Average Man
He was the most average man anyone could ever expect to meet. He was of an average size and an average weight, and he stayed that way his entire life. He had an average number of arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, and toes. His hair was an average colour, and his eyes were an average colour too. He was very average.
He had a normal number of interests, and a normal number of long-playing records. He habitude was neither too tidy nor too messy. People came to see him on a normal basis, but no-one really knew just how normal he really was.
Politically speaking, he was the fence itself, if such a fancy can take you. He knew the results of all elections, because the public vote preference precisely reflected his personal vote preference. When he felt 60-40, the result would be 60-40. In fact, he never had to vote since he know the results would be his own result.
Now he has died, in a very average and normal way. Hole, casket, coffin, flowers, stone: all from the middle pages of Average and Normal Undertakers' Quarterly.
(Right now, God is telling him: "Ah! Finally, someone normal!")
*
Una Fantasia
"What kinds of cars did we have in the future, Daddy?"
"What kinds of cars did we have in the future? Why, I remember, way in the future, after you were born, I had a flying car that flew all by itself."
"Wow! I bet that impressed Mommy!"
"Yes, it impressed everyone, including me. I'd think: "We've come so far. We have flying cars." And they ran on ordinary tap water, can you believe it? There was no place we couldn't go. Ah, but that's all in the future now, all long gone."
"That's too bad. I would have like to have seen it."
"Daddy, what'll we have in the past? What do you think we'll have then?"
"I can't predict the past, Pumpkin, no-one can. But I can guess, and my guess won't be pretty. I foresee we'll have less of everything, back there in the past."
"That's pretty grim."
"I can't help that, I'm afraid. We'll have run out of everything sometime in the past. The automobile we have won't be working any more. We'll have to ride on stinky horses. The streets will be filthy."
"The future sounds better, Daddy."
"Yes; time is pretty merciless."
*
Something Strong
I was out at the seaside not the other day, with my easel and my oil paints. I'd set up; I'd drawn a line across a canvas. A yellow dog bounded at my, barking, followed by his mistress, dressed in light green. "Painting, are we?" she said.
"Capturing this moment that is not to come again, for the sea changes from day to day and from hour to hour. Everything else changes too, of course, but here, asea, it's most dramatically created. It's the battling contrasts, of land and water and sky, that makes a pretty and a strong picture."
She looked down to the water. She said: "Do you come here often?"
I threw down my brush. "Woman, what is it that you want from me? A man can't have a single afternoon pass without being propositioned by a woman and a dog? Do I look like I can be civilized that easily? I, who am free, to be taken by you, who is a cage? We have barely met, and yet the process of suffocation has already been set in motion! I come here when I feel like it. Maybe it's often, maybe it's not. Egads!"
*
Neighbours' Neighbours
Some friends of ours have two cats. They got them as kittens, sisters in fact, one January or February. When summer rolled around, they discovered that two houses over, neighbours' neighbours, had a bad-tempered tomcat, and that tomcat persecuted their cats. Fights through the window were common.
Anyway, after a couple years of fights, with the neighbours' neighbours perfectly aware their cat was a menace to society, which caused them to keep him inside more often, the tomcat got out (which happened regularly) and broke through their screen. The woman lost her shape completely. She went outside and yelled at the male neighbours' neighbour who happened to be outside at the time.
He went inside as he was being yelled at.
She called the city, reporting the menace tomcat. Then the female neighbours' neighbour banged on the friends' house door. More yelling ensued. "Go ahead, call the city!" "I already have." "My husband shouldn't be yelled at! His best friend just died! Never talk to him again!" "Okay, I won't."
And that was that. No-one's talking.
My male friend couldn't help but quip to all who'd hear the tale: "'Best friend just died!' As if we'd killed him."
*
Of Others
Idling his way through another not-very-interesting day at the office, Bob decided to check out what was playing on his tv streaming services. He noticed a film, read the synopsis, and realized it was a film by and about the other people. Behind him, in another stall, was his work-friend, who was one of them. Bob went over and said: "I was wondering if you've seen a particular movie."
"What's it called?"
"'Anonymous Desserts.'"
His friend looked it up. "No, I haven't seen it."
"Ah," said Bob. "Do you get the Babalugagh Channel?"
"Not a subscriber."
"Ah. Maybe you should check it out."
His friend looked up the channel's website. "Oh, I get it now. There's all these films about us, and not about you."
"Well, I thought maybe you'd be interested."
"Perhaps. Maybe. I'm actually quite broad in my interests, you know that? My eyes see like yours see. I'm not interested only in the arts made by my type, you know?"
"Yes, certainly, of course. Yah. Anyway, it's got all sorts of other stuff on it."
"Other than other stuff." Bob's friend laughed.
He went back to his desk. Was he in love with his friend?
*
Orange Cars
In the café, Theresa saw the orange car pass by. It was moving slowly, and the driver could not be seen: assuming there was a driver. It wouldn't be without reason for Theresa to see a driverless car, since I've been told there's cars driving themselves around these days, on errands and so on. But my opinions here don't matter, since what matters is that Theresa saw the orange car pass by.
She wondered why she wasn't as concerned about it as she could have been. The orange car had been following her for an entire week while she carried around the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her purse. Of course an orange car would be following her around. Actions have consequences, and in this case carrying around a quarter mil causes an orange car to follow one around.
But the radio was on, and she heard its news bulletin. Orange cars were part of an advertising gimmick. However, hundreds of people had been driven to murder and suicide due to paranoia concerning orange cars. The cars had been pulled off the road, and the advertiser had apologized.
(The orange car passed again.) Such a relief!
*
My Friedrich
Walking home from work the other day, I caught my good friend and lunatic Friedrich Nietzsche staring at a post near a lighted intersection. I neared, to get in the game.
He was examining the words lacquered onto a small steel sign that sat beneath a big red button. The text read: PUSH BUTTON FOR AUDIO SIGNAL ONLY.
I slapped him on the back to retrieve him from his reverie, and said: "The big red button influences the pedestrian signals."
He said: "Für wen ist das Schild? Ist es für Blinde? Blinde Menschen können das Schild nicht lesen. Ich versuche, es zu vermeiden, aber ich verwechsle oft Bild und Ton. Auf jeden Fall kann ich nicht verstehen, wie das hier gemalt wurde."[1]
I laughed and replied: "The words are for those who can see. The blind are on their own. It's a political matter: people pay for mirrors."
I took Friedrich away from the sign and we had to walk five blocks before he would speak. He said: "Also haben alle Zeichen andere Bedeutungen? Also: Der Hammer!"[2]
We settled into a bar. Dusk. He was shivering, so I threw my arm around him. We talked of being children.
*
In Paint
I didn't have a lot of time. I could feel myself rotting inside. My shell had been painted, and the girl had held my up to a mirror so that I could see myself. (She had no idea I could see myself; it was really only by chance.) There I was, a painted egg, looking at my design.
I had a red band around my waist, where I am thickest. Diagonal lines went up and down from there, in blue, and it was obvious I wasn't the first egg she had painted. The little trapezoids above and below the red line were painted in a seemingly haphazard fashion, with green, purple, orange, and yellow. I was a really Sunday go to meeting egg, ready for whatever appearance I had to make.
Now I'm in a bowl with others similar to me. I wonder what they're thinking; I believe I'm the best-looking egg of all, but they might believe something similar, that they are special eggs, that they had been painted with especial flair. I suppose none of us will ever know the truth of the matter. How long can we expect to stay before we're crushed with garbage?
*
Bad Brains
It's a
terrible thing, to feel you're certainly going downhill. What's to come? The
answer to that question is: Not too bloody much, or even nothing at all! The
pains get worse and worse, eyes get worse (though mine showed a slight
improvement a couple years ago), and you're sure there's something wrong in the
mysteries of your gut. You start to turn invisible, or at least translucent.
Fewer people notice you, and you're really not entirely sure why, maybe it's only
psychological, maybe there's something wrong with the old noggin, nothing a bit
of sleep and some positive reinforcements can't fix up right as rain. You
notice you're the oldest person in the vicinity, your typing goes downhill,
letters are transposed, something sometimes you type the wrong word
entirely. It's part of the game, you can tell yourself, you didn't expect to
live forever, did you? You've been around quite a long time, remember when 2000
seemed forever away? It's been a long haul, really, when you think of it. And
now, face it, everything is going to go away. Don't even try to change it;
you'll make a bigger fool of yourself that you already are.
*
Footnote Annotations
1. The voluminous issues of the collected complete sayings and phrases cannot and will be not be bound or assembled with the referential explanations of themselves, in consideration and understanding.
2. Five or six additional supernumerary bound signatures will be for sale and available for purchase through and by assigned agents situationally located in the big major cities and villages from let us say, how shall we phrase it, the oceans to the oceans or from the sea to the sea or from coast to coast.
3. These externalities or appendages can be connected to or re-bound with the collected complete sayings and phrases of one so wishes or desires to have them dis-assembled or pulled apart, then stitched or glued back together to make a coherent synoptic folio or quarto.
4. Which may or may not be done depending on and influenced by an individual's habitual proclivities, in which one may desirously want to set at place the main text beside the footnote annotations rather than or instead of fingering the sheet pages at the end or conclusion.
5. Adhere to and obey these instructions or directions, and many years and decades of delightful pleasure will ensue.
*
In Boredom
She walked between quiet walls, with only her breath for company, to the front door. She looked through the plastic screen, past the dented tin struts, to the street. Nothing to see there but a stupid squirrel, sitting still, exactly like a hundred other squirrels she'd seen before. She could not even be stirred by a squirrel.
She turned around and went back into the living room. There was another door back there, so she looked through that door, through glass, to the little patio. And the only thing to be seen there, too, was a squirrel, another squirrel, stilly looking almost towards her. That didn't change anything: it was like squirrel number one hundred and two.
The couch seemed to be the only place for her to be. She lay down, facing the back door, and staring to the patio from a distance. How could nothing happen for so long? What was to come?
Two squirrels appeared at the door. They were looking in, at her, there on the couch. The squirrels touched noses briefly, then one got onto the shoulders of the other. In unison they beat on the glass. She thought: That is something new.
*
Carnival District
An eight o'clock meeting of our city planning group. Evaluation of the streets in the Carnival District. Question: expand or shrink the streets included in said district. On hand: budget department, works department, legal department, surrealist department, executive department, policing department.
After long discussion, matter turns to a preliminary anonymous vote, for if agreement is reached meeting to be disbanded. Counted as five to one. Discussion goes on through another two hours. Points, digressions, explanations, responsibilities, allotments, post-preliminaries, points of order, ramblings. Maps projected onto a big screen, and markers used with different lines signifying our fair city. Maps wiped with a cloth and lines re-drawn. How to integrate into the overall plan?
Second vote proceeds on one of the plans. Result: five to one. Surrealist Department the one that does not agree; when queried, reply: "No plan is better than a plan." All puzzle through more proposals, maps are photographed, so many of them, record-keeping apparatus out of tape, is replaced.
Area proposed to expand three streets, vote held. Surrealist abstains, no consensus and no explanation. "How many?" response. Blackboards and whiteboards, markers, graphs, rulers, projectors through space, superimpositions, sticky notes, pointers, pencils, erasers, notepads, inks, sheets.
*
In Heresview
Ladies and gentlemen, the preceding document was taken almost verbatim from notes taken in a committee-room in our town hall, for the notes were taken down concerning our town, Heresview, Ohioiowa. Little was taken out of them, and little was put in. You cannot find in existence a better representation of our fair town than in these notes. It is, strictly speaking, impossible.
It is from the centre of our town, from the spire and bell that rise above our city hall, from the very belfry itself, that we consider all the universe as it spreads itself over the plain and throughout the sky. We look all ways, to the north place and the south place, from the east sky to the west sky. Nothing escapes our attention, for we believe that without us the universe would not have existed.
And the things we can't see, that we can only read about in annals and astronomies, well, we accept them, but only in that we have read about them. It's truistic that the things we have not seen or read about are impossible to imagine; we can only use what is to hand.
This tale is not finished.
*
Illegal Drugs
Let's see if I can summarize what I know about the illegal drugs.
I suppose underage smoking and drinking counts, so those count.
As far as the items that are not on the far side, but rather in the middle, there's acid and shrooms; acid I'd taken once or maybe twice, and as for shrooms: maybe four times.
I never went further than those. Not once did I go further than those.
As for the marijuana and its related substances, well!
I even sold a little of the stuff. Not very much, but still. DRUG TRAFFICKER!
Since hash and hash oil were easily to come by in high school, that would be the choice for my bad friends and I.
Oil spread onto a paper to make a spliff.
Oil vaporized by hot knives and inhaled through a toilet paper tube.
Hashish rolled in Zig-Zags, or in a pipe.
As for weed, that became the choice stuff. It wasn't a daily habit, though, ever. Rather, it had to be savoured, on weekends and special occasions.
I used to be able to roll joints famously. I was very good at it.
For the last five years, nothing that's illegal.
*
Missed Class
It was the first time I ever blew up a bridge. Knowing that a charge in the middle of the bridge would bring the whole thing down, I set all the charges there, strung a fuse off to where my car was, some forty feet away. I lit the fuse, and watched.
A tremendous explosion, and bridge-bits flew everywhere. In effect, there was no more bridge. And, as I'd planned, the loose ends were falling, too, as the overhead suspension wires snapped. The collapse was coming straight for me. Oops!
I jumped in my car, put it in reverse, and fled, going backwards, away from the collapsing bridge (whose collapse was, section by section, fast approaching me).
(An observer later told me it was the strangest thing to see: a car, going backwards, fleeing the collapse of a bridge.)
But I made it off the bridge and onto solid ground just when the last section snapped and fell. I was veritably deaf by then. Who knew a collapsing bridge could make so much noise?
I knew where I'd gone wrong, though. Back in espionage school, due to illness, I'd missed one vital class: the class on running away.
*
Sabotage Game
I had my friends over, three in all, so we could play the Sabotage Game. I laid out the board while the drinks were being measured and poured. It was all to be in such fun.
I divided the tokens between us; we had a good couple swallows and set into it.
The first player had to pass. That was in the rules. Jenny balked that the rule made no sense. I pulled out the three volumes of rules, handed them to her, and said: "It's in the rules."
We began to play. The tokens had to be redistributed every ten minutes, as per the rules. Paul was making some headway, then he failed in a task and lost half which was distributed to his two neighbours. He didn't like that, but it was in the rules.
Sarah picked up one of the volumes of the rules and I took them away from her. One of the rules is you can't check the rules unless you were solving a dispute. I told her: "That's the way God wants it."
We played until a little after the game ended itself. We hadn't noticed; none of our clocks worked right.
*
The Badger
Lean and hungry, it badgets to itself without a soul to hear it badget. It smells the air near the fence, peeks around the wood from time to time, and wonders if there's anything good to be had on the other side. Its nose leads it along, through the tall grass and to the edge of the tall grass, where its eyes halt its progress. The house looks quiet in the dusk (actually it's midnight), with only two squares upon it, and they are neighbours. From past experience, it knows it could get a good feed this night.
Slowly it slinks low across the lawn unmowed for a fortnight. It hears some other creatures, some birds, some pigeons, in the dark barn that's only got a single circle on it (and it's high up at that), so it slithers thataways, stopping to listen every two seconds. Then it looks for an opening though the wood, let's see it's around here somewhere and there's more than one. Its egress is found, whether previously employed or not, and it is in the house of the birds, with the birds mostly asleep. They won't miss them. These birds are so stupid.
*
Daily Duties
I, they, how, the perambulator, they, then, me, they were in the way, the goofs, Laurel and Hardy I think they're called, and I write though I'm a ghost. I don't want to dis-grace myself here. My name was Lilyan Irene, and I was also in "Private Number," "Indecent," "Sisters Under the Skin," and many more.
I, they, how, say she's dead, me, that I'm not in 'The Music Box', no, because I'm dead. No, obviously, when, at some point, maybe years ago,
*
Noises Off
A truck with a gooseneck cherry-picker up the street a ways, cutting limbs off a big tree and grinding them up in a wood-chipper. The grinding sounds terrifying.
Some distant truck, maybe heading this way, or perhaps it's the sound of the wood-chipper's motor.
Hum, hum, hum.
Somewhere there's a helicopter: whose helicopter, and why it is up there, is anyone's guess.
There, I hear them, distant voices. I can't even tell if it's English they're talking. Maybe they're having an argument.
Someone out there is using uh a lot.
A high-pitched whistle, something mechanical, like brakes having a bad hair day, and then a smooth car passing by. The street goes on being a street.
There's a big truck passing; I could feel it through the pavement, the earth, the walls, the floor.
It seems the tree truck backed up: beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.
A dog makes a racket, far off in some direction. I am but a window, after all.
Now that the tree people have gone, there's not much to hear.
Listen.
The faint ringing in your ears.
A child laughs; it's like a scream somehow. All in fun!
Soon it's going to be too cold to hear.
*
Kafka '22
When you're walking along your road, and you see, like, a police car zoom by, all noise and light, you think: Well, that's going some place in a hurry! And then there follows another biggie, this one a big red fire truck screaming and yelling away, it almost, like, knocks you off your feet, you have to wonder: Has the police car done something wrong? Is that why the fire truck is chasing it?
And then you figure, well, that's all highly unlikely, I mean, a better explanation is that they're both heading to the same place, or even maybe they're both chasing a different vehicle, an ambulance or something, but you didn't see it go by. And then there's another chance, that maybe it's a co-incidence, they're going to two different things, like, one is chasing an ambulance and the other is chasing a helicopter or something, so there's nothing to worry about after all.
Anyway, you're almost late for dinner, there's a television show you've got to stream, and in any case you can't see the fire truck anymore--you can't see the lights at all--you turn your head: there's nothing to be heard, either.
*
Ms Lonelyhearts
It's a full mailbag that comes every week, letters from all over the Commonwealth, to the Tahiti beach-house. My servant organizes them by weight: the heaviest third I will never bother to open (for it's a mark of insanity to write long-windedly), whilst I open every other of the remainder, ignoring therefore half. It's a belief system, just like yours.
I sort through them over two days' time, separating the wheat from the chaff. The wheat-worth are the most shocking or comical ones. Such miseries to be seen, and always the idea that misery is somehow unique! Two-headed offspring, problems with traffic signals, bathroom incidents, wrong decisions made, the generation gaps, odd smells from odd places, technology, alienation: the letters begin to repeat themselves, eddying into familiar tropes. I always see a pattern that's different from the previous week's pattern, and I toss a coin to know if it means progress or regress.
My replies are machine-generated apart from some turns of phrase I insert by hand, pasting them like swirl in a cheesecake. Who could ever keep track of all this? I laugh.
Always there's this: keep the cards and letter and dollars and dimes flowing in.
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