LivingLovingDotingVoting

Ha Ha Prelude

 

It seemed so simple when I was in the nest with my seventeen sibs (not including the three who died in mysterious circumstances). We ventured into our garden with pride because we felt we owned the place. We had plenty of grasses and weeds, and they just wouldn't stop growing: such a gift.

One afternoon I came upon what I can only describe as being an unnatural surface. I felt like one of those apes at the beginning of 2001, you know, the monolith scene. I followed the surface and came to an opening in it. Through the opening, I smelled interesting food.

I slipped inside. I'd never seen anything like it. There was no dirt, but I could still smell food. There was another door, smelling like mother-mouse-milk. I scurried over, and in. A piece of wood, and the yellow-orange source of the smell. I salivated quickly and ran to it. Man, it tasted food! Incomparable! I'd found paradise! I'd just decided to move in when a bar slammed down on me, snapping my spine.

Now I get that joke in the Iliad. Q: How do you make a God smile? A: Tell him your plans.

 

*

 

Before the wife had a chance to bother asked how my day was, I jumped right into it, such was my excitement. "The way home, I solved the hard problem of consciousness. Did you hear me?"

"Yes, yes. I'm worried about something that happened at work today."

The explanation of the solution would naturally have to wait. "What happened?"

"Oh, it was about that Andrea. The one with the farm."

"Remind me a little?"

"It's in the Newcastle area, they have horses, she has a horse named Dauphin."

"Right, now I know who, kind of. So, what?"

"Dauphin is sick, and she was on the phone all day with the vet, the horse doctor, and I couldn't get her to sign off on the hires we want to do before the end of fiscal."

"Ah!"

"She couldn't concentrate, she was in a total state. So everything's at a standstill because of Dauphin, and I've got to present something tomorrow and I didn't get enough done to prepare because I was running back and forth the Andrea's office to see if she was ever off the phone. What was that about consciousness?"

"Never mind. I've lost it. Or it didn't follow."

 

*

 

My grandfather bought the house in 1931. It had been changed almost beyond recognition in 2015, which was when my brother and I decided to do something to the backyard.

A big stone bench ran diagonally to the property lines to the rear left of the yard, and we knew it had been there in 1931, since our grandpa's memoirs described it. It was a wide arc buried at both ends, sixteen feet long. It was not the most comfortable place for a nap, believe you me. We wanted to move it closer to the house and turn it into the base for a dining table.

We started digging around and down, and we kept digging. After about four feet we knew it wasn't a bench after all; but what was it? Our digging continued, a major excavation, rented a backhoe. Twenty-five feet down we reached bottom. It was a modest elliptical triumphal arch, carved from one giant block of native stone, with chiselled inscription, and dedicated to one Flavius Burris, quia devotio mentis ad artes et scientias.

My brother and I didn't have to consult about our next step. With sundry accelerators, we burned the house to the ground.

 

*

 

We were going to go to Mexico in the heat of a summer. Goodbye. I had the feeling that someday I would get an unexpected phone call from a foreign land. Goodbye. I begged the gods: Make her bend over once again so I could see if I'd seen what I thought I'd seen. Goodbye. I dreamed the house was so big that it had nine basements connected with arches, goodbye. It was going to be the perfect day for us, my 8mm movie camera and the park in the spring. Goodbye. I figured someone would notice the missing cat poster, and know, and respond. Goodbye. I hoped it wasn't as serious as all that, there'd be a cure found any day now, then, goodbye. If I had the nerve to go back, to turn around, to face it, to ask what she had really meant. Goodbye. I thought I needed to get the answer correct, I thought that if that happened, if I got the answer correct, tomorrow would be a brighter day, and I got the answer correct. Goodbye. I prayed to be old enough, then I prayed to be young enough. Goodbye. Oh, the places you'll go.

 

*

 

For a moment, a brief one, no more than a moment, you're thinking of what you've been dreaming, and you're having a good time. Then THAT THOUGHT comes into your head, obliterating what your consciousness spent so much time putting together overnight.

 

LIKE dust, as clouds, inert, yet move, collect,

Across the sky or down an arroyo,

Embossing slow whomever's in its neck

With fine particulate in fleecy snow,

So coldly that a frog could freeze to death

Without a ribbet instancing alarm

And never noting well its humid breath

And dies to make a bobo's lucky charm;

SO mind can get encrusted, slowly cursed,

By umzinik that never asked for you,

While you become submerged as in a mist

And have to wonder is this now the worst

You've ever been, in love, in dross that blew

Like dust, as clouds, inert, yet move, amidst.

 

Your life will get back to normal, you'll find some bandages you haven't used yet and dust yourself off and if you leave it alone if you don't pick at it you'll be wine and candy before you can say jack ribbit you'll bounce back wipe that smile off your face you will live.

 

*

 

Quite clearly and with the wit of a fox I said to my co-worker: "Look at my pants. These thin white vertical lines were not there when I bought these pants. Cats made these lines, with their claws. See the lines?"

She said: "Yes, well. Cats are like that, aren't they? Comes with the claws."

I said: "Look again. Look again at my pants. Do you see the lines? The cats made those lines. See the lines?"

She said: "Yes, I see the lines. So?"

"Look at the lines. Follow their trajectories. You have beautiful eyes. Look with your eyes."

She looked, but wrongly. I interrupted her lack of speech, saying: "Don't you see? Isn't it obvious?"

She looked, wrongly, in my eyes. "What are you trying to get me to look at?"

I tried to communicate with her telepathically: a simple monosyllable, with velar plosives at either end. Nothing happened.

She sighed heavily. "Ah, well. Tuesday afternoon. You have cats. That's nice. I don't get what you're trying to communicate about your pants. Ho-hum. I got fucked good on the weekend. Hmm, mind if I take a break? Gonna go to the washroom, gonna diddle my clit. That okay?"

 

*

 

I have come back to the old country, and I am shocked by what I see and by what I do not see. I look across the fields and rivers and I make a note that I am seeing no dinosaurs. I ask my guide: Where are the dinosaurs? Once, there were hundreds. He tells me there are no dinosaurs, and nothing more. It is like this fact is not worth elaborating, though it means a great deal to me. Near the house in which I grew up, there was a park whose soil was laced with gold dust and at the top of every tree sat a bird's nest with jewels pilfered from unknown sea bottoms. I look for that park and it appears to not exist. My guide offers to check some maps, for I can tell he doubts me. Do not get me wrong. I know that times must change. There is a revolution every moment, when all things and ideas of things prove slightly wrong. But why were not the dinosaurs kept, and could not the park of gold and jewels have been preserved? The people around here now surprise me, not knowing what they lost.

 

*

 

Hello, people of Facebook. It's time for a little authentic election news. As you know, everyone has to go to the polls on June 23rd, 2019, which is a Sunday. That is to say, so long as you've over the age of twenty-one. If you're only twenty, you're out of luck.

If you are eligible, you'll have three votes to cast. First, you'll have to vote for the King. It's a crowded field this year, and fortunately the list of candidates is in a alphabetical order, and there's only thirty-three pages to go through. At the top of the pages you'll see headwords with letters so you can find your candidate quickly. Remember: time is of the essence! Second, the President. This list much duplicates the candidates for King. However, if you vote for the same person as you did for the King, your vote will be tossed out and it will go down on your permanent record. Third, you must vote for your best friend. This one is a write-in, but do not name yourself because just because.

Remember, mark that date! Saturday October 4. A list of polling stations will be published the day before unless we're busy.

 

*

 

Though it was rickety, the ship was certainly ship-shaped. For decades, it sat as the only ship in the town's harbour. They added more functionality to it as they went along. The ship had a fair reputation.

Ship-building innovations changed all that. By massively re-designing ship architecture, newer ships started to appear. They were better ships that did what the old ship did better than the old ship. Plus, the newer ships could grow bigger at little cost, simply by inviting stakeholders and their stakeholder resources.

The old ship was once again rickety. It got permanently moored before anyone noticed. Since exciting things were happening on the other ships, the most talented-and-interesting crewmembers went to the new ones, leaving the less talented-and-interesting crewmembers behind.

The old ship shed talent steadily, like it was leaking, while the left-behinds fanatically pushed for out-of-date ideas left over from the seventies while waiting for their pensions to kick in.

No doubt the ship will be submerged in fifty years. (Even a government program can only hold on so long.) Bigger ships have been spotted on the horizon.

The whole process could have been used as an case study in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

 

*

 

Robert Swan Mueller III

United States Justice Department

950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C.

 

30 May 2019

 

Dear Mr. Mueller:

As I was alerted yesterday to your retirement from the position of Special Council, I hereby authorized myself to offer you a new position. Considering your extensive investigations over the past few years, I believe you can help me discover if there are, in fact, Russians hiding under my bed.

EVIDENCE: Very early on the morning of 22 May 2019, I distinctly believe I heard the faint sound of balalaika music, heard as if through someone else's ear-buds, beneath my mattress, so naturally I figured it was Russians down there since they can do a lot of near-miracles.

I arose and bent down to look amongst the cardboard boxes and dust bunnies. I called out: "Any Russians down here?"

I distinctly believe I heard someone say nyet. (Understand that nyet is what Russians say when they REALLY mean to say no.)

"Are you a Russian?" I called.

There was no response!!!

CLEARLY a serious investigation, with three prongs minimum, is necessary, for I can't sleep until I have definite proof those Russian aren't there!

Please contact me ASAP.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

*

 

Up four seats and across the aisle, a little girl voice said: No!

The train was not crowded; a quick estimate showed fifteen people on that upper level.

Up four seats a man, the little girl's father, stood up to announce:

Your attention please! Attention! I have a bargain on offer! One little girl for sale. We can start with, say, a hundred dollars. Anybody want to buy a little girl for a hundred dollars? Clothes are included. I don't hear any offers! I'm changing the deal. A daughter, and a wife, for the low low price of two hundred and fifty dollars. There're a couple whole closetsful of stuff that's in the bargain too! Even at a used clothes shop you'd easily recoup the investment, with a couple bitches thrown in. Anyone interested in a whole house? The price can be negotiated, but I'm thinking a thousand. Tear it down if you want, I won't care. I have no attachment to it anymore. I'll throw in a hundred more if you promise to burn it down, that's what I say. Make me an offer! Jesus Christ, make and offer!

We all applauded lightly. Situationism was seemingly not quite dead.

 

*

 

PS Saturday afternoon, at one o'clock, in the cemetery of St. Andrew's in Judique, the two brothers were buried, and it was a warm and bright day between two cold and wet days. The two were parents to many, including my Mary, including (in a sense) the local high school students of two generations. They were lowered into graves that were already deteriorating and oxidizing, wind pushing clumps of dirt sewn together with dead roots to the bottom, and later that day I was surprised at how easily I spotted without eyeglasses a deer that must have been an eighth of a mile away. The priest went through the Rite of Committal, standing there between the graves, inserting the names here and there, and pluralizing brother to brothers, but aside from these mail-merge exceptions, the Rite was precisely the same as any other brother's or sister's. The soul is the soul that's unique and the same. I wanted to ask the priest how often dual burials take place, and of course I didn't. (Who am I, Margaret Mead?) Some music got played--by a fiddler, by a bagpiper. They lowered the caskets into two holes. There's no difference between them.

 

*

 

The Secret

 

We gently set the secret device in the secret recess, taking especial care that the transmitter was situated at the furthest out. We replaced the table's top and slipped in the dovetail joints and pushed them invisibly flush to the plane. A quick test of our radiometric apparatus spelled our potential measures of success highly, so we carried to table to your salon and put it down before your chesterfield, replacing its feet into the crushed squares of your snow white carpet.

We chose to test one last time before your appointed return to your salon. We crouched behind your chesterfield and attempted the reception of the transmission. We received noting. What had gone wrong? We knocked on the nearest corner of the table, seeking the hollow, but found none. O what had gone wrong? Then it became clear: the table was horizontally symmetrical (n=2) about the central vertical line. So we picked up the table, and turned it around. A new test followed, and the reception from behind your chesterfield turned pristine. We secreted the receiver beneath a foot of your chesterfield, and amscrayed quickly.

And that is how, twelve hours later, we learned you loved us.

 

*

 

How to Write

 

1. Do something that should not be done, either

ma. against others, meaning any person or group of people, either

mmi. unintentionally, as a slip or a mistake, perhaps

mmmΑ. drop something on someone accidentally

mmmΒ. forget someone's name or his position

mmmΓ. insult someone before that someone's spouse,

mmmΔ. etc., or

mmii. intentionally, through malice or whatever, perhaps

mmmΑ. infatuate yourself with a married co-worker

mmmΒ. run over a small animal just for the fun of it

mmmΓ. watch someone suffering die a slow death

mmmΔ. etc., or

mb. against yourself, with myriad possibilities, perhaps

mmi. unintentionally, through neglect, over years, like

mmmΑ. spitefully neglect your health, cursing God

mmmΒ. grow distant from the people you know you love

mmmΓ. slide into an addiction you don't want to escape

mmmΔ. etc., or

mmii. intentionally, with a motion not unlike a push, like

mmmΑ. go on a murderous rampage that ends in prison

mmmΒ. bully and harass people about whom you know little

mmmΓ. steal the biggest thing you can reasonably think of

mmmΔ. etc.

2. Find a place to sit, and a pencil and a pen, and write a justification or a confession, doesn't matter which.

 

*

 

Mornings and evenings they're out in force, pulling with leashes man, woman, and child, ears parked high and with jaws clenched tight, eyes set straight on their directions and their destinations, it's the serious dogs.

It's my neighbourhood, after all, so I have the inside story, since the leash-ended owners of the dogs cannot see them coming instead of going, with their legs snapping like chattering teeth and that thousand yard stare only dogs can have. Serious dogs.

Try as you might, in my neighbourhood it's impossible not to inwardly quake in the presence of or when passing by the local oh-so-serious dogs. These are city dogs where no-one's safe, not even dogs, for dogs eat dogs 'round here, no matter how serious they appear to be.

Here comes another serious dog padding down the street. Her eyes are looking for trouble anywhere in her front one-eighty and her ears are peaked to the rear half. She acknowledges an equally-serious beagle passing by with a tiny and respectful nod. Squirrels best beware, beware.

See, my neighbourhood's full of rapacious folk who'd not tolerate having any dog that wasn't a Serious Dog, a Serious Dog with killer instincts; instrumental; utilitarian; mechanical.

 

*

 

If you stare at someone long enough--say for a minute--you will make him or her say something.

I you want that person to say something in particular--say 'I love you'--you'll be disappointed.

If you're trying to get a response--say a smile--you can't go about simply staring at a person.

If you wait for an act to take place--say a proposition--you'll have to do some smiling yourself.

If you've got a desired assignment--say a hotel booking--you've got to do some lifting yourself.

If you stare, unsmiling, nothing--say any response--will happen for days or weeks.

If your tongue won't work to talk--say your mind's uncertain--you're stuck in the spot.

If the night and parting's coming on--say five o'clock--you'll get at thick as your tongue.

If you feel the margins are tight--say forty-two characters wide--you'll have to adjust them manually.

If you get bolder--say, by staring anyway--you'll get a response but maybe not the right one.

If you don't die on the spot--say by heart attack--you may be surprised.

If you've made it this far--say this word--you'll be okay.

 

*

 

The battle had not gone well, and that's putting it lightly. Debate would rage for years about what went wrong.

The retreat fumbled its way to the Bridge of Toronne. Built form local stone in the quattrocento, the bridge affords a splendid view of the valley and distant Alps.

The major squinted, deeply thinking. "We have to destroy that bridge. Now."

Captain replied: "Yes, of course, once all the troops have crossed over to the‑"

"No," said the major. "Time is of the essence. Prepare the munitions."

"But sir," said the captain, scratching his head: "How will the troops cross the river?"

The major laughed, pointing at the bridge. "They'll cross that bridge, dummy. Munitions!"

The munitions officer ran up. "Sir?"

"Blow up the bridge."

"Sir?"

"Are you ignorant of military history? It could be used by the enemy, whom we are fleeing."

"Should we not cross it first?"

"Good God man, there's no time! Can't you hear their cannons? Destroy that bridge!"

"Um. Then how will the troops cross the river?"

"They. Will. Cross. Via. The. Bridge. Go! It's an order!"

The munitions officer went to his wagon to prepare the TNT charges, thinking about how nice sleep is.

 

*

 

What to do in Spring? What to do when all the breasts and thighs come out to play? Amber Autumn has passed, when the ugly denim got donned, and Winter was a puffy pad of down and satin polyester, and now these weighty garments have been cast aside, so it's all skin, as much as possible, showing. On the subway I couldn't help but stare at significant magnificent breasts shown with nigh to nipples, even remarking to myself about their smoothness and cream, all the time pretending to read The White Devil. And I know the displays will go on for months and months, hot pants and miniskirts and visions of daylight in between a camel-toe or two silky skirty thighs. I am an old man who should be over it now and every Spring I try to not fall into it but fall I do--but don't get me wrong, it's not just tits and asses that drive this desire. It's the lack of silly anodyne anaphrodisial hair-hiding hats; it's the full faces framed by gentle locks; it's the eyes unoccluded by Winter windflaps; it's the fresh lips that might say: I will meet you at such-and-such, for so-and-so.

 

*

 

Hey honey: you failed the test. I gave you every opportunity, but you let me down. We could have got married, we could have got children, but you failed. It's not my fault; it's yours. You decided to brush me off without even knowing the real me. You don't know what you're missing because you blew me off without even doing any research. I'm a stone-cold genius, danmit, and you'll never know the tender touch of a stone-cold genius (since there's so few of us). So your little note after I told you all about those deaths I've been going through, your cold notes, when we could have had something, well, that was that. I've wasted so much time thinking about you, about how you look like my nephew (though shorter and not as thin), and I'll never get that time back. Leave my head, now, please. You are dismissed. Why'd I bother becoming infatuated with you in the first place? Yeesh. You've come up short. Don't tell me you were mistaken, that you'll learn. My big cock's gone elsewhere.

-   - - - - - - -

The more I learn about women, the less I like them voting.