Silent Setences

I haven't the desire to write tonight. Except for that sentence...and this one.

A Mirage At Moody Beach

A divine offering

There was a line in a book I'm reading that stood out to me today: ...mirage and reality merge in love. The message is profound, and aptly phrased. It reminded me of the magic love can make, and also that making love can be magic and, often, magic can make love. But mirage and magic are not the same; mirages can take the shape of deadly delusions, dangerous self-deceits and denials. The oh-so-yearned-for, and often much needed oasis, is sometimes, only the dried out and collapsed ruins of castles made of sand.

But, not always.

When there is a true marriage of mirage and reality, when the world is alight with possibility and magic, there is love. There's a story that comes to mind on this topic, one I'm not sure I've ever told here; it was few years ago, when I lived in New York. I was dating a girl at the time, named Georgia, one of the deepest loves I've ever known, and I had booked us a cozy little beach cottage up in Maine, to celebrate our anniversary. It happened to land on 4th of July weekend, and we planned on driving up from Maryland, where we were staying at the time with her parents, all the way up to Moody Beach. We took turns driving her dad's Prius up the eastern coast, The Black Keys blaring from the car-stereo as the wind pulled the sound out through the open windows in soft curtains.

When we arrived we marveled at the tiny little cottage - the size of a closet - and toured the beach and surrounding area. We got high on some jolly green and rode an old kind of trolley aimlessly through the dream-town toward some scenic coastal trail where we walked and watched the sun set. We wandered circuitously back to our closet, unfolded the Murphy bed, and had some sweet cottage coitus. When we woke we captured some fresh Maine lobster, which she would later boil alive for me, as an offering of love, and we spent the morning on the town. In the afternoon, she cooked our captive crustacean to blushing red perfection and paired it with pasta, asparagus, and white wine. To this day it's the best lobster ever to be murdered for my consumption.

I remember at some point a salty tear from the tip of my penis made its way into her eye and we laughed as it cried. Let me not stain the memory with such talk, though.

As for my anniversary gift, I revealed a magic potion, transmuted by ancient alchemy and desiccated, broken down into small powdery pills of MDMA. We washed them down with some wine and went out to play in the late afternoon sun. We danced in the sand and dabbled in the waves; hugged and kissed and watched the sun get swallowed by the sea. We wrapped ourselves in blankets, waved goodbye to the glowing red dusk while listening to Cat Power and Iron & Wine, and we watched the fireworks erupt over the ocean. The colors streamed and raced and burst above our heads with loud crashes, hisses, and bangs. Our hearts gushed.

Small grains of sand rolled past like little tumbleweed blown on an ocean breeze. The crashing waves whispered infinity and we stared at the stars as they crystalized and turned to ice. They rained down on us, twinkling and blue, as though knocked loose from that dark ceiling by some invisible celestial waltzing. The sea cast shades out on the sand, spilled shadows quickly took shape, and stride. We saw phantoms fluttering by; lifelike cookie-cutter humans cut out of fog, strutting past and losing form like thinning clouds. One of them, a translucent woman in Victorian garb, appeared on my periphery and walked from left to right, across us, while I watched Georgia's eyes follow her until she had dispersed and dissolved into a fading memory.

With slack jaws and eyes as full as moons we asked each other the question without saying a word.

Whet Dreams

It was during a time when horny hormones surged in torrents through my tiny body; when I could wipe the grease of febrile pubescence from my face with a brown bathroom paper-towel and stain it clear through, like a bag of French fries. 

She sat in front of me in Social Studies.

The sight of her smooth skin, rolled down skirt, and pink hip hugging thong kept us all in thrall at the rear of the class. By doing nothing at all, with her back to us, she spread herself filthily across the stained canvases of our minds; puerile perversions, plump and perfect, pulsed and throbbed, vibrating, spurring sudden growth spurts, a lack of blood to the head. She played soccer, Captain, and had the hams to prove it. Her legs were thick and lascivious; I massaged them with sweaty, lecherous eyes, watching the curve of her outer thigh where it glistened, just below her skirt. A good Catholic schoolboy, I thanked J.C for the faulty air-conditioner and began to hail Mary. 

She was perfect, distractingly so. Staring at her cleared my mind, emptied it so that I could see only her; I didn't even waste time on her clothes. I inventoried her body with a vexing, drug-like fixation, reeling and rapt with teenage desire. Her proportions were perfect and full, not like other girls, who had scrawny, flat mud-flaps and boyish breasts; she was tight and toned and tanned, had curly hair colored like fall's leaves, mischievous eyes, a playful smile. In her there was all the allure of soft, wet, heaven. Mary was so torturously desirable that one of her was simply not enough; she multiplied in your head, standing scantily clad in the mirrors of your mind like life-sized Barbie dolls, one for each day of the calendar-year; Beach Mary; Promdress Mary; California Mary; Reverse Cowgirl Mary; Sleepover Mary; Pink Corvette Mary; Red Light District Mary; Jungle Mary; Down on Her Knees Mary; Tropical Mary; Doggy-Style Mary; you get the idea. 

But to dwell only on the swell and the swelling is to paint an incomplete picture. I also wanted to steal away with her, to pursue passions; I wanted a shared adventure. Vivid images of escape, good fortune, magic, dark dangerous forests, far away cities, a stowaway love taken to the high seas, high-speed chases, sunshine laughter, she asleep in the safety of my arms. Her tearful trembling lip and trusting eyes as I'm kidnapped and beaten, swearing to rescue her from the vile villain, spitting a mouthful of blood on the floor after he delivers a fierce blow to my jaw. I wanted to protect her, teach her, learn from her - be for her what she was to me. I wanted to encase her in song, to place her infinite beauty in the immortal bars of a serenade, beside a G clef. To have woken up before her and to have seen the peace of pleasant dreams promenade across her soft, limpid cheek.

Eventually, guided by glands and glans, endocrine and end-oh-cringe, my work became seminal, influencing later late-night toilings and mental midnight-movies, as I tried to pull out of me my most true self. I never dreamt wetly of her; my dreams were never wet, in fact; I would always wake up as I was about to. She was a sucky succubus, limply licentious at best.

As I dote on her memory, even now, I realize how strange it is, how much we aggrandize our infatuations, the way we allow them mythic sway and sovereignty. But only in the present, though; in the future, where present becomes past, as our obsessions fade away into the wistful winds of yore, we succumb to the profligate perversion of nostalgia, peeping Toms stealing glances at soundly sleeping dead dreams.

Bumble

Dandelions, 
were it not for the breeze, 
wishes, and 
the curious careful hands of golden-haired girls, 
could not be. 

The beauty borne on the pollen-dusted backs of bees.

What I Don't Know...

I meant to write again today but time got away from me. Another few grains of sand, lost.

I was thinking earlier, about the things people don't know about one another; the gaps in our narratives; the incomplete pictures we must have of those we hold dear, and the quiet struggles that take place behind closed doors; in the solitary confines of our skulls. There is an agonizing anonymity to these widowed moments, and an alienation, accompanied only by the inevitable confrontation of our fears. We dance with the doomed, dreadful intimacy of a moonlit knife fight; sharp pieces of silver shiver and sparkle and dive and dart, emerging and departing into dark inky pockets, stabbing madly at the dark.

We can busy ourselves and ignore the battle, pretend we cannot hear the clinking and clashing of metal, the quick grunts and jabs cutting the air, and with mendacious lips we could float ourselves a flowery line; from the glib tributaries of our aortas, we could tell ourselves a half-hearted truth.

It's fine - everything will be okay.

We can dismiss what we know, to distance it from ourselves, so it can't hurt us.

Right?

The supreme idiocy of old idioms.

Don't Talk to Strangers

I ventured from my abode yesterday, from the comfort of my warm cocoon and commode, to meet some friends at a beer garden. It was a celebration of birth; a testament to life's tenacity, and to revelry. Fun was had by all.

There was a dog in the bar, a puppy, a little lass on the verge of adolescence, displaying a dogged geniality and thirsting for affection. Now, we were in a bar, mind you, and the owner of this precocious pup had the dog on a leash, presumedly to prevent her from pestering us Bacchanalian bystanders. When the woman saw us approach the fluttering and friendly four-legged friend, she informed us, emphatically, that she was training her to not engage or interact with people. This notion, to me, seemed less like training and more like torture; the equivalent of taking a recovering Augustus Gloop to Hershey's Theme Park. I watched as the foul smell of frustration smeared itself across her face, her lip-curling eyebrow-furrowing anger crescendoing as the pup accumulated a retinue of petters, until finally, overcome by indignation's overture, she reiterated: I'm training her not to talk to strangers.

She was mistaken. She wasn't training the dog not to talk to strangers, she was teaching it to be as miserable and lonesome as she was - so it could never leave her. As I looked at the clear-eyed canine one last time, I saw a glimpse of the future wrench the dog's face into a gravity-ravaged mess; a puckered, saggy, wrinkled lattice of stress cracks and tension where smooth skin used to be; a disfigured, forlorn head, with hopeless eyes and withered ears too tired or too indifferent to stand.

No Thing

Though I did nothing today, I find I hadn't the time to write.

I did read though, and I walked, and talked (to my brother) and cooked (chili) and ate (chili).

Now I am to meet Jim and attend a party (where I will not drink).

More later (maybe).

Seaswept

It's as though I've been writing in a subdued voice; all this time in dark hushed tones that are not my own.

I've made mistakes, we all have. Some mistakes though, are not the kind that incur a meager punishment in the form of a slap on the wrists but, rather, a lengthy incarceration; a lifelong sentence. Such is the fate of the select few in this spoiled lot.

It is a sordid affair, this life of ours; the choices we make. There are times, moments governed by desire, where all of the wisdom and all of the intellect in the world cannot shield you from sharp consequence's excising scalpel. A momentary lapse of control, a heedless surrender to engorged, heathenly habits; the pursuit of a heavenly asphyxiation, a winsome want of wantonness. A witness, to that surreptitious surrender, that mindless mutiny, lie always bound and choked, a captive in the darkened dungeons of duress. And after the deed is done, and done, and done, in shadow and sleep alights the beast's sweet succor. It grows stronger inside hardened hearts, pushing outward from within, like a kicking child in utero, leaving interior dents and outward bumps on once smooth flesh.

We are all helpless, all of us. Stranded slaves on seas of infinite, boundless desire. Jostled, pushed and pulled and, then, drowned, by dark waves crashing under a cratered moon.

Up the Water Spout

There was an accident, and a dead woman, cars piled up like crumpled cans. It was a wicked wreck stinking of smoke and rubber, heated metal.

My brother and I ran outside to hellp and found a boy, the woman's son, bleeding and unconscious inside the car. We saved the child from the flaming vehicle - and some of his belongings too - and ran him up into the house away from the road. While we called the medics, I began to notice strange insects crawling from his salvaged possessions. A large purple pearlescent spider with shiny butterknife legs, and another one, olive colored, both sized like Halloween toys. They moved, but not the way spiders normally move. These walked with an ancient awareness, a macabre deliberateness. I lost sight of the purple one, which at first seemed harmless and playful, like a dog, until I spotted it on the ceiling spinning strands of silk like curtains from its stilted scissor legs. The other one, the olive one, had short, sharp claws, and a large circular head the size of a plum, with two eyes affixed on either side; those small adhesive toy eyes that children attach to drawings, the kind with pupils that roll and roam. And as my brother and I looked on, a smaller arachnid, bronze, mounted the olive one and became translucent. The larger spider stood on its hind legs and raised its forelegs over its head like Shiva as it sprouted more eyes, glaring eyes, with pupils that didn't jiggle and fall around loosely, but instead, became focused and ill-inftentioned, evil. They peered and pierced us paralytically, causing a deep, soft humming behind the ears, a sense of burning behind the neck at the brainstem; ensnaring us onlookers in a panicked paroxysm, a web of psychonautic terror and dread. I felt my breath being pulled from my lungs like strands of silk as the eyes continued to multiply and my vision shook from the dull ringing in my ears.

Only with great effort was I able to wrestle free from its eight-legged enthrallment, grabbing onto my entranced brother to pull him back and let him loose. As I turned to lead him away I felt how fatigued I'd become. The air resisted my movement. It had a thick, hard density to it, as though it were solidifying, becoming ice. I knew that even after breaking the spider's gaze there wasn't a true return to safety. It didn't matter, it was too late - we had been marked. It was clear to me that these creatures had caused the crash, that they were cursed, and now, we were too.

A harrowing torment roused me from the dream, and I awoke with the outline of the eyes burned into my vision; floating green dots danced, fast and fading, as though I'd been staring at the sun.

Murmurs

Truth takes form from the apparent disorder, coming together sensibly, discernably, like shapes made by murmuring birds.

365

Today, the 16th of June in the year of our lord 2014, marks the one-year anniversary of this blog. Time went so quickly. I'd like to thank my mom, God, my family and friends; everyone who made this possible; I couldn't have done it without you. Why doesn't anyone ever thank the devil during acceptance speeches? I'd venture he usually has more to do with it than God does.

I'd like to reclaim the youthful irreverence that started this site. At its outset it was leisurely and fun, an artistic outlet. Now though, it has become more akin to work. I spend too much time fussing with grammar and sentence structure instead of content. Form is important, absolutely, but not at the cost of content - that's what editors are for. It's like becoming a really technically skilled guitarist without being able to improvise. You need to be able to play jazz.

I am the Milli Vanilli of bloggers. I don't know what I'd do if the music stopped; girl you know it's true.

Yesterday I didn't leave my house. It was beautiful outside but I feared the continued wrath of the sun; what it might do to my already leathery face. It looks as though I applied a thin layer of expired Elmer's glue to my forehead and then sat in front of an oscillating fan to let it dry.

Fish Food Noses and Magic Eels

My face has begun to peel, specifically my nose. I wish I had preserved some of the little yellow-brown flakes that I pulled off of it, so I could show them to you, but they were flushed down the bathroom sink once I turned on the faucet - floating on top of the water like fish food. I now have the stylish nose of a leper.

Speaking of peeling skin and leprosy, I was accosted by a drug addled homeless man yesterday on the corner of 8th and Mission. I was standing there, minding my business, waiting for friends, peaceably leaning against a wall, when he seemed to emerge as though out from a sewer. His clothes were black, extra black actually, from the filth he'd garnered while gutter groveling. I could tell this was no ordinary homeless person; he was a wizard. When I saw him he was facing away from me, but once my eyes had drifted toward him he abruptly spun around, causing me to wonder whether he'd been facing me the entire time - I'm not even certain I saw his body rotate through space or time. His eyes, situated deep inside recessed sockets, stared at me sharply while his prognathic jaw seemed to slide in and out like a cash-register. Thin muscular arms twitched about his torso like twin tornadoes; his hands hopped from his hip to his head and back again, until his left arm settled in position across the bottom of his ribcage as a resting place for the perched elbow of his right arm. The blackened fingers of his right hand pressed and tapped the tangled facial hair of his jawline like piano keys.

I had made the mistake of holding his gaze for too long, to convey my fearlessness. This, of course, signified an invitation and he slithered toward me with the whiplash motion of an eel. He stood to face me without saying anything, so I broke the silence by saying "Sup." He didn't reply. Instead he pulled his shirt up to his chest, revealing a sea of sores and puss-filled blisters, necrotic lesions and putrefying tissue. It was something you'd see in textbooks and drug-prevention videos in high school. He looked at me quizzically, his lips moving like two entwined caterpillars, trying soundlessly to formulate a sentence.

Look at this, he said, rubbing flakes of skin off of his body, what am I going to do? I'm not sure, I said, maybe a moisturizer? I need some too, I continued while pointing to the peeling sunburned skin all over my face.

In a moment of rare honesty, his exterior seemed to soften and dissolve and, as I saw the shine of humanity welling up in his eyes, he said, I didn't think this would ever happen to me.

It was crushing.

I was speechless. A paltry apology bungee-jumped from my tongue and I felt the rope snap. Help me, please. I can't, I told him; I didn't have any money on me. I saw his hope transform into an orange butterfly and flutter away; his parted lips became a torn open chrysalis the color of dead leaves; a ripped up, old, birthday card envelope.

I watched him blow away down the street.

Fatigue

I just reread my post from last night. It's funny how fatigue and frustration can skew your perception of something, especially when the assessment of said thing is almost entirely aesthetic and subjective. In the morning's dim sunlight the story doesn't seem so bad. I even feel a little guilty for cutting it off before it really started. But such is life.

It's crazy to consider how many of those less fortunate there are. How what we consider to be average is almost reviled by the "average" person but, to someone born with a physical or mental deformity, to be average is to be whole; it is to have a chance. How insidious it is that we take this for granted. We are seldom contented by what wealth we have.

We take it further though, and we begin to lament our fortunes, clutching at our imagined poverties with a dedicated masochist compulsion. It is as though we come to be fatigued by happiness, sabotaging it at every opportunity.

The only ones who are truly gracious are the ones with nothing to be grateful for.

Melodious Monotony

The loss of imagination is a fearful thing, and his was complete. He could stare at the sky for hours, looking up at the clouds with a strong singularity of purpose and only see shapeless white blobs; Rorschach inkblots were the same, only their colors were inverted. He was so much without imagination that he couldn't even remember the last time he'd had a dream.

He was a composer once, of certain celebrity. He had sold out packed symphony halls, in Europe and thoughout the Americas, Africa and the United Kingdom too, full of clamoring crowds wanting only to feel his genius touch itself against their ears. He was lauded by all of the important art critics - the ones that mattered, anyway - and praised by fans across the globe, untouchable to his contemporaries. But that was then. Some misfortune had befallen him which led to an artistic impasse of sorts.

Like it were written in a book, her name was Melody.

As if often the case in any story pertaining to matters of the heart, she started as a muse. His music had flourished when first they met, taking bold chances and experimenting with prototype instruments based off of blueprints drafted by Da Vinci; grandiose swelling crescendos would on a moment's notice transform into the musical equivalent of snow; subtle twinkling sounds raining down on rapt audiences like confetti. He collected young, unknown musicians with passion enough to rival the most esteemed and celebrated virtuosos of his time, and he awakened greatness in them. One such example was a young pianist by the name of Veronica Montepulciano, who was rumored to have played Brahms No.1 in D minor at the age of 5. She was a captivating performer with dark chestnut hair, always dressed in a deep red dress cut at the thigh, stomping and rocking madly from her chair; the muscles in her legs rippling and on display while frightful fits of passion from her fingers thundered against the black and white keys.

It might have been the ardor he was able to extract from her that made Melody envious. Though there was no romantic relation between he and the Italian pianist, Melody began to suspect the girl - who was ten years younger than she was - to be a seductress. The idea had been implanted largely in part by Melody's sister, Rhian, who would attend the shows with her. Seating there in the seats as the lights dimmed, in hushed hurried whispers Rhian would say things like: Just look at the dress on her; watch how she writhes to and fro; how she stares at him as she waits for his cue. It was only a matter of time before Melody was made sick with jealousy.

It was on a dark September night, during a celebration where he was to be recognized with the highest accolades ever awarded to a composer, that Melody did something dreadful and cruel.

------

Ok this is dull. Talk about unimaginative.

Safe in the Shade

I burned my face today. Well, not me - the sun did. I don't know how it happened exactly. I'd worn a hood to protect my head, and I sat under an umbrella. Somehow though, my face is red and blushing, embarrassed by my neglect, my inability to protect it. I thought I was safe in the shade, that it was a melanoma-free zone. Apparently not.

Last night, as I walking home, along Divisadero, I passed The Independent and saw that Jolie Holland was playing. I walked up to the box office and spoke through the little metal grill to the girl behind the glass. No, it's not sold out, she told me. I handed over a crisp $20 bill and made my way inside. It was great. It was as though every song was pulled from her violin vocal chords by some delicate invisible bow. She has a very distinct way of singing; a unique sultry drawl, capricious and floating between a kind of warbling whisper and a tremulous shaking and slurring.

Ok, my face hurts; I'm going to sleep.

The Love You Save

All Good Things

I wonder if it's true. Do all good things really come to an end? Kind of a bleak outlook, no? Surely there must be things that are good which endure.

I wish I could name one.

But if all good things are always coming to an end, then that must mean bad things are always coming to be; and if it is better to be than not to be, then bad things too must eventually come to an end.

And that's good.

Pacific, Ah

Yesterday I went to see a friend in Pacifica. The skies were blue and the weather was sunny and warm. On the drive down, the sound of Chuck Berry booming from bouncing speakers, the ocean looked cobblestoned and silver and the wind tap-danced on top if it, sending out shimmering waves. With my windows down the air sniffed at the interior of the car like an overly affectionate dog; against my shirt, the backseats, the dashboard, the glimmering hunk of metal in the passenger seat. This was no ordinary Sunday barbecue - we were going hunting, in bat country. The pistol was plastic, of course, a cap gun, filled with 5 rounds of liquid acid.

Baby doll, when bells ring out the summer free. The car bopped and bounced along Highway 1, hugging the curves, rocking to the rhythm, and I thought of J; of a time we spent once on the Russian River. Alcohol-fueled land-cruising in the north country, with wine in our veins and mischief on our minds we menaced the road; driving irresponsibly, having thrown safety to the wind. We'll sing old Alma Mater and think of things that used to be. I pressed my foot to the pedal and the wind pulled back my lips, dragging a demented grin across my face. When the teacher was gone that's when we'd have a ball...

It was just as I neared Pacifica that I saw it. An ugly shapeless mass, cotton-colored and creeping, calmly moving in toward the coast from the ocean. It was devouring the shore and stripping the sun from the beaches. Some dumb bastard must've let loose 40 cargo ships of dry ice on the Pacific! Great, I thought, these lowlife clouds are going to ruin the party. I swatted and shooed at them as I sped past, go go, go Johnny go, go, go Johnny go, go Johnny go! I rolled up the windows, but not before a cloud of cold white air made its way into the car. It spread itself around until I couldn't see the windshield, until I lost sight of the steering wheel. I fumbled for the window but my fingers were frostbitten and numb, the controls slippery and wet. There's a recurrent nightmare I have, where I'm driving along a winding mountainous road, but because of a mechanical failure or a problem with my eyes, I lose control of the car and go barreling off of a cliff, plummeting to a rocky demise. The dream seemed to take shape in this icy trespassing cloud and I felt the chill of foreboding. The cap gun! I lunged for the gun and fired two rounds into the thick pall, sucking the juice from the barrel before slamming the butt of the gun into driver's side window. It splintered with webbed hairline fractures before I jabbed it with my elbow, shattering the glass and expelling the fog like a fart.

I arrived at Dan's and greeted his wife and 4-year old son, T. It was a nice place, spacious, homey. We chatted about the virtues of silence, fear and desire. His wife regaled us with tales of double-amputee hustlers and train hoppers. Later, lying in hammocks, staring at the sky, we watching hawk fights and birds flying. The day escaped us and it was time to grill. T came out of the house and looked concerned. His eyes darted around and he approached me apprehensively. His head moved nervously, like a bird's, and he whispered: I'm not entirely certain I can trust you, but something is about to happen; something bad. Thinking he was humoring me I encouraged him to continue. He pulled a gun from behind his back and placed it in my lap, saying: You'll need this. I have three of them and we're all going to need them....they're coming. Alarmed, I inspected the gun to see if it was loaded. It was.

Convinced the boy was telling the truth, I asked him who was coming, what he needed me to do. Zombies, he said, all kinds of zombies; ogre zombies, ladder zombies, crawler zombies, mega zombies...bat zombies. Fuck, this was serious! We don't use the F word here, he said, I regret to inform you that you owe me a dollar now, but let's worry about that once we dispense with the zombies, because we might not make it out alive. What do you mean we might not make it, I asked, we HAVE to make it. My future depends on it! We were speaking too excitedly and our hushed whispers quickly became a barely concealed commotion. Dan turned from the grill and asked if everything was ok. T put his finger to his lips and I understood - we couldn't tell him yet.

We ate; giant juicy steaks, tasty chicken apple sausage and grilled corn on the cob sprinkled with sea-salt lemon-juice and grated Parmesan. I'd forgotten how good barbecued steak was. I almost started sopping up the blood off the plate with my tongue, and then I remembered: zombies. Dammit, now I was full of bloody meat, like a stuffed human piñata at a Mexican zombie birthday party. Nausea gurgled and swelled in my stomach, clawing its way up my esophagus. I excused myself from the table. While in the bathroom, curled over the bowl like a cane, I regurgitated chunks of steak and small kernels of corn. There was a chewed up cob stuck in my stomach somewhere, I could feel it. When I flushed the bowl, the water swirled mesmerizingly, swishing away in a spiral, and something seemed off. It was dead silent, too silent. The merry mirthful sound of conversation had dried up and I couldn't hear a thing. I spent what felt like tens of minutes listening for a sound, counting the beads of water on the shower curtain, reading the backs of shampoo bottles, looking at my pores in the mirror.

Then the sound of rushing feet. I heard T scream: Runnnnnn!! I gasped and reached for the gun he'd handed me earlier. I was sweating. I could see it dripping off of the back of my head when I looked in the mirror. My heart felt like a kick drum, played by a small Moroccan man inside my chest cavity. This was it - they were here. With shaking hands I cocked the gun and placed myself flat against the wall adjacent to the doorknob, like a piece of paper. Slowly, cautiously, I reached for the knob and quickly turned it. I yanked the door open and leapt from the bathroom with my gun pointed. The room was empty. Decisively, I made my way downstairs, into the basement, and when I turned the corner Dan jumped out from behind beaded curtains with a crossbow trained on my forehead. It's you, he said, thank god. I almost shot you; I thought you were one of them.

So you know then, I asked. Where is everyone?

We got split up he said. Just then, little T burst into the room wielding a shotgun and slammed the door behind him. Get down, he yelled. We dove behind the couch as a shotgun blast rang out. Quick, he said, it is imperative that you surrender your weapon. They're drawn to shiny metals; throw it over the couch. What, throw my gun, I asked. Are you sure that's a good idea? Don't we need these to fight them off with? Don't ask questions, he said, just do as I say. So I threw it. Then, the sound of slow rising laughter, from Dan and then T. My pupils were frantic and confused. What? Why are you laughing?

You imbecile, T said smiling and showing his teeth, I hadn't imagined it would be that easy to dispose of you. Grab him. Dan grabbed at me and I screamed out. NO! What are you doing?! We have to work together! They'll kill us all!! T thrust his weapon into my stomach and I lost my breath to a fit of coughing. No, he said, they're going to kill you. It was then that I realized what he had intended all along - he planned to use me to secure their escape. A large black hood fell over my face and I couldn't see. I felt it sliding over me as I was kicked into the floor and shoved into a giant burlap sack, like a strangely shaped, shitty potato. I cried out but my words were muffled by the bag. I thrashed and kicked and cursed and fought to tear my way through, when I fell out of a hammock onto the ground.

Is everything alright, Dan repeated from the grill. T was backing away, terrified, and I looked up at Dan as he came nearer. Hey man, what's wrong, he asked. ZOMBIES, I shouted, they're coming. You can't feed me to them! I pulled out my pistol, the one I had brought from the car, and fired off the remaining three rounds. One for Dan, one for the cat and one for T. Things got a lot more interesting after that.

It got dark. We sat around a fire and watched the stars. Orbs of various sizes glowed and pulsed around us. You don't really believe in zombies, do you, Dan asked.

For fuck's sake Dan, what do I look like, a god damned idiot?

The cat looked at me and said: No, you look like a pussy.

And then we laughed, and laughed, and laughed and laughed.

Hush

I've noticed a few things about enforced silence. First, that your mind will try to sway you to do otherwise; it will say things like "why are you doing this, it's boring," or "it's actually much more difficult to talk to people," literally trying to revoke my Fifth amendment right! Then, after some time, you come to realize how similar it is to your normal routine, how little you actually connect with people from day to day. You recognize most interactions are superficial and transactionary - a hello in passing, the word yes at a checkout counter, a thank you to someone who held the door for you. Little one syllable words, yes no and please, begin to stand out as the most dominant words in the language, and even they seem insignificant. It reveals just how much a smile and hand wave can convey, the art of story telling alive on a person's face; the language of the body.

It makes you fear it, too, not speaking. It is a reminder of how comfort-seeking the mind is, how much it likes to adhere to the behaviors it has grown accustomed to. You start to feel strange answering no and yes with a shake or a nod; rude for not saying thank you. Not talking to strangers somehow strikes you as offensive, as though your reticence becomes some strange badge of superiority. The mind begins craving verbal expression, conversation with friends, the movement and shapes of words with the mouth.

It also makes you keenly aware of the words that do slip out; flares of frustration and dissatisfaction, disbelief or uncertainty; words like "c'mon," "really," "shit," "wow," "wait, what?" It makes me curious to know what significance I should ascribe to them, if any. Are they somehow more innately human than other words? Are they more fit to express the sentiments and feelings associated with the human condition? What if they are the true voice of the unconscious mind? The human analogue to barks and yelps. Or maybe it's that these thoughts are just less dense, too light to be held captive by silence; meaningless bubbles of helium.

Quietude may still the voice, but it doesn't have the same effect on the mind. Uncertainty and curiosity don't simply fade away once one employs a more taciturn tongue. You begin to notice what types of things prompt you to want to speak; danger, for yourself or another, seeing someone you know, or want to. I cannot help but think that language was borne of danger and courtship. Back in the day though, I mean in caveman days, when rape was cool, was there really a need to woo a woman? I'd imagine rape quickly became taboo once too many young girls were killed by excessive force, or from penetration - because you know, there must have been rampant incestuous pedophilia going on in the good old days. So once we established rape as wrong, incest and pedophilia went out with the bath water.

But it was danger first that gave rise to language. It had to be. The crier that could communicate the precise color of catastrophe rolling across the horizon could facilitate the appropriate response from the pack. Those who could evoke varying levels of fear and desperation were the best speakers. Perhaps this is why certain words are stickier than others, words that inspire panic and dread and death seem to cling to the bottom of our minds like gum under a desk. It has all the allure of a vestigial organ we cannot cast off. Then, sadness too has its place, as a unifier, a reinforcer of the precious, precariousness of life - the language of loss springing to life through a funeral dirge, beautiful in its irony. Then, all hail Bob Dylan, the Lizard King of Lamentation.

Wow. What some silence will stir in the mind. Baseless anthropological ruminations, rape, incest and Bob Dylan. I wonder what the birds sing about.

Avow

I'm going to take a vow of silence tomorrow: no typing or talking for 24 hours, starting now.

Body language only; middle fingers; please-prayer-hands; pelvic thrusts and pointing.

Maybe a dispelling hand wave to signify no, too - in case someone gets the wrong idea.

Flying Fish

"You sure about this," he asked, scratching the back of his head and looking around the beach suspiciously. He had ice blue eyes, and a thick streak of white that spilled down the center of his otherwise black head of hair. His eyebrows were bushy and came together slightly, forming an almost unibrow.

"Yea, c'mon, it's just a bird; a pigeon for fuck's sake," the bearded man replied as he bent down rummaging through the black leather duffle bag.

"I know, I mean...it's just," he started to say.

"A rat with wings," the man interrupted. "What are you, scared? C'mon, don't be a bitch," he continued, dismissively, as he pulled out a spool of fishing line. "Grab me the rod."

He handed the bearded man in the black leather jacket the fishing rod. The leather man stood up and took it from him. He was tall, and rail thin, with tattooed arms and metal rings on each of his knuckles. Delicately, with long, wart-covered fingers, he fed the line through the fishing pole.

"So we're just gonna do it right here? Just like that; right out on the beach, huh," the skunk-haired man asked.

"It's the middle of winter; no one is on the god damned beach," he shouted impatiently. "Listen, if you don't want to do this, then get the fuck out of here. You knew the plan when you came here; hell, half of this was your idea." His brown eyes were wide and stern, and hanging from his face they illuminated the dark like two full moons. He stared at the striped man waiting for him to protest and, when he didn't, he accepted his silence as a tacit agreement. "Ok then, let's get this show on the road."

The man knelt back down, placing his knee in the sand beside the bag. He reached into it like a devilish magician and extracted a frightened pigeon. "Here," he said, "hold it while I tie the string." The pigeon fought and kicked helplessly in the skunk's hands as the bearded man tied a noose around its foot. "There," the man said as he rose to stand, "all set." He picked up the rod and yelled: let her rip!

They took turns hollering and laughing as they gave the bird slack and slowly reeled it back in with a windup cruelty. Its wings flapped and slapped at the air desperately, straining against the string as they made the bird fly in reverse. Holding the pole in one hand, the bearded man lit a cigarette with the other. They stood in silence listening to the bird's struggling wings fan the sky with futility, the slow roar of the waves rolling in from sea. The night air was cold and a pale layer of thin, ghostly clouds stretched out over the sky above them, concealing small blue stars that twinkled like scattered sapphires.

"You seen that ass on Robin today," the black-and-white man asked, "she looked real good in those jeans." The bearded man nodded dispassionately, as though he were thinking of something else. "She told me she wanted me to meet her tonight, at Lucky's," the monochrome man continued. The bearded man turned his head at him sharply, squinting his eyes like a man staring at the sun.

"What are you sayin'," the beard asked, "you wanna leave; right now? That I need to hurry up because you want to get your dick wet?"

"Nah, that ain't it," he said nervously, shifting his feet in the sand and scratching his neck. "I was just sayin'...listen, you got a problem with me Mikey? Ever since we got here you been actin' funny."

"I been actin' funny, huh," he shot back. "Funny how?"

"Like you're better than me or something, like I'm not hip to it." The bearded man and the white-haired man both thought of his apprehension, about how he was scared. "That ain't right: we're both out here. I wouldn't be, if I was scared," he said.

The beard pulled deeply on his cigarette, lighting up his face in the dark, the color of crimson. He smiled and said, "I was wrong. You're right: I've been hogging all the fun. How about I make it up to you? You can do the honors, and set him free." The thin, bearded, tattooed man handed him the pole and he accepted it reluctantly, like an unwanted gift.

"You mean, you just want to let him go," he asked, not fully understanding.

"Yeah, of living," the man replied. "Time for my half of the plan," he said as he bent down digging through the duffle bag. For his next trick, the man in the black leather jacket produced a small metal container of lighter fluid from the bag.

The skunk clutched the rod like a handrail, leaning on it like a cane. He had to do it, he told himself; he tried to reel it back in as it thumped out of his chest. The white-haired man didn't like it, of course, but he saw no alternative. He was trapped. Mikey would tell everyone what a pussy he was if he didn't; how he didn't have the balls to kill a diseased rat. It would damage his loyalty in the eyes of the gang, it would ruin his reputation as a tough guy. As the bearded man offered him the lighter fluid, the bird - the strange, feathered balloon - seemed to know something worse was happening. It began to huff and cough and flapped its wings faster.

"Looks like we grabbed ourselves a smart one, huh," the bearded man said, chuckling.

"Hey Mikey, I'm thinking you should wet him while I hold the rod," he said, sounding more like a plea. "Then, you gimme the lighter and I'll light him up, okay?"

The warty-handed man sneered and grabbed the bird with one hand. He never moved his eyes off of the skunk while he doused the bird. "Fire it up," he said, handing the white-haired man the lighter. The pigeon's head shook madly as it tried to remove the caustic fluid from its eyes, from its feathers, from its skin. The strong smell stabbed at the man's nose, numbed his nasal passage and loitered in the back of his throat. Sorry, he said to himself as he raised the lighter to the bird's entangled foot, and with a quick metallic chik the spark was kicked off toward the thin stream of butane floating out from the lighter, igniting a miniature mushroom-cloud of flames that engulfed the bird.

The man was shocked by the sudden rush of heat and lost hold of the reel. It whizzed mechanically on the rod, giving the bird slack as it soared up and away, picking up wind, fanning the flames. It rose like a kite on fire, growing, becoming brighter, until the spool snapped and tore into the man's hand. He dropped the rod and it rolled along the sand, trailing the bird. It bounced and kicked along the beach, jerking the bird up and down erratically in the air. Its wings clapped together and rained down drops of burning water.

"YYEEEEEEE HAAAWWWWW," the bearded man yelled, "Look at that! We made a firebird!"

The rod quickly reached the black rolling waves and was dragged into the ocean. The bird, either burned or burdened by the water's friction, struggled for a few fleeting seconds until, with a faint splash, it plummeted into the dark depths, extinguished. The white-haired man felt faint and his insides hardened in his stomach. With a heavy chest and an ashen, brittle heart, he stared out over the sea.

"That's how you do it," the man in the black leather jacket said, lighting a cigarette. "That's how you kill two birds with one stone."

Lipiditis

She had assumed so much mass that her body stretched past what was still recognizable as human; her proportions looked mammalian, caricature-esque. Her arms were flesh-colored balloons stuffed with cottage cheese. It was impossible to tell where her ankles were - they'd long been devoured by her hungry shins. People wondered whether she had a skeleton under her gargantuan fat deposits, whether her bones had crumbled and turned to dust. It was rumored she was held together by sheer nuclear force. There was an ugliness about her, one that was more than just physical. Her personality was piercing. When she spoke her voice had that loud trumpeted quality that a young child's does. It wasn't just the volume though, it was the content of what she said. Every word spoken was trite and parroted and ignorant. A wet, pungent fart was a more welcomed social phenomenon than she was.

She often spoke of diet and exercise, though her frame betrayed her. Her body was a shrine dedicated to perpetual indulgence and neglect. It spoke louder than her words ever did. The only exercise she got, really, was her walk to the cafeteria to eat cookies or ice-cream. This allowed the lipiditis to flourish and proliferate about her hips, back and stomach, spilling down into her thighs which swished terrifyingly as she waddled. She was rude and complained often, about everything, anything. About having to walk, or not getting the chance to; about having not enough free time or so much time she doesn't know what to do with it; about how she misses her ex but how much better off she is without him.

She was reviled; a vagina covered in a fungal rash. A severe case of genital warts, all cauliflowered and rough, like curses written in brail.

I hated the fact that I hated her. I didn't want to hate anyone. But there was just so much to dislike.

Franz Bukafka

I met a writer last night, a friend of the Profuser's. I guess he figured it would be fun to introduce his artsy friends to one another - to see if we'd hit it off and talk about Bukowski, or Kafka. It made me realize there are a great deal of writers in this city, all gripped by varying levels of denial. When he was asked if writing was hard, he replied: "No, writing isn't hard; you just smoke some cigarettes, get drunk and do drugs - the rest comes easily." If he was being facetious, he fooled me. 

He was also able to rattle off his influences - as though having readied himself for the question - and spoke about being published in a way that, to me, came off a bit too attention-seeking. The way he glamourized the life of a struggling writer in the throes of drug abuse and addiction was a poor emulation of the great Hunter S. Bukowski, and his portrayal of writing, in my opinion, was a bit dismissive of the form. Not that I demand reverance when speaking of such things, but something about his tone was bothersome; perhaps it was the arrogance that offended me. I did like him though, and I wouldn't mind hanging out again, but I'd prefer if he were forced to submit to a polygraph test, to attest to the veracity (or mendacity) of his prior claims. 

It also made me realize that I still haven't found my voice. It's been about a year now, and still, when I write I find myself struggling to complete sentences. It makes me wonder whether writing is for me. When I first started, I had so much pent up energy that writing was exhilirating; thoughts easily jumped from synapse to finger like little cerebral fleas. I thought that, by now, I would have surely found the comfort to write fluidly. But, alas. 

Defeat is a feeling I've grown accustomed to lately. It's like I'm trapped on a boardwalk full of rigged carnival games, failing hopelessly while trying to ring the bell with a large wooden mallet, at landing the ball into one of the glass cups, winning a horse race with a water-pistol. It rears its head in every arena of my life, doggedly, and it seems I cannot escape it. 

But who is defeated; what kind of person, I mean. One who tries to be victorious? What is it that I'm trying to win? 

Satisfaction? I can't get no.