Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Call Miss Oreo, Cookie Clairvoyant



Fortune cookies are strange. They happen to be the only sort of divination I trust. What other form of prophecy is as accurate, as prescient? Magic eight balls, chicken blood, turtle bones? I think not. Once, as a child, I opened up a cookie to pull out my thin, paper, snake-tongue fortune. It said: you are about to eat a cookie. Holy fucking shit, how did it know? Luckily, my order of General Tsao came with two cookies, so I quickly cracked open the next one to see what other futures were trapped inside. This one said: you are getting fatter. Whoa! I was so awed, borderline frightened even, that I sat there frozen, with a forkful of pork fried rice orbiting my slackjawed mouth. The brilliance of these one line fortunes lies in their vague, nonspecific tellings. Always alluding to a future happiness or happening, they exploit the vagaries of fortune; a pleasant surprise is in store for you; all your hard work will soon pay off; you will inherit a large sum of money. I've yet to receive my inheritance, but it's coming! I can fucking feel it!

We like to play pretend, to think that for one instance the universe has consorted to deliver us a secret gift. One to distract us from our existential woe. We'd like to think we're special, that the world owes us; that we might, at any moment, through some divine act of kindness, be awarded a reward for our troubles. We like to believe - especially in our delusions. Fantasy is a powerful thing.

So back to fortune cookies. I got one yesterday that is perhaps the greatest fortune I've ever received. It said: you will be coming into a fortune. A seemingly simple sentence, one would think. Further investigation reveals multiple levels of potential meaning though. The first, is that this is the most meta fortune cookie ever written; predicting its own appearance, a veritable Nostradamus. The second, most literal interpretation, is that I will be coming into a large sum of money. I think we can all admit this interpretation is Dubois at best. There is in fact a third interpretation, a not so subtle perversion, which I believe to be the most salient.

It involves me glazing the cookie with a testicle sized packet of boy sauce.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Pagan Paleontology



I got coaxed into going to the paleontology exhibit on the boat with Q last night. It seemed also to be a kind of pagan ritual celebrating the great pink mammoth. People were dressed in strange, fury attire and performed ritual dances, celebrations and libations. All but me, of course. I rushed down to meet Q wearing a work shirt and jeans which, once I boarded the boat, made me stand out like a buffoon. I looked like an undercover narcotics officer; a thing that prevented me from procuring any illicits - not that I could take any on a Sunday night, with work looming like a tidal wave on the horizon. 

It was fun though. Cruising around the bay watching the sun set and the skyline come alive was something to see. The bridges were beautiful. And on the boat, there was so much scantily-clad cornea candy that I think my eyes got cavities. While waiting in line to buy a drink for myself and Q, I managed charm a girl into buying them for me. Melina was her name. I ran into a few people from work who'd ingested some sacred mushrooms, and a few others who were playing it safe, like me. We formed a coalition of the willing; those willing to will not to do drugs. Solidarity. It's a thing I want in my resolve as well as my stools. That reminds me, I'd like to open up a furniture store called Lou's Stools that only sells metamucil. 

I need to stop going to dance parties when I can't dance. It's just not as fun casually shimmying and shaking on the dancefloor - a man's got to twerk. Next time I'll come prepared, tripping balls and wearing Miley Cyrus' plastic, flesh-colored underwear. 

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Whisked Away



I have no time. I wasted my morning reading scary stories and playing a Spider-Man video game on my phone. Why is Spider-Man hyphenated while Batman is not? The first mystery of the day.

I'm off to go to brunch with Q, before he goes to a party on a boat. I think it's an archeology exhibit of some sort; he'd mentioned mammoths.

Well, he's here. He just told me he's on his way up. Funny, I thought I should be on my way down.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Emetic Penis Penance



Well, I'm up. I woke up early; I'm not sure what time, exactly, I just know that I was having a dream in which I'd realized I was being deceived by someone whom I believed was a representation of myself. Then I had a choking sensation which slowly took me out of the dream and back to my bedroom. I think it was a chokeubus. That's what my penis thinks I am. Always coming to it when it sleeps, waking it with vigorous, carnal choking that results in its inevitable vomiting. Most men, I'd think, have this emetic effect on their penises.

Penises.

Penances.

Panache!

It's never too early to be lewd. As I said, I'm not sure how long I've been awake, but I know that I've managed to drain my iPhone 6 battery down to 89%, so that's something. I was invited to go with some friends to celebrate a birthday on a lake. It would involve going in the water, spending the night, sleeping in an unknown bed, drinking. That's too much amphibious adventure for me today. I think I'll sit home and drink green tea, read a book, eat oatmeal, cultivate an acute agoraphobia. Actually, what I wanted to do was wake up early, hike through Muir Woods and take photos to get back to nature, but I neglected to charge the battery for my camera and now it's dead. I'm charging it now, so maybe I'll head out a bit later.

My stomach is making some very strange sounds right now, terrible, frightening sounds, as though a brick of shit in my belly just melted into diarrhea, a chocolate miscarriage. Disgusting. Ok, I've covered cocks and defecations, masturbation and ejaculations, so what's next?

Cleaning up, I suppose.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Do You Believe in Magic



The headphone wires were tangled. She had them carefully wrapped before she left, but as she pulled them from her pocket they were knotted absurdly, like a ball of yarn. It had rained during the night and everything was still wet and damp. She'd accidentally stepped in a puddle as she hurried down the street, soaking her foot. She'd always hated wet socks, ever since she was a child. Her mother, when she would do laundry, never dried the socks properly; always left them in a haphazard pile that would cause some of them to dry and some of them to remain moist and musty. Erica had a habit of never drawing the ones that were dry.

At her feet her three-year-old daughter, Jessica, a caricature of impatience, stamped and smacked Erica's leg, screaming, demanding her juice box. The bus was taking forever to arrive this morning and she feared they would be late for her doctor's appointment. When she called Dr. Welles' office yesterday, the receptionist told her the were no available appointments until October. Erica had to first beg and then argue, bargain, even call out of work, just for them to reluctantly squeeze her in. And now she was going to be late. "Great," she said under her breath.

The bus stop was deserted, and it usually was, on account of it being on the outskirts of town. The shelter provided by the bus stop was meager and ineffectual, and the air was still humid and heavy with mist, as though the sky above blew a mocking raspberry at her. She badly wanted to get to the doctors office; she considered calling a cab but then realized her phone had been shut off for not paying the bill. A homeless man approached, emerging from the alcove of a nearby, not yet opened storefront. Erica always felt uncomfortable around homeless men, because they were usually crazy, or drunk, or both, but also because of a story her cousin Lisa had told her when they were kids. Lisa's friend Rebecca had been abducted by a homeless man. It was a big story, all over the papers. Especially after they'd found her, after she escaped. He'd tricked Rebecca, who was seven at the time, to follow him into an abandoned warehouse where he was taking up residence. He wore his uniform and told her that he was a friend of her father's, that he had a present for her. The gift, you can imagine, wasn't one any young girl would have ever wanted. What disturbed Erica most about the story was that he sang to her while he did it. Do You Believe in Magic, by The Loving Spoonfull. It played on the radio he'd turned up to drown out her cries. To this day Erica still changed the station every time the song came on the radio or appeared in a movie.

The homeless man neared Erica and Jessica. He was humming. Erica shuddered and felt a crawling sensation and pulled her daughter closer. Stopping, the man put his fingers on his hips and bent down toward Jessica. "Why, what a pretty little girl we have here," he said. His hair was grey and dirty, teeth rotten. He smelled worse than a wet dog; looked like one, too. "What's your name little girl," he asked while putting his hands on his knees as he stooped lower. His eyes were cloudy and grey, claimed by cataracts, and they gave his face a blind, ghostly quality.

"Do you want to see a magic trick?"

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Urethrauora



The air around the bed was cool and metallic, which pleasantly contrasted the torpid warmth trapped around the sheets. From the window, rays of rising sunlight spilled in; soft, sleepy and red, almost pink. The sky was still cobalt-colored and shedding, and as that glimmering glass of rosé rose over the horizon, it became more electric, more luminous. There was, in the air, the kind of curiosity and coolness felt on Christmas morning. It was autumnal and brisk, peaceful; the kind of morning that you don't mind waking up to. He felt as though a wreath had been hung somewhere while he slept, for from the next room there was a faint smell of pines, floating with the same satisfying assurance as the scent of morning coffee. Though there were no pines, or wreaths, or cups of coffee, the thought of them felt nice, like sitting with a warm cat in a chair on a chilly day.

He got up and, from beneath him, the floor gently creaked and cried out in protest as it woke from a stiff slumber. The air pulled past him in icy ribbons on the way to the bathroom where, once he'd arrived, the wind from the open window bristled the hairs on his arms, gently tugged the ones at the back of his neck. Aiming into the toilet he produced a powerful yet small waterfall from his urethra, which warmed him as he peered out the open window and watched the sun swell and grow golder. He realized that, beside the sound of flowing urine, presently rushing like a river, he hadn't heard a single sound from outside all morning. It was so quiet he half expected snow to start falling. Why is it always so silent when snow falls? The flakes seem to drift downward surreptitiously, unaware of their conspicuous brightness beneath a street light, or perched on a windowsill like a sprawled, powder white cat.

A memory came to him, of one winter in New York; of her. A thin layer of snow covered the fire escape, dusted it like spilled sugar, while they lay in bed looking out over the city. Sticking up from the flat white roofs of nearby buildings, chimneys breathed out into the sky. The colored Christmas lights she'd tacked to the wall reflected in the window and adorned the sky, a homemade aurora. It was quiet.

The silver handle clinked as he pressed it. The water spiraled and then was swallowed.

Outside, a car horn barked.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

The Grand Budapest



"To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he had ever entered it. We were happy here; for a little while.”

I was home the other night, tired from a long day and ready to unwind, looking for something to do. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything particularly badly, so I did the one thing that made the most sense: I lay down and watched a movie; The Grand Budapest Hotel to be precise. It is easily one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It is genius. Wes Anderson will be remembered as a kind of Hitchcock, I think. His meticulous attention to detail affords him a kind of aesthetic that transcends aesthetic, blurring the lines between form and content. Though heavily, heavily contrived - and what is art if not contrivance practiced to mimic its lack - his films are immersive, distinct, enchanting. He is the Nabokov of film makers. When I read Lolita, Q recommended I read the annotated version, to glimpse the varying layers of complexity masked by an outwardly simple story. It is a deception devised by Nabokov, a game, which grants him an opportunity to toy with us as one would a child, teasing us, titalating us; he is a director instructing us how to feel. One can see Anderson not only inside Gustave, Zero, and the other three storytellers, but also inside ourselves as we cultivate our own narratives. There is a perfect circular symmetry to the movie, the end of which, leaves the viewer enamored and nostalgic, tingling with metaphysical sensation and satisfaction. The story is told by Anderson, through the “Author,” (who, to add another level of nuance, is the very author who inspired Anderson to write the film) in a book which is read by a girl on a wooden cemetery bench. The author tells the story through the voice of his younger self (Jude Law), who tells it through Zero’s voice, who tells us Gustave’s story; arguably the inciting inspiration for the piece. For it was Gustave who imbued Zero with the distinction and poetic expression which would later attract the author to his tale through its telling.

The story takes place in an old, unfrequented hotel; a collection of empty rooms full with haunted memories. It is a story about loneliness, how the doors in the hotel of our hearts are barricaded and rendered inaccessible by time. There is a peculiarity to the film; everything is ever so slightly perfumed by unreality. It is perhaps one of the most liberally perfumed films I have ever seen; the kind that lingers long after it has gone. At the start of the movie, Gustave, a representation of Anderson, turns to await a knock at his door before it even arrives, as if signifying that though he is the hotel's director, he too is an actor. Then, walking through the lobby, something unusual occurs while interviewing Zero. Each question serves to affirm and define Zero, as though Gustave is breathing life into him, helping to create a fully realized character; forcing Zero to understand his motives and place in the the movie. He is, essentially, directing him. Gustave has the same palliative effect on Madame D, who, reluctant to leave the hotel to play her part - of the murdered countess in Lutz - is urged on by our effete and mustached hero.

On the surface, the film appears to be kitschy and overwrought with a playful wit, a clever, cutesy sentiment, making it easy to forget the sad, tearful eyes hiding in plain sight behind darkened dinner tables. All of the main characters are bereft of familial ties, having suffered great indignities and loss. Zero, in particular, was tortured and interrogated, his family murdered by a militia. The characters form a kind of family of orphans within the hotel, taking refuge in one another’s company, truly. But just when their happiness seems within reach, it is snatched away; Gustave is shot by fascists, Agatha and her unborn child fall victim to death and disease, the hotel itself falls into disrepair and Zero’s name seems a cruel, eponymous joke.

It is a tale of loss, love, greed, murder, pain. It seems, at times, and also often, deliberately ostentatious, a kind of showy piece of artifice to both mark and mask the pain and loneliness of the protagonists. It is a also movie about writing, narrated by a writer. The way the characters speak is a loud departure from the way normal people speak; everyone speaks as though they are inside a book, because, in fact, they are. As mentioned earlier, it is the story of Gustave more than anyone; of his indomitable memory, living on like a cherished painting on the hotel wall of Zero’s heart. He made it what it was; not only the Budapest, but also, Zero. Gustave represents creativity and romanticism; he is an allegory. It’s easily seen in the scene on the train, when Ed Norton first appears. There is also an abundance of device; the viewer somehow feels more like a participant than an observer, growing into Zero’s character as he does; the frequent help from the camera angles create a more believable world; the various “first-persons" that shift seamlessly into the familiar, third-persons; the poetic omission of Agatha by mention of Agatha; the circularity of the film from start to finish; breaking the fourth wall as the characters peer back at the audience for recognition.

It is lovely.

"He sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace."

Friday, September 19, 2014

alleA



I saw a thing of rare, bizarre beauty tonight. It was a psychedelic sex show. To explain it, I'll have to shed a bit of light on some recent perversions of mine. This last week I was exposed to the dark underbelly of the internet, to a place I never dared venture before: the world of sex cams. It's the natural evolution of the internet, of technology, loneliness and porn. It's a frightening place at times, the internet, and sex cams are no exception. There's a darkness there, one that transcends the voyeuristic exhilaration, cum-stained seats and crestfallen shame unique to the sex shows of yore.

It was a Thursday just like any other; I was home, night was stretching out before me into the early evening hour and, as usual, I'd eaten dinner and developed an urge to dip into the wank bank for a quick thrill. I opened my computer and through a series of desultory clicks, I found myself on a live cam site. As I meandered through the models, bumbling from one cam to the next, not expecting anything extraordinary, I stumbled across one that I would never forget.

It began with a girl wearing a large fuzzy onesy, seated in front of a piano, singing songs. Peculiar, I thought, a musical performance, here? But before I knew it her clothes were off and she was jamming away with her fingers - on an accordion. It was lovely, spontaneous, whimsical. Moments later, nude and giggling, she dashed offscreen like a white rabbit hopped up on amphetamines, only to return with an enormous didgeridoo. My god, I thought, how is she going to fit that inside her; it'll kill her! She laughed and blew into the long wooden instrument for a few minutes, making queer, wet, queef-like sounds, before she produced a sitar. She sat and plucked the strings. What kind of strange melodious nymph is this, I asked myself, while I, gently fapping, continued to fap, fap fap at my chamber door. I was slowly being placed under some kind of spell, I was sure of it.

Soon, by means of some arcane sorcery, she'd turned all the lights in the room red. The mood was changing, and fast. Now, she wore a cloak and danced around the room like a wild, wanton wizard, mad for destruction and revenge. She was a witch, a magician, I was sure of it. For her next trick, she exclaimed she needed to step up her sock game, and once more she ventured off screen, only to return transformed; wearing shoes made of furry tits she danced an awkward dance that hypnotized my eyes and softened the stone between my hands.

What happened next I can hardly describe. It was like a drug experience; wondrous and wonderful, awe-inspiring, unlike anything I'd ever seen. I was transfixed, like an onlooker at a circus sideshow, entranced by her illusion: she had removed her head. It was simply gone. Then, she began to contort her body and move in inhuman ways, always symmetrically, always sexual. She summoned spider-like minions for her to command and crawl. She halved herself, then doubled, slipped in and out of dimensions, became a fleshy, four-legged tarantula. What a monstrously beautiful shapeshifter was she.

It was art, truly. I was delighted to have seen a thing of such singularity.

My penis was so moved, it wept.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

I Like Turtles



Again I'm discouraged; not that I was ever couraged, though. I've been reading a lot of Capote lately and it's made me realize how much I suck. He writes in ribbons, pulls off beautiful streaming sentences seamlessly. It's insulting, really; like showering in a locker room and catching an accidental glimpse of a horse cock, one so large it's wrapped around itself in circles as though it were a fire hose, and then looking down at your own paltry prick, your one measly ball, hanging from your crotch like a little shriveled turtle head turning green with envy, you wonder why god made you this way. That's what it feels like. His competency is crushing. As a reader I love it, but as one who enjoys writing, his mastery is offensive. Like all great writers, he makes it seem so easy, maddeningly effortless. I'm seldom able to make anything seem easy, not even easy women.

We must all secretly, or sometimes openly, resent, even hate, those we admire. Because to admire is to envy. It is to acknowledge one possesses a thing you lack; a sort of self admission of inferiority. All writers then, must equally love and loathe Joyce, Nabokov, Chekov. Jerkov.

So you know what? Fuck Capote.

Speaking of which, my sexuality was questioned by a homosexual colleague of mine today. That's right, can you believe it? He'd used the word rapier, a brilliant word, and I told him so. In fact, I'd recently sent it to a girl when quoting C.S. Lewis, and I told him that, also. "I remember the first time I realized I was gay," he said. "This must be an amazing time for you." He was joking of course, at least I hope so, given the only penis that excites me is my own, but it reminded me of a particularly nonsense taboo in our society; one that tries to assert that any talk of poetry or beauty by a man, is somehow gay. Eating salad suffers this stigma too - though eating salad can actually be very, very gay, depending on the type of salad. What about poetry though, is inherently unmanly? And why should beauty be relegated to the realm of femininity; women shouldn't get to have a monopoly on beauty; that's sexist.

I have a dream: I believe in a world where a man can talk about beauty openly, without fear of reprisal; where men can recite poems to one another; where they can eat salads in peace; where two men could go to a nude hot springs together without it being weird. Ok, maybe I am gay.

Then, can I fuck Capote?

Monday, September 15, 2014

Outmatched



The thing about love, and anyone who's ever known it could tell you this, is that as fast as it appears it can vanish. It's a thing of dandelion delicacy, born, borne and broken by the breeze. We chase after it like dogs on a beach, in pursuit of a thrown ball; into the rushing tide, tussled and wearied on the waves, until we are soaking wet and numb, crusted from head to toe with icy salt.

So it goes.

Yesterday we spent the day on the beach (Baker), by the bridge. It was lovely. We got the gang back together and sat on white sheets drinking beer, eating sandwiches, wasting time beneath blue skies. I'd forgotten how incredibly pacifying the sound of rolling waves can be. With the sleepiness of a small child I was cradled by sunshine, rocked to sleep by soft shushes, little lullaby whispers lilting from liquid lips. The only thing missing was a cold Corona and requisite lime. It was a glimpse of the good life.

Until I got home.

My tired footsteps fell heavy against the wooden floor which, crackling and popping like campfire, reminded me of those fleeting moments of forgotten youth where anything seemed possible; where everything had the haunting quality of a scary story which, if heard before bedtime, could keep you up all night counting undead sheep. I walked across the room, eager to lie in bed, and I sat down to greet my buzzing phone. It was here I found that my small promise of love, which I'd tucked away like a tooth under a pillow, had been lost. No matter how much I'd stoked them, the cruel winds of circumstance had extinguished the flame of possibility, forever.

Cinder. Smoke. Sulphur.

Matchbook dreams.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Breakfast



Breakfast got me into trouble yesterday. Not so much the breakfast exactly, but the mimosas. That's where it all began. As a rule, if you drink four mimosas before noon, you've made a swift and irreversible stride in the direction of debauchery.

I was home and in bed by 5:30, and woke up at 11:00 with several missed calls and a hangover. I considered going back out, for some hair of the dog, but thought better of it when I stood up and my head began to throb. Until last night, I hadn't ever had the luxury of trying to go to sleep at the same time a hangover started stirring. It was terrible. Deranged half-awake dreams that felt more like psychoactive adventures than restful slumber. Ah well, never again; until next time.

The sun is shining and I have to run. Time for breakfast.

------

Sunday morning
And I'm falling
I've got a feeling
I don't want to know

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Sleepless in San Francisco



Have you ever wanted to go to sleep, but not badly enough to actually do it? Instead, you just lie in bed and distract yourself from sleep by tending to trivialities; browsing the internet, watching YouTube videos, commenting on Facebook posts, all without ever really understanding why? It's bizarre. I realize I should go to sleep, and I sort of want to, but can't. There are things I find myself doing, none of which matter or need to be done at this moment yet, despite this, lazily, I continue tending to them. I don't even want to write right now, but here I am. 

There's a point that can be crossed, once sufficiently fatigued, where one can become a fixed contradiction; one that never succeeds at true conflict, due to surplus apathy and a listless indifference. Instead I maintain a kind of sustained, anxious serenity.

I can't shake it. As much as I want to, I don't care to. I'm like a shitty yin yang, an interdependence of opposites paralyzed by balance.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Part 1



His teeth had a chemical clean quality, that very distinct "freshly scrubbed bathroom floor" feel. His demeanor reeked of sterile disinfectants and bleach. When I'd first met him, in the fecund bloom of May, while spring was all green and bright and teeming, he greeted me in the narrow corridor of that labyrinthine hospital. From his big head he flashed me a sanitized smile and thrust his cold hand into mine. I noticed immediately that his grip was too firm, too desperate to disarm, but I so much wanted to be palliated that I forgave this first impression. With a polystyrene grin he'd told me he would help me with all the necessary arrangements, all those nuances and trivialities that a man in my position need not trouble himself with. My wife, Martha, a healthy woman for as long as I'd known her, had fallen very ill with a fever. The doctors didn't understand it; the drugs were ineffective at treatment; and instead of improving, her condition was steadily worsening. I watched her wilting, burning away in that sick house for fourteen days. He'd arrived soon after the doctors had hinted at a new and experimental treatment for her mysterious malady. His name, the skinny-eyed drug rep sent by the pharmaceutical company to deliver brochures, statistical research studies, and information on the relative success of their drug, was Geoffrey Reed. "Let me reiterate,” he said smoothly, as though putting a child to sleep with his words, "some of the most brilliant minds in medicine are behind this treatment; men who have dedicated their lives to science; truly loyal Hippocraticians devoted to the eradication of disease." 

G. Reed heralded these alleged harbingers of health and administered warm assurances that my darling Martha would have me alone to thank, were I to make the right decision of course, and sign her up for the drug's first human trial. Martha, at the time, was delusional, in and out of sleep and sweat-stained deliriums, drugged and dazed; she had been deemed "not of sound mind," so the choice rested squarely on my shoulders. I wrestled with great and terrible uncertainty during those two weeks and, recounting the days, I doubt I even slept at all. When I wasn't at that frightful hospital I was tormented by fits of painful possibility, memories of past happiness, the helpless chasm of fear I was sinking into. What little sleep I did achieve, with the help of valium, laudanum, wine and exhaustion, were given away to nightmare. I awoke one night, having dreamt it all to be a bad dream, and reached over to touch Martha, to take her in my arms and pull her toward me in a gesture of great gratitude, only to find, with crushing, aching emptiness, the vacuous hollow of cold sheets. But as tears welled in my eyes and my face twisted with sorrow, the sound of her sweet footsteps floated toward me from the bathroom. Smiling, smelling of powder and soap, she climbed into the bed and wrapped her cold arms around me, whispering: sorry, I'm back now, I didn't mean to wake you. "No, no," said I, my tears turning to joy, "I had the most awful dream.” Then, I woke up.

These cruel jokes, though, were only a taste of things to come. I'd made the decision, at the behest of Mr. Reed and the hospital's retinue of physicians, to proceed with the procedure. I reasoned thusly: none of the prescriptions prescribed up to that point had worked; Martha's condition was worsening and something needed to be done; were I to do nothing, if I failed to act, Martha would surely die. I wondered, in those wincing, sunfilled days of spring, when the gloating greens and proud purples propagated and pollenated around me, whether I was doing the right thing. That recurrent question hung around me always as a grim full moon of uncertain color, wholly eclipsing the sun. It was in these pained days that Geoffrey would arrive and, as though having glimpsed some emotional barometer of my wellbeing, he would barge into the hospital room in his very proper and very peaceable self-inviting way and apply liberal consolation to my aching doubt. I didn't know it then, but he had his hook already in my cheek. His words injected themselves into the swollen tissue of my mind, patrolling like white blood cells, hunting for doubt, preying on hesitation. "If it were you lying there, Mr. Erdido, what would you have Martha do?” 

"I would never wish Martha to be in the position I am in now, Geoffrey; I am beside myself.” 

"Ah, yes, of course, I didn't mean to imply such a thing - excuse me for my carelessness. What I meant to emphasize, though, albeit with poor elocution, was that you are beside Martha, not yourself. I know she would be here by your side, too; my question was rhetorical. You want her to pull through this - both of you are ready for recovery. Remember the night you spent together in France, the year after she called off the engagement, when you were both unsure it was the right time?” This moment is important. It was here that he boldly pounced on my vulnerability and recalled to me a story I had not yet relayed to him. Yet he continued: "She had moved to Paris, you were beside yourself with grief and longing when you realized you'd made a mistake.”  My mind lurched uneasily in my head: I don't remember telling you that Geoffrey, but surely I must have, or else how could you know? "You flew to Paris, having gotten her address from a mutual friend, and showed up dejected at her door. You said something to her that night and won her back, something that brought the two of you closer together than ever before." Sitting there with him I began to feel weak and dizzy, maybe from too many sleepless nights and too much laudanum. The air around me seemed to wrinkle and throb as the blood pulsed and thumped in my skull. The slowly decaying hospital flowers began to nauseate me. "It formed a bond so powerful that you both pledged only death could tear it apart. Do you remember what you said, Mr. Erdido?"

The sensation worsened when I tried to answer his question and recount what I had said that night in Paris. It was in December when I flew to France, during a deadly cold winter. My flight was nearly delayed because of a storm; heavy rains and hail. In the air, flying in the dark over the middle of the ocean, the plane was bombarded, pebbled and pelted by glass marbles so large I thought I would die. It didn't disturb me that I might perish from a mechanical failure of some kind - a wrecked propeller caught and tangled on an icy cloud - it bothered me that I might meet my demise and never again lay my eyes on Martha. She would find out about my final flight, taken in secret in the dead of night, transporting all my stowed away hopes, the lost envoy of my love, from a stiff lipped friend with one hand placed on her forearm and the other over a trembling chin as she faced the insuperable news of my end. The pain of my death would succeed me and echo outwards like a ruptured, ripped open star, the baleful light of which would unleash itself blindingly upon the tender eyes of my beloved. With my hands turned to talons, gripping at the pale plastic armrests of my airline chair, I thought surely I would lose my mind on that tussling plane, so deep was my despair. Through violent bouts of turbulence I roused myself from the seat against the wishes of the fat-faced flight attendant, and pushed toward the bathroom, praying for a pocket of peace. A vertiginous falling sensation tugged at my heart, sweat dappled my brow and, gasping for air, I reminded myself that even if I didn't make it, even if the only news that reached her was of me NOT reaching her, at least she would know that I had lost my life in the pursuit of love. Yes, at least she would have that, I told myself. Braving the glares of first the flight attendant and then the owl-eyed, fidgety man sitting beside me - whom I had to cross to arrive safely back at my seat - I secured a kind of shelter from the storm, managing to withstand the frozen sicles hung like daggers from my heart. 

The details of my landing and taxiing to Martha's door can be omitted, for they are not worth mentioning. Of what interest is the back of a taxi driver's big head? Spurred by the night's briskness and the excited anticipation of a child on Christmas morning, I practically ran through the cobblestoned streets, my feet a fine mimicry of fast shooting pistols or the galloping hooves of intrepid horses. The closer I came to her home the more energized I became. Rushing through snowy streets like a sharp breeze, darting and dashing, I could barely contain myself. Finally, with a pounding heart and windburnt face I rang her door. Martha answered with a glass of water in hand and, upon seeing my face, dropped the glass into a small rolling orbit as she rushed into my arms. "Peter, Peter, is it really you," she asked, burying her face into my chest. I held her tighter than I had ever held anything, as though it were possible to squeeze the juice of love from her bones and anoint myself in them. The warmth of her quaint apartment rubbed itself against us in the doorway like an affectionate cat at our feet, dispelling the cold that had blown me there. I kissed her and my blood began to thaw and expand into the deserted veins and arteries in my chest, and so elated was I, so perfectly happy, that I realized I hadn't answered her question. In truth, even now I cannot remember with what I had replied. Our bodies did the talking. 

While I relived that whirlwind memory, as it fluttered past on hummingbird wings inside the aviary of my mind, he sat before me with folded hands placed in his lap upon a crossed leg, smiling, nodding. With infinite skill he feinted and swayed and dodged my detection, that elusive manipulator, always evading the grasp of apprehension. If only I had known; if only. Whatever protest I had put to him, whatever concern or question I could muster, he defused and allayed expertly, hurling boomerangs of optimism at me, leaving me alone with my myopic and foolish doubts. There was all of this, but also, like a massive orbiting Jupiter, my unwavering loyalty to Martha guiding my hand throughout. I do not say this to make excuses for my actions, those checkmate choices that felled my queen and left me toppled and outplayed, but rather to convey to you the frailty of my faculties during that time. 

It took but a brief afternoon to make the arrangements, existing now as only a flurry of memories; reams of paperwork and pen-ink; signatures; disclaimers; more signatures; impenetrable viscous jargon; duplicates and triplicates; manila folders; itineraries. Martha was to be transported to a private facility where care could be taken to ensure proper administration of treatment, superior monitoring and evaluation, onsite laboratories, and around the clock personal nursing and attention. I was hesitant about this, of course, because surely the hospital to which she was presently committed already provided all of these services, but Geoffrey had assuaged this concern by pointing out how much more difficult it would be to relocate a team of specialists than to move a single person. Of course, of course. And all of it without cost - because this was to be the first human trial, and the efficacy of the drug was not yet known, our payment was our participation. 

Everything was set into motion, and had been for some time, I would later find out. I was made aware of the term of the treatment: exactly three days, with a ten day recovery and observation period for blood draws, cognitive assessments and overall physical fitness examinations. Martha would be moved first thing in the morning. The corporate-owned care center was located outside Stanford, a short flight from Lyesdale. We were to meet at the hospital at 8:00AM and ride with Martha in an ambulance to an airport where a jet would be waiting. I kissed her febrile forehead and followed Geoffrey into the half-lit hallway. You've made the right choice, always remember that, he said, placing his pale hand onto my slumping shoulder and smiling so sharply that I thought he’d stab me with his mouthwash-blue eyes. I nodded and walked through a nearby exit thinking his remark strange, without being able to explain why, exactly. 

That night, back at the house, I packed suitcases for our stay. I packed Martha’s first; inside the valise I included a few blouses, one of which was a favorite of hers, two pairs of shoes (for comfort and fashion), a cozy white sweater (should she be cold), sunhat, (sun)glasses and a beautifully tailored, black, polka dotted dress. As I gorged the valise on her belongings I felt time slowing down around me, becoming liquid, and I become more absorbent, ready to receive a revelation: I was packing for a trip that wasn’t real. This was not a vacation, it was a stay in a sanitarium. I was deluding myself, thinking if I planned for good fortune and a speedy recovery that I could somehow will it to be true. A memory of myself as a child scurried out from under an old rock to shame and repulse me; sitting alone in my room cross-legged, on young naive bones, chanting: I can fly, I can fly, thinking that if I really believed it, really believed it, I would lift right off the floor. Foolish youthful hope. No, I thought, our hope should be hawk-winged always, for without it, we are merely prey; to fear, to despair, to ourselves, crawling around on all fours in filth and long-tailed squalor. I threw some clothes, socks and underwear into my suitcase and placed them beside the door, ready for the morning journey to the hospital. I reached for my wallet, a dreadful thing given to me by a friend, partly in jest, with an attached coin-purse that I kept to spare him an insult. As of late I'd found another use for that little flap which had never actually seen a coin - I stored my pills inside; those little pellets that helped me remain calm and placid during these tumultuous times. But when I placed my hand through my pants I was greeted by a hollow pocket. Had I taken it out and placed it on the kitchen table? I checked, it wasn't there. The bedside table? Not there, either. Where could it be? The car? I rummaged through my suitcase and then the house frantically, becoming more panicked, more desperate the longer it took me to find it. It was as though my entire existence would be completely invalidated if I were unable to find the thing. All of my sanity, personhood, my identity, all of it, depended on this one pocketable piece of leather. I felt that if I couldn't find it, I too would disappear along with it. 

I rocked back and forth at the edge of the bed, my head bowed in my hands, tearing through the fabric of my mind and tossing memories and recollections aside like dirty clothes, digging into my cortex with the exuberance of a dog searching for a once buried treasure. Then, like a bolt of lightning: the hospital, beside Martha's bed. I was nearly certain I had left it. I needed to return, if only to confirm I wasn't mad. 

I grabbed the keys from the kitchen table and briskly made my way to our car. As I drove, speeding along on sinuous roads full of blind curves and small dashed lines, I wondered what I would do if the wallet wasn't there. The night was oddly hazy and soot-stained, a brownish dust swirled through my headlights like little particulate moths beating themselves to death against the glass. All at once from around the turn there came a sudden screeching sound and a javelin of light pierced my eyes. A white van slid skidding around the bend. I slammed on my brakes and veered out of its way to avoid it. With a racing heart I watched the van nearly smash into the driver's side door of my car as it flew past, squealing, horn blaring, vanishing into the other side of the turn. What kind of depraved, mad, reckless, wretched bastard would steer a vehicle that way? The horrible thought of Martha waking from her fever to find me dead, taken by twisted hunks of smoldering metal and broken glass, briefly inspired a frightful fit of rage and murderous mania in me. After peering into the review mirror and looking back over my shoulder several times as I considered pursuing the driver of the van, I collected myself and drove toward the hospital to retrieve my wallet. What happened next, I still struggle to understand. 

Sunday, September 7, 2014

PMA



Something special happens to the mind when there is the prospect of love. It seems to flutter. Thoughts become lighter, softer, more springy.

The world around you glows and, smiling warmly, it rustles your hair with kisses. Obstacles transform, become instructive, palliative.

It is a grand excursion steered on by foolish hopefulness.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Miranda



I've half wanted to write all morning, but don't particularly have anything to say.

I still don't.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Air and Water



Two professors sat outside the restaurant on wooden picnic tables enclosed by a chain link fence. They talked while they waited for their food. The sun was low in the sky and a cold metal wind began to blow, pushing the star down under the horizon.

"I was reading today, about sleep paralysis," the scruffy-faced one said, “are you familiar with it?"

“Yea, I’ve had it maybe once or twice," said the shorn one disinterestedly as he leafed through a pile of napkins.

"It happens to me frequently, maybe once every 40 days, so naturally I was curious and did some reading on the matter," the hairy one replied, pulling on his beard as he spoke. "It's strange, all the similarities between reported cases, across culture and time. The fact that science can name it but not understand it bothers me. Those who've experienced it always describe a kind of malevolent presence, a shadowy form that wishes to do harm. I myself have seen and felt the thing, had it press down on me and whisper into my ear dark words I could not understand."

The shaven man interrupted, "I think it's not nearly as strange as you give it credit for. It's not surprising that people see, feel, and hear similar things - we are all wired the same. It's natural that a feeling of paralysis would induce great fear, which, if felt during the night, in a state between sleep and wakefulness, might cause the mind to create a hallucination, a phantom."

Proud of his explanation, the clean-faced man sipped deeply from his beer and turned the can in his hand, reading the label and smiling, drinking his assumed triumph.

"Yes, yes," the bearded man replied, "of course no one can dispute that we are all very much alike, biologically. However, consider for a moment how, in spite of all this sameness, there exists a seemingly infinite variety; in taste, love, dress, expression, thought. Does it seem logical then that all people would see the same darkly clad phantom creeping in their bedroom?" The bearded man put down his brisket and turned more fully toward the smooth faced man. As he spoke his hands danced through the air and gave shape to his words. "What if instead, some metaphysical communication were taking place? What if the mind, once placed into a susceptible state, could be contacted by the projection of another being's consciousness?"

The clean shaven man waved his fingers to shoo away the other man's words, dispelling them. "Oh, come on," he said impatiently, "now you're just making things up. None of this is probable, or even provable; it's mere conjecture. Show me the evidence for this and I'll entertain the idea. Otherwise, don't waste my time with magic and mystery.”

Smiling, the bearded man drank from his beer. “Does science explain everything? Can it? Might there be something we could marry to science that would provide us a more complete picture? I mean, you must admit that science has its shortcomings, no?

“No,” the baby-faced man replied, “science, given enough time, can explain everything, always. It is self correcting”

“Ah, always is a strong word, my friend. You’re making a dangerous argument. You are saying science can always explain everything, that given enough time there will never be a thing science cannot unravel.”

“Yes. And you’d do best to admit it yourself, instead of wasting your time drawing attention to things you think science cannot explain,” he said.

“Very well then,” said the bearded man, “but doesn’t science’s power, at least in some part, emanate from the idea that there are things we do not understand but want to, and could, with proper investigation? Mystery and magic are necessary for science, fascination is the precursor to understanding, is it not? When we observe a phenomena but do not understand it, our curiosity and desire summon the salve of science to demystify that which is seemingly inexplicable. Without magic, then, there cannot be science. So do not denounce magic and its power over the imagination, for it is the charming spark which kindles learning.”

A cold breeze blew and knocked over a mostly empty bottle of ketchup with a dull clink. A couple at a neighboring table had been eavesdropping and decided to take the opportunity to interject. The man, thin and spectacled, spoke first, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t help myself; could I weigh in?”

“Of course,” said the bearded man.

“Well,” the thin man continued, “in university I studied anthropology, specializing in occult practices across cultures, and I can say definitively that there is a great deal of similarity when it comes to demonology. There is evidence to suggest that there has existed always in our understanding, a kind of a collective consciousness. In this consciousness is stored all the beliefs, feelings, thoughts and sentiments of civilization up to that point. This is why we can agree on universal fears; of the dark, of that which is monstrous, of loneliness. Each of us, on our own, must encounter the monsters in the closet, the ghosts and ghouls, the Boogeymen. It is believed that these ideas and symbols are stored in our memories, and from them emerge patterns of behavior and understanding, a kind of spiritual instinct."

A waitress broke the silence with a soft excuse me as she placed little electronic candles on the wooden table to stave off the dark a bit longer. On a nearby bench a group celebrated as a new member sat down to join them. A somber southern song sang out on the air, sailing sweetly from sad speakers. Yellow headlights rolled past as cars drove by and then stopped. All around them the sound of human contentment bustled; inside a sly smile, a sympathy-stealing pout, a deep groan of satisfaction, fluttering butterfly laughter. At their feet pigeons ambled about patiently, waiting for fallen scraps.

“You mean to say what, precisely,” the shaved man asked as he fidgeted in his chair, shifting his weight and growing spastic. “You mean to say that there is some primal, a priori knowledge inside each of us, signifying feeling, lending color and shape to those things shapeless?”

“Well, I mean, think about it,” the spectacled man’s partner interrupted. “If a group of people all sit in a small body of cold water, does the water not get warmer? Doesn’t everyone’s perception of the temperature occur independently yet at the same time together, and doesn’t each persons’ presence in the pool affect everyone else’s? These people become an intricate network, influencing and being influenced.”

“Oh come on,” said the smooth faced man, “we are not in a body of water, we are in air!”

“One need only go into a room and fart to see the fallacy of your logic,” said the bearded man as they all laughed.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Eternal Ephemerality



I'm baaaaaaack.

I made it out alive and in one piece, without suffering further injury or impairment. We got home yesterday around noon after spending the night at a hotel casino in Reno. The burn was great and I'm glad I had friends who wouldn't allow me to miss it. My secret to survival was periodically lying down on a mattress in the back of a U-Haul, usually for 30-minute intervals, not taking drugs and getting a good night's sleep. It does wonders for the spine.

It wasn't easy though; I was offered many illicit substances, numerous times in numerous places; I was tempted to dance; to drink more than I'd let myself; to give bear hugs. But what I found, during my stint of sobriety, was that the thing I missed most wasn't the partying or dancing or the late nights, it was being able to explore the city. Because of my back I only saw a small fraction of what Black Rock had to offer. This is the first year I didn't see the Temple burn. It's the last and final burn of the week, also the one I enjoy most. Q described it as the point at which the transitory meets the eternal. I'll replace transitory with ephemeral because the two words share more letters.

It's a beautiful way to describe it, especially because it can be reversed and still convey the same message.