Category: Experimental

Moses Shrugged

Waiting rooms are uncomfortable. Fight me if you don’t agree, but, with throbbing silence and awkward glances pointed both at you and nowhere, I’d personally rather be anywhere else. Fight me on any other waiting room, even…but not this one. Something…something about this particular box, the faux-velvety, clinical space, is worse than the others. Not just worse…intolerable. It could be the humidity of the sweat going down my back, gathering behind the folds of my neck and collecting in mucky pools. It could be the judgmental eyes of the skinny little girl across from me, staring me down when she’s certain I won’t notice but swiftly shifting into a study of the green wallpaper behind me when I meet her gaze. It could be the long paperwork before me, the fact that I haven’t eaten anything all day, the haze from the marijuana that helps with the pain and long days…

But, I think, maybe the cause of my discomfort…is that I shouldn’t be here at all.

I didn’t think I’d ever be in this position. He was going to take care of me, we were going to make it together, and I was going to make the home he’d look forward to returning to. He was the love of my life, I thought, I thought with rapture as he plunged into me again and again, before he plunged into the sea never to rise again and left me sore – with the swell of my body and the breaking of my waters. We worked so hard to get to America…it was America that took him from me, and the hundreds of other lives that never returned to the their wives and husbands and leave them in the position that I am now.

Alone in a waiting room.

I study the crimson…green?…crimson wallpaper directly ahead, flaking off like the skin of some rotting corpse. Is this what I came for? Is this the dream we were all told to fall in love with? I clutched tightly to the black duffel sitting on my lap. Tightly, but tenderly.

My name was being called, but I didn’t want to hear it yet.
“Mrs. Continuista?”
Not yet.
“Is there a Mrs. Continuista here?”
…
“All right, guess she got tired of waiting. Miss Darnell?”
“Right here!”

The skinny kid across from me sprung up and hop-skipped to the counter, where a manicured pair of deep-brown hands shuffled papers under a pane of glass that concealed their owner.

“And what did you want today, sister?”
“Well, my boyfriend and I have been going at it for a couple of months.”
“Congratulations. You must be really good in bed, for him to stay that long.”
Mockery is lost on Miss Darnell.
“We’ve been trying so hard, and I think I’m finally –“

She breaks short and gives a tight squeal, trying to make the receptionist share her
excitement. The glass pane blocks any connection between them, except vocal.

“You’re finally what?
“Oh, you know…”
“We’re a clinic. You must be specific with the need our services can assist in.”
“I’m pregnant!”

She half-glances at the people behind her, as if expecting this information to affect our
lives somehow. Instead, I feel all of them stare directly at me – to avoid her.

“Then why are you here?”
“Well, Charlie changed his mind, doesn’t think he’s ready. Wants me to get rid of it.”
“So an abortion for you, then?”
“Hell no! It’s my body, my decision. I’m keeping it!”
“Then why are you here, Miss Darnell?”
“I want a mammogram. I know I’m not far along yet, but I’d like to see if it’s a boy or a girl.”
A pause.
A longer pause.
“A’ight, get yo dumbass self outta here.”

Miss Darnell stammered in disbelief. It was definitely unexpected.

“We look like a charity to you? Mammograms. You’re shittin’ me. You know how expensive that equipment is? Only hospitals got that shit. We do abortions. I dunno how many times I gotta tell you entitled bitches before it gets through your dense melons. Get outta here, Miss Darnell.”

Miss Darnell, bright pink as a strawberry, stood still for a moment. She turned as if she’d been slapped, and left with the most pathetic and unconvinced huff I’ve ever heard. But I was convinced. I stood. The black duffel swung back in forth on the crook of my arm.

I moved to the glass pane. The receptionist’s hands smoothed out her papers, and her professional saleswomanship with it.

“Yes, sister? What did you want today?”
“I’m Mrs. Continuista.”
“I see. I hope, with a last name like that, you’re not here to ask for a mammogram.”
“An abortion.”
“Well, well…It’s a new age, then, isn’t it? And have you filled out the paperwork?”
I handed the sheets to her disembodied hands.
“Excellent. And? Did you have any questions?”
“I don’t want to do it.”
A pause.
A longer pause.
I prepared for another outburst.
“What brought you here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you feel you needed an abortion in the first place?”
“I don’t know. I guess…I guess I’m afraid.”
“You’re all alone, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Typical. Men, am I right? Doing whatever they want with your body, then running off whenever they want to. Nothing but the dust of the Earth, if you ask me.”
“Oh, no, he was completely faithful. He lived long enough to learn I was pregnant…but…
not much longer than that. I just don’t think I can handle supporting two people alone.”
“Oh, sister, I’m sorry to hear that. How did he die?”
“I don’t like to talk about it…he was in the Navy. Comes with the occupation, I guess.”
“Oh my God, that’s terrible. Jeanine!”

A few seconds bring another shadow behind the lacquered glass.

“Yeah?”
“Tell Jeanine your sad story, Mrs. Continuista.”
I do.
“Why, child, that’s so terrible! Just awful! It’s one of those stories you always hear, you know, as hypotheticals, but never do you actually meet someone who’s gone through it. Like those girls who end up pregnant from their rapist, or the jackass who lied about putting a condom on, or the woman whose life is in danger if she has the child, you just never see something like this very often, if hardly at all. Usually it’s just the hazards that come with recreational sex. Nothing special, nothing uncommon, so no problem. Right?”

Jeanine’s milky silhouette faded away into a room deeper back.

“Don’t worry anymore. You are in the right place. We exist for people exactly like you, who come down with this unforeseen affliction. I mean, who can resist sex? Who can resist the greatest feeling ever? We’re here to eliminate the repercussions, like taking the fat out of cake. Think of it, not as a practice, but as a service to womankind. To you. Now, for scheduling your operation…”
…
…
Please…
“Well, aren’t you brave. Taking advantage of the new law, so soon?”
“Yes.”
“Now I see why you were so nervous. How long have you had the Tumor?”
“Tumor?”
“It’s what we call them at this stage. Tumors. Helps with the separation. After all, yours is much more of a leech now than before, right? Suckling away at your future. Where is it, anyway?”

I heave my black duffel onto the counter. I unzip it. Inside, bundled up, is the Tumor, fast
asleep. Sedated.

“My, my. Ain’t that just pathetic. And you’ve let that thing fester for three weeks?”
“I wasn’t sure if this was the right decision.”
“You’ve said it before, you haven’t much of a choice. What, you want to give it up to one of those relocation agencies, constantly wondering where it’s been passed? No, you were right to come to us. You know, our founder, the mother of all our good work, our patron saint of Darwinism.”
She sniggered at her own little joke.
“She was probably thinking of poor souls just like you, Mrs. Continuista, when she built our first clinics.”

The receptionist’s ebony hands clacked long, painted nails against the counter. Her emotions were getting riled, though the bright red stripes on the tips of drumming fingers were all I could see.

“And people call her immoral, acting like Moses when he came down the mountain and threw down his tablets, when they’re all worshipping the same golden bull? How many other animals kill their offspring, in far worse ways, and for less use than us. And now they’re crying over this new law? Bitch, please! When women are forced to go through this painful process to fix a mistake, it’s not their fault. The new law gives us an opportunity to make it less painful, less violent, at less cost, and, most importantly, to better serve the patient and her body, and suddenly it’s a moral outrage? It’s, like, when are your supposedly progressive minds going to woman up, and take your worldview to its logical conclusion? It’s fucking hypocritical!”

Her nails stopped drumming.
“You’re still not convinced, are you?”
“No. Sorry.”
She sighed and leaned back. It wasn’t a sigh of annoyance, but more like the heart’s gas
pipe pushing out an excess breath of pity.
“You ever heard of Jean Piaget?”
“No. Sorry.”

“Not surprised. He was a Swiss psychologist, did some work on education and brain development. I won’t go into his theories, because they don’t matter, but what does matter is he determined a child can’t act apart from its own impulses and observations until age two. Crying, curiosity, eating, pissing…it’s all done on impulse. The child has no sense of self, like any regular animal, with a constant present perspective and no way of expressing itself as a human being, in its own brain or in interactions with human beings. It has no means of communicating to us that it is human, no way of using human signs, or any kind of meaningful sign, to define itself as human. It has no self-consciousness. Therefore-“

“It’s a Tumor.”

“You said it, not me. Ever seen a newborn foal? A baby hippo? Ever wonder why human offspring are so completely helpless compared to the rest of the animal kingdom? They’re born too early. If they came out as developed as, say, a fawn, the mother’s body wouldn’t be able to handle it. In other words, birth is the body’s way of aborting the child before it becomes dangerous. It’s still technically a fetus even now, skull still unformed, immune system still haywire, because it’s only here on borrowed flesh from your body, sister. It’s not yet it’s own, and you’re still in control.”

I sighed. I don’t know why I did it, whether it was because I was hoping she’d talk me out of it, or because I was just tired of worrying about what I should do.
“Is it done humanely?”
“Oh, yes. Euthanization is all pretty sophisticated nowadays. Courts wouldn’t have passed the law if it wasn’t.”
I sighed again. Her trimmed hands slowly slid another form in front of me. I picked up a pen and looked down. I almost dropped the pen.
“What the Hell is this?”
“Oh, well, you can receive compensation if you want. A portion of the profits after we sell its –
“And if I refuse?”
“You won’t receive anything, but the pieces will still go to market, with or without your consent. We know what you’re going through, so we’d understand if you’d prefer not to receive what some call ‘blood money’. I see yours is male, so you might receive even more.”
I signed. But I didn’t check that box.
“Suit yourself.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. I had Jeanine run your profile through the system.”
My breath caught.
“Sorry, protocol. Why didn’t you tell us the Tumor was defective?”
“I’m sorry, defective?”
“Diagnosed with autism, according to your doctor’s records.”
My caught breath ran away into some unknown recess in the pit of my stomach, and expanded there.
“Will that be a problem?”
“Oh, no, not at all! In fact, it makes your decision much more reasonable.”
“It won’t affect your profits on its brain, or something?” I said that with sarcastic spite. This time, the glass shielded the receptionist.

“Of course not! We’re not Dr. Frankenstein over here. We’re not even a medical practice, technically, more of a service. To make your life livable again. We thank you for your patronage, Mrs. Continuista, and ask you to think of us next time your body is afflicted.”

The long, crimson nails stretched under the glass and gripped my duffel bag. As soon as it started to slide toward the slot…my Tumor’s eyes opened. It looked directly at me. It smiled, though its mouth made no movement, and reached upwards at me, though it conveyed no desire, and I was struck hard by how much it reminded me of him. And I knew, I knew that I would be haunted by that face as I was by his, though I was sure that doing this I would not have to watch it grow up and see it every day and be reminded of that empty place he left in my heart.

The Tumor began crying on the other side of the glass.

The entire waiting room lit up with frightened, glossy eyes, as if the very specter of Death was drumming his bony knuckles on their bloated bellies. One began to cry. Then another. Then they were all wailing banshees, unsure of where this sound was coming from within themselves.

“You dumb bitch! Look what you’ve done to your sisters! You were supposed to sedate it properly! You asshole! You whore! You piece of shit!”

The receptionist’s screams sent me out of the waiting room as fast as my weak legs could go without a mind controlling them.

I left the waiting room, but I couldn’t escape the wailing. That damned, haunted wailing. They were the sirens behind my car. They were the nightmare floating above my head. They were the rot in my fruit, the cramp in my leg, the pressure in my skull, the nightmare above my bed, the distraction at my work, the early to my climax, the impatience in every good thing I could find for myself. But, but…it only lasted a short while, relatively. The wails faded to echoes, and then to a memory, the memory of him, and I could go on living. It’s been years, and many more women have made the same choice I did. But I still did it when not everyone was…I was one of the firsts. I was also one of the last to question it, and I’m just glad I don’t have to question it any longer.

But I can’t help thinking sometimes. And sometimes reminds me of back then, back when I stopped thinking for only one moment, a moment I was sure would be for the best. But now all I’m sure of…I’m sure I left behind more than just the Tumor that day.

The Mellowdramatic Murder of My Reservation

The fault of a part is usually to blame for collapse in the whole.

This is the mantra of retrospective foresight, an employment that demands sacrifice for smoother waters tomorrow. Especially when it comes to social mingling and supposedly required interactions of the juvenile kind…I absolutely must be a master at this.

It is the only way I, the Don Quixote of the millennial era, can hope to blend in with false niceties and a cloak of similarity. Nevertheless, I still have hope for them! With each interaction, I learn how to entice my fellow twenty-something year olds, how to meet them as equals, how to tolerate their obsessions. Somewhere within the rotted crust of the whole lies a golden core, and I chew away relentlessly for that sweet center. Reservation is the hero here, certain that humanity is worth investing time and understanding in. Besides, I know, without Reservation and retrospective foresight…then I am a carp, flopping around on the top of a hill, miles away from the lake; it’s a nice view, but I need that damn water if I’m going to live.

Desperate for a breath of clear air from my home, a place I like to call “Hell’s Crotchpocket,” I opted for a semester studying in London, England. Here I could start afresh, with an optimistic mind and an open heart. All I needed to remember: the fault of a part is usually to blame for the collapse of the whole. I must steel every socializing nerve in my body, prepare myself mentally, and make myself the most impressive foreigner they’ve ever seen. One crack in the cement, and that whole edifice comes crumbling down.

Personal justifications aside, it was a failure. The fault must definitely lay with that Norwegian…A pal of mine (I think), fast friends despite being clearer opposites than Progressives and Conservatives, with his brash and unapologetic nature putting my own manipulative goodwill out to dry. He and I were due for a shindig that clocked in at nine, but that more experienced fellow assured me that drinking beforehand was a prerequisite. So I acquiesced, stood in the corner, as he and the rest of my flat drank. Long bottles of tequila, stubby glasses of rum, cubic vials of vodka, all disappearing down their hollow throats – my flatmates, ten in total, who insisted on showing me how parties are done in the UK. As the minutes trickled on, the clocklike array of cards began to mysteriously lose face, and I began to doubt if we would ever get to the party. The time rang eleven, though only for me.

It was supposed to be fun, a kickstart night welcoming all freshmen (and international students like myself). A night of easy dancing and cool music, an event of socializing and getting to know those whom you might spend the rest of your university days with – or the rest of your life, even. At least, that’s what I hope from the bottom of my heart it will turn out to be. I may have journeyed here to study, add another cinderblock in an impressive degree, but that doesn’t shelve my romantic telescope. And let me tell you, from this chilly mountaintop, the stars promised to be bright tonight.

But then the Norwegian was drunk. He was my closest compatriot in this strange land, and exceptionally handsome, so I was relying on his company to loosen crowds. But his tongue loosened first, loosened so much that it wrought a cannon to fire off as many derogatory statements into the hearts of our female companions as possible. I would have risked it, though. I would have risked it to not be alone at the forthcoming party, but he soon disappeared with a group of even looser buddies. All who obviously had attended the pre-drinking festivities of their own flats, and manifested within a cloud of smoke that reeked filthily of nicotine. For the record, the Norwegian did wildly gesture at me to join, but there were far too many of his kind now that my hand was forced to disappointedly wave him off. I shouldn’t have relied so heavily on his company.

And so the fault must certainly lie with these worthless pre-drinking festivities. Before he left, the Norwegian tried to force me to drink, said it would get my blood pumping – and he was probably right. But the stuff tastes like rubbish, and I would rather not act like rubbish, so I focus on Kings as the rest of the powwow passes around their Peace Pint. After the Norwegian, it was the Indian who got drunk first. But she was petite, and whined pathetically as the games penalties were heaped on her shoulders, sinking her further into that muddlebrained mire. I laugh, I compete in the categories seriously, but I am deeply anxious to hurry to the real party. The real party that might offer such a change from the stagnant cesspools of Hell’s Crotchpocket. Who would I meet? Could I actually convince a beautiful, intelligent young woman to drink with me? Of course, I wouldn’t have more than one glass; I must keep my wits out of courtesy for her company…Still, what of the dancing – will it be actual dancing? How do I approach her? What if my movements fall short of charming, and I-

The German directs my attention towards choosing a card. She is the only other not drinking, and as antsy as I to move on to the venue. “It must be everything I hope for, right?” I signal with my eyes. She might be a third year, but she’s still a novice at reading expressions because she just smiles agreeably and sips her Coke.

I am continually offered the community booze, and politely refuse with not decreasingly hidden disgust. Nevertheless, my optimism is unwavering, even as the drunken festivities clamber towards midnight, and I see shadows in the soggy walkways lurching homewards, probably those who arrived at its commencement around nine.

Actually, that sight does put a damper on my hopes.

Thankfully, the German has also had enough, and joins my pleas that convince the rest of our haggard troupe to move on to the main event…Finally! I confess to excitement, though I’ve always put a firm heel down on the throat of this particular brand of merrymaking…it’s simply not the kind of indulgence I’d prefer taking advantage of. But it’s an alien thing to me, this “clubbing” business, and novelty is enough to quiet principle for a brief while. I smile at the German for assisting this poor American in his dilemma. Perhaps she can take the place of the Norwegian?

Her eyes flutter and she places her hand gently on my arm. I smile sweetly back at her and escape before she further misinterprets my actions.

The rain comes in a light sprinkle. I won’t blame the rain, because rain is pleasant. The dance itself is in a pub on our university’s campus, so it’s a short walk through gravel unevenly shifted by tipsy toddlers, some of them not even able to make it through the trees. We arrive to a line of students longer than the building itself, waiting to get in…but it is all right! In fact, I am relieved, worried that the fault might come to lie with our late arrival and the absence of attendees. But a queue line in the rain? I come here expecting fun in a place I would normally dismiss, so what is a little wet wait? All these belching, chanting, ass-grabbing, smoking, swearing wretches – they’re nothing I haven’t dealt with before at home.

This is fine.

As the long line disappears, man by woman, into the club, I quiver in anticipation. Who will I meet tonight? What should I say? My breath smells fresh enou – crap, I think the rain melted the paste in my hair! But it is too late to tell, too late to change; the doors open wide, a red aura and trembling bass waves pouring forth from within. I expected this sort of raucous, but…not at this level. Still, I’m here for the people. I can hear my Reservation calling, that this is a crowd with infinite potential, and that the people of this crowd can offer me something fantastic. Well, then, it’s high time to meet them!

No sooner do I step inside the pulsating red shadows am I sucked up in an enormous mass, mashing and kneading to process me through its lumps of human flesh. The air itself is sweat, and that which drips down ungraceful figures flailing about in these cramped quarters serves as saliva – Several heaving gulps are required to wash me down this strange throat, this immense organ of bodies. The belly of the beast is nothing but alcoholic madness as bloodshot eyes look upwards into darkness, mouths agape like lifeless fish heads bobbing up and down in a pool of emptiness. Their meaty lips pull back in smiles, but they gulp desperately for air in secret as their glossy eyes swivel in search of the closest Zippo. They are clammy, cold, surrendering the faintest response as I swim in search of some semblance of life. I leave the bar and break for the tents, certain that misty air might wash the brains I desperately long to pick. Though I am met with questions there, they are not the pleasant kind: “Hey, fam, got have a lighter? Hey, do you smoke weed? How ‘bout a glass of beer, then find a real party?”

There has to be some safe haven here; Someone just like me, searching for someone just like them, as disgusted as I am with how far social intimacy has fallen.

But, the more I look for life in the whole, the more shattered parts present themselves in its stead. I try! I swear, I really do – But look there: at the bar, faults – on the deck in the rain, faults – in the basement club, faults – in the large white tents, faults. Faults everywhere, no matter how hard I try not to look for them. I can speak with no one, because no one has the capacity to speak, or feel reasonably, or do anything else but absorb the heat of corporeal contact, and so there is no one to prove that my founded faults are not grounded. What a waste of time, of sanity – I need to get out of this cesspool! I make my way out the doors, to the cool of the rain, but the crowd has changed. At least when it acted as an organ, a body made of many bodies, there was life still and a purpose for movement. But now the energy is gone – What remains is a sticky, hot lump, welded as one by the gas of booze and cigarettes.

I am swimming in shit. A mushy mass of shapeless filth, drained dry of organic usefulness and God-given autonomy, squelches with every step aimed at escape. Chunks of bloody corn stare at me, red kernels behind humanlike skulls worn to slivers by digestion – the hunger for acceptance. A rotting stench of sop swirls in my head, almost as if no longer a gas but a dripping liquid oozing from the crack of the intestinally tormented. There is puke on the floor, literal puke, but it can hardly compete with the bitter auditory diarrhea that sloshes around in my ears, sticking to the drums and the canals until I can hear nothing more than the sloshing of human excrement. Base groans and groaning bass, thumping in the loins of everyone present but thumping my brain to the point of insanity.

My back sticks to one of these walking stools, a portly girl with piercings in her tongue that might well be a key ring she swallowed as a child. Those kernels in her head speak one word: sex. She smiles, opens her mouth, I smell the rancid smoke climbing from the depths, see the piss coating her tongue, beg her apologies, and flee.

Now I am in the middle of it all. I cannot see the exit, or the Norwegian, or the Indian, or the German, or even a single thing I recognize as comfortable, familiar. All I see is a black mass, lumpy and wet, flopping about in the dark under that red light. I can barely breathe now, its putrid, moldy, rotting steam choking my mind and seizing my heart. I panic, lost in a shit-sea, paddling desperately for shore where there is none to be found. Mouths grin through the dark muck, anxious to sink deeper into the bowels of warm, empty pleasure. I am drowning in this fecal mire, my mind races, my limbs fail to move, my eyes register nothing before me –

In my blindness – a voice.

The voice drifts over the crap-covered floor from a stage, where a DJ stirs the pot. Waving to me from on high – my lofty Reservation! Her angelic smile beaming down, she opens her arms to encourage.

“Keep searching, my brave warrior! She is here, somewhere, just waiting for you!”

With a graceful gesture she beckons, towards those twisted faces half-dissolved from the juices designed to help them save face. They gawk at me with incomprehension as to why I resist the joys of invasive connection.

“But where? How much longer must I search? I’m so very tired!”

My Reservation does not answer, but gestures once again over those pitiful floating heads beneath. I can only bring myself to glance at them again, but their gaping, oozing stares are revolting to even feel upon the back of your head. Still, if my Reservation says she must be here, then she must be here! I hold my breath and plunge back in, filled with determination.

For an hour I sifted through the bile, through those animalistic pleas for pleasure, for someone above the roar of dysfunction. But my eyes began to cloud over, my brain waxes lax, and I almost realized too late that I was sinking into something new. Something the people here came to escape, something they had to lose their minds and their very selves to ignore.

Something called despair.

A laugh rises up over the turmoil. I start from my lapse, and flail desperately for the surface, the laugh growing ever louder. When my head breaks above the muck, that laugh pierces the grimy air of the dance floor, shrieking at a pitch that only I can hear – and wish I could not.

It belongs to my delicate, my innocent, my optimistic Reservation. She now hangs off the edge of the stage, pupils expanded in madness and cheeks split with her smile, howling in hysterics. She points aimlessly at the malodorous orgy.

“She’s there, boy! She’s there, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere!”

She then points straight at my forehead and cackles. But this is too much! My panic rises to a grand capitulation, and, without thought, I take off my belt and swing it above my head repeatedly, then let go. The belt hurtles across the room, over the toilet I’m sinking in, and wraps tight round the neck of my Reservation. She grasps for it, but loses her grip in the process, tipping over and plummeting headfirst into the shit sloshing onto the stage. Her ringing laughter is abruptly reduced to weak burbling. She does not resurface. But she lingers still, still lingers…

My head finally clears, and I walk freely out of the building without a single piece of crap smudging my shirt.

As I stagger home in the rain, I pass another group, drunk from pre-drinks and on their way to the party. At the back is a naïve-looking fellow: a babyface with clear and hopeful eyes. He is also a dreamer, excited for what he finds back at that party, the one I just left in horror. And who knows; maybe he will find what he’s looking for? It’s a foolish dream, I see at last, but I hope he does.

I am no longer so immature, to hope there might be someone like me out there, who believes that human connection can be made both rationally and emotionally, out of high-minded care and an eye for the future. To hope there is someone who can keep their head above the shit, and still keep a smile on their face as they aim towards contentment, not only happiness…Do they exist?

I, a child, so eager to cross the threshold of Hell in search of an angel, a righteous fool. Yes, I will still forge friendships with the Norwegian and the German and the Indian…the American, the Brit, the Chinese, every one of them. I will laugh with them, work with them, share stories with them, feel things with them. But what I can no longer do is expect the impossible from them. I tried so long, in the hopes that meaningful human connections among young people, built on merit and virtue rather than social pleasure and political convention, might still exist. I hoped that love might still be out there in untouched fields, harvesting the land in its purest form.

The drought killing those fields was the fault of the whole’s collapse. But it happened before I arrived, and I mourn that I can do nothing but settle for the last semblance of a home among the rubble. Since there is no single part to blame, I have murdered my Reservation, and dunked her in the very thing I sought hope from: the youth of the human race.

In this manner I say, without joy, without the despair of hoping, without Reservation, that the generation still consuming this undefined collective good…They cannot see the sun, through all the shit sealing the cave they dance in.

Saturday Night Romp

“What for?”

“Well, see, I can write with music blaring, but, um, I can’t do that while reading. It’s homework. With any noise at all, in fact. I’m really sorry.”

“Oh, no, yeah. No problem.”

And with that the door closes and I am all alone.
Finally, for crying out loud.

At least they left easily enough. After all, they don’t even live here; every time my damn roommates go out on the town, I have myself a grand old time, so I don’t particularly like to see that they’ve left their compulsively noisy friends behind to keep house. But those friends can at least take a hint, unlike my roommates, and have the meager hints of consideration, unlike my roommates…well, two of them are decent, I suppose. They still will bang around, but their voices are not so loud as to grate on my nerves every second, and they at least join me in friendly, open conversation. Which I appreciate immensely when I consider the third roommate.

Ah. Now, the third roommate, he is something of a bane to my existence.

Not only is he an arrogant prig, narcissistic, in fact, but it seems he goes out of his way to make me feel unwanted. I give a “Good Morning!” to whomever I meet, accompanied by a smile; he ignores me. His voice stutters along like a bloated frog choking on its own tongue, and his opinions, you can tell, seem to him the facts. He will look at you with a grin and laugh when giving his thoughts, as if it was so clear and you were so foolish to not see how things really are. The pitch in his tone pierces my eardrums from even the bathroom, three doors away, and even he, as “intellectual” as he is, possesses no conception of what the proper volume for a voice indoors is. And when the majority of phrases that come out of his mouth are “That girl had a really nice ass” and “Bitch, fuck,” I pray for a return to the eloquent literate decadence of E.L. James.

I also pray for a good reason to clock him in the jaw.

Last night would have been a good occasion, perhaps. At three-forty-two in the morning, my roommates and their friends barge into the apartment and start making plans to smoke some marijuana or form an orgy or some Californian nonsense like that. That’s dandy and all, but what really chafes my cheeks is that they have no qualms about acting like President Trump was assassinated by the sexual slaves Bill Clinton holds captive on his secret perverted island. I swear, people in San Francisco could hear these fools laughing and stomping about. My third roommate especially clomps around like his feet are filled with lead. Or dried dung. And what were they laughing about?

Absolutely nothing. That’s the world I live in, folks.

So I can’t go back to sleep. I really try, and I can’t. At 6:30, when they all return, I’m up and at ‘em. One of the friends thinks he can sleep on the sofa; I let him because I’m considerate, but it doesn’t mean he’ll stop me from making coffee and eating cereal and doing my daily devotional. But he sleeps through it. He also sleeps through those confounded lawn hands up at the crack of dawn. Some people can do it, I guess, but I’m not one and I’m awfully cranky when I can’t get to sleep and need to.

Anyway, they pretty much held the room hostage the entire day, so I was prompt to kick them out and have the quarters to myself. But who comes waltzing back after saying he was going on a date with a girl and her nice ass? My third roommate, of course.

So at first he seems surprised because his friends are gone. Was he going to show her off to them? Not much to show off, if I say so myself. Might I also add that a completely different girl was in his bed at the beginning of the week, so I’m feeling a tad sympathetic towards her and will not direct any more insults in her direction. Except for why I can’t see how anyone would be subordinate to this clumsy baboon.

It’s nine-thirty; I’ve had the room for an hour. Not a sufficient amount of time to accomplish anything but finish the template sheet for my screenwriting homework and clean the wax off the bottom of my surfboard (some jack told me to put wax there when I first bought it, and only recently did a strange stoner correct me), but that can’t be helped. I am about to make some tea, though, and look forward to it since I have some delicious honey candies to try out from Christmas. But does my roommate introduce me? No. In fact, they are both rather rude and act like I’m not even there. But they hardly talk to each other, and mull about with seemingly nothing to do.

Then they stoically flee to my roommate’s back room for funky time.

Remember, it’s nine-thirty at night. I am a virgin, and proud of it, but I thought fornication only occurred past midnight so the person could leave and you never have to see their face again. That’s how it happens in my roommate’s filthy hole, anyway. But, you see, I’m miffed because there is no way to escape. My usual “safe space” is locked on weekends, and I still have a load of reading and writing to do tonight. Usually my roommate, who tells me I have no empathy for women when he treats them like a new Fleshlight to be exchanged every week, is busy spanking and slapping and moaning and groaning with the poor nympho he lured into bed that season, so I never get any sleep on these nights. It happened my first day back; he didn’t expect me, had a girl over, and, needless to say, I wanted to be home again.

But I digress. For a reason, granted, but I digress.

Tonight, I wasn’t going to take that crap. This is my time, dammit, and to think I’m one of your sheepish little followers is the absolutely wrong impression. I’m not scared of you. So, what do I do? I’ll tell you what I do. The same thing I do every Saturday night when I’m home alone.
I sing.

Okay I lied. First I do my whole list of unique character voices, just to make myself laugh and practice one of the talents I neglected to study screenwriting. It’s very fun putting some bitter old hag to a piece of feminist rubbish I’m reading for my Rhetoric class, but my tea gets cold and I hate the piece even more. That’s when I get the bright idea to not go so easy on my roommate tonight, and to simply act natural. And, boy, do I act natural. I act so natural that I’m sounding like Craig Ferguson in drag got a cherry stuck up is nose and is hacking and coughing away to get it out. But then it gets snorted down the wrong tube, and, before I know it, I’m singing.

I enjoy “Unchained Melody” immensely. So of course I sing it, purposefully horrific. But I realized I might be encouraging them, so “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” pops on to guarantee no flowers will be shed tonight. Then “Living in the Sunlight, Loving in the Moonlight” switches the record. But I’m so into this Tiny Tim persona that I alternate between the two with ease, even acting the rebel and rocking into a rad whistle scale. Then I get bored and call up my only true friend down here in Hell’s crotchpocket, an artist, delightful boy, and solidify our plans to celebrate my birthday the following evening.

I actually forget about my man slut of a roommate for a while, until I hang up.
Of course they turned on techno-garbage that sounds like music to drown me out. So I went to the shower to sing even louder.

This was strategic position. For some reason I know not what, my roommate will leave his room and run to the bathroom every thirty minutes. Curious, I decided to have a soothing one-hour shower to rain on his parade, blasting notes I would never do in the living room (quiet time is at twelve; I abide by the rules). I visit some old showtunes like “Stars,” “Live in Living Color,” and “Mean Green Mother,” making sure to visit Elvis and Sinatra beforehand. Some time along, I create a little gathering called the “Hot Shower Club.” Its members are a raspy lisping bird-man, a depressed tortoise, a Japanese rabbit that turns French and then Mexican, and a feminine porpoise. It’s all so amusing to me, and I continue the conversation when I exit and go through my hygiene routine. They’ve stopped their music and are into the spanking part of the program, so I sweetly mumble to myself and slam a few doors and stomp between rooms.

Just stuff my roommate considers normal.
I keep anticipating him to come in and tell me how rude I’m being. I wish he would, and then I would kindly say, “Oh, so you don’t think the walls are soundproof? I’m glad, it means I’m not the only one,” or maybe “She must not be that good if my melodious crooning is more worth your attention.” Then he would probably look down his nose at me and call me petty, saying I’m rude when I know he’s sexing it up. To which I’d politely reply, “Oh, there’s someone here? Funny, I didn’t meet anyone. I don’t think you told me you’d have a guest either. I guess we’re both at a loss.”

But that won’t happen. Everyone is so guarded over here, afraid of confrontations because they risk looking downright foolish. So I take every opportunity to exploit this delicious personality flaw found in every fragile snowflake down here in good old SoCal.

Suddenly, I see a young man in a red hoodie sitting on a picnic table in the lawn, working with some music-mixing machine on his laptop. I’m feeling especially friendly now, for some odd reason, and feel like calling out to him, but then he jumps up and starts taking some angsty jabs in the air. He doesn’t even look like he’s particularly enjoying these motions, or was inspired by much to do so. He’s probably pretty cold, though.

His friend, swearing like Chuck Schumer in the Senate, pulls him off somewhere, and the midnight world is filled with nothing but glowing lamps and the murky landscape. Then it hits me, a splendid idea! A young woman comes walking along, and I whistle at her. But it’s not just a whistle.

It’s an eerie rendition of “Moon River.”

I appear a disconcerting figure in the window of a dark apartment, whistling a spookily flat scale up and down the smooth lyrical slopes. She never looks at me, but I know she can hear the tune. She crosses the corner, so I follow her to my other window, halting the verse and picking it up again after a few seconds. It startles her, causing her to glance back before quickening her pace.

I continue on in this fashion several more times, my favorite being a noisy girl complaining to her friend on the phone about what is or isn’t “desirable.” She actually stops talking to search for me, fumbling with the bike she won’t ride, then picks herself back up and turns the corner. I follow her and she stops again, pushed to fear for her life by the unseen Melody Meister.

But the people stop coming, and I am left with the trees and the dormitories; and that’s fine, even preferable. I see these children wandering around on the ground, parched for the next big thrill or fun time, dependent on the party or the people or the bed. Yet the most important thing these children forget is how to be a child, how to enjoy anything and everything. Those aristocratic children of Smith’s, sweet French immigrants on their sublime beach; they knew what their mother didn’t. Without such youths, we’re left with my unlikeable roommate and the noisy girl with the bike; unhappy, depressed during those spaces of time in which they feel deprived of that happiness that they are deluded in thinking they have a right to.

You can take that to the bank as a falsehood fresh from Hell’s crotchpocket.

And me? I have a right to happiness. I have a right because I don’t go drudging up every mattress or liquor bottle I can get my grubby paws on in order to find it. No, for me, happiness is all around and never really goes away until those prissy poutfaces with their panties wedged so far up their sphincters they’ve got their kidneys by the balls stumble drunkenly onto the scene and throw a hissy fit with just one dreary look.

My roommate waltzed in at twelve-fifty with a smile on his face, commenting that I was up late and replying to my “Good Morning” with an “I’m doing just great.” It’s funny because I know that cheer is fleeting, that concern is just part of the hormone-high, that tomorrow or the next day his typical glum frown will return and happiness will neglect. But I will continue to be the person who perplexes others by standing at a window and whistling “Moon River.” Many a high-maintenance mind cannot fathom why a man would stand in a window and whistle “Moon River” in a strange fashion to passerby, and they never can. How can those who are not happy know what true happiness is? They ask an impossible question.

But, I guarantee you, this whistler is enjoying himself more than they ever will.

Raindrops on Rooftops

Whenever I feel sick, standing in the rain seems to be the best thing.

Normally this seems counterintuitive, but, if you happened to pass me by, ask why, close to midnight on a Wednesday in the middle of a heavy shower, I am looming about in the courtyard like some spectre of Death, I would probably give you that half-hearted lie. I would smile politely, offer said lie, and turn my back on you. The universal gesture of “don’t bother me right now.”

If I knew you intimately, I might confess the truth, more out of a desire to be heard than with any real motive to curry further intimacy. With unwavering stoicism, you would learn that I am waiting for a certain young woman I have recently met, a woman of unnatural Norwegian beauty, with pale blue eyes and cropped platinum hair, in the hopes that she might come outside fancying a smoke. Now, I have no smokes to offer, but I have company. I certainly hope that will be enough. But your company is not enough, and I would usher you on so that I could prepare my mind for her.

Plip

         Plop

   Plip

But of course those I’m intimate with are still at the theatre converted into a nightclub, and my shadow is intimidating to those it falls upon as I guard the overpass beneath the dorm block, set up like a fortress around the courtyard so as to conceal the things that happen there from passerby. I won’t have to worry about being interrupted.

The rain falls in intervals that seem to pulse with my slowly beating heart. A heart that worries, working too much to pass breath through the chambers, lest I be seized with a series of unstoppable hacking coughs and choke on my own mucus. A problem that might very well be avoided if I would just go inside. Just go inside already! What is there to gain with preemptive stalking, especially when it begins and ends with little more than a “hello?”

But I won’t. It’s become a common situation for me, to obsess over a girl I barely know, cow to the desire to know her better by trying to rig the so-called “Social System” of interactive dos and don’ts. If I can’t go to her, I will place myself somewhere where she will come to me. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for years, and it never fails.

              Plip

        Plop

  Plip

So I say to myself, though it’s an unabashed lie. Waiting around for some miracle to happen has always left me in disappointment, except maybe the one off-chance time it worked in the 8th grade and solidified itself as the proper thing to do in my mind thenceforth. Women really are suckers for ideas of fate. Women crave attention more than anything; what is more flattering than the idea that the very universe is giving you special favors? Then again, men work the same way, except they want nothing more than to give attention. And, in order to do that, they stand alone in the rain, waiting for nothing, believing everything is wrapped in that one display of homage to fate.

                    Plip

                    Plip

                    Plip

A pack of drunken hyenas, giggling and cackling at their own weak knees from alcohol scamper on past towards the entourage of Übers waiting in the rain. There is a party going on tonight. It’s a big one in London, the first Fez of the semester, but they have already drunk their fill to save on cash in town. I missed ticket sales because of a prior engagement, but I’m wondering now if I should have gone. Surely it would have been better to wait for a beautiful girl there, rather than by myself in the rain? But I’m not waiting for just any beautiful girl. I’m waiting for an exquisite angel unlike any I’ve seen before. She’ll be here eventually, I can feel it in the gale.

A couple huddled under an umbrella kisses, though they swoon twice as hard as the hyenas. I cough, slurred with a sneer at the immature, childish couple, bottle in hand to keep the nights interesting. Could be worse. Could be pot, or cocaine, or heroin – needles literally litter the street leading to the grocery store. With lofty ambition and scratchy throat, I can’t help but glare with irritation as they go off in search of the distraction crowds provide.

I lean against a pillar in the courtyard. This couple has reminded me of my distaste for life. Not life itself, but the floppy, weak things it animates. What is the point, partying night after night? Waking up at two in the afternoon because the only pressing thing on one’s mind is a hangover? A waste. And every single pack of acquaintances, though they protest it is friendship they share, is intimidated by the thoughts of more intimate contact. Especially the most attractive. What’s their problem? Can a man not lurk by his lonesome without people thumbing their noses at him? Cannot a woman be engaged singularly, without being followed by a pack of conversational vultures? I am starving for social intimacy. I have been reduced to standing in the rain, a dog begging for scraps of companionship.

A portly, scraggly fellow, more hammered than any yet seen, approaches me with an unbalanced swagger. He sticks his finger directly in my face and burps an observation:

“You…You look like you could use a vagina.”

His friend tugs him away towards the steady stream of Übers and shoves him in one at the back, not too tenderly. And as I stood there in the rain, nursing my cold and waiting for that Norwegian dream, I wondered…

  Plip

Plop

       Plip-Plop

What the Hell am I wasting my time out here for?

The drunk lad was wrong. I stand in the rain for a woman, not a vagina. One is a thinking, breathing, loving individual – the other, a mere pocket of meat. But therein lies the issue. What woman pursues the man if not for receiving attentions? What man pursues the woman if not for giving attentions? And what man or woman considers attention in its highest form to be anything other than sex? Reduced to objects, both of them, I understand the futility of standing in the rain. I’m standing for something that doesn’t exist.

A meaty choke followed by several coughs break through my windpipe, free to fly into a calm, dreary sky all too eager to ceaselessly surrender its gentle cascade. I hate it now. The sky can release all its pent-up fluids whenever it wants, frivolous about who gets wet in its joy. But I must be patient, no matter how much it kills me inside and waters that seed of bitterness towards the weaker animals.

Rrrrattatattatatta

I toss my cigarette aside and step into the courtyard. The entrance to my flat is in the same building, but it’s always quicker to cross this way, across walkways cut through squares of cultivated flowers. My footsteps clack in echoed spurts against the buildings, mingling with the light patters. A steady rope of water falls from the roof, heavier than the raindrops that fall directly from the sky. It’s not so easy to notice or care about the tiny pitters of uninhibited drizzling, but the buildup of drops as they collide with the roof are much louder, far more noticeable than the freer droplets. They last, they leave an impact on this witness under the roof that seems to hold them back, pouring in a thicker and stronger stream once they have finally been released.

One stream fell on a figure with haggard breathing, lying stretched out among the flowerbeds. I noticed it as I passed by quite on accident, observing the rain more than expecting any other company. As I drew closer, I realized the body belonged to a female, crushing some of my favorite lilies to watch the bees visit from up in my window. Her muddied blonde hair was packed in clumps, smeared with mulch and petals. Pale blue eyes stared at me in fear, the body twitching in its stained, frayed garb upon my approach. I don’t know what left her in that state, hidden among the ferns and Rosemary, but there was something absolutely pitiable about it. I reached out a hand. She responded with a desperate scramble backwards, as if shrinking away from my touch. I stood still, waiting in the rain.

She second-guessed her first reaction, mind chaotic, and slid forward to accept my hand. But I had already second-guessed my own involvement, wasting more time over nonexistent images and idols, and decided to leave her there in the rain to the bleakness of her own thoughts by turning and walking away. Having stood in the rain long enough, weighed down by the damp downpour, I am impatient to wait around for things I shouldn’t mull over. It’s not worth it. Whatever caused her to retract like that, whatever discrimination or suspicion that was – that can keep her mind company enough. Her choice, her bed in the flowers is made, and she sunk with hopelessness into it. But I must get inside and pour my own thoughts onto the page, find the ideal, and nurse both that and this bloody cough a little better. I still have control over those things at least. But I am insane for thinking the rain is really the best nurse for tickled lungs, absolutely insane.

When the sun rose over the courtyard, the rain remained, diminished to a sprightly sprinkle – the girl in the flowerbed had moved on. Only her soggy print on those lilies below showed any sign of her having lay there, and the area was now packed with students walking to and from class. I had written through the night, making wonderful progress, but I would have gotten even further if I had not wasted time in the rain. My action should have been preparing myself for that fateful day, but, for some reason, I was mesmerized with the thoughts of sulking in the rain, as if I hoped fate would take pity on me. But surely I had learned enough about patience and persistence beforehand, in America…the rain is about as helpful with those two things as it is with a cold.

Plip

A Diary-Type Record

Entry I

I write inside this journal
As a record of my thoughts –
To keep my mind set upon
What is my chosen lot –
But often that mind wanders,
Far more lost than found –
At least, that’s what I think,
Since thinking’s not profound –
Rather, how the thought
Links with reality
And forms a complex bind
Between the chained and free –
So here I question life
And pick my perturbed brain
Since thinking without record
Is lifting weights without the gain –
So let us think!
Fragrance or stink,
The scent must never wane.

Entry II

a thought
A THOUGHT
what’s within a thought?
it comes and goes
sucks and blows
felled from blows
by friend or foe:
another thought
coming behind
more becoming
than what came just thoughts before

the thought itself
can be worthless
or priceless
depending on thoughts of that thought
and the thoughts thought long before it
as thought by thinkers
whose thoughts
are hardly ever their own

new is usually better
unless it is a thought
that feels less like a thought
and more like a fetter
that chains our minds to what
the world mistakes us for
so better is the thought
removed from time
altogether

Entry III

I think
therefore I am
a thought?
since I come and go
not unlike the wind
invisible in its power
not unlike the rain
refreshing despite inconvenience
not unlike a storm
abrasive with a touch of the divine
pushing and pulling
an immovable object
not immobile
just immovable
not by choice
rather by motive

when the thought finally passes –
as it so often does,
though not always –
was it ever really there?
indeed, says the thinker –
until they, too, pass
from thinker of the thought
to thought of the Thinker –
for, without Thinker,
the thinker’s less than a thought
and more like an unthought

an unthought
is a type of thought
thunk by thinker
who thinks a thought against thoughts –
thoughts have value
unless they don’t,
and any that doesn’t
is an unthought
taking space in the thinker
where there is neither use nor room for it

Entry IV

what is the use of thinking a thought
when the thinker does not think it
worth thinking?
or when their value is a burden
on the thinker of the thought?
why oh why do thoughts come
and go just as they please
when the thinker’s set on something else
and the thought detracts from the thinker
being a thought?

it is because the thinker
is not a complete thinker
but a thought built by thinkers
overstepping their boundaries
as thinkers of their own thoughts
and instead thinking thoughts
for other thinkers

– that is the collective Thinker –

until the thinker
recognizes other thinkers as
thinkers beyond their thoughts
as well as thoughts of their own thinking
as well as thinkers of their own thoughts
concerning what the thinker is thinking,
then that thinker
thinking all those thoughts
remains an unthought
since nothing remains
but the thought itself
as it passes through and out of thinking

Entry V

the unthought is not worth thinking
but what gives thought its worth?
is it thinking as the action,
or the thought behind reaction –
a physics of interaction,
the true science of existence –
the thinker themselves,
the Thinker itself,
the thinking of thinkers on Thinkers and thought,
or what might thought be or become?

the truth is, thought is fathomless
because so much worth is placed upon
something with no inherent worth at all –
or inherent because we think we know
why or from where
or from whence
it came our way –
because the thinker’s purpose is purpose
and, without purpose,
the thought is worth so much
as an unthought –
even if they are two totally separate things
only by the fact
that one is controlled
and one seemingly isn’t

but only seemingly –
look deep within an unthought
and you will find its roots
lie deep within a thought
crucial to the thinker –
the unthought is dismissed
or becomes an obsession
because the thinker refuses to link
the unthought to themselves,
tossing it into the storm
of society or nothingness
which are one and the same

when the unthought takes root
it is destructive
by virtue of its indefinite form
and undefined character
which throws the mind into turmoil
as it tries in vain to focus
on what seems most important;
a vague feeling that “yes, this is worth my thought,”
when really it saps the thinker of their ability to think
and leaves them no more than a thought
in the mind of more capable thinkers
as they waste away in the realm of thought
instead of the realm of thinkers
and are so forgotten, likewise.

Entry VI

a Thinker is unlike a thinker,
for a Thinker is where thinkers come from
who were once no more than
thoughts having yet to be thought
all worthwhile thoughts come
from a Thinker,
all worthless unthoughts
come from a thinker –
a Thinker can have no unthoughts –
and so we are left
with our guide for understanding the nature
of thought

a Thinker can be anything –
religion, nature, society
(not God, who is beyond
thinkers and Thinkers alike,
and thus, by being, has already thought) –
so long as it remains outside
the thinker
for the thinker can only absorb or repurpose
the thoughts of the Thinker
and the thinker cannot imagine
the thoughts of the Thinker
on their own

but, oh!
how Thinkers can be corrupted so easily
by the thoughts and unthoughts of thinkers
for the Thinker is a singular
made up of plurals
who are likewise singulars
dictated by plurals
and thus all is regulated
by thought
for thought
in the name of thought
and thought becomes purpose
as the new idol of the new religion
in the modern thinker’s world

thought now means more
than the Thinker or the thinker
because it is the source of value for both –
the Thinkers isolates the thinkers then
for sake of circulating thought
as the currency among thinkers
prescribing to the same Thinker,
leaving the thinkers outside that Thinker
penniless
when they choose to share their thoughts
with thinkers of another Thinker.

Entry VII

thoughts have formed a hierarchy
overruled by emotion
since the Thinker is the new religion
and the thinkers hold their loyalty so close to their hearts
that the worth of thoughts to the Thinkers
when they exchange thoughts with each other
determines the worth of the thinker –
limiting the exchange of thoughts
to personal attacks
or cycles of self-perpetuation
without thought
but rather with sentiment

and so
we discover a thoughtless world
where humans have no value to each other
except for how they build up the relationship
of a thinker to their Thinker
rather than by the fact alone
that they were born a thinker –
a fact which, on the contrary,
legitimizes the jeers and sneers
directed towards them
and their Thinker

why?
why all this disregard for the thinker
in favor of the Thinker?
it is just as the human places God
before himself and his fellow human
except
the human believes God loves the human while
there is no concept of the Thinker
ever loving the thinker –
when did thinking restrict itself to
forcing the thought to be worth thinking
rather than furthering the thinker?
when did it reduce the value of the thinker –
the orchestrator of the thought –
in favor of the Thinker
and the thought
together
but never apart?

it happened when misery
brought on by the excess of thought
for the sake of the progress of Thinkers
who vainly hoped to become more than thinkers
tossed aside the name
of human
because it meant that their thinking
would eventually stop
and their thoughts,
left behind for Thinkers,
would soon cease to be

they felt privileged
in their Thinker-borne tribes,
but really they wanted some excuse
to think their lives more miserable
and their purpose more pointless
than other thinkers told them they were –
so thought came to be regarded
as the highest form of being
even though
it all remained
in the head

until they let it out
and the thought of thinking
for the sake of thinking
in the hopes of purpose derived through Thinkers
overwhelmed them
and they lashed out against
those content to let thoughts be thoughts –
let thinkers be thinkers –
let Thinkers be no more than Thinkers –
and they well not let up
until those thinkers’ thoughts
become just as unthoughtful
as their own.

Entry VI 1/2

my God,
I am tired of thinking
on thoughts and Thinkers and thinkers
and things that could be more easily said
so let’s backtrack a smidge
before the thought:
before the thought,
there was nothing
but a hope –
to love and be loved –
and it was from such hope
that a beautiful monster was born

that monster
did not know there was a difference
between making meaning and meaning-making
since, like itself, that reality
seemed as two halves of one whole;
two halves may make a whole,
but this does mean that the two halves
are of equal value
though it may be implied –
implication is what creates discomfort
in meanings, in communication,
because it is the think-GAH!
OUR interpretation of where our own situation
within the greater reality
stands
if it stands at all

we hope that it stands
because we seek constant affirmation
that our thoughts line up with everyone else’s
‘cause might makes right, right?
BUZZZZ! wrong answer, bub –
might makes fight
because two magnets of opposite poles
can only come together
if
they are forced to collide from the outside
yet is there a right magnet in that case,
location notwithstanding?

Entry Nouveau

I came, I saw, I concurred –
and, by concurring, I died
from the virus of mind
called, “conformity,”
a plague with symptoms
like anxiety –
to be accepted for things
that define oneself from without
not from within –
depression –
the knowledge that there is no acceptance
because one mind exists
for but a split second
in another’s mind –
envy –
hallucinations that others
have achieved acceptance
when they themselves hallucinate
that they have been accepted –
confusion –
that accepting and acceptance
are the primary motives
for being –
and anger –
that conformity
does not grant the acceptance
that state was accepted for

the cure for conformity
and the lust for acceptance
lies in dissatisfaction
which leads to ambition –
but too much actionless ambition
leads to addiction – reliance
on preparation and safeguarding
in the hopes you may one day
accept yourself.

Entry Neuf

depression is disappointment –
the kind you feel when you wake
up and remember:
you’re only human

cursed to live a life
and that’s all –
but is all that
really that bad?

yet there are miserlings
who think and think
and by overthinking
become lost in their misery

their thinking is an excuse
for outrage when the reality is that
the more they think,
the less is done

the less is done,
the more they think
of why nothing is done
which makes life miserable

and when reduced
to that worldview
as it is accepted by miserlings
and thinkers, it is thus:

the world is cruel and meaningless
so we think to free ourselves
and give reason behind emotion
and accept each other for it

and yet isolation creeps in
because misery loves itself
as much as it loves company,
producing but one thing:

a thought –
which hurts more, in the end:
a lifetime of despair
or an instant of death?

Entry I?

‘Tis I, ‘tis I,
but who am I?
Who am I to want to die?
I hate my life
and all its neverending strife
that defines my every waking moment

-those bleeding, fleeting moments –
when mysery and mystery make
its perpetuance a lonely dance
where every step makes no sense
but is there for the sole sake of the step
my soul pines for something more
that isn’t there
but pretends to be.
Kill me!
Kill me
and take a bow for once.

- Soliloquy of the Subjectified Miserling, from the play, “All the World’s a Grave.”

Entry Nil

in creating miserlings
the thoughts worst of all
pertain of men for women
and women for men
both of which
objectify the other –
one to have an idol,
the other to be idolized –
and so the cycle of withholding,
trivializing,
dismissing each other
according to utility
useful to ourselves
rather than utility
we were born with.

answer le text?
denied.
go out for lunch?
shot down.
have le conversation,
one-on-one?
only if more people are involved
and you listen to MY problems.

Now
people can get and give attention
absolutely anywhere,
and so there’s no perceived value
in staying still for a second,
but rather
spread the wealth
that is yourself
you ass

And for some reason
they wonder why they are unhappy
just as the tree with no roots
withers in an instant
and becomes über-uglified
and is aware how ugly it is
and must cover up that ugliness
by covering itself in the twittering nests of birds
and the thievery of mangy glorified rodents, the squirrels,
while denying the voles
and the beauty of meadows
by concealing itself among other trees
to hide in a forest of rot.

Entry Shanty

No-hoes, no-hoes,
A Virgin’s life for me!
The women are nasty and their men are plain fools,
We’re better than that with no hoes.
Their lives when absorbed in sex leave them bored
Because they’ve not known no hoes!
No-hoes, no-hoes,
A Virgin’s life for me.
We scoff and denounce disappointment in flesh;
Wonder lies in chastity.
The game isn’t fun since it’s fake and we’re done,
So seal up your wee-wees, no-hoes!
No-hoes, no-hoes,
A Virgin’s life for me!

Entry V

The vole
is the regalest of creatures
simply because no one
would ever think
to attribute it as such.

The vole
Oh! Vole!
A vole in the hole is worth a mole on the face –
the beauty mark on God’s animal kingdom
and just as hairy
maybe cancerous
certainly not for everybody
but that voluptuous vole
tries not to hide it
but flaunts it like a beast

sure the wild cats
and bats
and owls
pick on that poor vole
because it is, in fact, the regalest of creatures –
and they know it.
And they know it simply because
the vole
has found its way into this poem
while they have not, except
in contrast.

So, vole! Snazzy vole. What great failure
have you in store today?
For you see the vole is glorified
in its weakness,
its victimhood,
so why should it be denied a pedestal
as far more capable
than cats and bats and owls?
Despite being a failure,
a nasty, weak little creature –
its pathetic-ness is truly
what makes the vole so great!

Hurrah, trés bien, lord vole!
Filth and trash on scampering feet!
You don’t contribute much,
And you don’t look like much,
But because you are a vole
You deserve a hip-hoorah!
All the rest deserve a stone
For not being a vole.
Holy Voley, did I just say that?
I did,
And you deserve a stone for thinking
I said it not.

Entry <=>

Failure
is not the inability
to compromise with the world
and live against it
at the same time.
Failure
is when you settle
with one of the two.
adherence to ideology,
not marriage,
is the ole ball-and-chain,
a chain-gang hammering away the railroad tracks
to Nowhere Land.

Nowhere Land,
with Maggie and the Ferocious Beast –
except Maggie grew into a Beast herself
and one of those Beasts
ate the other
for living against the world
while they compromised with it –
arguing day and night
despising each other,
though once the best of friends,
now driven apart by the externalities
dictated on society’s behalf –
until, as I said, the Ferocious Beast devoured the Ferociouser Beast
and collapsed dead from acute indigestion
because they were too ripe.

great googly-moogly,
dangerously juicy.

Entry Exit

I don’t really have a lot to say –
my sentences are just wordy.
words just kinda poor out
PPFFFFTTTTTTT!
(that was my tongue)
I’ve tried seeing a doctor for it
but he just scared me with graphs,
and I kept ruffling his feathers by asking questions.
he called me insane
INSANE!
can you believe it?
just for asking questions
and refusing to be bored
as if I was abject of resin
he said I was straight from the cuckoo’s nest
so I called him a quack
because only a regular birdbrain
thinks he can get all he needs to know
from some chart.
“sanity
is for the feeble-minded,”
I told him proudly.
so he finally answered my question
that, no,
he who is most intelligent is typically most unhappy
(ignorance is bliss, and all that jizz)
but I knew he was wrong because
he answered from irritation
and malignance
and spite for life
or at least his position in it,
none of which
enable clear judgment
and also because
the first one to answer a question is usually
the last to have the correct answer.

the moral of the story is this:
if you are diagnosed with anatatidaephobia,
you should avoid seeing a ducktor.

Entry Dingbats

❽⬥♒♋⧫ ♋ ♑♏■♓◆⬧❾
⍓□◆ ⧫♒♓■& ⬧♋❒♍♋⬧⧫♓♍♋●●⍓ 
⓿⑨❸⑩⑤⑥⑨⑩⑥⑤⑥⑨④⓿⑥⓿❶⑨⑤⓿⓪⑩⓿❹⓿⓪⑤⓿⑥⦸⓪⑤⓪⑤⑩
⑩⓪⑤❺⑥❶⑥❶③①❶⑩⓿⓪③⓪⓿③③⑥⓪⓿
❁■❄ ❃❏■❖❅❒▼ ❉▼ ❉■▼❏ ✴❉❍❅▲ ✮❅◗ ✲❏❍❁■
❏❒ ▲❏❍❅ ❏▼❈❅❒ ❃❏■❖❅■▼❉❏■❁● ❆❏■▼



❙❏◆ ❒❅❁●●❙ ▼❈❉■❋ ✩ ◗❁▲■▼ ❅❘❐❅❃▼❉■❇ ▼❈❁▼✟
❙❏◆ ❒❅❁●●❙ ▼❈❉■❋ ✩ ◗❁▲■▼ ❅❘❐❅❃▼❉■❇ ❙❏◆
▼❏ ❃❈❏❏▲❅ ▼❈❅ ❅❁▲❉❅▲▼ ◗❁❙ ❏❆ ❍❁❋❉■❇ ❍❅❁■❉■❇✟
❂❅❃❁◆▲❅ ▼❈❁▼▲ ❈❏◗ ❈◆❍❁■▲ ❃❈❏❏▲❅ ▼❏ ❒❅❁▲❏■
❆❏❒ ▲❏❍❅ ❒❅❁▲❏■✚
❂❙ ❇❏❉■❇ ▼❈❅ ❅❁▲❉❅▲▼ ❒❏◆▼❅✎
◗❈❁▼❅❖❅❒ ❉▲ ❅❁▲❉❅❒
□■ ⧫♒♏ ❍♓■♎
□■ ⧫♒♏ ♌□♎⍓
□■ ⧫♒♏ ♒♏♋❒⧫ 
⧫♒♋⧫❼⬧ ♑□⧫⧫♋ ♌♏ ❒♓♑♒⧫ ❒♓♑♒⧫✍
♋■♎ ⬧□ ⍓□◆ ♍□■❖♏❒⧫♏♎ ❍⍓ ✋☠☝✋☠☝✌☹✋☠☝





did you?
▼❒❙❉■❇ ▼❏ ❍❁❋❅ ❍❅❁■❉■❇
◗❈❅❒❅ ▼❈❅❒❅ ❉▲ ■❏■❅
❏❒ ◗❈❅❒❅✌ ❅❖❅■ ❉❆ ❉▼ ❅❘❉▲▼▲✌
❉▼ ❈❁❒❄●❙ ❍❁▼▼❅❒▲
❂❅❃❁◆▲❅ ▼❈❏◆❇❈▼ ❉▲ ●❅▲▲ ▼❈❁■ ❁❃▼❉❏■
❁■❄ ❁●● ❙❏◆ ❄❏ ❉■ ❁ ❐❏❅❍
❉▲ ▲◆❐❐●❅❍❅■▼ ❙❏◆❒ ❏◗■ ▼❈❏◆❇❈▼▲
❸⓪⓿⑩⑥④⑥⑤③⑩⑩●
⑤①❶⑩⓿❺⑥❶⑦③⓿❶③⑥⑤⑥⑤⑩⑤⑩
❸⓪⓿⑨⓪⓪❶③⑥⑨⑩⑩⑨⓿
❺⑩⑩⑦⑤⓿⑥❶⑨⑩❸⑨⓪⓿⓪⑤⑦⑥④
①❶⑩⓿⓿⑥⑨❺❺⑥❶
but writing is action
while reading is thinking another person’s thoughts.





Entry I Revisited

I wrote inside this journal –
At least, that’s what I thought.
But, under closer inspection,
These words aren’t what I wrought.
Their meanings make no sense to me
With hostility abound –
I feel like what’s said here is supposed to be stupid
Yet can’t help but come off profound.
My mind has wandered yet again –
The proof is in the print –
Or, has it really? I second guess
This diary’s still in mint
Since thoughts and thinkers have run rogue
And foul up all they can,
I wager they’ve robbed my diary, too,
Reducing my script to margins.
While voices I do not recognize
Scrawl entries I can’t recall,
My diary keeps on nagging me:
“Was I really yours at all?”

The Connorfucian Introjects

The joke’s not funny if I have to explain it, even though I ought to.

I.

The Duke Doclear presented Master Connorfucius with a predicament: 

His tenants demanded higher wages for less work, but the Duke could not oblige

without subtracting from his own savings.

The Master pondered his tone, and came to this solution:

“Not all good choices feel good.”

The Duke Doclear proposed every sort of excuse to circumvent the inevitable

shortchanging, to which the Master replied:

“When in Rome, agree to disagree.”

II.

The revered Connorfucius, during one of his many

many strolls at Dawn, witnessed a man named Zit

grab a woman’s rear.

The woman laughed at this friendly groping, but the Master did not.

When asked why, the delinquent waved it off as nothing more than a joke.

Connorfucius warned him,

“Don’t treat life as a joke, lest you be unprepared for the punchline.”

Zit shoved the wise one and told him to screw off,

for funny is in the eyes of the beholder.

The Master responded

by spreading wide his fingers

and jabbing them deep into Zit’s eyes

to unearth whatever was funny in them.

III.

Connorfucius was taking one of his famous dawn walks

until he found his path led atop the Great Wall of China.

Beneath him, separated by stone, 

two women were arguing with each other

over the best way to prepare chao má shi.

The wise wanderer, annoyed by their shrill voices, proclaimed:

“No matter how intelligently or passionately

you talk to a wall, it cannot understand you.”

The women argued for another thirty minutes before finally asking the Master

to test plate-after-plate of their specially-prepared recipes.

Upon being stuffed beyond the belt, the wise Connorfucius judged so:

“A fast fool is quicker forgiven than a dallying dimwit.”

He parted from them, full and happy.

IV.

A young writer beseeched the esteemed Connorfucius 

for advice on how he felt she should write

a novel, since she did not feel she could find the best direction herself.

Our humble Master shook his head:

“Not once has the correct conclusion been thought, but always felt.”

The young writer pressed him further, not understanding his wisdom,

and so the sage one imparted thus:

“Write in a way that captivates yourself, and you will surely captivate others.”



The next time they met, Connorfucius graciously stooped

on the curb to place a coin in her cup,

and thought all the more highly of himself.

Fowlina Fowl

This is a screenplay pilot I wrote for a prospective mini-series on Youtube, an adult Peppa Pig spoof called Fowlina Fowl. I have a total of 12 episodes planned, with three already written. Unfortunately, due to a lack of digital animators and not much of a social platform, I decided not to go through with it…yet.

fowlina-fowl-pilotDownload
The foul-mouthed fowl herself, Fowlina F. Fowl.