Conceived in Liberty

They parked their rented car and got out.

B took the key to the door and it creaked open.

"They changed some stuff."

They've got beaver-blood up here.

"That'd be the power of competition.

They unpacked the car and opened the scotch.

"It's pretty quiet."

Cars outside 1 and 3."

"I don't see anyone.

Down at the water outside 1."

"Mm hm.

I don't have my glasses."

A sat down again and pulled out his Penguin copy of Our Mutual Friend, Reprinted in 1985, 7 9 10 8.

She could see D's bare feet clicking together on the rail of the screened-in porch.

Who's the cook?

4 was occupied again.

There may be something interesting there.

She went up to the cabin and through the screen door.

It looked like she still had an inch and a half to go and she looked up.

"Do you want to?"

"It could be your turn."

C went into the cabin and got out the chicken breasts.

Cabin Two had been empty overnight.

Through the window over the sink she could see the car park.

They both had smartphones and they appeared to be looking for service.

Wouldn't that be a romantic thing?

 

*

 

Please don't try to put any letters in my slot. My slot's too small for letters. Not even a sheet of onionskin can fit my slot.

I hear you have a red rose with three thorns. I hear you think it's symbolic. But please don't try to put in my slot. As you can infer from the above, my slot is too small for red roses.

What's that? Is that a box of candy? You don't have to know what I think of boxes of candy, because you cannot give it to me. It can never be mine. You must know that.

They tell me you bought a wedding dress. I hope you kept the receipt or that you bought it with someone else in mind. I cannot get near wedding dresses. They're far too big, and I am barely slotted.

Your big black car is something else, I understand, with a big back seat and a leather interior. Well.

Things have sized such. Imagine something ludicrous sizewise, and you'll see what I mean. You tower over me so, I'm sightless, in a shadow.

Your kiss cannot reach me. Your kiss is simply too big. Everything's too big, you see.

 

*

 

Sick-made, I said to a friend, "That's just another bit of bad reporting. It didn't happen like that at all."

My friend said, "O-ho, another piece of that 'fake news', huh?" sarcastically.

I said, "You're intentionally misunderstanding me, aren't you? Do you expect me to believe that you believe that the media is a transparent mirror through which we see things as we really are? That they're some kind of metaphysical witness to things on Earth? I've read my media sociology. I've read my Neil Postman and my Walter Benjamin. The news is not ever neutral. There's always special interests. The media is a special interest, and little more than that. I could have given them a story about Bala, about how the Bala Bay Inn was bought by the Mariott people and how it's bad for the town, but I knew they'd distort the hell out of it by turning it into a 'story', and choose their heroes and villains, and cherry-pick their facts‑usually incompetently, which is a blessing in that their biases become glaringly apparent‑to turn it into just another commodity, bereft of any complexity, and coated over with phony sickly sweet sentimentality. We've had so many years

 

*

 

of skeptical training‑often having been given such training by the media themselves‑that you'd have to be daft to believe they aren't a special interest in themselves. They're economically motivated just like the rest of us. Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. The principle of sophistry‑for sophistry is all they have, so unexamined are their souls‑reifies their beliefs and biases until the result is nothing more than nine-tenths opinion and one-tenth accidental and revealing truth. They flatten things down to a grade six level every single time, such that they're only good for local details on robberies, weather, and murders. The further you get from local news the worse it gets, such that their opinions on global issues are entirely useless. They pretend to be as innocent as November snow as they dumb down issues ... to make themselves a living. This is akin to public choice theory, natch. Read a newspaper article about something you know: you'll see they got the facts wrong. So why believe anything else they say? Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, Michael Crighton."

"Okay, okay, I get the point."

"Good. From now on, please don't pretend to not believe what I know in your heart you believe. Don't play dumb."

 

*

 

For the Love of a Postrophes

 

An aunt's sister's son's wife's niece's uncle's daughter's brother said to a nephew's uncle's grandson's grandfather's wife's brother's stepbrother's niece's grandmother's brother's daughter, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

And the grandfather's wife's mother-in-law's son's wife's nephew's uncle's grandmother's aunt said, "I'm celebrating my nineteenth birthday."

So the father's daughter's father's grandmother's brother's son's wife's stepsister's son said, "Happy birthday. Can I buy you a birthday drink?"

The nephew's uncle's wife's stepsister's daughter's father's nephew's uncle's sister looked at her glass and said, "Sure."

The grandfather's wife's sister's mother-in-law's father's nephew's uncle's sister's son's brother waved to the grandfather's wife's uncle's son's wife's son's wife's brother of a bartender and called out, "Two of the same!"

The nephew's uncle's sister's son's wife's stepsister's grandfather's wife's daughter said, "Very kind of you."

The aunt's sister's grandfather's wife's son's wife's son's wife's nephew said, "So what are your plans for the upcoming year?"

And the uncle's sister's son's father's daughter's wife's father's brother's niece said, "Find a husband, and have a baby."

And the wife's sister's mother-in-law's daughter's father's sister's son's nephew said, "The world must be peopled, I guess."

 

*

 

Many men are up at three in the morning composing letters to girls named Alice.

Many women are on country roads rolling dirt from their foreheads as they look at the sky.

Many children are walking to their schools and their silly heads are trying to understand gravity.

Many men are kickboxing in gyms built especially for the purpose.

Many women are swimming in ponds without a stitch on.

Many children are riding down sloped streets on orange tricycles.

Many men are standing in the rain feeling it's just not worth it.

Many women are in airplanes reading sentences about lust.

Many children are jumping up and down hysterically because of chocolate cupcakes.

Many men are sitting on toilets surfing the web on tablet computers.

Many women are lecturing many students about how to visualize quaternions.

Many children are dreaming many dreams and every one is twitching in his or her limbs.

Many men are seventeen feet above sea level with their left hands on their left hips.

Many women are in clinic waiting rooms.

Many children are thinking of their birthdays and making wish lists.

And I am writing about it all, thinking there's something special in doing so.

 

*

 

"How can this all be, doc? I had all these hopes and dreams when I was a kid. I thought I was destined for something. But now I just want out."

"Are you sure?"

"Somewhere along the way I went wrong. Maybe I didn't have the guts for the long haul. Now I feel I'm too far gone, and entirely, I don't know, irredeemable."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm pretty certain, doc. Let me tell you. Now, sure, I got a lovely wife, but there's no little rug-rats running around. Someone's dying alone."

"Are you sure?"

"It's simple math, doc!"

"Are you sure?"

"Look. Let's get back to this here. I thought I was trying hard, but it turns out I wasn't trying hard enough. No-one told me how hard I should try. So now I got nothing. I've failed in everything."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. I'm one of those guys that had breaks, that had privilege, suburban affluence and stuff, but who made nothing of it."

"Are you sure?"

"I guess that's all I'll ever get from you."

"Are you sure?"

"Fuck! This is the last time I choose a computer game for a psychotherapist."

"Are you sure?"

 

*

 

There's a laneway in my town where the good girls go,

There's alders overhanging it, like palms

That cup a reluctant flame, with interspersed

Birches to add some solemn atmosphere.

They're dying for murder to inflect their hearts,

Or something like murder, or something like anal,

Or something that's nothing like anything else,

Their eyes and whites intent upon the cocks.

Our residents pretend, at times, the lane

Is purely something built of faery air,

Declaring, what, this fantasy of cunts galore

Could never ever co-exist in this our normal world.

And yet it's really there, declares our mayor

Internally (at night he feels his bloody phat

Fatly on his thigh in a semi-subconscious state,

When the lane's idea is more than ever that).

At two a m I stroll in to the lane

To find a naiad suitable to me;

I lay upon a grave and wait for what's

To come. And there she comes, red hair a-ready

To be be-moussed with come that overshoots her face.

This town to tourists seems so seaside safe,

But yet I'm sure they know what sex we have,

With protein proteanicity spurting so,

On the beach, in the lane, and everywhere else.

 

*

 

Today is my first day being the boss of my department. I never asked for this. The higher-ups must have seen some potential in me. Now that I'm boss, things are going to change.

At ten fifteen or so one of my underlings wakes me because there's been a complaint about some damaged goods in Utah.

"Utah? Who cares about Utah? Tell them: Pay up!"

A bit later I get a call from one of my drones, a Heather somebody. The "good folks" in accounts are questioning some invoices I'm leaving unpaid.

"Tell them to write it all off. If they don't like it, tell them there's more where that came from. Or less. You know what I mean."

There's a meeting early afternoon in the big room and I sit in one of the big chairs. They ask me for my input.

"We've got to go in an entirely different direction. Let's make other junk entirely. Our customers will stick with us‑if they're not assholes."

I am congratulated. One exec says, "It's like you're the reincarnation of Peter Drucker. Anyone ever tell you that?"

"I'm not that at all, man; though I was influenced by his work in Mad."

 

*

 

Naomi. Naomi lay on the riverbank with her hands toying with the 49¢ locket I had given her. We were alone in a way, and she trusted me. The problem lay. Poor Lady's-maid Naomi turned her left hand to play with grass. She said: "Richard, do you know what you should do?"

I looked down at the river and its stones. I said: "You know everything is going to turn out for the best, don't you?"

"Of course, Richard. It will have a name."

I kneeled down beside her. I kissed her. She put her arms around me and it was with some difficultly that I broke free.

She laughed, puzzled, and said: "We are entirely alone."

"Not entirely," I said as I stood and walked down to the river and its stones.

And I married the Lady two weeks later, while Naomi was never heard of again. Yet the Lady seems to know it all. She can read signs. She has been educated.

I will ascend the tower now. I will be able to see the river and its rocks from its parapet. Voices will carry me up the circular steps. I wonder when exactly I made this choice.

 

*

 

My pretty girl woke me this morning on her way off to work. "See you tonight," she said.

I got up and dressed and headed out the door.

I passed a pretty girl on the sidewalk. I tried to act casual.

I passed another pretty girl a bit later, whereupon I heard some pretty girl voices that caused me to look at three pretty girls who were talking about real estate on a porch.

I got on the streetcar. The car was full of pretty girls. Everyone on the streetcar was a pretty girl.

It seemed that everyone in the world had been transformed into a pretty girl. At a construction site we passed I saw glowing pretty girls in short shorts and tank tops ably carrying I-beams over dirt piles.

I kept my cool for a long time. I was surrounded by pretty girls with names like Dave and Steve. I thought I was having heart attacks all morning.

I walked to the bus station and bought one ticket, due north, from the pretty girl in the wicket.

Seventeen hours later I was at the end of the line. The bus left and I was alone.

Finally some peace-of-mind.

 

*

 

Re: "Naomi. Naomi lay on the riverbank...."

Somewhere around March 1932, a woman told her boyfriend she was pregnant.

Let's called the woman M, and let's call the boyfriend W.

I'm sure Ontario has its fair share of unwritten murder ballads floating around. This land has been around for a very long time, after all.

Did it cross W's mind? Did he consider the old kill-and-flee technique?

They went down to the riverbank to talk it all over. M sat on a dry log and looked at the sad water. W went down to the water's edge. The water was March noisy and churning passionately under the ice.

She said: "W, come here and sit. I think we both know what you have to do."

W sat down beside M. He sighed. "Oh, M. There's a choice."

"I know; or at least, I think I know."

The rocks must have been cold there at the water's edge.

"Oh, M."

"What do you want to ask me?"

"Should we be wed this Saturday, or Saturday week?"

She put her arms around him.

I'm glad it worked out that way, because the third person present, there on the riverbank, was my mother.

 

*

 

Today was a very special day for the dead people buried at Roselawn Cemetery. Eclipse Day!

The moment the moon started to block the sun, they began to re-animate. Slowly at first they dug themselves out of their graves, but once the moon was covering half of the sun, they were up and about, feeling like a half million bucks apiece.

They'd known it was coming, for it comes at every eclipse. Re-animation! A chance to walk the earth again! And though they were looking a little rough around the edges, they took advantage of this celestial wonder. Some told jokes to their old acquaintances, some crept off to find kittens to eat, some had sex right there in the open, and some departed to vengefully murder their murderers.

Then the found themselves slowing down again as the moon crept away from the sun. So little time they had to do what they had to do! With wisdom bred of great consonance with the elements of time and space, they returned to their graves like it was the most normal thing in the world.

The eclipse ended, and all was quiet. And there they will rest, until 8 April 2024.

 

*

 

(Re: Re: "Naomi. Naomi lay on the riverbank...."

(On the 5th, in Port Hood, Margaret's daughter Ruah came up from the beach to say hello before going off with friends while I made up a meal for Margaret, Mary, and me.

(On the 12th, in Kingston, I found in the suit I was going to wear for my brother's widow's wedding the programme for Ruah's baptism, from 2002.

(On the 5th and the 6th I referred [to Margaret and to Mary's brother Bernard respectively] to Mary's father's brother's family and how they had been able to joke about sex [on the 2nd] whereas Mary's family could never had done so in all the live long day;

(which, ignoring the rules of causality, caused me to, on the 31st of July, talk about the idea of 'Family Secrets' to Mary's sister Helen and Helen's husband Tom; about my father's secret previous marriage‑and about how my mother had been conceived! out! of! wedlock! and that my mother had never known until after her mother died;

(but then I recalled halfway through my story that Helen and Tom had also conceived out of wedlock. Colin. Hi, Colin. We're kin-mates, in a universal way.)