Down From the Mountains

‑Father, we're getting some emails and some calls about you.

‑Oh yes? And what might they be querying about?

‑They're a bit concerned about what they're hearing about your curriculum.

‑I'm very happy I say when I hear the wider community taking an interest in scholastic issues. Tell me, is it my course on Augustine and Aquinas, and would they be wanting my syllabus?

‑Not quite; they're concerned with your Family Life Education class.

‑I've had nothing but positive reviews from the officials.

‑Yes, but, the emails and calls are about your module on necrophilia.

‑I know it's a touchy subject, but it is 2017 after all.

‑They don't think it's necessary for ten-year-olds to learn about necrophilia, is all.

‑They'd prefer their young ones to find out about it on the street-corners then?

‑They think it's frightening.

‑I do it in a perfectly balanced manner. 'I'm not recommending this, but you should know, just in case.'

‑The parents don't see it that way.

‑Oh, breeders. We should not be afraid to face the world, warts and all.

‑Could you drop the audiovisual component?

‑Perhaps I'll revise my unit on lubrication and vacuum pumps.

‑That's a start.

‑God bless you.

 

*

 

We booked and we went to a chateau in the mountains or a cottage by the sea and there we gathered for a reunion. We burned a lot of wood the first night and took turns singing songs and I knew you were close by and I was waiting for everyone to go away.

Next morning I served breakfast for 800 on the terrace and we were all in matching pyjamas as we drank our orange juice. Someone commented that juice-drinking is, contrary to received wisdom, a very bad habit because sugar is sugar and your body don't care. I wanted that person to go away along with everyone else because you were so close I imagined I could smell you.

That night we went to town to play the games of the Harvest Festival and Fair. Everyone was a winner and the locals resented us our magical abilities while I looked at the moon and thought about how to get them elsewhere and you here.

Next afternoon we said our farewells. We'd all had a splendid time. A maid stayed behind to mop up. I told her to leave because I could clean up myself.

She left. You arrived.

 

*

 

The wind was full of chestnuts in the fall

When you asked me if I'd so like to ball

I changed the subject as to change the mood

To higher transcendental things unlewd

And though my thoughts were so simpatico

You carried past my answer that was no

I planned to tell you this so long

But I was busy writing up this song

 

And when we went to orgies without clothes

You begged and screamed and shouted in your throes

For me to come and come already

And keep it on the narrow and the steady

Yet still I stilly stood up all erect

As if to say well what did you expect

I planned to tell you this so long

But I was busy writing up this song

 

And then in house you cried down to the basement

For me to come up see what killing meant

I saved my text but then thought otherwise

Because the image uncaught off it flies

And all I needed then was one more rhyme

And then I'd see you in a goodly time

But after now what seemed to be so long

I've finally finished writing up this song

 

Hello? Hello?

 

*

 

Magic Realism

 

One Saturday morning, my sister and I were terribly excited. The Saturday Star arrived and we dove at the television listings to see what exciting new shows were heading our way through the antenna.

We lay on the living room floor with the box on, Funtown on channel 9, turning the pages, looking at what programs were returning, and what new miracles were coming.

"Farrah Fawcett-Majors is done with Charlie's Angels. That Cheryl Ladd is replacing her." "Yah, we knew that." "You did not!" "I did so!" "Sha Na Na's getting a show for their own." "They're funny." "Yah. Bowser." "And look. There's a show for Logan's Run." "I saw that movie." "I wonder how it'll work." "Lots of movies too. What's on tonight?" "Hmm. To Be or Not to Be." "Ehh. Well, there's more of The Love Boat and Welcome Back, Kotter." "That's good."

Father came in. "Why don't you go outside? Do you have to have that thing on all the time?"

We said, "But there's all sorts of tv coming on."

"It's all garbage. Your brains are rotting. You've got to be smarter. You should do some reading."

We showed him the guide. "We are."

 

*

 

One lovely Labour Day long ago, in the darkness of a lakeside porch with trees to left and right, the four of us sat drinking stubbies and talking garbage that we'd not be able to recall just two weeks later. Bright red and green lights burst in the sky across the lake and we stood for the booms and crackles. Bill said: "There's more over there," and we looked left to see purple bursting through the trees to pop above the line. "And more," said Jake and we turned 180° to see an enormous fireball of yellow and orange as high as the moon at 60°. "I feel like we're under attack," I said as across the lake a BOOM drew our attention to witness helices of amber heading, so it seemed, directly at us. Again we turned left as all the leaves of all the trees were lit with sharp burning white magnesium sulphide and we tasted gunpowder at the backs of our throats. "Up above!" yelled Mike as we looked to see five fierce fiery drones battling and crashing. The burning drones fell onto us and the porch and we required hospitalization, but what a show it was.

 

*

 

Bill heard Helen returning. He heard her take off her boots, parka, and gloves. She came into the room where Bill was sitting.

She said: "I just retrieved a letter from Mary. She wants to go for a drink with me this evening. I think I'll go." She quickly wrote a note, went into the hallway, and put it in the mail slot.

Bill said: "Funny that John hasn't written me likewise. The two of us usually go out when you two go out."

Helen said: "I saw there was a letter with your name on it at their house."

"Ah!" Bill, passing Helen in the hall, put on his boots and coat and went outside. He walked to the house three doors down and saw in their mail slot a letter addressed to him. He took it and brought it to his home.

He opened it and sure enough John wanted to play cards that evening. Bill wrote an agreeable letter and put it in his mail slot. Through the door's side window he saw Mary coming over. He opened the door slightly and called: "Hi, Mary. It seems Helen wrote to you." He gestured to the mail slot.

 

Mary smiled and said: "Hello, Bill. Did you pick up that letter John wrote to you?"

"Yep. I've written my reply."

"I'll tell him it's here." She took Helen's letter from the mail slot just as Bill put his letter to John into it. Mary returned home to tell John that Bill had written a letter to him and that it was waiting for him.

Mary took off her boots and coat and gloves and walked into the room where John was sitting. She opened the letter and read it. "Helen's accepted my offer for drinks. So tonight I'm off to Daughter's Bar and Grill."

"I wonder what Bill thinks of that."

"Oh, I saw him put a letter for you in their mail slot. You should go get it."

John put on his boots, gloves, and coat and went outside to three doors up to get the letter addressed to him from Bill's mail slot. When he got home he opened the note and read: Hello, John. Yes, I think playing cards tonight would be good. Come over at eight.

"So everything is settled," he said to Mary who was brewing some tea. "Everything is settled," he said again.

 

*

 

I said to Heather: "Look, if Shakespeare can build in one day a hundred-ton cantilevered bridge with three locks under it, then so can I."

Heather said: "I get the idea you've consulted a single source."

"What of it? The source is infallible."

"So who is this infallible source?"

"Me."

"Really."

"And I'm going to prove it, tomorrow. Goodnight!"

 

Next evening I took Heather to see my hundred-ton cantilevered bridge with three locks under it.

"There, see?"

She shook her head. "You didn't build this."

"Yes I did. With a half hour for lunch and a smoke."

"This bridge has been here for years. I walked across it alone when I was eight and it was terrifying."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

"Really."

 

Next evening I took Heather to see where the hundred-ton cantilevered bridge with three locks under it used to be.

"Shakespeare destroyed his bridge too," I said. "That's why it's not mentioned in any of the primary sources."

Heather whistled. "Now I'm impressed."

"I aim to make impressions."

"That's almost what I mean."

"Do you instead mean that I'm impressive?"

"That's not it either."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I'm impressed that Shakespeare did it first."

That burned.

 

*

 

The Method

 

I am a descendant of many strong Polish men.

Those men were descended from bears and wolves.

I like what I can remember of the Polish woods and the hot taste of fresh deer blood.

To another country fled my mother, father, sisters, brother, and I.

I live in a tenement and my wife cooks my meat these days. The meat is never fresh enough.

I work on the docks of the city, as a stevedore.

Every day there's more bills to pay to those who dress better than me.

I have built a reputation from swift and sudden violence.

I threw a friend of mine off my balcony once because he mocked me when I lost a hand, my full house against his four fours.

I see wealthy women on the streetcar and I don't know what to do.

I hear there are woods outside of town but I've never gone there.

Some nights the baby cries all night.

I get migraines in the springtime that blind me.

I miss my mother's touch.

I drink lager every lunch and dinner.

I curse my mind for dreaming of the taste of deer flesh and the smells of cedars.

 

*

 

I was holding that trophy high when I got home, I was dah-dah-ing my way through the Rocky theme, and I circled the Färlöv wing chair thrice.

Crastal came in from the mauve kitchen with a bowl of pretzel gelatin in hand. "What on God's green earth is the meaning of all this commotion?"

"Checkkit out, checkkit out. I got a recognition at work today."

"Well for Heaven's sake. And to what do you owe the honour?"

Twelve hours later, the author continues writing the story.

"Do you remember a month ago when I totally screwed up those security protocols?"

"Oh, when a hundred and forty people were permanently locked out of the system?"

"Right! And how we had to rebuilt the whole gosh darn thing?"

"Vaguely."

"Well! My team really had to put ourselves to work fixing it. We clocked a hundred hours O.T. more or less."

"And you were awarded for that?"

"Yes! Look at it. See how it shines."

The author considers bailing.

"It is shiny."

"Oh, and they wrote me a special commendation. I have it here somewhere."

He handed the trophy to his wife.

"Ah yes here it is. Isn't it nice how it's pink?"

 

*

 

On Friday nights I put away my rules and graphs and I leave my office at BMO Capital Markets. I take a train, and I board a bus, as far as both can go. The stable at the end of the line keeps my horse during the week, and on this horse I ride, high into the hills.

It could be eleven by the time I get to the shack. I kiss Elly-Jo hello, and all the childers too, and I hike out to the back with a jar to fill it with white lightning from my still behind brambles an' safe from the revenuers.

Next day I mights amble over to the Jones place to pass the time of day, mebbe some checkers or some bbq or mebbe the whole of the clans'll meet up for a ruckus with the mean ol' sun fallin' in the west.

Or mebbe we'll go bust up some city boy's newfangled store-bought booze-pot with a couple ole axes.

An' I sleep in Sunday whiles the rest of 'em go off to preaching.

I leave Sunday night, back to the grind, and ready when Monday rolls around, to examine my bonds, term deposits, dividends.

 

*

 

"The lady is one of the bureaucrats that's all over culture and television."

"Turn up the sound on this one, George."

George turned up the sound so everyone sitting at the bar could listen to the announcement the lady was making.

"'I believe we have vigorously answered all the objections feebly presented by our political opponents. The elimination of these linguistic parasites will easily save citizens over ten million dollars per year.' [token objection raised] 'Tastya, we've fully and rigorously costed the bill. Each adverb entirely removed from the common discourse can potentially save upwards of ten thousand dollars per annum. We furthermore consider the entire programme to be revenue-neutral in that fines fairly levied against offenders will in turn completely fund the programme.' [request for elucidation] 'We will provisionally start with the lengthier adverbs, of course, proceeding systematically syllable-by-syllable to decisively simplify our language. The experts of style quite agree with us here, that adverbs should be ultimately avoided as they weaken every image they carelessly and haphazardly encounter. Who could object to smoothly improving our speech and our everyday encounters?'"

George turned down the sound.

"I can't see anything going wrong here."

"We're in the best of hands."

 

*

 

That Guy Again

 

We're now in the distant future. Look around and note how pleasant it is here. All of us in the distant future are living the life of Riley. You wouldn't believe what our computers can figure out for us. Quantum theory means that we've reduced the probabilities to nearly zero, which is as close as anyone will ever get. We know what we will be doing tomorrow and we know what we will be doing next year. We know when we will die, even. Literally nothing comes from chance. We can know who our grandchildren will marry.

We like looking back on the old days‑your days‑and we laugh at you a lot. The biggest joke is blushing. How we laugh about how you blush! What uncertainty that exhibits! If you were like us, you'd have nothing to blush about. When we go into drug stores to buy prophylactics we don't have to worry about pretty cashiers. Nope, they've got them already packed up for us, good to go. Blushing is a thing of the past.

Forget sadness; we have knowledge instead.

The sky is as blue as ever, and we have just the right animals for ourselves.

 

*

 

She said to her friend on the streetcar, "And you wouldn't believe what Stephen said, he said, 'But Jones is right, it's a total myth, the "rule of thumb" has nothing to do with beating women,' and I couldn't even breathe because I was so angry, like, what next?"

And the Good Samaritan sitting behind them put on his Samaritan hat and smoothly spoke. "I must interrupt. Your compatriot Stephen and this Jones person are entirely correct. That 'rule of thumb' canard has been floating around for decades and decades and yet in all that time noöne has ever found any evidence. It appears to have been made up out of thin air, probably by a ten-year-old girl have a tantrum, or perhaps by a thirty-year-old woman with the mind of a ten-year-old. I am sorry to inform you so."

The woman smiled at the Samaritan. "Why thank you, Samaritan. My view of the world has now completely changed. Perhaps I will use reason from now on. In fact, I am abashed by my gullibility."

The Samaritan laughed humanely. "Think nothing of it. Ah, isn't it nice! Isn't the world a better place now?"

She smiled. "It is more pleasant."

 

*

 

An Episode of "The French Painting"

 

"Everything depends on getting it authenticated," said Magillin as tires squealed.

"To do that," remarked Towinsky with a lop-sided grin, "we have to get our hands on it."

"And to do that," with Magillin raising an index finger off the steering wheel, "we have to break into the Turk's mansion."

"Hah! Beats fishing, I suppose."

Two in the morning. A hook thrown, a wall scaled, a Doberman tricked, a lock picked, a Skylink hacked, and Bob's-your-uncle access to 8500 sq ft.

White circular floating staircases ascended mightily up three storeys beneath a pitch ceiling of a pitch roof. Magillin went left, into the living room, while Towinsky went right, into the dining room.

Nothing! and Nothing!

Up the staircases they went. On that floor, in all the bedrooms, there was no sign of the 57.79 × 44.5 cm Scheveningen Landscape in Yellow Sky.

"It's gotta be here!"

On the third floor, Towinsky knelt down to tie his shoe.

High over his head, in the pitch darkness, hung the sought landscape: by a single nail which loosed from the wall infested with fungus and mites: and detached! And down fell the painting!

Tune in tomorrow!

 

*

 

Thought Problem (for Bill Morneau)

 

1

 

It was a terrible storm. The ocean liner was tossed to and fro. The hull was quickly filling. We ran from stern to bow and from starboard to the side that wasn't the starboard. The filler in the hull kept getting bigger and bigger. It was easy to see we'd be going down. We dropped the rubber rafts down the side. The space in the hull that was being filled by the filler kept on filling. How much filler could she take? we all thought. It just kept filling and filling. The rubber rafts were ready. And still there was more filler in the hull, then more filler, then even more filler, and more filler, and more filler....

 

2

 

I awoke on a rubber raft. Two people were also on the raft. One was a doctor and the other was a politician. After two days at sea we saw our emergency provisions couldn't last for another two days, so one of us had to be sacrificed so that the other two could survive for three days. So we took a vote: me, the doctor, or the politician.

So who do you think was sacrificed?

 

*

 

Not that long ago, I bought a VCR. I'd just moved in with Mary, and I didn't have one. So I bought a VCR.

We plugged it in to the TV. I had some tapes I'd rented from Suspect Video to choose from, and we chose David Cronenberg's Crash to inaugurate our video viewing experiences.

When the movie was over, we switched back to regular broadcasting. There was some news about a car crash in a tunnel in Paris involving Diana, Princess of Wales. A half-hour later, we were informed that she had died from her injuries.

That's when we realized Crash wasn't about crashes at all.

Later, I mentioned this conversation to a friend of mine. We were talking about nostalgia for video tapes with their glitches and about how tapes in crummy condition could be played, whereas DVDs and Blu-rays became unplayable when they got beaten up. That's when I told him the story above. I don't think he quite understood what I meant when I said that Crash isn't about crashes. Few things are about what they say they are about.

We had that conversation a long time ago. Maybe it was on Thursday. Thursday or Friday.

 

*

 

Let me start by saying that if you ever want to go to the Caribbean, check out the Rui Hotel in Montego Bay.

Maggie and I were there this winter. One evening, we ran into a fun couple named Max and Jill. They said they were looking to party. We said: Yes!

Jill cozied up beside me. She asked if we had an open marriage. I laughed and said: We're pretty honest!

She started playing with my hair and face. I said: Oh, hey! That tickles!

Max was massaging Maggie's happy shoulders &c. He said: Why don't we retire to the sauna? I've reserved it.

We all hopped up and went to the change rooms. When we were naked, Max asked me if I got by. I said: Yes, I get by.

In the sauna, Jill touched my privates by accident. I laughed and said: Golly! and moved her hand.

Maggie's thighs were being tickled. She was smiling, smiling....

After about fifteen minutes of giggles and heat, I said to Maggie: Must be past midnight. We should go.

Night, Max and Jill!

Back in our room, I said: That was really delightful!

Maggie said: We should do it more often!

 

*

 

"There's a hole here," said Will as he pointed to the quite empty space.

Patience looked down into the black void. "Golly, it's quite the hole, isn't it?"

Fox crept up beside her. "Stay away from the ledge."

"Are my eyes deceiving me, or is the hole getting smaller?" questioned Sky, and Earth answered: "It does in fact appear to be shrinking as we speak."

"The odd thing about the number line is you can remove parts of it and it stays with the same distances," said Reason as she rubbed her chin.

Bear replied: "I don't think that comes into play here."

"It seems to be about half the size it was, doesn't it?" That remark was made by Spirit.

Noun commented: "Are we swallowing it up, or is it swallowing us up?"

"Silence," ordered Growth. "It seems to shrink as we speak."

"That's an illusion. It's continuously shrinking," said Who.

"So it is," replied the Reaper. "Where will it go?"

Eye said, "It has to go somewhere."

"What will happen to us when it's gone?" asked Soul.

"I think we're about to fine out." That was Swallow speaking.

"And it's going, and it's going," said Nothing. "It's gone."

 

*

 

There's a familiar saying that makes the rounds every ten years or so, and the saying is: There are prison riots, and then there are prison riots.

I was the Junior Officer, TP Division, on the Riot Planning Committee at Dirty Pen (about which you've no doubt heard!), and I was there, and this is the unvarnished truth.

We had everything prepared and tidily at the ready in nine bunks sprinkled through our three levels. At the cue‑the cue being the announcement that Cubby Truman had hanged himself in solitary‑we set out girlish whoops and the party began!

Very quickly the joint became a jumping joint. We smashed up what we could, which wasn't much, admittedly, but still it's the thought that counts. Our fires were fueled with do-gooder books and clandestine pornography and many of our clients took the chance to reward troublemakers with blades.

The smell of the fires and blood was its own reward. It went on for hours, and noöne left early! Around four in the a.m. the party-poopers got the best of us and we all got locked up again; but we are going to be talking about it for some time let me assure you!

 

*

 

Motion Pictures

 

It was my time to go be corrupted.

With my sister and my brother (who had both been corrupted already) we were dropped off in front of the place.

We got in line behind fifty other kids, most of whom had already been corrupted.

Slowly we got up to the box, where my brother handed over three dollars and seventy-five cents in return for three little green shapes.

He handed on to me. On it I made out 'ADMIT ONE.' I didn't know what admit meant.

It smelled bad inside. Everything was soft and carpeted. I was led down a slope that had red seats to right and left. My sister pulled me along down one row to some places to sit.

A man got on stage. Everyone started yelling. He said there'd be some cartoons then a nature film and then The Aristocats.

He left the stage and the lights went down and so did the noise. I squeezed my sister's hand. The curtain parted somehow. I couldn't see a thing. Someone had butter nearby and I sucked one lip with another lip.

A rectangle of white light appeared in front of me, and I was corrupted.

 

*

 

The Gypsy at the Wedding

 

"They had a fortune-teller there."

"At the wedding?"

"At the reception."

"That must have been.... Would it have been expensive or cheap?"

"This wasn't some store-front gypsy. This was a gypsy flown all the way from the Midlands, in England."

"Was the rest of the wedding so supersized?"

"Not at all. Aside from that, it was, shall we say, modest. I heard the bride insisted on it."

"And she got her way."

"Of course she got her way."

"Did everyone talk to this Midlands gypsy fortune-teller?"

"Maybe about half."

"Did you?"

"No. The bride went first, then the groom, then their four parents. Then it was whoever cared to get into it."

"I'm surprised Peter did it. I thought he was Mr. Rational."

"He did it for his daughter, of course."

"So do you know what they were all told?"

"Yes. The gypsy told them all the same thing, with little variations."

"Which was?"

"He told them that they would live forever. That they would never die."

"That must have been meant metaphorically."

"The gypsy assured them it wasn't. He meant‑literally‑that they would live forever."

"That must have been a nice thing to hear."

"Possibly."

 

*

 

PROSPECTUS for the study of LANGUAGE and WRITING thru economic laws - say one thing, don't say others - infinitude of others - thus, SCARCITY (1st law of econ) with SUBJECT being multitudinous with aspects that could be enunciated or non-enunciated - meaning that WORDS as RESOURCES are "mined" with a nod to cost/benefit analyses - so thus there's LAWS relating to what is said or written because no-one has enough TIME to say everything that has to be said in this little compass of a little life - it's a matter of the difference between ○ and ∞ don't you think? - people get paid per word so the words have to have been measured by value - and what do you say really about whatever happened in the last or now? how long would it take to say everything that could be said? i'd say forever and ever - and what about the EXCESS when we don't say something - like to Cheryl - and there was never enough of anything, time is running short, it takes such-and-such calories to write in language - so inputs and outputs - CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION of things - what should be said

 

*

 

Genghis Khan (not the Чингис хаан, who's a different guy altogether) came down from the mountains of Mongolia to set his mark (†) on the world.

The airport was crowded. Some kind of a festival was going on.

He booked into a hotel and it was expensive. The clerk told him it was because of the World Cup.

Next day his horde arrived at the expensive hotel. (Khan had to do some fancy paperwork to hide the per diems from his accountant.)

They held a banquet and drank the blood of a thousand rams in Event Hall B.

In the morning they stormed the legislature and killed even the tourists from Japan. Khan shouted "I am emperor!" but no-one save his horde heard him.

He led every committee for seven days.

He taxed income splitting. He taxed employee discounts. He taxed Netflix.

The people cried for mercy from his reign, but Khan laughed in their faces. Since the population of Mongolia is some three million, this took two weeks to accomplish.

His grandson Kublai Khan (not the Хубилай хаан, who's a different guy altogether) rose from equerry to general in no time at all.

Genghis Khan's funeral was a five-star.