird? I mean, first I fall through a mirror, see a kid push up a ceiling with his hand, get told off by my principal from when I was twelve years old, see that he has three ears, and then I have, like, the worst conversation ever with a giant Big Bird that wants to cut my face off with scissors! Is someone gonna explain all this stuff?”

All of a sudden, there was a hushed silence.  Everyone stared at him in terror, stock still.  There was a rustling sound as dead leaves were blown across the tile floor and the sunny blue sky turned overcast with grey clouds.  A large shadow rose from above, and it blocked out the sun.  A large cry could be heard, and it sounded both human and both inhuman, sort of like how a lunatic would scream.  Or maybe laugh.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAH…”

Syllabus ran over to Garrett’s side, trembling like one of the dead leaves.  “You said it,” she cried out, sounding terrified.  “You called Vulture ‘Big Bird.’  He hates the name.  Despises it.  You must have said it before already, because he’s never been this furious.  I-I-” She stopped talking and grew quiet to see the dark shadow that was now looming directly above them.

It was a giant shadow of a bird, and Garrett looked up to see Vulture suspended in the air by its giant yellow wings, its whole body, limbs and head many times its original size.  It was making the weird lunatic laugh sound.  

It looked less like Big Bird now – its feathers were gradually turning to a fierce black color around the edges.  The feathers changed color like a paper being thrown in fire; it curled up at the edges and turned black as ash.  The eyes (huge, black and beady with a red glint) and belly started swelling up larger and larger than before while its wings and legs stayed small, so the bird started to look like a giant malevolent balloon.  Garrett realized with a shock that Vulture was puffing up bigger and bigger because it was sucking in all the air.  

All around him, kids were on their knees, choking, gasping for air and turning from red to blue to purple.  The oxygen was being sucked away from their lungs, and pretty soon everyone would be dead.  He looked helplessly at Syllabus, who was now clutching at his shirt rather weakly, unable to stand up.  Her cheeks started to look hollow and blue veins bulged and colored her face blue. Garrett vaguely wondered why he wasn’t dying along with them.  He felt too shocked to feel much.  A tiny figure stood on the back of the bird.  It looked like a man.  As the strange looking Vulture balloon drifted closer to the ground, Garrett realized it was Principal Tadlock, wearing a tuxedo and bow tie, combing the nonexistent hairs on his head with long, curved fingers.  Principal Tadlock hopped the remaining distance from Vulture’s back to the ground and walked towards Garrett.  The Vulture molted the black feathers on its head, revealing a pink, wrinkly forehead, not unlike Principal Tadlock’s.  “Big Bird really is a vulture now,” Garret thought dully.

“Mr. Martinez, I take it you are doing well? As you don’t seem to be affected by the lack of oxygen in the air, perhaps you would like to join my friends and I for our feast?” Garrett realized what he meant by the word ‘feast’ after one look at the extra ear on the side of his head.  Tadlock was an Earieve.  He was going to, after Vultures help of killing everyone, eat all the kids that had been attending the meeting just a few minutes before and rip off their ears, attaching them to his own, bald, pink wrinkled head.  Garrett shook his head slowly, blue eyes wide, legs backing away.  At the edge of his vision, he saw more people dressed in formal attire start walking towards the field of recently dead kids.  

“No, not dead,” Garrett thought, “they’re still alive now, it can’t have been too long since the air was cut off.  Humans can hold their breaths for a long time.” Garrett knew he was lying to himself as he looked down at Syllabus, who had now gone quiet.   Her nice, dark blue eyes were glazed over and open, staring up at him.  Garrett looked away, looking up instead to see Tadlock.

Tadlock knelt down and touched Syllabus’s cheek with his finger.  Garrett could see a dribble of saliva down his chin.

“What are you doing?” Garrett screamed at him.  He didn’t know any of the kids here very well, but he knew enough to know none of them deserved to be eaten and have their ears pulled off of their heads.  An image of disgusting blue veins snaking over Syllabus’s face flickered in his mind.  “You are a disgusting, revolting principal! You are a BAD ROLE MODEL!”

Garrett felt something deep and angry and revolted rising in the pit of his stomach.  He felt hysterical.  He kept yelling but he didn’t process what.  Rude gestures, random ravings, and Tadlock leaned back, crossed his arms and smiled thinly.  That made him really mad.  Garret howled and tackled his elementary school principal, rolling around on top of him, and kicking him between the legs repeatedly.  

To his surprise, Tadlock laughed and shook him off easily, as if he were amused by the little burst of rage.  He stood up straight, confidence radiating in his laugh.  He hit Garrett on the head with force Garrett did not believe possible.  He looked a lot taller now.  His skinny, spotty old man legs seemed to be longer and more muscular.  

Garrett tried to stand up too and kick him in the nuts, harder this time, but realized his own legs were growing too wobbly to do anything. His head was foggy.  He put one hand to the side of his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and when he pulled his hand back, it was covered with blood.  His ear was bleeding.  He cried out, feeling a sense of mute horror.  Tadlock stood over him.  In Garrett’s peripheral vision, he saw the people dressed in formal attire come closer and closer to where the bodies of many kids laid.  There were many of them, and as they came closer, Garrett realized he recognized them.  There was Mrs. Fansie, his third grade teacher, and Coach Walker, his fifth grade P.E. teacher.  Garrett shuddered uncontrollably.  

“Don’t worry now, jellybean,” said Mrs. Fansie as she walked over casually.  She knelt down like the caring teacher Garrett remembered her as and ran long fingernails glazed a sick red color through Garrett’s dark hair.  “Knelt down? Am I lying on the ground?” he wondered.  “I am,” he realized.  “I’m shaking.”  He tried to stop, but he kept shuddering, curled up in a bleeding ball (his ear was still bleeding) as Mrs. Fansie raked his head with her cold fingers.  

“You don’t need to get him,” said Tadlock.  “I already got him.” There was a note of pride in his voice Garrett was surprised to hear.

“You haven’t gotten his right ear, and this left ear isn’t even completely off yet,” replied Mrs. Fansie coldly.  Her voice was as cold as her fingers.  Not at all like how Garrett remembered it to be.  “But it doesn’t matter.  We’ll get them when he’s awake.  It will be easier that way.  He’ll pretend none of this happened so he’ll be off guard.”  She smiled luxuriantly.  “And then, we’ll have our fill to eat.”

Garrett felt a ringing sound in his ears.  It was probably from the clock to the head Tadlock had given him earlier.  He was still jerking uncontrollably from shock and the ringing was getting louder.  Mrs. Fansie’s full, throaty laugh filled his ears, mixing in with the ringing sound and it became unbearable.  “Wake up, Garry, wake up now...” she teased.  

A forty seven year old Garrett woke up.

He sat up straight in his bed.  The alarm clock was ringing, and Garrett put a hand out on the off button.  The ringing stopped immediately.  Garrett sat there for a minute, not sure of what to do.  His heart pounding, he went to look in the mirror.  He examined his ears.  His right ear looked normal, but it felt slightly itchy.  He scratched it.  Now that he was in a familiar setting (his bathroom) with no weird things happening he found it a lot harder to feel truly serious about his dream.  He was starting to feel silly for looking at his ears.  It was even hard to recall all the details.  He was a man.  Dreams aren’t real.  Even now, the details were slipping, fading at the edges.  “Yes,” he stated convincingly to his reflection.  “I don’t remember it.”  

Garrett ate breakfast and drove to work feeling more and more relaxed (although he did rub his ears once, before he got in his car).  The day was going on as any other normal day did, and normal had never sounded better.  He scratched at his right ear again.  It felt slightly irritated, but he wanted to shake the memory of his dream away, and ignored the itchy ear as best he could.  

Garrett didn’t lose his temper that much for the next three days - only once - one of the students asked why his ear looked red, and Garret had bellowed, “NOTHING is wrong with my ear! It is perfectly normal and is perfectly attached to my head! NOONE can rip it off!”  This scared the student into a stunned and confused silence.  
Garrett went home that third day feeling nervous and uptight.  He tried ignoring the pain he felt whenever he slightly touched his ear, but it was unbearably itchy.  Whenever he itched his ear, dead white skin from the outer rim of his ear would flake off, like ear dandruff or something.  

Garrett lightly splashed the ice cold water from the bathroom sink over his ear.  It felt so good that he dared to scratch it a little bit.  Big mistake.

 Once he started scratching, the temptation to keep on itching became unstoppable, and he raked at his left ear until big layers of yellow brown earwax and crusty yellow skin fell out his ear and into the sink.  He felt a wave of disgust from knowing the stuff had been inside of him– but also a sort of satisfaction from knowing the he had gotten all that gunk out.  But his ear was still throbbing.  He looked at it in the mirror.  It was tomato red and larger than his other ear.  

He splashed on more water and started scratching the inside of his ear again, this time using his nails.  He stopped when he felt his fingers get wet.  And it wasn’t from the cold water earlier.  This was warm and sticky.  He slowly moved his fingers out of his ear and looked at them.  They were covered in a lumpy green, bad smelling slime.  Pus.  

Garrett washed the pus off his fingers shakily.  He crumpled to the floor, moaning.  The throbbing sensation in his ear turned to a pounding in his head.  He thought he heard a ringing sound in his ears, like the sound he’d heard in his dream that had actually been the alarm.  He felt paralyzed with the pain and noise, and sank down to the bathroom rug.

He closed his eyes.

The next thing he remembered was being in a blue grey tiled room with dim lighting.  The table he was lying on felt hard, cold and sterile.  There was some type of shelf hanging a few inches above him.  He tried to strain his neck to see more of the room, but he felt so tired.  He heard a man’s voice in the room;

“Well, it’s a shame, really.  He seems like such a strapping man.”  

There was a second, slightly muffled man’s voice. “He died of a raging ear infection.  An awful way to go.”

“Agreed.”

“Uh, Robert, you can take off your gloves now.  And you didn’t need that surgical mask in the first place.”

The second man, Robert, replied in his slightly muffled voice.  “I don’t want to take any chances.  These places freak me out.  I don’t want any dead people germs.”
“Rob, this place is clean!”

“You never know.  One of them could be listening in to us, right this moment.”  Robert sounded dead serious.

“Hehehe, Rob, you’re such a kidder.  Heheheheh... stop it! Why do you always have to freak me out? This place is freaky.  I hate this job.  Don’t you hate this job? I hate morgues.  I’m quitting my job, and Rob, shut up next time.  It’s your fault that I’m quitting,” the man chattered nervously.  Garrett heard a heavy door swing shut and it was silent.  He felt so tired.  He laid there until he felt he was dreaming.

Garrett dreamed he was in a velvet lined box. The top of the box was open, so he was staring out onto a high white ceiling. He could smell the scent of flowers.  There was a familiar voice in the background.  If only he could hear it clearer...then he would be able to pinpoint who it was.  Maybe there was an earwax buildup in his ear.  Garrett went to move his pinky finger to his ear, but realized the box was not wide enough for this unless he rolled over.  He was worn out.  So tired he couldn’t move.  He felt paralyzed.

He closed his eyes, and the next moment, he felt wide awake.  He was being jostled around in the velvet lined box.  It felt like he was being lowered.  It was dark.  He couldn’t see his own nose when he crossed his eyes.  Garrett tried to pound on the close confines of the box, but it was so tight his arms were squished against his sides so he couldn’t move.  The only thing he could move was his mouth.  

“Hey! Someone? Help? Help me! Hey! I’m in here! It’s starting to feel kind of . . . muggy in here...” Garrett stopped yelling because he had just had an awful idea cross his mind.  He was being lowered.  Lowered into what? He was in a box.  The two men he had heard were talking about...morgues.  

Garrett screamed. He freaked out.  He tensed every muscle in his body and tried with all his might to force apart the walls of the box.  He started to feel desperate.  But he had to be calm.  “Focus.  Focus on breathing, stay calm, like your anger management trainer told you to.  Breathe.”  Garrett breathed heavily, but then suddenly he held his breath.  It was very, very muggy.  It was hot and damp and humid and he felt like his face was covered with a blanket.  He was running out of air.  He was sweating heavily now.  “I can’t do it.  I’m trapped.”  He moaned. He was never going to get out.  “I don’t want this.  I don’t want to die.  Why am I in a coffin?  This has to be a dream.  Please, pleasepleaseplease, let it be a dream...”

“Oh no, Mr. Martinez.  I take it this is not what you would call a dream.”  

It was the familiar voice he had heard the first time he remembered being in the box.  Garrett picked at his ear to hear it clearer.  It sounded so familiar.  “Wait.  I picked at my ear? I thought I was in a box,” Garrett thought.

“And indeed you are.”  A familiar face swam in Garrett’s line of vision.  It was Principal Tadlock.  He looked like an apparition.  He was just a head, floating around in Garrett’s peripheral vision.

“How is he here? I don’t want to be in a coffin.  I don’t want him here.” Garrett kept praying.  

“You don’t want to be in a coffin? I’ll get it open.” Tadlock’s face was stretched into a gruesome smile.

The door of the coffin opened in front of Garrett’s terrified face.  Dirt spilled in like an avalanche.  Garrett choked, and spluttered, and was buried alive.  He blacked out.  

The next thing he knew, he was sitting on a perfectly clipped, green lawn.  He looked at his hands.  They were small.  He was twelve again.  He looked around, confused by the fast setting transition.  Garden sounds and feels crowded his ears; floral, breeze, buzzing bees, flapping trees, hummingbird wing beats, and the gulping of large orange flowers.  The hummingbird wing beats died away, and was replaced by a squelching, digestive sound.  “Eurgh,” Garrett said as he his tongue out.

“’Eurgh’ indeed, Mr. Martinez.”  Garrett jumped at the voice.  He looked around himself tensely.  It was Mrs. Fansie.  She clasped her fingers together.  Her shimmering nails made a clicking sound.  She licked her lips and stood over him while her red, pointy tongue darted between her teeth.

“Wait,” he thought.  “Pointy?” Garrett didn’t even have time to react.  Mrs. Fansie lunged in for the kill, a pointy tongue waving about between the two clenches of her savage teeth. He screamed like a stuck pig as the skin was peeled off his face and his skull slightly crunched.  Nothing was left amid the gleaming, red pile of blood and muscle except for one perfectly normal looking ear on the right.  But underneath all the blood and the broken nose, Garrett was still alive.  He was blinded by blood, but could feel her touch his ear.  He felt paralyzed as she peeled off the last recognizable feature on his face.  He gave a jerk. And then he stopped moving.  

Garrett didn’t scream anymore either, because his head was just a red pile.  There wasn’t even an ear anymore.  And there was no green, well clipped lawn.  If it had existed before, it was gone now.  All that was left was a red, red pile of a head attached to an unscathed body inside an open coffin.  And of course there was a red pile.  The person was dead, after all.  It was very likely his cause of death was having his face ripped open.  Slowly, sluggishly, a goopy stream of green slime crept out of the right side of the red pile, where an ear would have been.  It stank.  It was pus.
The open coffin was filled with dirt and blood, body and pus.  It was buried deep under the ground, and somehow it was open.  

On the ground above the coffin was a lonely grave marker.  Two figures clad in black stood on the well clipped green lawn of the cemetery.  One was a hooded woman in a black fur coat.  Only her nails weren’t black.  They were glossed blood red.  The man next to her looked old but athletic.  His bald head was covered with a hat that stopped just below his ears.  The man bent down to place a large, vivid flower with orange and yellow swirly petals on the gravestone.   A beautiful hummingbird was instantly attracted to it.

Two men watched from a distance.  Dave turned away from the touching scene to say, “Wow, Robert.  That new gravestone already has an awesome flower.  Maybe I should keep my job.  It makes me happy to see that flower.  Makes me happy I made a difference by examining and burying this guy so that couple could visit their son.”

“Those don’t look like a couple, Dave.  Their age difference...”

“Aw, whatever Rob.”

Rob and Dave walked in the direction of home for a delightfully warm night of sleep.  And dreams.