Microbes

"Is everyone here? Okay, so listen up, boys, girls, ladies, gents. This is the most alarming expedition you're likely to come across. Turn back now if you've got concerns or a heart condition.

"After we get through the door guarded by dogs, we'll descend some quarter-mile down a rusty elevator shaft that hasn't ever been repaired for a hundred years seeing as it's too dangerous to fix. We'll find ourselves in a field of boiling lava, 2050°, over which are constructed narrow walkways of platinum alloy. Careful not to slip! A huge chasm, formed by the earthquake of Atlantis, will get crossed next, via a slender rope bridge that kind of falling apart. Next comes the descent to the City of Dis. Sounds nice, don't it? Well, let me tell you it's not! The slope down is exceedingly steep and there's nothing to hang onto. Good luck is all we got! At that point we're about a third of the way down to the ice where Lucifer is forevermore.... Hey! You there! You've been on this journey already!"

He was talking to me. I said, "I have? Did I? Can't say I remember it.... You know that for a fact?"

 

*

 

Colourisation

 

The kids aren't reading the classics anymore. Time was, the streets teemed with book-worms. Now, it's all phone-worms. Relevance is key, I say! So it's time to colourise the classics. Let's go to the demo reel.

 

To be blue, or not to be blue, that is the brilliant question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the vermillion mind to suffer

The yellow slings and pinkish arrows of outrageous purple fortune,

Or to take red arms against a Black Sea of orange troubles

[etc.]

 

It was the best of peach times, it was the worst of coral times, it was the age of green wisdom, it was the age of amber foolishness, it was the epoch of silver belief, it was the epoch of wheaten incredulity

[etc.]

 

Tawny tyger azure tyger, burning bright,

In the white forests of the golden night;

What immortal rubicund hand or velvet eye,

Could frame thy fearful and brown symmetry?

[etc.]

 

It is a titanium truth universally acknowledged, that a single cyan man in possession of a good honeydew fortune, must be in want of a jade wife.

[etc.]

 

How vibrant these old mouldy chestnuts have become! The idea is simple, and genius. Bring on the hues!

 

*

 

Après Rimbaud, Apparemment

 

The train was stinked with alcohol by that time, and the madness made ruinous bubbled like ectoplasm from the unused ashtrays and the plastic cup holders to penetrate by fumes and osmosis even the most staid matrons of international philanthropy who became ready for anything as they admitted to themselves and to any boy handy with a tool. The tracks it ran across forgot themselves for some time thereafter and wouldn't be themselves for two whole days during which they performed what they could recall of Leonard Cohen's greatest hits. The observation car went full orgy in the Roman sense and otherwise, as cigarettes impotently scarred the fireproof polyurethane carpets and rubber armrests, as limp witless rejoinders missed their intended marks and sometimes circled back to critically strike, and as criminal convictions e.g. "You bin starin a tha girl aint ya" or "Ya nare paid up!" were cuttingly laid. In the end she staggered into Memphis Tennessee at five in the a and the m with nary a clue for a date or a day, and fell down face-first flat at the station, rolled onto her back, and choked to death on her vomit of intoxicated passengers.

 

*

 

Dear Abby. My BF and I were taking a Greyhound bus from a winter countryside vacation spot back to our home town when he decided he was going to lie down across some empty seats cause he wasn't 'feeling okay'. This bugged me and so after he'd gone I took his coat and stuffed it under the seat and out of sight. When we got to the bus station we got off and he realized he didn't have his coat. We got back on the bus‑it was stopping for five minutes‑and I was almost in stitches as I watched him go up and down the aisle in search of his precious coat. Finally the driver said, "Okay, move along, we got to get rolling," so we got off. He must have been shivering as we walked home twelve blocks; he didn't say a word. I told him he should call Greyhound lost and found but he didn't respond. It's a month later and he's still walking around cold. He won't call Greyhound or buy a coat! Now he's got pneumonia or something. So, Abby, what should I do with this loser BF of mine? Should I dump him or what?

 

*

 

His Majesty the Baby is making demands again. Let's listen in.

He cries out. "What's up with the embargo on dimensions? Most adults say there's four, and a small group are saying there's nine. Why four, why nine? I say: Let there be twenty!"

His loyal parents say: "Yes, Your Majesty. There are now twenty dimensions."

"I want all the books to reflect this new fact by the time I learn to read."

"It shall be done."

"Where are My breasts?"

His Majesty's loyal mother presents His Majesty the Baby with His breasts. "Here they are, my Lord."

"Excellent!"

Time passes.

"Enough! I have had enough! Take My breasts away, for I am sated."

His breasts are tucked away into a brassiere and a blouse.

"What is next on My agenda? I do not like the idea of mortality. I cannot bear the fact that I am going to die someday. Death to death!"

"We are hearing you, Your Highness."

"I want you to track down this wicked fellow and give him what for!"

"We shall."

"I want My rest. I will cry if I need anything. Begone!"

His loyal parents withdraw. They will hear Him when they are needed.

 

*

 

A skull sits on the floor of an empty room in a building that was once inhabited but which is inhabited no more. There are many floors above the room in which the skull sits and there are many floors below. The exterior of the building is ochre and flat save for where the evenly-spaced windows protrude; the façade looks like a waffle iron set upright. Across the street from this building sits another building almost exactly like, save that it is a green building. Nonetheless, it is also an empty building. The skull sits at the centre of an array of nine buildings altogether, like a gem in the centre of a bijou. Not even the wind disturbs any of these buildings, nor do birds perch at any point. A city surrounds the nine buildings, with taller buildings to the east and north and shorter buildings to the west and south; the city centre is to the north east. Regardless, there's nothing to or in the city. Beyond the city there are thousands of other cities, and all those cities are empty too. The whole planet is empty. The skull would leave the place if it could. It can't.

 

*

 

I once knew a guy named Bicycle Pump, which is a name I believe you must find unusual. He had been born during a sunrise, and he swore through his short life that this meant he must inevitably die during a sunset.

He went through his day more quickly than anyone thought possible. He walked; he spoke; he read; he wrote. Nary could a millisecond pass without Bicycle accomplishing something unprecedentedly precocious. He got through schooling before anyone even recognized he'd enrolled, and he had two children before anyone knew he'd gotten engaged. People nicknamed Bicycle "Comet", since "Bicycle" wasn't fast enough.

I mentioned education two sentences ago, so let it be here noted that Bicycle in his short life excelled in more than one discipline. He was at once scholar, poet, musician, prophet, and chef. Where shall we turn from now forthwith, who shall provide us entertainment, edification, sweetness, and light? O mortality! look upon the skin atop the skull, and note that it lives, and it breathes, and it is not your dominion. Tend to your own house, of Death, and labour not among the living!

Bicycle Pump died during sunset today, aged fourteen hours and twelve minutes.

 

*

 

This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

She was at the back of one of those long streetcars in Toronto on a hot day. A man near her got up to push open the transom window over her head. He shoved it a bit too hard, and the glass shattered. (Safety glass, so nothing fell.)

She said to him, "Do you think we should tell the driver?"

The man gestured down the car and said, "Only if you want to totally delay all these good people trying to get home from work." (Meaning the streetcar would be taken out of service.)

A bit later the man got off at his stop. She glanced up at the broken glass. It certainly looked dangerous. She was torn. Should she tell the driver or maybe not?

She arrived at her stop. Her conscience was bothering her, so she told the driver about the broken window before getting out. The driver thanked her, and got onto his phone with Control.

She walked away from the streetcar without looking back to see if the streetcar had been taken out of service.

She knew she'd done the right thing.

 

*

 

Initially she was but a bright smudge on the horizon. I continued to prep my armory as she neared, with her features blazing in the noon. I aimed deadly my rail cannon, and fired. Smoke then noise rose from the parched earth some miles away, from which she emerged to continue her approach. Weapon after weapon I exhausted to stop her; still she continued her approach. Finally all I had worth firing was my 9mm, which ran out after 320 rounds of lead. She stood before me, glowing. Her calm expression had not changed. She even sighed, before saying:

I know you have it, and you know I want it. Can it be measured how much energy you have wasted opposing me? What a mess you have made of your world. We could have made such beautiful music together, you and I. All you had to do was to sign the contract. The ink's value?: less than one thousandth of a cent. Oh, what a waste. However, do not despair. We gods are nothing if not merciful. Bygones will be bygones if you make your mark here. Imagine your benefits, and those benefits shall be yours. Sign here.

I signed.

 

*

 

It seems there has to be some filler here. I lost track of all these stories, and there has to be some filler here. I probably named this document‑20190627-20190628‑then forgot to write anything, so there has to be some filler here. I take care of things as best as I can to give you the most content possible, but I am fallible, and so there has to be some filler here. I can't recall the circumstances that brought this situation about‑maybe I got drunk and mistakenly believed I would be able to write a story, but I couldn't, and so this is some filler here. Dum dee dum dum, filler here. I'm reading again all of Edgar Allan Poe's stories and they're better than I thought they were since the last time I read all of them some thirty years ago, such is the nature of this narrative filler. I've got a theory of modernity I won't get into here but I don't have room because this is all just filler. It's a hot night here and I'm practically naked but that's how filler works. There's plenty more stories to come so trust me please because this is only filler.

 

*

 

She awakes from the nightmare and lets out a good bloody shriek and in a cold sweat plus can't remember where she is. "The insurance!" she cries: "The goddam insurance!"

It's all come back to her: She had been driving a rented car without insurance. If she had run someone over, there would have been hell to pay, or possibly more than hell to pay, which was what she had dreamed.

A crippled and motionless cyclist was under her wheels, and her father, who'd evidently been sitting beside her in the car, in the passenger seat, said something about insurance, the value of insurance, it's good you got insurance, but she thinks she said or thought to him: "I don't have any insurance."

"You can't plan for the future," said he who was her first boyfriend rather than her father in the dream. "We just have to do what feels right."

She gets out of bed to pace. "Synecdoche, synecdoche," she mutters. Everything was a right mess. If she could only go back to before she ran over the dream-cyclist she could rest; to before the dream-car, the real car, before she'd turned thirty, or twenty, or ten, or five....

 

*

 

Don't look up!

I looked up. Two young smiling ladies were approaching and about to pass my seat. I had but a moment to take in their beauty, but take it in I did. Young hair, smiling eyes, tight-bound breasts: compleat packages flying who-knows-where, though probably to the beach, to throw off all their clothes, look at the waters, and mock the gulls. I smelled their sweet wet earth on eddies as they passed, and then the flight began.

I couldn't turn to look behind, for my neck was broken, yet there was nothing I desired more. I'd had but a glimpse of their facial features, and I wanted more-more-more. All I could do was bide my time and await the deplaning.

I waited, waited; then I heard the landing gear descend, felt the plane touch down, and stop; then everyone got up to go.

I heard them giggling excitedly as they passed and I stared at their asses; and what asses they were! They were tight and round, packed in their shorts, promising the world and sweet wet earth.

Then: they left my life forever.

It was early morning then; my funeral was set to begin at 3:30 sharp.

 

*

 

Predater

 

Thats a real cool car

Bet it cost you a score

You think Im getting in

Cost us both too much more

 

Oh so fun to talk with

When theres tons around

With your eyes talking down

On their ways to the ground

 

But you get me alone

After five or six shots

Think again boy buddy

I dont go with no sluts

 

You aint my kind of dater

Youre a sex predater

Not my proper dater

Sex predater

Predator predator predator predator

 

You think you all charms

Gift to us girls

With your unfunny jokes

And you sandy brown curls

 

You ask for the time

Like a favour you done

At my favourite café

Its a quarter to one

 

Like you liking my friend

Liking how she struts

Buddy boy think again

She dont go with no sluts

 

You aint my kind of dater

Youre a sex predater

Not my proper dater

Sex predater

Predator predator predator predator

 

Youll trash-talk me later

Youll say that Im nuts

But Im perfectly sane

And I dont mess with no sluts

 

You aint my kind of dater

Youre a sex predater

Not my proper dater

Sex predater

Predator predator predator predator

 

*

 

A: So tell me. How was your evening?

B: I got home at six, thus I had an hour free before Jane got home.

B': Uh, I got home at six and had a bit of time....

A: Oh, wow! So, what did you do? Precisely!

B: I lay down on the bed and thought about you. I played with myself, but I didn't come.

B': Nothing, really. I sat outside on the porch. Read a couple pages. Nothing really....

A: Really! And how was dinner?

B: It was sad. I look at Jane and I think of you and how I'd rather be with you, and I see that I'm going to be trapped in misery forever.

B': It was good, some chicken legs and rice. You know....

A: So what happened next?

B: We watched some pointless and phony television show, in complete silence. When it was over, it was over.

B': We watched a couple episodes of Stranger Things. It's pretty interesting, isn't it?

A: Yeah. Then: beddy-bye?

B: In my bed I watched some pornography and masturbated, thinking of you.

B': Early to bed, early to rise!

A: Oh, back to work. Nice talking to you!

 

*

 

After some years they met again, and again they pretended that time had not passed. They pretended they hadn't gone flabby in the areas that are inclined to go flabby, and they pretended they had the same percentage of five senses functioning as before. They talked like time had not passed, for indeed it had not, from each to each though not as one's self to oneself; neither knew a thing about whatever shenanigans the other had been up to, nor what deaths of family and friend the other had endured, and thus it was as if those shenanigans and deaths had not even occurred. The angle of their nexus was precisely as it had been some before, and thus since they were thinking and speaking in continuity with the past they had no trouble 'picking it up where they'd left off.' Besides, they knew in their hearts there had never been any flame and thus there was no flame to re-kindle. Or was it not possible that with the dulling to a smaller percentage the perspicuity of their five senses they actually believed the other to have not changed a whit, and would be forever as once they were?

 

*

 

And it will come to pass, it will come to pass. And it will come to pass that those of natures considered by the loudest to be the quietest will find themselves eternally drowned. And the din shall increase as those who are then the quietest shall be drowned by the loudest, and the loud shall get louder, and the newly-quietest shall be heard no more. And generations shall pass and the noise shall increase daily as daily the one who is least loud shall be exterminated by the one who is least quiet. And soon there will be much noise, with little thought.

And the noise will come to disturb the gods and their zithers and harps, and the gods shall be forced to seek redress from the eternal Atman. And the Atman will listen with care and agree with the gods that the noise is growing increasingly great. And the Atman shall deliberate until finally deciding to end the yuga prematurely, three hundred years prematurely, and allow all beings early reincarnation, and so shall the noise cease for the time of generations unto generations, until a new yuga dawns, and the whole sickening cycle starts all over again.

 

*

 

"I thought we had the signalling system down pat, but that does not appear to be the case, so here goes. This, as you know, is the bookshelf nearest the front door: poetry, plays, the scriptures of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. Now, if one of us goes out, we indicated the time we expect to return by flipping the Shakespeare play, as counted from the leftmost pillar, upside down. Thus, if you expect to return at seven, invert the seventh play. After you feed the cat in the morning you have to pull this blue volume down on its edge, whereas in the evening pull down this yellow book, again down on its edge. We reset them at midnight. Down here, with these bibles and such, we use them to communicate our intentions. This one here gets put on top of the others when a night out for dinner is desired, while this thin one goes on top of the bookshelf itself if the garbage has to be taken out. Now we come to in-house meal plans. If one's after pasta‑"

"But, Abernathy, why can't we simply write down notes on a chalkboard?"

"Goddammit, Bernice, you know I'm illiterate!"

 

*

 

Do you ever find yourself in a downright funk when you realize it's not even four in the afternoon and you've already had one too many? Don't you think that, even for a holiday, this is a bit too much? and do you stop to examine your life in general and wonder if maybe you might not be able to pull out of it in time for dinner down at the lake? Do you ever at that point give your physiology the once-over and try to judge just what your excessive ways are doing to your physique, considering you're not at all young anymore? Have you ever thought about what would happen to you if you gave up the sauce and got healthy again? And does everything get even lower than that such that you're thinking about your death and about how you'll be forgotten--or remembered, badly, cursedly, abhorrently? What's that rotgut doing to your mind, to your guts, to your nervous system? Do you regret ever becoming an adult, ever learning about good and evil, ever finding out one day you will die?

Well, buck up! These thoughts will be gone in about fifteen minutes. I guarantee it.

 

*

 

I got my bed, with a phat blacklight poster hanging over it,

It's Jimmy Dean rubbing his fatty up against Marilyn Monroe,

And my carpet's green shag that I got a phat green rake for,

Because you never know what kinds of phat coins got dropped,

And it's all-in-all a basement pad tucked away conveniently,

Off a pretty major intersection where there's a phat subway,

And there's enough dishes for a two-person breakfast, bacon,

Eggs, and I could go out to get some nice phat orange juice,

At this place up the corner where I do all my regular shops,

And there's a big charmingly phat pussy cat comes regularly,

But, hey, I haven't mentioned I got an authentic black light

That I got on ebay for fifteen dollars that gets phatly hot,

Hundred of watts have to go through the coat of that sucker,

And I clean the toilet regularly to keep away the phat bugs,

And all in all it's indescribable how well I keep the place,

Just in case there comes a day that in the evening you show,

Unannounced, your fat hair wet because of some thunderstorm,

And it'll be miraculous, like some outrageous lucid fantasy.

 

*

 

A raccoon was sleeping on my patio yesterday afternoon.

I thought it was a cat at first. It was a raccoon.

I shouted at it, and it merely looked me in the face, insolently.

I took up the spray bottle we use to keep away a bully cat,

and went out the door, while our cats looked on,

to spritz the raccoon with vinegar-scented water.

The fat thing got up and tried to make its escape.

It could barely fit under the horizontal boards of the fence,

but it found its way and I sprayed it some more as it toddled

along the fence to climb up on Margaret's vine-covered garage.

So a half-hour later Mary comes home and lo and behold

The fat thing is again on the patio. Fuck this shit.

I go out and give the creep a good vinegary soaking

As he waddles away again to Margaret's garage roof.

Then our cat Anne gets out and goes over to the garage too.

Cat and raccoon are scoping each other out a foot apart.

Tension breaks as the coon climbs up the maple tree.

Mary lures Anne off the garage with a shiny jingly toy.

Show's over.

 

*

 

I have a good life, and I'm aging so slowly it's incredible. I see my friends all the time. I can talk to my moon any day of the week. She's not too far away, after all. Venus is a nice girl; Mars looks fierce but he's really a pussycat. Sometimes I worry about eternity, and about what will happen when good old Sol finally burns out and collapses in on itself, but that's going to be so long from now. My mood is probably because of the constellations; I'm superstitious that way sometimes.

The moon and I have our conversations. Sometimes we talk about the weather, since we're both bombarded by the same cosmic radiation. Venus has it the toughest, of course. Poor girl! She likes our comforting, and, besides, she's pretty hot. I don't mean just by the Fahrenheit scale, either.

A long time ago I caught a disease. Parasites all over my surface. They blasted at me and took away a lot of my organs. Fortunately, they're gone now. Some of them built things and flew away like insects. Good riddance! The rest died because of a meteor.

Most of them anyway. I don't mind the microbes.