Read The Juggler And His Rose for Free Online

              Stan stood frozen, contemplating what was real and what was taking form in his tunnel vision of sight. The strange, distorted head mounting the amorphous shape came out of nowhere. It stood menacingly quiet while it kept hold of Tammy’s squirming body that let out cries sounding like that of a burning victim’s last gulp of air. Somehow he knew he should have listened, but kept on his stubborn ways. After all, what had listening done for him thus far, besides cause him complete and utter misery?
    The rain dribbled off his studded crimson leather jacket and pushed his pompadour flat on his head, letting the greasy, bloody, black strands fall just over his dilated, scrunched, green eyes. He knew his moment would come, though not in this way, to test his faithfulness. His lonely nights of studying for classes he had no money for after his father had been killed in a bar shootout, after his bankrupt mother had been laid off regardless of her teaching degree and slipped into a coma once life had finally seemed stable again due to his father’s small fortune, after all the days and nights of working graveyard shifts and selling pot and making deals for people of the lowest scum that even the fallen angel would have hesitated associating with, had led to this moment. Had it not been for that stormy Oakland day, he never would have decided to see a movie that Saturday night with his buddies where he met the dangling beauty in front of him now. It was the midnight premier, and he was sure almost everyone from his school was there to see it: Voices of Fate. It was a horror film about a young man who evaded the troubles of his past by using drugs and eventually found out that what he was seeing while he was high manifested itself in real life. After the film, he and his buddies laughed hysterically about the whole thing and how corny the production was--from the graphics to the plot. Stan and his friends took sips of their alcohol-spiked cream-sodas, joking about how scared the other was. They pushed each other around and talked about the party plans they had that night, who they were going to sleep with, and hyped each other up like a pack of wild sea lions on a cool, sunny summer day in California. Stan took a step outside of the bustling theater of tattoos and whiskey breath to have a smoke. This is when he saw her, a beautiful blond girl, just the type he had fantasized of his whole life. She did not see him at first, as she had just tossed her friend’s phone on the ground and was caressing her with a somber look on her face. She rocked her standing friend back and forth while glaring at the floor right in front of her, her face changing shades from pale white to crimson red until she slowly looked up and made eye contact with him. Stan stood stiff with his cigarette half raised, mouth stuck half open as his gaze met hers. Her beautiful face combined with her sparkling eye contact and softening expression had transformed her angry look into a greeting, like a rose that had just bloomed, exfoliating the outer beauty but leaving the hidden thorns for something or someone bold enough to dare take it. Stan walked to her and sparked a conversation, eventually leaving home with her that same night in her car. The thoughts of him with her, all the times they played chess and watched movies in the clean basement of her wealthy parents’ house, all the times they kissed on the custom glass and marble rooftop of her parents’ mansion that overlooked the whole Bay and the glamour of the Golden Gate Bridge including the beautiful ocean and cool breeze that brought feelings of bliss to his mind and made him forget played through his head as he watched the thing in front of him holding his whole future in his hands. The creature opened its oblong mouth and started screaming something very fast that sent shivers down every square-inch of Stan’s body. It repeated it several times until he understood what the