Inhale, exhale.
Twisting patterns of poetry
illusively decorated the room, augmenting its form into perpendicular
space. Colors unseen, shifting spots
with ideas unthought. Unsure of where I
stood, or where I was standing, I sat; soon found space beneath the patterns
for personal poetry. My words were
meshed into sounds of the atmosphere, lexical menagerie to send me away. Living wisps of wonder and the totality of
what is. The doorbell rang.
“Hi,
sir, how are you doing today?” Short
legs, long hair. Her pleated skirt had
probably been ironed earlier in the day.
What time was it anyway? Her
nervous smile met mine.
I
thought about her question, really tried to take it in. “Well, I’m a little confused. I had a thought sitting in my head and when
you rang the doorbell, it just disappeared.”
“Ooh,
that’s a bummer. I’m really sorry about
that.”
“No, I
mean, it’s not your fault. It’s not like
you rang the doorbell just so I would forget what I was –“
Thinking. Thoughts, default value, like the null
hypothesis of an experiment. Avant-garde
Andy Warhol free word association. The
ghost of Jimi Hendrix lives in my shirt pocket.
And time drags on slowly as if
you waited eight minutes before reading the next paragraph, unaffected by me
breaking the fourth wall. What
wall? The walls don’t exist, the lines
are not really there.
I can’t
seem to compose a sensible or linear plot.
My attempts at storytelling are futile because of my underlying belief
that there are no stories, just things that happen. To craft a story arc is to romanticize
reality, to wrap a bow on a pile of paperwork.
So I’m left stewing in contradictions; self-reference enslaves me. The result is an unnecessary interruption in
an unnecessary story that exists only if you let it.
Instinctive
nothing to light and sound. The
transformation of duplicity, mental activity molded into personhood. We are what we think we are, to
ourselves. I thought. It had been a long day and I was exhausted
but not sleepy. It never ends; each day
with myself, the only person I know. I
thought.
“Thinking?”
“Yeah,
exactly.”
“That’s
what you were thinking? The word
‘thinking’?”
“No. Well, yes.
But that’s not what I forgot I was thinking. Er, that was just a word I forgot to say.”
She
looked confused.
“So
what brings you here, exactly?”
“Does
this dog look familiar to you?” She handed
me a picture of a white cocker spaniel with a red collar.
My
chest froze. “Yeah, I saw him earlier
today, I think. He was lying on the
grass in my front yard.”
“Really?” She moved closer; I came outside. “What happened to him?”
If I
dropped her eyes, they might have shattered on the cement. “Well,” I swallowed the saliva in my throat,
“the dog had a stick in its mouth and ran it over to me. So I picked it up and threw it into the
street. The dog ran after it and grabbed
it –”
Her
stare stifled.
“A car
hit your dog. It’s dead.”
Woman
in elevator: Good morning.
Man
in elevator: My life is slowly falling
apart.
Sadlkuhdas;gha
diihdl ;nsgio wher th hll is r u srius ths can’t be hap-en-ing alkushgakulha! Baseball, styrofoam, several species of small
furry animals: things you might think
about to delay ejaculation or mental breakdown.
She lit
like fire and exPLODED onto the street as neighbors were staring and mailboxes
opened to cries of her body all covered in mucus. “Red, red, red!” “Go, go,go!”
Ah-ooooooh. And whoosh went the breeze when her knees got
untangled and ran with her curls to the pulse of her heart.
It
never ends – this feeling. The guilt
that you get in the pit of your chest is the same as the sweat beads that fall
from the nape of your neck. Then
suddenly I’m back on the toilet, hand poised over a trash can collecting the
nail clippings as they fall from my fingers.
“Of
course I was nervous; it was the first day of school.”
“So
how’d it go?”
“It was
awful. My mom told me ‘Just be
yourself,’ but what does that mean to a five-year-old? I didn’t know who I was, hell I still don’t. I was on the verge of nervous incapacitation
the whole time. My only break was recess
when I could hide under the dinosaur slide and carefully ascertain the
biological composition of the terrain.”
“And
what did you conclude?”
“It was
mulch.”
I’m driving
– about to enter the highway from an unrecognizable exit. Why am I here? I’m tired, it’s hot, Paul McCartney is
singing about fixing a hole. Like the
moment after waking up from a dream, I am suspended in time and unaware of
where I came from or where I’m going. I
have to write this down.
“My
grandmother died yesterday.”
I
looked up; she was staring at the grass.
“How old was she?”
“87.”
“Oh.” I sighed contemplatively. “Is there gonna be a funeral?”
“No,
not really. My parents are going to have
her cremated and then buried, with just a few people there.” She took a bite of her sandwich.
“The
burial kinda defeats the point of the cremation, doesn’t it?”
Inhale,
exhale. “Yeah, I guess… I want to be
cremated when I die.”
“What
difference does it make? It’s not like
you’re gonna be there.” I scooped up
some apple sauce and ate it. “I guess
that way you don’t have to worry about being buried alive. You’d probably die faster in the incinerator
than by suffocating in a coffin.”
She
giggled.
Houses were paperclips and she fit
inside an envelope. Sky stormed
compulsively, unyieldingly. Piercing
cacophony bent around alleyways into and out of her ear canals. Eventually, everything was engulfed in
flames.
I went back inside and locked the
door. It was cooler and darker than it
had been moments earlier. The air was
electric and poetry began to radiate throughout the house, increasing in
intensity inside of the kitchen. Bloop, bloop bloop. Bloop, bloop bloop. The faucet was leaking. I pulled a bowl out of the cabinet and put it
in the sink. Bop, bop bop. Bop, bop bop. Percussive brass escaped the
refrigerator. Booooom, booooom, booooom. Bop,
bop bop. Booooom, booooom, booooom. I opened up the oven and pulled out my
violin, sizzling as I touched the bow to the strings. Wailing and whooshing in tune with the airwaves, the sound of the
fiddle melted the provolone.
Woman: Uh… I’m sorry to hear that.
Man: What are you talking about?
Woman: (confused
look)
Beat.
Woman: I’m sorry that your life is falling apart.
Man: Is this some kind of a joke or something?
There’s
no need to retrace your steps. Do I have
to spell this out for you? There is no
story here. Turn around right now and
concentrate on what you see. What is
happening? That is the only meaning you
will find.
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