When searching for the top ten list of the most stolen books, I got many differing accounts. Some say Bukowski, Thompson, Palahniuk. Some say Kafka, J.K. Rowling, the Bible. Some sources don't even list titles, just authors. Then there's some book called Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman, which doesn't surprise me. I think the decade has a lot to do with it, which explains the variation, but a statistic like this is hard to prove in the first place.
Somehow I thought the Communist Manifesto made that list. I thought, if there's any book you have to steal, it's got to be this one. It has a typical red cover and two yellow price tags. The book costs $2.
Thousands of revolutionaries built empires on the spine of this trashy paperback. Some of them had to steal it. They were rebels, right?
I took the copy into the dressing room, buried under a pair of jeans and stuffed the book into my pocket. It fit perfect.
I took it out and took off the stickers. If an employee suspected anything, I was afraid they'd find the stickers, so I peeled the yellow tabs back. Wondered where to stick them and thought, leaving them in the room would be suspicious as well.
So I bent down and slapped it under the dressing room bench. Beneath it were hundreds of stickers.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
sunday school.
Nov. 8 2009
I thought I was "floating in a dream and all my dreams are musicals, so the dead fetuses hanging from the trees were singing". I sung that of course, like that douche from Singing in the Rain.
I kept passing out and writing one line of poetry at a time. This is what I got.
Gliding through fog like misguided lace flies.
The shriveled trees are but fingers groping from the snow.
We approach the exterior of a cave and look at the twisted jaws of a deeper eternity.
Delving between shelves of every level of history, a librarian craft floats us to the floors of time.
The sweet lower symphonies of our minds are scraped from the torn scalp.
The crisp ground of our skulls are the seeds for a meadow of miraculous flowers.
The plants grow three leaves and one eye, to gaze into the sacred realm of geometry.
Every octahedron spins in anatomical beauty until they make up every one of our atoms.
Our lace eyes blink solemnly and by this way we can bat our way over the foggy glade.
The fog is our breath, our very soul.
I thought I was "floating in a dream and all my dreams are musicals, so the dead fetuses hanging from the trees were singing". I sung that of course, like that douche from Singing in the Rain.
I kept passing out and writing one line of poetry at a time. This is what I got.
Gliding through fog like misguided lace flies.
The shriveled trees are but fingers groping from the snow.
We approach the exterior of a cave and look at the twisted jaws of a deeper eternity.
Delving between shelves of every level of history, a librarian craft floats us to the floors of time.
The sweet lower symphonies of our minds are scraped from the torn scalp.
The crisp ground of our skulls are the seeds for a meadow of miraculous flowers.
The plants grow three leaves and one eye, to gaze into the sacred realm of geometry.
Every octahedron spins in anatomical beauty until they make up every one of our atoms.
Our lace eyes blink solemnly and by this way we can bat our way over the foggy glade.
The fog is our breath, our very soul.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Like the howling of wolves.
I am a party, strangely enough, and I'm drinking, but not too heavily. It seems like everyone I know or used to know, even for a little scrap of time, they're all here. All drinking heavily. All of the people my eyes ever graced.
I start to feel it coming on, the vomit and I head to bathroom. It's not the alcohol, it's the pills I had hours before. Waiting outside and then, a guy in a red shirt walks out, passes me. He turns and looks me dead in the eyes. I know him, perhaps better than anyone else here, even my flesh-and-blood sister. He looks at me and we both know. He's coming for me, later. He's coming to get me.
I dash in the toilet, quickly vomit and leap up. Splash water on my face and look in the mirror. I can do this, my eyelids flinch. I have to escape. Out the back. Now.
I duck into the back bedroom, kick out the screen and this apartment is on the second story. I have to leap hard, land hard and roll. My twisted ankle, I don't think it's broken. So I run. I run down alleys cloaked in nightfall, past wooden fences with chainlinked pitbulls on the other side.
A howling, screeching terror follows me. Like the howling of wolves, I flee with pumping legs and throbbing lungs.
I dart across traffic, right in front of a police cruiser. The beast floods me with his violet lights and slowly crawls from the cradle of his car. He towers over me, checks that my ID is of age and breathalyzes me. I don't even blow a .07. So weak.
The cop decides to let me go, but I realize it would be better to be imprisoned in the cage of leviathan than the foul hunter on my scent. For I know, he comes for me.
So I sock the officer in the face. Hard. To give him a reason to handcuff me, to sacrifice my freedom for my breath.
But the officer goes down. He's unconscious in one slug.
The only viable option is to steal the cop cruiser. What else is alternative? By barely slipping into gear, I'm screeching off at speeds unknown to physics. The lights are still beaming in all directions as I tear down the wrecked neighborhoods of junkies, immigrants and thugs. A fool's paradise.
A mere second later the hood crumples up into the windshield and the airbag explodes onto my face. Glass and dust bond with my skin, until I am streaked with the blood of the stigmata.
I crawl from the wreckage and inspect my victim. A red sports car, the driver completely flattened by my tires. The angle his neck and limbs hang suggest he was killed instantly. On the other side, I twist the deceased face. It is truly, by the coincidence of saints, my enemy. His life essence leaks and mingles onto my own red covered hand. How could I?
I was guilty all along. He never meant to bat a cardinal eyelash at me. I killed my nemesis with little more than hallucination.
And sirens rise on the peaks and the heavy air, hunting me, like the howling of wolves.
I start to feel it coming on, the vomit and I head to bathroom. It's not the alcohol, it's the pills I had hours before. Waiting outside and then, a guy in a red shirt walks out, passes me. He turns and looks me dead in the eyes. I know him, perhaps better than anyone else here, even my flesh-and-blood sister. He looks at me and we both know. He's coming for me, later. He's coming to get me.
I dash in the toilet, quickly vomit and leap up. Splash water on my face and look in the mirror. I can do this, my eyelids flinch. I have to escape. Out the back. Now.
I duck into the back bedroom, kick out the screen and this apartment is on the second story. I have to leap hard, land hard and roll. My twisted ankle, I don't think it's broken. So I run. I run down alleys cloaked in nightfall, past wooden fences with chainlinked pitbulls on the other side.
A howling, screeching terror follows me. Like the howling of wolves, I flee with pumping legs and throbbing lungs.
I dart across traffic, right in front of a police cruiser. The beast floods me with his violet lights and slowly crawls from the cradle of his car. He towers over me, checks that my ID is of age and breathalyzes me. I don't even blow a .07. So weak.
The cop decides to let me go, but I realize it would be better to be imprisoned in the cage of leviathan than the foul hunter on my scent. For I know, he comes for me.
So I sock the officer in the face. Hard. To give him a reason to handcuff me, to sacrifice my freedom for my breath.
But the officer goes down. He's unconscious in one slug.
The only viable option is to steal the cop cruiser. What else is alternative? By barely slipping into gear, I'm screeching off at speeds unknown to physics. The lights are still beaming in all directions as I tear down the wrecked neighborhoods of junkies, immigrants and thugs. A fool's paradise.
A mere second later the hood crumples up into the windshield and the airbag explodes onto my face. Glass and dust bond with my skin, until I am streaked with the blood of the stigmata.
I crawl from the wreckage and inspect my victim. A red sports car, the driver completely flattened by my tires. The angle his neck and limbs hang suggest he was killed instantly. On the other side, I twist the deceased face. It is truly, by the coincidence of saints, my enemy. His life essence leaks and mingles onto my own red covered hand. How could I?
I was guilty all along. He never meant to bat a cardinal eyelash at me. I killed my nemesis with little more than hallucination.
And sirens rise on the peaks and the heavy air, hunting me, like the howling of wolves.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Spacelab (Hundreds of Places)
That isn’t fast enough, Sloan thinks and pulls to the side of the vacant dirt road. It’s 2:13 a.m.
Blackheart skips out the passenger side and Sloan follows, hovered over the door, and staring in awe at the thunderstorm currently attacking the mountains. Lightning tears electric wrinkles across the sky and illuminates the forest of surrendering cacti. There’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight.
On the horizon, Sloan envisions a horde of angry townspeople, all carrying blazing torches, come to kill them. Blackheart screeches and lightning cuts vertical down the horizon. In rhythm, at every screech of Blackheart, a lightning bolt erupts.
Soon, Sloan hears the baying of coyotes and thinks this must be Blackheart's doing. He's inviting the terrible cannibal dogs!
‘Stop it! Fool! Swine!’ Sloan hisses. ‘You’ll attract the monsters!’
He whips out a butterfly knife and flings it around, cutting out chunks of his knuckles. Blackheart is still screaming at the dogs.
In the moment, Sloan does what he thinks best! He strips naked and wields his belt, still trying to silence Blackheart’s howling. Blackheart ducks back to the car and closes the door as the clouds above burst. Hot, wet saliva-like rain spits on the desert.
Now Sloan is rubbing his terrible cock across the windshield and the rain is rushing across the glass and Blackheart gets out and runs. He picks up a large stick, probably a cactus skeleton, and lunges at a passing minivan. It swerves off the road and is never seen again.
Soon Sloan, still slobbering on the windshield comes to his senses and dives in the car. He races a mile down the road, the wipers squeaking and finds Blackheart cowering in the soaking-wet bushes.
‘Get in the car,' he says. 'We have hundreds of places to be.’
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Alone
Sunday, May 31
I am alone in a dark, red room.
Watching a movie and it's horror and I've never been so terrified in my life, never so unselfishly considerate for another's well-being.
Too much fear even to remove myself and turn off the TV.
I watch a skeleton remove his hands and arms and shoulders and he didn't shrug and said, "I give up."
Suddenly, high-pitched screaming, non-stop echoing, so loud, my skin quivers and starts to pus over.
Then, silence.
A billion miles of static and I am strangled by a single note.
If only my life were condensed to a single, silent 8mm home film.
A woman dies of a fatal wound to the head, which slowly pours blood into a little pile for her. Her blood platelets slowly clot the gash, knowing full well this will be the very last time they will ever do it.
On a small street corner, she bleeds out her lungs and a homeless dyke tells her life story. Drugs, sex and rock 'n roll. Depressingly, she sighs, knowing this will be the last thing she ever hears.
I am alone in a dark, red room.
Watching a movie and it's horror and I've never been so terrified in my life, never so unselfishly considerate for another's well-being.
Too much fear even to remove myself and turn off the TV.
I watch a skeleton remove his hands and arms and shoulders and he didn't shrug and said, "I give up."
Suddenly, high-pitched screaming, non-stop echoing, so loud, my skin quivers and starts to pus over.
Then, silence.
A billion miles of static and I am strangled by a single note.
If only my life were condensed to a single, silent 8mm home film.
A woman dies of a fatal wound to the head, which slowly pours blood into a little pile for her. Her blood platelets slowly clot the gash, knowing full well this will be the very last time they will ever do it.
On a small street corner, she bleeds out her lungs and a homeless dyke tells her life story. Drugs, sex and rock 'n roll. Depressingly, she sighs, knowing this will be the last thing she ever hears.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Burden
non-fiction
When I was a little kid, I used to pick up cigarette butts and put them in a bucket and throw them away. I was a little groundskeeper.
My dad smoked on our porch made of astro-turf and he'd throw the butts right on the green and then there was little melted footprints all over, little UFO treadmarks. I'd pick the butts out of the cradles they made. I'd pick up these beer cans of extinguished butts where hives of cockroaches would crawl into and drown in their drunkenness. I'd fish through ashtrays.
I had a mentally retarded neighbor named Keith that did the same thing. Cleaning up everything.
Keith was a twin, but sometimes one of the twins don't come out entirely OK. Keith was one of those twins.
He was confused, and he thought his purpose in life was to clean up the earth.
He'd crawl the streets on the way to the bus stop, crouching down for plastic wrappers and pop tabs and receipts and cigarette butts.
He'd mutter to himself.
Keith kept the trash in a grocery bag at his side. I never knew what he did with the bag when he was done with it.
One day I got real sick from picking up those cigarette butts, those cans, those roach motels.
"They check in, but they don't check out."
I lay in bed, sick to death and vowed never to do that again.
The task to clean the planet was too large a burden for me to carry.
I figured, let the world be filthy.
Now when I get sick, I don't reflect like that any more, I don't think about it.
I keep going. No rest.
I wonder, if I'm still carrying any burdens.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
My First Computer
non-fiction
I remember getting my first computer, the excitement I had, all of it. I loved it because it was all mine.
I got it from my mother's friend who had an autistic child who watched a lot of VHS tapes. It was used, but free and I loved it.
It was a Windows '95 or '98, not sure which, but it was heavy, a monitor that weighed more than me. I remember bringing it home and assembling it in my room and how I just loved putting the pieces together myself. I loved opening and closing the disc drive, the hum of the monitor, the special sounds it made on start up, the loading screens and the little words that said, "IT IS NOW SAFE TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER". I wanted to keep my computer on forever, but my mother wouldn't let me. I had to turn it off every night.
I wrote novels on my computer. I'd open up the Word knockoff I had and just type and type and type for hours and I didn't care what came out. I wrote a story that was a Paperboy knockoff and one called 20,000 Pennies Under the Duckpond that was about guinea pigs and hamsters that lived on a farm and had to find some money. They were terrible stories and I never finished them, but they felt so good to write.
I had Juno, which was like AOL only so simple and pathetic it only allowed you to check email. You couldn't even get on the internet with it for anther three years. I'd check my mail all the time, but I never got anything so I'd email myself. It took forever to get them.
I'd hack onto my mom's Juno account and email her friends long-winded stories I wrote, mostly re-tellings of faerie tales so they were funny. Or at least so I would laugh. I wanted my stories to be like the chain emails that my mom forwarded to me and I forwarded to myself.
Fuck solitaire! On my computer, I played hours of games (that came with it somehow) like WinBreakOut '95 and I'd install dollar-store floppy disc games. A few times, if they sucked, I'd erase them off the floppy disc and reuse it.
But what I remember most is it had awesome screensavers of pipes and a maze thing and I loved customizing those. I'd change them every hour and then wait for the computer to start them up. It came with these themes, like the Jungle Theme and the Space Theme and it would change all the colors and the cursors and the sounds when the computer started up, loaded up and fucked up.
Really, all I liked to do was mod the shit out of it. It was mine and that was a powerful feeling, knowing I had something so useful all to myself. I felt privelegded. My computer could do anything! I mean, it didn't have internet or any music on it or anything but it still felt amazing to me.
But the computer didn't have a lot of hard drive space. So what did I do? What any kid would. I went into the :C drive and deleted any files I thought I didn't need. Such as old games, themes I didn't use and . . . system files.
After that my computer didn't work anymore. I totally fucked it up and lost everything. But somehow, I didn't really care.
The other day, I bought a new computer for a C-note. Got it for a song, really. It's an eMac with a thousand features that my old '98 never had, even if the eMac is a couple years outdated. It doesn't have a very big hard drive but I'm not about to delete anything I shouldn't.
Anyway, I got kinda giddy again, buying it. I started to feel like I used to, like my computer was the best thing in the world.
But then it faded after a day.
Still, I'm gonna keep my computer on all the time, deep into the night.
I remember getting my first computer, the excitement I had, all of it. I loved it because it was all mine.
I got it from my mother's friend who had an autistic child who watched a lot of VHS tapes. It was used, but free and I loved it.
It was a Windows '95 or '98, not sure which, but it was heavy, a monitor that weighed more than me. I remember bringing it home and assembling it in my room and how I just loved putting the pieces together myself. I loved opening and closing the disc drive, the hum of the monitor, the special sounds it made on start up, the loading screens and the little words that said, "IT IS NOW SAFE TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER". I wanted to keep my computer on forever, but my mother wouldn't let me. I had to turn it off every night.
I wrote novels on my computer. I'd open up the Word knockoff I had and just type and type and type for hours and I didn't care what came out. I wrote a story that was a Paperboy knockoff and one called 20,000 Pennies Under the Duckpond that was about guinea pigs and hamsters that lived on a farm and had to find some money. They were terrible stories and I never finished them, but they felt so good to write.
I had Juno, which was like AOL only so simple and pathetic it only allowed you to check email. You couldn't even get on the internet with it for anther three years. I'd check my mail all the time, but I never got anything so I'd email myself. It took forever to get them.
I'd hack onto my mom's Juno account and email her friends long-winded stories I wrote, mostly re-tellings of faerie tales so they were funny. Or at least so I would laugh. I wanted my stories to be like the chain emails that my mom forwarded to me and I forwarded to myself.
Fuck solitaire! On my computer, I played hours of games (that came with it somehow) like WinBreakOut '95 and I'd install dollar-store floppy disc games. A few times, if they sucked, I'd erase them off the floppy disc and reuse it.
But what I remember most is it had awesome screensavers of pipes and a maze thing and I loved customizing those. I'd change them every hour and then wait for the computer to start them up. It came with these themes, like the Jungle Theme and the Space Theme and it would change all the colors and the cursors and the sounds when the computer started up, loaded up and fucked up.
Really, all I liked to do was mod the shit out of it. It was mine and that was a powerful feeling, knowing I had something so useful all to myself. I felt privelegded. My computer could do anything! I mean, it didn't have internet or any music on it or anything but it still felt amazing to me.
But the computer didn't have a lot of hard drive space. So what did I do? What any kid would. I went into the :C drive and deleted any files I thought I didn't need. Such as old games, themes I didn't use and . . . system files.
After that my computer didn't work anymore. I totally fucked it up and lost everything. But somehow, I didn't really care.
The other day, I bought a new computer for a C-note. Got it for a song, really. It's an eMac with a thousand features that my old '98 never had, even if the eMac is a couple years outdated. It doesn't have a very big hard drive but I'm not about to delete anything I shouldn't.
Anyway, I got kinda giddy again, buying it. I started to feel like I used to, like my computer was the best thing in the world.
But then it faded after a day.
Still, I'm gonna keep my computer on all the time, deep into the night.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Slaughter Machine
None of this was done on purpose. None of this, was, intentional. John Carpenter owned a small farm, too small for most vegetables to make profit, so he slaughtered livestock. Under these circumstances, someone could say, it was bound to happen eventually. But as it was said, none of this was done on purpose.
Carpenter was behind on his mortgage and he was feeling plagued by a real estate agency that wanted to acquire his land. The pig farmer didn't want to sell the farm because he wanted it to be in his family for years. He didn't inherit anything, nothing in his family was generational so he hoped to be the first to create a heirloom. He hoped that would be his farm.
But what if had to sell? Carpenter woke up in the middle of the night for weeks, with nightmares of living in an inner-city apartment and leaving his grandchildren with nothing but a box of photos. And he wasn't a good photographer.
Late one night, Carpenter awoke and couldn't get back to sleep, so he went out to the slaughterhouse and sat on a stool. The poor farmer gazed around the shed, the meat hooks, the carving knives, the special sickle they used to execute the animals. None of this meant anything?
Late in the month, as the old farmer advanced closer to his mortgage payment date, he came across a catalogue that boasted of special machinery. Carpenter flipped, bored, at all the specialty order mechanical bulls, auto-parts manufacturers and vending machines until he came upon a slaughterhouse assistance bot.
Carpenter could easily order this monster on a credit card and he'd slice up so much meat, he could sell thrice as much and make his payment on time.
So Carpenter ordered the machine. Six-to-eight weeks later, the mailman came up the drive and dropped off a six foot-by-eight package. Carpenter tipped the mailman, unwrapped the box and wheeled the machine into the slaughterhouse. It looked like a giant refrigerator, only with wheels on the bottom to help it move.
He didn't have any electricity in the shed, so he ran some extension cables from the house to the bot. Then he switched it on.
The refrigerator popped open and extended six bladed spider arms, each gleaming in the daylight. Carpenter, frightened for a bit, approached the machine again and pushed a few buttons on the front, to see what it would do.
He stepped back and the machine whirled and extended robotic fingers to Carpenter's outstretched right arm.
It quickly snatched and ripped the hand right off the bone and set it down. Carpenter, muted in agony, squealed and fell over, shooting currents of blood against the porcelain exterior of the machine.
Rolling in his fluids, Carpenter flipped over and grabbed his detached right hand. He immediately tried to shove it on the bone, sticking out from the wrist. It stuck on half-way and but got too thick and stringy to push on any further.
The machine quickly snatched Carpenter by the foot and spun him upside down, smacking his head against the floor.
Stunned, Carpenter wheeled about and then tried to free himself. A blade extended from the machine and sliced at Carpenter, detaching his left foot. He collapsed to the floor and his right hand skidded off. The old farmer flipped on his belly and reached for his lost limb, until the robot reached for him again. He lashed out and kicked away an arm with the stub of his left leg. On the other foot, he hobbled over to his second lost limb, snatched and rounded about again for the hand.
He held his foot in his mouth by the toes and tried to force his hand onto the bone again. This time, it was so deflated of blood that it wouldn't but flay around.
The robot advanced on its wheels, scattering puddles of blood. It extended another blade and sliced at Carpenter's good leg. It hacked halfway to the bone, but stopped. Carpenter slipped on it, cracking it off and sending his leg flying across the shed. Still clutching the hand and the foot in his mouth, Carpenter crawled on his single hand, pushing with the stubs of his legs in the blood and muck of the slaughterhouse floor, some of the blood of Carpenter, some of the blood of animals. He scrambled to the base of a huge trashbucket and pulled himself upright. The leg had landed inside the bucket, which had been used to store the skeletons of killed chickens and pigs.
Carpenter fished out his leg, shoved it into place under his calf and balanced on it. He bent down and shoved his foot underneath his ankle, meanwhile pressing his wrist into his hand against a wall.
At the moment that he had pieced himself back together, the robot advanced and decapitated Carpenter. His head fell, splat, into the bucket of pig skins.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Charon 40
The way the sunlight on a hot day ricochets off the windshields of every car in the mall parking lot, that's how the sunlight reflected off of every stone on Planet Taurus' moon, Charon 40. The surface, like a house of mirrors, every direction bright and glassy.
Marc bounced gently on the moons surface, careful not to rip his spacesuit on the sharp, broken-bottle rocks. He didn't want to melt and the littlest rip could do anything. . .
The astronaut watched his companions get out of the ship, really slowly. Two guys, two girls: Mitchel, Wayne, Abigail and Caci. Marc knew all too well, they were all stoned as hell. He remembered, back in the shuttle's cockpit, Wayne passed a fat blunt to Caci, who was staring out the window at the stars, fucked up on shrooms. Abigail was snorting coke off Mitchel's eyelids. At least three of them had dropped acid.
Marc didn't do anything and earlier, Wayne had nudged him and shouted, "C'mon man, don't pussy out, you won't regret this, I mean, c'mon, how cool would it be to DROP on the fuckin' moon?!"
Marc didn't move. Didn't answer, even though he had a hundred legitimate excuses. It's not a good idea to fuck the brain up in the middle of a difficult search-and-rescue mission. On the surface of a planet, somewhere safe, a coffeeshop even, maybe. Nothing could be more fun, a head full of acid, walking down the street toward . . . wherever.
That's fine, Marc thought. But Charon 40 isn't the best place.
So he withheld and the rest of the crew partook.
On the moon's rocky surface, scattered with those millions and millions of little mirrors, gems and disco balls, Marc watched the crew file out of the ship. He watched them stumble over themselves and glisten in the rocks and forget to put their visors down and nearly blind themselves. The sober one watched the drunk as they bounced out, over the surface of the moon, like blissful pixies.
Caci bounded up to Marc and said, "Jesus, aren't you glad they don't drug test anymore?"
Marc wasn't thrilled. He was thinking of the six or so lives the crew had to save, not counting the ones that may have already been roasted alive in the heat of the moon. Say, if their suits ripped or the hull disintegrated, whatever.
The junkies scattered off and Marc trailed behind, loose as a feather, worried as an anchor. They were going the wrong way. But they stopped at a large rock, gleaming blue and beautiful against the infinite night sky. It was worth more than several countries back on Earth. Too bad they couldn't remove it at all, against intergalatic park laws.
"Guys . . ." Marc said into his microphone.
"Guys, I got an idea." Wayne said. "But before I tell you, you all have to tell me the dirtiest secret you have. Do it. We may never be on the moon again."
"Your idea has to be amazing." Abigail said. "I'll go first. I starred in my first porno . . . when I was fifteen."
"Oh, ok." Mitchel said. "When I was six, I took my grandmother's chiuauaha, the one she loved so much and castrated it. Cut the balls clean off."
"Did you make your grandmother eat them?" Wayne asked.
"Hell no. The dog escaped and ran into traffic. My grandmother never knew which pieces were missing. And she never blamed me."
"Wayne's next." Abigail said.
"OK," Wayne breathed in deep. "Let's see. . . I almost set my cat on fire?"
"No. . ."
"I was molested by my older cousin. . ."
"C'mon man, we don't wanna hear your life story. . ."
"Ok, ok." Wayne breathed heavy. "I knew what the Martinville Killer looked like and never told anyone."
Mitchell crouched up, excited. "REALLY?"
"I saw him kill victim no. 17. Night of April 11th. Didn't tell a soul."
"You know, that other guy who was accused of being the Killer, he got the gas chamber."
"You mean lethal injection."
"No, they brought the Chamber back. It's easier to afterward just cremate the bodies. Course, the gas only knocks them unconscious now. It's really the fire that gets them."
"Anyway, the the Martinville Killer has blue eyes, red hair and he's five foot eleven." Wayne sighed smugly and leaned his five foot eleven frame against the giant blue diamond, blinked his eyes to match and shook his red hair out of his eyes. "Believe it or not." He said.
"Caci is next."
"Oh, you don't want to hear about little, ol' me." She said. "Trust me."
Marc spoke up. "When I was six, I accidentally poisoned my parents." Everyone turned to the one person who's head was straight.
"Just a kid, playing with some chemicals under the sink. Poured something bad into my mother's cooking. They ate their food and I ate something for kids and the next thing I knew, they were in the hospital. Watched them die. And I didn't shed a tear."
There was silence on the moon, as there always is, but something about it seemed even quieter than usual.
Finally Wayne said, "OK, now for my big secret plan. I was planning to do this all along, no matter what you did." The intoxicated astronaut reached up to his neck and pulled the seam and his helmet floated away. Instantly, his head froze, instead of bursting into flame.
Abigail did the same. Then Mitchel, then Caci. Their heads froze, dark red and blue icicles running across their faces, the blood vessles exploded with ice. Their eyes shattered into crystal, floated out their heads, now empty and lifeless. Soon, each corpse lifted up by the giant blue crystal and then up further, higher and higher into space.
Marc watched them in envy until he couldn't see them.
Marc bounced gently on the moons surface, careful not to rip his spacesuit on the sharp, broken-bottle rocks. He didn't want to melt and the littlest rip could do anything. . .
The astronaut watched his companions get out of the ship, really slowly. Two guys, two girls: Mitchel, Wayne, Abigail and Caci. Marc knew all too well, they were all stoned as hell. He remembered, back in the shuttle's cockpit, Wayne passed a fat blunt to Caci, who was staring out the window at the stars, fucked up on shrooms. Abigail was snorting coke off Mitchel's eyelids. At least three of them had dropped acid.
Marc didn't do anything and earlier, Wayne had nudged him and shouted, "C'mon man, don't pussy out, you won't regret this, I mean, c'mon, how cool would it be to DROP on the fuckin' moon?!"
Marc didn't move. Didn't answer, even though he had a hundred legitimate excuses. It's not a good idea to fuck the brain up in the middle of a difficult search-and-rescue mission. On the surface of a planet, somewhere safe, a coffeeshop even, maybe. Nothing could be more fun, a head full of acid, walking down the street toward . . . wherever.
That's fine, Marc thought. But Charon 40 isn't the best place.
So he withheld and the rest of the crew partook.
On the moon's rocky surface, scattered with those millions and millions of little mirrors, gems and disco balls, Marc watched the crew file out of the ship. He watched them stumble over themselves and glisten in the rocks and forget to put their visors down and nearly blind themselves. The sober one watched the drunk as they bounced out, over the surface of the moon, like blissful pixies.
Caci bounded up to Marc and said, "Jesus, aren't you glad they don't drug test anymore?"
Marc wasn't thrilled. He was thinking of the six or so lives the crew had to save, not counting the ones that may have already been roasted alive in the heat of the moon. Say, if their suits ripped or the hull disintegrated, whatever.
The junkies scattered off and Marc trailed behind, loose as a feather, worried as an anchor. They were going the wrong way. But they stopped at a large rock, gleaming blue and beautiful against the infinite night sky. It was worth more than several countries back on Earth. Too bad they couldn't remove it at all, against intergalatic park laws.
"Guys . . ." Marc said into his microphone.
"Guys, I got an idea." Wayne said. "But before I tell you, you all have to tell me the dirtiest secret you have. Do it. We may never be on the moon again."
"Your idea has to be amazing." Abigail said. "I'll go first. I starred in my first porno . . . when I was fifteen."
"Oh, ok." Mitchel said. "When I was six, I took my grandmother's chiuauaha, the one she loved so much and castrated it. Cut the balls clean off."
"Did you make your grandmother eat them?" Wayne asked.
"Hell no. The dog escaped and ran into traffic. My grandmother never knew which pieces were missing. And she never blamed me."
"Wayne's next." Abigail said.
"OK," Wayne breathed in deep. "Let's see. . . I almost set my cat on fire?"
"No. . ."
"I was molested by my older cousin. . ."
"C'mon man, we don't wanna hear your life story. . ."
"Ok, ok." Wayne breathed heavy. "I knew what the Martinville Killer looked like and never told anyone."
Mitchell crouched up, excited. "REALLY?"
"I saw him kill victim no. 17. Night of April 11th. Didn't tell a soul."
"You know, that other guy who was accused of being the Killer, he got the gas chamber."
"You mean lethal injection."
"No, they brought the Chamber back. It's easier to afterward just cremate the bodies. Course, the gas only knocks them unconscious now. It's really the fire that gets them."
"Anyway, the the Martinville Killer has blue eyes, red hair and he's five foot eleven." Wayne sighed smugly and leaned his five foot eleven frame against the giant blue diamond, blinked his eyes to match and shook his red hair out of his eyes. "Believe it or not." He said.
"Caci is next."
"Oh, you don't want to hear about little, ol' me." She said. "Trust me."
Marc spoke up. "When I was six, I accidentally poisoned my parents." Everyone turned to the one person who's head was straight.
"Just a kid, playing with some chemicals under the sink. Poured something bad into my mother's cooking. They ate their food and I ate something for kids and the next thing I knew, they were in the hospital. Watched them die. And I didn't shed a tear."
There was silence on the moon, as there always is, but something about it seemed even quieter than usual.
Finally Wayne said, "OK, now for my big secret plan. I was planning to do this all along, no matter what you did." The intoxicated astronaut reached up to his neck and pulled the seam and his helmet floated away. Instantly, his head froze, instead of bursting into flame.
Abigail did the same. Then Mitchel, then Caci. Their heads froze, dark red and blue icicles running across their faces, the blood vessles exploded with ice. Their eyes shattered into crystal, floated out their heads, now empty and lifeless. Soon, each corpse lifted up by the giant blue crystal and then up further, higher and higher into space.
Marc watched them in envy until he couldn't see them.
Friday, June 26, 2009
LIMN
maybe my jacket was on fire.
I couldn't tell if any smoke was coming out or not. But my head felt detached from my neck. Floating a few feet above my spinal column. I quivered in my seat and the room quivered with me. I felt all the muscles it took just to sit still. Any smoke yet?
when I breathed out vapor trails hung in the slow air. I knew this moment was long coming.
I couldn't stop shaking. I kept tapping my feet like an eager child. I sang:
"The ocean is an hourglass,
crystal chandiliers underneath the water
bathing with sharks
and I waltz down in my suit and tails
a rastafarian softly plays a xylophone
until he disappears
he knows this is my domain
i stand and i wait, cocktail glass in hand
in the swirly shifting sand of time
my opponent approaches, for he knows i wait
in a grey suit he swims to me,
right to my head, faster and revolving
until he becomes a torpedo and
travels through me."
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Existing No Longer
This is true.
I was six. My best friend Ryan, who lived at one end of the trailer park, me at the other, were playing one spring afternoon.
I proposed we go on an adventure through our neighborhood.
'You know,' I said. 'A real adventure. Like Indiana Jones or something.'
So we asked permission from our parents and they smiled, condescendingly, but still adoring. Asked where we were going and when we'd be back. And said yes.
Ryan's mom packed us a lunch. With Capri Suns. I remember this because she only gave us one apiece and I loved Capri Suns as a kid, except they were too expensive for my family budget and they were small. Unsatisfying. I craved them, constantly.
We left.
I remember, I brought my Burger King Halloween Bucket and Ryan brought his backpack so we could save any treasures we found. I don't remember what we put inside them, maybe pennies, or bits of broken plastic or strange insects. In my head, things get muddled. Sometimes it's everything. Sometimes it's empty white, bucket. I'll never be sure of the truth.
We went up to the middle of the park and then doubled back, trespassing through our neighbor's backyards.
I was so excited. Ryan seemed nonplussed, but went along with it.
He was kind of a boring kid that liked pro-wrestling and shitty cable television.
I didn't have cable or my antennae didn't get reception. Essentially, no TV at all.
He had a Sega Genesis, I had a Super Nintendo. But he had cooler games, somehow.
I had Kirby's Avalanche and Rampart and Jurassic Park.
He had Sonic the Hedgehog and Jurassic Park too, only in his, you could be a velociraptor and eat people.
We had the same shitty, faux-mullet blond haircuts.
Ryan lost his baby teeth first.
I bit my nails. I think he did too.
We both liked Power Rangers.
My favorite color was green. His was red or blue.
I first met Ryan when my mother met his and we went over to his house and I played in Ryan's room. Within five minutes of knowing Ryan, we were crawling under his bed and suffocating in the huge piles of clutter. We were instant friends.
And it seemed perfect, crawling under bushes and hopping fences in stranger's backyards. TV was boring anyway. These adventures were the memories I'd always treasure. Somehow, I knew that already, as I created them. I knew the moment was special.
We hadn't been hiking for twenty minutes before we propped ourselves up behind someone's air conditioning and quickly ate all our snacks. I was still hungry. I remember that.
The place we rested was shaded and tranquil. A little tangerine tree, painted white. The hum of the air conditioning. The suck, suck, sucking sound of the Capri Suns.
I wanted to stay there forever.
And yet . . . I was disappointed that this was all our adventure had been so far. A twenty minute walk and a mediocre meal.
We hadn't even gone anywhere new or exciting. We were behind a trailer that was next to my babysitter's. I knew where I was.
And still, I went back to the peace I felt, however mild it was. For several years, I'd often revisit that place.
And then we heard footsteps and the home owner yelled at us and we ran off.
So far, we hadn't fought any monsters, like the ones in my favorite video game, A Link to the Past. No Octoroks or Moblins or anything. Just shady, crab-grass infested backyards. We hacked at bushes with sticks.
We went to the far reaches of the trailer park, a place I'd never been before. The very last trailer home was lopsided against a cul-de-sac and the front yard was completely filled with a giant prickly pear cactus. A forest of prickers and green discs.
We threw rocks at it, tearing up the fruitless crowns, bleeding out its juices all over.
I got paranoid that we'd get caught again. But we didn't.
And something about destroying that prickly pear was incredibly surreal.
I vowed to come back one day and finish its destruction. I really did. I don't know why.
And I returned once, many years later, and it was gone.
Maybe it never existed.
It's hard to say what happens to memories so long discarded. Maybe we never went on an adventure, maybe we didn't drink Capri Suns or get yelled at and maybe Ryan didn't exist at all.
It had been an hour or so. We were already exhausted little explorers.
We came upon an empty lot, the large concrete slabs where abandoned trailerhomes used to stand, until they were excavated and dragged away. Existing no longer.
Ryan found a dead bird laying on the slab and dared me to touch it. A dead morning dove, curled up in withered defeat. Existing no longer.
I said, no way.
Ryan reached inside the ribcage and pulled out an organ. Right through the skin. It was easy.
'Look,' he said. 'It's a heart.'
But who knows, it could have been a liver or a lung or something. All I know is it was a quarter-sized ball of red and violet and it leaked.
He dared me to touch it.
'No way,' I said.
Ryan threw it at me and I screamed.
He put the entrails in my bucket and we took it home.
We got back to my room and went through our treasures, which honestly, had to be the most worthless shit ever. I don't remember any of it. None except the organ, kinda drying up, kinda sticking to the side of the bucket.
Ryan left it at my house when he left, and I had to clean it out.
That's the end.
The thing about retelling a story, is, in the gaps of the temporal lobe, we fill in the holes.
With age, more gaps formulate. More are filled.
Some true, some lies, but it doesn't matter. Whatever changes occur, we make them the truth.
Since this is the first time I've told this story in 13 years, there were many gaps to fill.
I actually sit here, wondering, if any of it happened the way I think it did.
I think it did.
I nearly forgot it happened at all.
But retelling the story has changed it, the way you cannot observe anything in nature without yourself influencing the observed. I've changed this story beyond repair. In a way, the original events never existed. In truth, this story exists no longer.
I was six. My best friend Ryan, who lived at one end of the trailer park, me at the other, were playing one spring afternoon.
I proposed we go on an adventure through our neighborhood.
'You know,' I said. 'A real adventure. Like Indiana Jones or something.'
So we asked permission from our parents and they smiled, condescendingly, but still adoring. Asked where we were going and when we'd be back. And said yes.
Ryan's mom packed us a lunch. With Capri Suns. I remember this because she only gave us one apiece and I loved Capri Suns as a kid, except they were too expensive for my family budget and they were small. Unsatisfying. I craved them, constantly.
We left.
I remember, I brought my Burger King Halloween Bucket and Ryan brought his backpack so we could save any treasures we found. I don't remember what we put inside them, maybe pennies, or bits of broken plastic or strange insects. In my head, things get muddled. Sometimes it's everything. Sometimes it's empty white, bucket. I'll never be sure of the truth.
We went up to the middle of the park and then doubled back, trespassing through our neighbor's backyards.
I was so excited. Ryan seemed nonplussed, but went along with it.
He was kind of a boring kid that liked pro-wrestling and shitty cable television.
I didn't have cable or my antennae didn't get reception. Essentially, no TV at all.
He had a Sega Genesis, I had a Super Nintendo. But he had cooler games, somehow.
I had Kirby's Avalanche and Rampart and Jurassic Park.
He had Sonic the Hedgehog and Jurassic Park too, only in his, you could be a velociraptor and eat people.
We had the same shitty, faux-mullet blond haircuts.
Ryan lost his baby teeth first.
I bit my nails. I think he did too.
We both liked Power Rangers.
My favorite color was green. His was red or blue.
I first met Ryan when my mother met his and we went over to his house and I played in Ryan's room. Within five minutes of knowing Ryan, we were crawling under his bed and suffocating in the huge piles of clutter. We were instant friends.
And it seemed perfect, crawling under bushes and hopping fences in stranger's backyards. TV was boring anyway. These adventures were the memories I'd always treasure. Somehow, I knew that already, as I created them. I knew the moment was special.
We hadn't been hiking for twenty minutes before we propped ourselves up behind someone's air conditioning and quickly ate all our snacks. I was still hungry. I remember that.
The place we rested was shaded and tranquil. A little tangerine tree, painted white. The hum of the air conditioning. The suck, suck, sucking sound of the Capri Suns.
I wanted to stay there forever.
And yet . . . I was disappointed that this was all our adventure had been so far. A twenty minute walk and a mediocre meal.
We hadn't even gone anywhere new or exciting. We were behind a trailer that was next to my babysitter's. I knew where I was.
And still, I went back to the peace I felt, however mild it was. For several years, I'd often revisit that place.
And then we heard footsteps and the home owner yelled at us and we ran off.
So far, we hadn't fought any monsters, like the ones in my favorite video game, A Link to the Past. No Octoroks or Moblins or anything. Just shady, crab-grass infested backyards. We hacked at bushes with sticks.
We went to the far reaches of the trailer park, a place I'd never been before. The very last trailer home was lopsided against a cul-de-sac and the front yard was completely filled with a giant prickly pear cactus. A forest of prickers and green discs.
We threw rocks at it, tearing up the fruitless crowns, bleeding out its juices all over.
I got paranoid that we'd get caught again. But we didn't.
And something about destroying that prickly pear was incredibly surreal.
I vowed to come back one day and finish its destruction. I really did. I don't know why.
And I returned once, many years later, and it was gone.
Maybe it never existed.
It's hard to say what happens to memories so long discarded. Maybe we never went on an adventure, maybe we didn't drink Capri Suns or get yelled at and maybe Ryan didn't exist at all.
It had been an hour or so. We were already exhausted little explorers.
We came upon an empty lot, the large concrete slabs where abandoned trailerhomes used to stand, until they were excavated and dragged away. Existing no longer.
Ryan found a dead bird laying on the slab and dared me to touch it. A dead morning dove, curled up in withered defeat. Existing no longer.
I said, no way.
Ryan reached inside the ribcage and pulled out an organ. Right through the skin. It was easy.
'Look,' he said. 'It's a heart.'
But who knows, it could have been a liver or a lung or something. All I know is it was a quarter-sized ball of red and violet and it leaked.
He dared me to touch it.
'No way,' I said.
Ryan threw it at me and I screamed.
He put the entrails in my bucket and we took it home.
We got back to my room and went through our treasures, which honestly, had to be the most worthless shit ever. I don't remember any of it. None except the organ, kinda drying up, kinda sticking to the side of the bucket.
Ryan left it at my house when he left, and I had to clean it out.
That's the end.
The thing about retelling a story, is, in the gaps of the temporal lobe, we fill in the holes.
With age, more gaps formulate. More are filled.
Some true, some lies, but it doesn't matter. Whatever changes occur, we make them the truth.
Since this is the first time I've told this story in 13 years, there were many gaps to fill.
I actually sit here, wondering, if any of it happened the way I think it did.
I think it did.
I nearly forgot it happened at all.
But retelling the story has changed it, the way you cannot observe anything in nature without yourself influencing the observed. I've changed this story beyond repair. In a way, the original events never existed. In truth, this story exists no longer.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Pursuing Sirens
poetroy
I am magnetized to sirens; like
Conquistadors of old; like
resigned mariners.
With sloth the soothsayer speaks;
with pride she predicts the gravity
of tomorrow's newsstands.
The crackled whispers in her coded
breath whisk me away with lust for
bloodshed.
I chase these auditory hallucinations
down streets I never knew so well;
pursuing with a wrath I have not known.
Spiraling Ecureuils flutter above
violent smoke piers, enticing gutless gluttony
with disastrous kitchen scents.
My fingertips sprint across dials; meters;
switches. Mildly stroking colorless, broken light.
Each negative stab a sirin to the sedated.
Black bags exit buildings in blue hands;
yellow strings to tie greedy paparazzi to pavement, observing
white charcoal shadow puppets written in white hands.
One winking eye raised; infested
fascination crushes ribs, crushes
infatuated spirits.
A soul tossed on jagged rocks,
devoured by deranged shark teeth.
In silent cardboard detention,
envying for pursuit of flesh,
I am magnetized to sirens; like
Conquistadors of old; like
resigned mariners.
With sloth the soothsayer speaks;
with pride she predicts the gravity
of tomorrow's newsstands.
The crackled whispers in her coded
breath whisk me away with lust for
bloodshed.
I chase these auditory hallucinations
down streets I never knew so well;
pursuing with a wrath I have not known.
Spiraling Ecureuils flutter above
violent smoke piers, enticing gutless gluttony
with disastrous kitchen scents.
My fingertips sprint across dials; meters;
switches. Mildly stroking colorless, broken light.
Each negative stab a sirin to the sedated.
Black bags exit buildings in blue hands;
yellow strings to tie greedy paparazzi to pavement, observing
white charcoal shadow puppets written in white hands.
One winking eye raised; infested
fascination crushes ribs, crushes
infatuated spirits.
A soul tossed on jagged rocks,
devoured by deranged shark teeth.
In silent cardboard detention,
envying for pursuit of flesh,
I decay from within;
my breath shortens to ribbons.
Now I scour sunsoaked lanes, a
jaywalker's purgatory, for the
viscera of a different animal,
the distorted tangles of my own breed.
As I lag, certain horrors realize their potency;
the silence of the sirens is worse than their song,
a panic not in need of wax or chain prisons.
Now I scour sunsoaked lanes, a
jaywalker's purgatory, for the
viscera of a different animal,
the distorted tangles of my own breed.
As I lag, certain horrors realize their potency;
the silence of the sirens is worse than their song,
a panic not in need of wax or chain prisons.
Never have I aged more wading
in the fountain of forsaken youth.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Chair
I am tied to a wooden folding chair, being beaten in the face by some thug.
The Mafia.
But I don't mind.
I've never felt this good before, I say in between the sounds of fist sinking into bone.
The feelings.
I have to be honest, I tell my captors.
My entire life, I've never done anything important.
I was the middle child, ya know.
I didn't do well in school, I didn't do well with women.
I had trouble managing myself alone.
The thug socks my jaw.
The gang leader watches me get destroyed but he doesn't seem moved.
Dropped out of college, I continue.
Haven't kept many jobs.
Still can't make it with the ladies.
Here I am, I say.
Being beaten to death by the Mafia.
The thug punches me in the cheek.
I have to be honest.
I've never felt more important in my whole life.
The thug rubs his fist, like it's getting sore.
He lands a knuckle in my gut, where it's softer.
You guys make me feel needed, I choke out.
Thank you.
The gang leader looks up in disgust.
OK, untie him, he says.
I stand up, wobble and smile wide through a bleeding gumline.
Thank you, I say again.
The gang leader doesn't look happy.
He looks worried.
Like I'm gonna retaliate now.
Here's the money we owe you, he says.
He hands me a paper bag.
Don't count it, he says.
Same time next week? I ask.
Sure, he says.
But next time we're going to use duct tape.
The Mafia.
But I don't mind.
I've never felt this good before, I say in between the sounds of fist sinking into bone.
The feelings.
I have to be honest, I tell my captors.
My entire life, I've never done anything important.
I was the middle child, ya know.
I didn't do well in school, I didn't do well with women.
I had trouble managing myself alone.
The thug socks my jaw.
The gang leader watches me get destroyed but he doesn't seem moved.
Dropped out of college, I continue.
Haven't kept many jobs.
Still can't make it with the ladies.
Here I am, I say.
Being beaten to death by the Mafia.
The thug punches me in the cheek.
I have to be honest.
I've never felt more important in my whole life.
The thug rubs his fist, like it's getting sore.
He lands a knuckle in my gut, where it's softer.
You guys make me feel needed, I choke out.
Thank you.
The gang leader looks up in disgust.
OK, untie him, he says.
I stand up, wobble and smile wide through a bleeding gumline.
Thank you, I say again.
The gang leader doesn't look happy.
He looks worried.
Like I'm gonna retaliate now.
Here's the money we owe you, he says.
He hands me a paper bag.
Don't count it, he says.
Same time next week? I ask.
Sure, he says.
But next time we're going to use duct tape.
whale watching
March 30
I was hungry for some crystal and I followed my shadow into the park, from whence I could smell the most delicious scents. They calmed my hunger, but still excited my senses. I tripped through bushes and puddles like a madman until I stumbled to a moss-covered bench. It was surrounded by trees on all sides, completely alien. I collapsed on the seat and instantly fell asleep.
I was awoken by an old man, dressed in a petticoat and poking me with a wooden cane.
"Let me tell you a story," he said looking through me in disapproval. I must have smelt like old cigarettes, ale and moldy paper bags. As I sat up, a single pigeon flew onto his shoulder.
"Once, I was on the vomit-covered shores of an old town and I lay on the beach naked. I ignored the smell and my surroundings. but I noticed the seagulls. They circled more and more above my head and so I decided to follow them. I tracked them two miles upon a beached whale, still breathing, with gusts awaiting death. The birds were patiently landing upon the beast, as they awaited the hungry opportunity to tear it apart."
I sat up. A pair of pigeons joined the one on the old man's back. They nuzzled up against him and cooed, but their yellow eyes watched me angrily.
"I sat and watched, deciding to witness this massive act of nature. As I observed more gulls gently descending on the depressed monster, I notice some had strings in their mouths, and I saw them tie them around barnacles and teeth."
I could hear my stomach rumble. More and more birds landed on the old man, until he looked like a walking aviary.
"I watched this miracle and I clapped my hands with glee. This startled the birds and they took off, carrying the whale with them and I watched in reverence until they disappeared behind the clouds and the wind."
The old man leaned down, the birds covering his body until just his nose stuck out from all the feathers.
"It was the only miracle I have ever witnessed, but I could not ask for more."
Then the old man clapped his hands and the birds took off with him in tangled talons. He wasn't very high before my sight of him was obscured by the trees.
I stood up and went in search to satisfy my hunger, again, but this time to gratify a new lust. A lust for something I could not explain.
I was hungry for some crystal and I followed my shadow into the park, from whence I could smell the most delicious scents. They calmed my hunger, but still excited my senses. I tripped through bushes and puddles like a madman until I stumbled to a moss-covered bench. It was surrounded by trees on all sides, completely alien. I collapsed on the seat and instantly fell asleep.
I was awoken by an old man, dressed in a petticoat and poking me with a wooden cane.
"Let me tell you a story," he said looking through me in disapproval. I must have smelt like old cigarettes, ale and moldy paper bags. As I sat up, a single pigeon flew onto his shoulder.
"Once, I was on the vomit-covered shores of an old town and I lay on the beach naked. I ignored the smell and my surroundings. but I noticed the seagulls. They circled more and more above my head and so I decided to follow them. I tracked them two miles upon a beached whale, still breathing, with gusts awaiting death. The birds were patiently landing upon the beast, as they awaited the hungry opportunity to tear it apart."
I sat up. A pair of pigeons joined the one on the old man's back. They nuzzled up against him and cooed, but their yellow eyes watched me angrily.
"I sat and watched, deciding to witness this massive act of nature. As I observed more gulls gently descending on the depressed monster, I notice some had strings in their mouths, and I saw them tie them around barnacles and teeth."
I could hear my stomach rumble. More and more birds landed on the old man, until he looked like a walking aviary.
"I watched this miracle and I clapped my hands with glee. This startled the birds and they took off, carrying the whale with them and I watched in reverence until they disappeared behind the clouds and the wind."
The old man leaned down, the birds covering his body until just his nose stuck out from all the feathers.
"It was the only miracle I have ever witnessed, but I could not ask for more."
Then the old man clapped his hands and the birds took off with him in tangled talons. He wasn't very high before my sight of him was obscured by the trees.
I stood up and went in search to satisfy my hunger, again, but this time to gratify a new lust. A lust for something I could not explain.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
april 23
punching bag dream
The pigeon-catcher stands in a clearing, sifting through feathers with his feet. He looks down all the time, except to glance up and change direction. The catcher finds no carcass, no blood, only feathers. But a shot is fired and a falling bird falls right into the pigeon-cather's open, waiting arms.
Crawling on hands and knees, our heroes soon discover the very ovary of decay, a batch of filth from which every sinister beast originates. Every ounce of sickness and disease pours forth from this vulva of the vile. Slobber and semen boil, hot as molten lead, bubbles up from the orifice and our heroes stand above it.
'Will you dive in?' asked the one.
'I must.' said the other. 'It is the last place on Earth to explore.'
Two men, suspicious of the other, are screwing the same woman. Her name is Roxanne and she has shit for brains. The birds know this and they cry.
The first to produce a ring shall be the winner. But while Roxanne essentially pisses on both her entertainers, she secretly harbors a frightening type of disease. This illness is capable of toppling the remainder of civilization, if it gets loose. So terrible is this version of death that is will grind your intestines to jelly, it will burst hemophiliac cysts over your skin and melt your spirit to mucus.
All three characters die, including Roxanne, but they manage to go to Heaven, a place of dog farts and vomiting rainbows.
Imagine a man standing in line, the register closed, the light turned off, the stored closed, but still he wants his cigarettes.
The street sweeper swerves his truck up onto the sidewalk and snatches me in his revolving brushes of sterility. He vowed to clean up the filth and so he did, so he did.
The pigeon-catcher stands in a clearing, sifting through feathers with his feet. He looks down all the time, except to glance up and change direction. The catcher finds no carcass, no blood, only feathers. But a shot is fired and a falling bird falls right into the pigeon-cather's open, waiting arms.
Crawling on hands and knees, our heroes soon discover the very ovary of decay, a batch of filth from which every sinister beast originates. Every ounce of sickness and disease pours forth from this vulva of the vile. Slobber and semen boil, hot as molten lead, bubbles up from the orifice and our heroes stand above it.
'Will you dive in?' asked the one.
'I must.' said the other. 'It is the last place on Earth to explore.'
Two men, suspicious of the other, are screwing the same woman. Her name is Roxanne and she has shit for brains. The birds know this and they cry.
The first to produce a ring shall be the winner. But while Roxanne essentially pisses on both her entertainers, she secretly harbors a frightening type of disease. This illness is capable of toppling the remainder of civilization, if it gets loose. So terrible is this version of death that is will grind your intestines to jelly, it will burst hemophiliac cysts over your skin and melt your spirit to mucus.
All three characters die, including Roxanne, but they manage to go to Heaven, a place of dog farts and vomiting rainbows.
Imagine a man standing in line, the register closed, the light turned off, the stored closed, but still he wants his cigarettes.
The street sweeper swerves his truck up onto the sidewalk and snatches me in his revolving brushes of sterility. He vowed to clean up the filth and so he did, so he did.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Perks
Our hero awakes with a bloody nose. He doesn't seem worried as he wipes away the crust with spit on his thumb.
He drinks coffee with seven canisters of creamer, easing into his day with a slight twitch. He puts on his work uniform, a pair of dark khaki pants and tucks his white button-up shirt beneath the belt. On the news is a story about a plane crash.
He drives to work in a 2005 Toyota Prius. It's a rental. His car is in the shop.
At work, he enters data into a computer for three hours and then takes a lunch break. He eats a pita bread sandwich and some baked Lays potato chips. He's not sure this is a healthy alternative to a McDonalds hamburger, but the packaging tells him it is, so he feels better. He takes a sip from a bottle of purified water and then swallows two Percocets.
The pills taste bitter and almost immediately start to dissolve on his tongue. His dealer told him these little white tabs will make his day so much easier. And our hero desperately wants an easy day. It is, after all, a Thursday. One day short from one day from freedom. The anticipation is almost too much to bear.
Our hero pauses to watch the sky, the clouds. He somehow doesn't feel connected to anything, anyone, but he can't explain why.
Back inside the building, our hero starts to feel the pills taking effect. He gets a little anxious as he moves in and out of the feeling, keeps asking, "Am I feeling it yet? Am I feeling it yet?"
Less than an hour later, his computer screen starts to fade in and out. He can't focus on the fluorescent buzz coming off every object in the room. His hands slip from the keyboard and rest on his lap. He's flying.
Our hero has never felt so good. This isn't like normal highs he's felt. His mind isn't affected at all. This isn't like Mary or Sally or anyone. He just wants to lie down and stare at the ceiling and think about the things that make him happy.
This reminds him of some artwork by a modern artist he really likes. Something about being trapped by society and conditioning and just lying back and taking it. No fighting back. The painting could be asking, "Am I feeling it yet?"
So our hero lies down and he begins to think, but nothing important or pleasant comes to mind. It should, but it doesn't make our hero disappointed.
A knock comes on his office door and a scrawny secretary wearing a miniskirt comes in. She looks down at our hero and says nothing, a puzzled expression on her face. She watches him smile incessantly, until he sits up, looks at her and says, "I'm going to throw up." He does so, promptly, all over himself and it pours down his khaki pants and rubs up against the secretary's high heels.
The feeling of euphoria leaves our hero. But the point is, it was there.
He drinks coffee with seven canisters of creamer, easing into his day with a slight twitch. He puts on his work uniform, a pair of dark khaki pants and tucks his white button-up shirt beneath the belt. On the news is a story about a plane crash.
He drives to work in a 2005 Toyota Prius. It's a rental. His car is in the shop.
At work, he enters data into a computer for three hours and then takes a lunch break. He eats a pita bread sandwich and some baked Lays potato chips. He's not sure this is a healthy alternative to a McDonalds hamburger, but the packaging tells him it is, so he feels better. He takes a sip from a bottle of purified water and then swallows two Percocets.
The pills taste bitter and almost immediately start to dissolve on his tongue. His dealer told him these little white tabs will make his day so much easier. And our hero desperately wants an easy day. It is, after all, a Thursday. One day short from one day from freedom. The anticipation is almost too much to bear.
Our hero pauses to watch the sky, the clouds. He somehow doesn't feel connected to anything, anyone, but he can't explain why.
Back inside the building, our hero starts to feel the pills taking effect. He gets a little anxious as he moves in and out of the feeling, keeps asking, "Am I feeling it yet? Am I feeling it yet?"
Less than an hour later, his computer screen starts to fade in and out. He can't focus on the fluorescent buzz coming off every object in the room. His hands slip from the keyboard and rest on his lap. He's flying.
Our hero has never felt so good. This isn't like normal highs he's felt. His mind isn't affected at all. This isn't like Mary or Sally or anyone. He just wants to lie down and stare at the ceiling and think about the things that make him happy.
This reminds him of some artwork by a modern artist he really likes. Something about being trapped by society and conditioning and just lying back and taking it. No fighting back. The painting could be asking, "Am I feeling it yet?"
So our hero lies down and he begins to think, but nothing important or pleasant comes to mind. It should, but it doesn't make our hero disappointed.
A knock comes on his office door and a scrawny secretary wearing a miniskirt comes in. She looks down at our hero and says nothing, a puzzled expression on her face. She watches him smile incessantly, until he sits up, looks at her and says, "I'm going to throw up." He does so, promptly, all over himself and it pours down his khaki pants and rubs up against the secretary's high heels.
The feeling of euphoria leaves our hero. But the point is, it was there.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
A Bar Scene
Two men of the same age find each other in conversation at a bar and learn that they both loathe life.
“My wife left me for my best friend, I was laid off and my mortgage was foreclosed. My children don’t call or write and I’m getting too old to start over.” Said the one. “I can find only one way out, either through a bottle or a gun.” He finished drinking his beer and waved for another.
“What a coincidence.” Said the other. “You have lost everything but I never had those to begin with.”
“Maybe you’re taking things too seriously,” the bartender interjected. “Many things are worth living for. You don’t have to drink yourself to death.” It was his way of saying, I think you’ve had enough.
“Any happiness in my life makes me feel guilty.” The first muttered. “Perhaps, then, starting right now, I refuse to laugh at anything ever again. I refuse to allow myself any pleasures until I pull through this.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said the second man. “I will make a similar resolution, only I will laugh at everything.” He finished drinking and then turned to his companion and burst into high-pitched squealing. He pointed and he held his stomach and he fell off the stool onto his back.
The first man didn’t react at first, just listening to the man crawling on the floor, laughing. Then he abruptly stood up, bent over the laughing man and slowly beat the shit out of him. But it was no use. The laughing man was already free.
“My wife left me for my best friend, I was laid off and my mortgage was foreclosed. My children don’t call or write and I’m getting too old to start over.” Said the one. “I can find only one way out, either through a bottle or a gun.” He finished drinking his beer and waved for another.
“What a coincidence.” Said the other. “You have lost everything but I never had those to begin with.”
“Maybe you’re taking things too seriously,” the bartender interjected. “Many things are worth living for. You don’t have to drink yourself to death.” It was his way of saying, I think you’ve had enough.
“Any happiness in my life makes me feel guilty.” The first muttered. “Perhaps, then, starting right now, I refuse to laugh at anything ever again. I refuse to allow myself any pleasures until I pull through this.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said the second man. “I will make a similar resolution, only I will laugh at everything.” He finished drinking and then turned to his companion and burst into high-pitched squealing. He pointed and he held his stomach and he fell off the stool onto his back.
The first man didn’t react at first, just listening to the man crawling on the floor, laughing. Then he abruptly stood up, bent over the laughing man and slowly beat the shit out of him. But it was no use. The laughing man was already free.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Inheritance
June 14, 2008
NOTE: I started this and never finished it. I actually like it better that way.
TV made me do this. Cops and robbers. Japanese cartoons. Even censored, those R movies persuaded me. Tipped me over the edge. That's why I'm here.
It's raining and later I will be swimming with pneumonia. This will only help my case. I'm sitting in the bushes blinking away raindrops and watching the upstairs window of my girlfriend's house. I should say, "ex."
The light flicks on, glows bright and I can see the flowers I gave her for Valentines day on her dresser. I'm waiting for the right moment and then I'll burst in and kill her and that bastard she's screwing. I'm waiting til they start kissing.
Video games made me do this. Stealing electronic images of cars and gunning down anyone who gets in my way. Big, red, pixel-blobs of blood. There ain't no halo over my head. I was taught this was OK.
I already know that I'll be tried as a minor because I'm 13 and this is the way things work in this town. Maybe I'll get some time in juvenile hall, maybe some community service. I'll get out soon enough and my ex and her new boyfriend will still be dead. I may be able to watch the history channel documentary, in which they'll ask the question, Why did this kid snap?
Who hasn't had some kind of impulse to kill before? Isn't this some sort of human nature? Every one thinks like this once in a while, why am I to blame for going through with it? Evolution made me do this.
I can already imagine the little bullet holes in her chest. Right through the heart she said she gave to me. Lying, stinking whore, you're gonna get yours. She'll be half-naked, because she never goes all the way.
As for that twat she replaced me with, some jock who's 15, I'll shoot him in the head so many times that they won't recognize his teeth.
I don't even know what kind of gun I have.
NOTE: I started this and never finished it. I actually like it better that way.
TV made me do this. Cops and robbers. Japanese cartoons. Even censored, those R movies persuaded me. Tipped me over the edge. That's why I'm here.
It's raining and later I will be swimming with pneumonia. This will only help my case. I'm sitting in the bushes blinking away raindrops and watching the upstairs window of my girlfriend's house. I should say, "ex."
The light flicks on, glows bright and I can see the flowers I gave her for Valentines day on her dresser. I'm waiting for the right moment and then I'll burst in and kill her and that bastard she's screwing. I'm waiting til they start kissing.
Video games made me do this. Stealing electronic images of cars and gunning down anyone who gets in my way. Big, red, pixel-blobs of blood. There ain't no halo over my head. I was taught this was OK.
I already know that I'll be tried as a minor because I'm 13 and this is the way things work in this town. Maybe I'll get some time in juvenile hall, maybe some community service. I'll get out soon enough and my ex and her new boyfriend will still be dead. I may be able to watch the history channel documentary, in which they'll ask the question, Why did this kid snap?
Who hasn't had some kind of impulse to kill before? Isn't this some sort of human nature? Every one thinks like this once in a while, why am I to blame for going through with it? Evolution made me do this.
I can already imagine the little bullet holes in her chest. Right through the heart she said she gave to me. Lying, stinking whore, you're gonna get yours. She'll be half-naked, because she never goes all the way.
As for that twat she replaced me with, some jock who's 15, I'll shoot him in the head so many times that they won't recognize his teeth.
I don't even know what kind of gun I have.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)