It there sat, little creature, sitting. It was not angry or hurtful or even clean. It was filthy and black and beady like a necklace morsel. It sat on my belly, and I breathed lightly to not disturb its still presence or engage its shallow mind.
I did stare, down my nose, at it. My chin neared my chest, it was close, and I could then see it, the fly. Outside my window, there were more like it, this I knew. But I could see this one only. It was real.
It could fly, yet instead it chose to stand.
It wasn’t planned. But it was dark. And loud. Fortunately for them both, the ambient audio shrouded the sound, but some throbbing subwoofer and excited outdoor chatter could do so much to cover up that hollow “thock”.
He’d thought she’d glinted her eyes at him — it was the laser reflecting off. She’d thought he’d smelled great — it was in fact the polo-shirted bloke behind him. Together, they’d made all the wrong judgments and all the right choices. Maybe.
He moved down gracelessly. She reclined her head back too far. And his forehead collided viciously with her delicate nose, shattering it.
I’m not gonna say we shouldn’t do this. Maybe it’s good. The energy here is boundless; it isn’t stopping in its psychotic torrents. If we were to harness it somehow… The energy is ruthless; it rams against the walls and comes back and knocks us flat. A lack of light and music too loud. Into this setting we’ve funneled ourselves, this black hole vortex that wrestles us tight into submission. I enjoy it, I think, and I enjoy thinking about it when I’ve escaped to walk home through the night streets. Maybe it’s good, or maybe I’ll stop coming back.
A natural discomfort
An accepted annoyance
Always present yet we
Choose to ignore its presence
It is never subsiding and
crawls over our bodies
like small invisible insects
Aaaaaaaah the itch
Are we all present to its
Reality? Does it even exist?
Because it doesn’t seem to
Bother anyone else
Does everyone feel it?
We don’t know
They show no signs of
Discomfort, no scratching
Or awkward movements
They go on about
Their lives happily as
If nothing is wrong
Do they sense that we
Are uncomfortable? Oh No!
Sit still, don’t move
Don’t scratch, dont stand out
The Itch
His skin was healthy but weathered, like bark on an older tree. Lines formed creases along the planes of his face, and although his cheeks dipped inward, mature lines formed parentheses around his mouth, falling outward, like ripples from his smiles. The hair was a top layer of unruly fluff, its soft grey reflected in blue eyes that shone bright against the wearing skin. Softest, though, was the tone of his voice, a smooth rolling wave that kept the integrity of its tone, even when it echoed with emotion. The man was an educator; it was written on his face.
Earl: I love you.
Steve: He really does, you know.
Sam: [Rolls eyes at Steve] I love you too Earl.
[Steve elbows Earl. Scrawny Earl dodges and looks uncomfortable.]
Earl: I was just thinking, you see, maybe…
Sam: What is it?
Steve: He wants to marry you, dummy.
Earl: Shut it Steve no I don’t you idiot I mean wait yes Sam I do but darnit Steve whyja have to go and say that for anyway?
Sam: You can make me a daisy ring, Earl.
[Bell rings]
Steve: Shoot, recess’s over and I didn’t even show you my new baseball cards.
Pound pound pound. Feet and heart in rhythm. You’re lost in the music, and you are the closest to sane you’ve ever been.
You sweat until you forget what dry is and you forget what day it is. The sun beats down, and your drenched shirt keeps the cool wetness on your skin.
Deep breathing makes your lungs feel huge while the pain of needing the next breath reminds you your lungs are tiny.
At no point did you decide to do go for a run today. You woke up knowing you’d do it. Why does this feel so good?
“I’d like to get it over with as soon as possible.” The woman sat in a swiveling chair, swiveling back and forth.
“I’m sure we can see to that,” the doctor said, making a note on his clipboard.
“Thank you.” Swivel, swivel.
After the procedure, she slept. She muttered things, periodically. Things about carnivals, husbands, and plane rides. The doctor made notes.
Seven days later, she awoke. She marched straight to the doctor’s office and sat down in his swivel chair.
“I’d like to get it over with as soon as possible.” Swivel.
“I’m sure we can see to that.”
We are all born with the ability to read minds
As children we perfect this ability because
It is our only way to understand one another
Unfortunately many of us lose this ability
As we mature and learn language because
Our obsession with language suppresses
Our ability to read minds by distracting
Our focus from the true thoughts within
Language is to blame for our failures as a society
It has the ability to lie unlike our minds
Which would be open books to explore
I say throw away language and unite
The world with the truths of our minds
There’s a fly
Buzzing around my eye
He must be a nice guy
Cuz he hasn’t landed on me yet
Yet now he’s buzzed in my ear
Buzzing the only thing I can hear
And now I have fear
That he’ll land inside, escaping my wax so that he can puncture my eardrum with miniscule fangs dripping poison into my audible abilities.
It’s an irrational fear
One I hold dear
It clouds my clear vision
I’m wishing he wouldn’t
But think that he might
And oh baby the fright I’m flailing my arms trying to smash the nice little guy!
The tiltometer is a machine owned by the USGS. It determines when the earth’s surface has tilted, down to a micrometer-sized tilt across the distance of a single kilometer. Seismographs record every single shift beneath the surface of the crust, including the tremors that persist every day, endlessly. Plus cameras designated to alert for any new lava flow or explosion. And gas detectors monitoring SO4 and CO2 levels. This oversized rock is the most boundless entity most humans will ever come into contact with, and but here we are, doing our best to fit it into an Intensive Care Unit.
The antlers nodded above a thick plant. Through the rifle’s scope, Byron could even see red berries. Then the moose moved just right. The nose appeared, then the head and neck. Finally the chest. Byron motioned towards himself with his finger, and the bullet entered the moose perfectly above the sternum.
For two hours Byron sat by the moose, waiting for his guide to come and teach him how to cut the animal into manageable pieces. As the sun came up, the flies came out of their hiding places. Flies as big as the barn swallows in the contiguous states.
The tag said three dollars. It was green and luscious. About as tall as a baby that’s just teetered its first ones, and as thick as a mechanical pencil lead. It furled under its own weight. And when I walked past it, my last dollar in hand, it turned to look at me.
I named her Harold, and she was my treeplant (she wasn’t really either, so I decided she was both). I cradled her in my arms and bartered her down. The seller wouldn’t budge, until I offered my left shoe as well. Harold crooned and I cried softly.
We ate with our hands, peeling delectable, sweet-skinned shrimps in garlic butter and lime. We ate with our eyes, sizing up the shell of that crab, so big, it would be appropriate if it were walked out on a leash. We ate with our ears, the cracking of shells surrounding us. We ate together, saucy hands reaching over one another to get to the next piece. We wore bibs to keep the sauce from dripping down our shirts, but there were no rules about chins. And occasionally, we looked up, saw each other taking pleasure in the meal, and smiled.
Nearby cicadas croaked. Branches branched, leaves left; a sliver of white caressed the dark sky. A deer glided through the undergrowth.
I wonder why I keep coming here, he said. Perhaps for the dragonflies.
He wasn’t here though, he was yesterday at brunch with the in-laws, he was tomorrow asking for a petty raise. He wasn’t here, he was soon, getting into his car and returning home. He didn’t feel here any more, he was somewhere else. But here was so pleasant.
I want to be here, he thought. Right now, I want to feel here.
So he sat, and sighed.
After two weeks of illness, in which his body violently tried to cleanse itself of all of the accumulated toxins in his veins, reservoirs, and corridors, he pulled himself into the foothills, following the river that ran silently through his town. For two days he limped upstream, clutching his sides.
He came into a glacial basin. Forested hillsides curved up and away until only rock remained, patched with packs of snow. On high, the frozen water waited to wash like clear medicine through the human world. He drank deeply from the stream, and his body began to balance itself again.
We don’t see our own blood often enough. If we did, we might have a better sense of our own finiteness, or the fragility of these bodies. Maybe we’d be better at internalizing that what we put into our mouths actually becomes a part of our physicality, or we’d give thanks for the complexities within us that keep us alive. Perhaps one day, we’ll all look down toward our ankles to find blood dripping down, toward the foot. We won’t feel the cut, but we’ll bend and look closely at the pattern, seeing, with no uncertainty, what we really are.
Upwards of 70 years old, Don arrives at the observatory every morning by 3:20am to test ash samples along the 16-mile perimeter of a volcanic caldera before the wind disturbs them. On these mornings, he’s greeted by the sweet, mellow sounds of Hawaiian music that drift to him from above screen after computer screen of illuminated data. He’s an emeritus scientist, and as he starts his day, his eyes still sparkle just to see the delicate seismic instruments scratch back and forth. He knows: these lines are perfectly unpredictable, but they’re there, etching out delicate lifelines, drawing the earth’s quiet heartbeat.
One of the distant sprinklers sprayed straight upwards like a geyser in the moonlight. Wet grass and warm, misty air.
They ran in their underwear, soaking themselves. Bare ankles covered in bits of grass, they slipped and laughed and jumped and embraced.
He tripped, landing on his shoulder and rolling to a stop. She ran up laughing and laid down next to him. Beginning to shiver, they kissed. Hands entwining, hips touching. Hearts wiggling, snuggling.
Eventually the sprinklers stopped, leaving a full silence. They stood up and tried to brush the grass off of each other, not wanting to leave.
It was all happening out there, beyond where the blue tint of shade ended and the grating sun beat down. A crunchy man with a harmonica and portable amplifier moaned novels of sadness into the street. A tiny asian kid picked stale chewing gum off the whitewashed wall and furtively put it in his mouth. Two hoodlums fresh out of friday math class pushed scooters around, about a dozen years too late to be fashionable. The stiff man in the suit store stared out his gleaming window with a cool expression of yearning masked behind TanFastic-bronzed skin. And I watched.
Jack and Tom had never been to a bar before. They figured they should just kind of blend in. Go with the vibe and meet some cool cats.
“Be cool, man. Just be chill,” Jack said.
“I’m chill! Right?” Tom said with uncertainty, downing a large portion of his beer.
Jack just looked straight ahead, nodding to people walking by.
“Hey,” he said, catching the eye of this one girl, “what are you drinking tonight?”
“She’s holding a Stella, dude,” whispered Tom.
Jack elbowed him. The girl walked on.
“Ow! What?”
Jack sighed.
“Nothing, man. Let’s just go play pool.”
“Don’t touch that, that’s the bullshit rail.”
“Just pretend it doesn’t exist. Don’t let it exist.”
“WOOOOO!”
“You guys suck. Suck suck suck suck suck suck suck.”
“Who wants to do a physics problem?”
“It’s all pretty random, but it’s shit that I know.”
“Big tracts of land.”
“Negative. I am so ready to go.”
“Bullshit is his normal major, HumBio is his real major.”
“You don’t understand. How good is it to be here right now?”
“Dude, do not smoke the cigarette. You’re not smoking, dog.”
“Yo check it out.”
“You weigh 98?!”
“Does it flavor the alcohol, or?”
Oh, the water is so soooo good! We all woke up at 3:30 this morning (soooo many hours ago!) to go see where the lava tube pours out into the ocean while it was still dark — which also meant watching the sun come up over the ocean….and then our geophysics prof, Paul Segall, took us over for a swim right where fresh water meets salt water and the water at the surface is super warm while the ocean water at the bottom is super cold. (Not next to lava flows.) Wow, I bet that’s almost one hundred words. Damn: ninety eight.
My eyes would like to believe that you’re dancing with these skies, but as you rotate around and around, it is really my own two feet revolving along with this planet. We don’t have straightforward conversations very often – it’s hard to talk to you when you only come out at night, dancing in circles around me. But on days like these, the ones that begin at 5:27am or at 4:50am, you stand upright on your two feet and look directly down at me, welcoming me to the this world’s nocturnal outdoors. I can’t help but smile: What’s up, man?
The roof of the house sagged and was covered in moss. In the overgrown yard, plastic and rusty trash were scattered through the weeds.
A man emerged through a screen door that opened on one hinge, leaving it hanging askew. He had a patchy beard, hair scraggled towards his eyes, and a few yellow and brown teeth.
Inside the house, a container had fallen over and was leaking acid dyed pink with food coloring into the brown shag carpet. Sharp fumes from large plastic tanks began to fill the place, working their slow way out of the wooden window frames.
Yesterday, we went swimming in plants. It all started off by scrambling about some 130 year old lava that looks like a completely different planet, trying to find any cracks where vegetation might have made a home. We progressed to older flows, where lots of things were growing, but we still had to scramble up and down and up and down trying to count the plants – something only a crazy person or an ecologist would try to do. But the best was definitely weed whacking through plants with our bodies, resting off of the ground, supported only by absolutely enormous ferns.
Humans can walk over hardened lava that was molten only 30 days prior, and, in some places, still radiating heat. Incredibly, walking across fields of the rough, black surface, it seems as though this surface is the perfect inverse of snow. Lava starts off glowing and hot, solidifying as it cools; snow begins glittering and cold, melting as it warms. Both sparkle, both change shapes seamlessly and in many different ways: sometimes they crunch underfoot, sometimes they crumble away, and sometimes big chunks can get kicked away in their entirety, but coolest by far, both are completely unconstrained in their forms.
The debate over making the bed in the morning rages on…
“It’s sloppy not to make your bed in the morning. The point that it’s not worth doing because you’ll mess it up again later is nonsense; you wipe your butt even though you’ll poop again later.”
“It makes no sense to make your bed in the morning after you get up. You’re just going to mess it up again when you get back in at night. Do you retie your shoes when you take them off so that they look pretty for the next time you put them on?”
This may be the fourth
most beautiful university in the nation,
but there are no mountains in sight,
and the water is spewed
through sprinklers and fountains.
It may have more genius professors
than any other conglomeration of humans,
but there are no ancestral carvers of wood,
no men with decades of calluses on their palms.
Here I am again.
It is a place and a populace
outside of normal human life.
They say it’s not real here,
but what is real anywhere?
When I set out to find plasma of life’s blood,
why shouldn’t I find clues here also?
Mythical trout – These rainbow trout grow to sizes of up to 30 pounds. Every fisherman dreams of them, a select few guides know where they are, and maybe someone has caught one once.
Laser beaver – This creature only comes out at night, and much like its cousin the normal beaver, it gnaws off trees near lakes and rivers to make dams or lodges. However, instead of leaving a point with teeth mark on the wood, it slices right through leaving a perfectly flat plane, reminiscent of that left by a chainsaw in inhabited areas of the world. Almost never encountered.
The problem with being an expert is that no one believes you when you tell them what’s easy.
You’re a varsity athlete and you tell people it’s easy to run 15 miles a week, and they roll their eyes, saying, “maybe for you it is!”
You’re a professional chef and you tell people it’s easy to cook a dish they’d pay $30 for at a restaurant, and they’ll look at you like you’re bragging.
You’re a banker and you tell people it’s easy to invest their money intelligently, and people assume it could only be easy for people like you.
Gurgles. That freefall feeling at the back of your throat. A lurch. It’s dark, warm. Under the blankets it’s hot not cozy. The truth hits. You need to get up. Now.
You roll off, out, up. Open the door. Calmly approach the bathroom. Vertigo and your face falls into the vortex of the porcelain toilet bowl. It couldn’t matter less whether it was clean or not. Total blankness in the mind, a cool assertion. Beads collect on your brow. And your abdomen implodes like a neutron star, forcing everything up beyond the thorax, out. Spit it out. Out out out.
Who can remember the lines that connect stars into the high cheekbones of our heroes? Where do we turn our imaginations?
A woman with her head wrapped in white bandages, the eyeholes blank and dark, sobbed as she begged for anyone to find the person who threw acid in her face.
Now her face is again bare, colored with ghastly yellows and greens. The police chief stands by her bed, hands folded, and says frankly, “She finally broke down today and confessed that she was not attacked, that in fact the acid was self-inflicted, though her motives are still unknown.”
Growing up, I never knew about the early days of Mom and Dad’s marriage. Since I’ve been alive, they’ve been bedrocks of my lives.
Lately, though, I’ve begun to notice that their patience with each other grows thin in some areas, until something else, something other than the perfect marriage, is exposed.
Last month I learned that they talked about divorcing each other on each of their first three anniversaries. The tensions cooled, however, without anyone else knowing that something wasn’t right in their love.
Yet all those years, the pestering source of animosity remained, only waiting to resurface again.
What happens when there are no words left, when the greatest and most meaningful thing that can be expressed anymore is simply the silent hum felt inside at all times, the hum of wellness, of peace, of happiness, the same sound made by sunlight, the brilliance of flowers, the calm of grass giving back to sky, or the passion of seeing loved ones again, and again, and again, or the feeling of health, and dancing, and potential—words for this, the same passion that drives each moment and creates the fire that others would swear they could see behind our eyes?
Dear Sirs,
I saw a fake knight advertising your large pepperoni pizza on 4th and Mason. Since I was so disappointed in his attitude, I have a proposal. All you have to do is pay for my life. In return, I will myself become a medieval knight. I will forge my own armor. I will joust at every renaissance fair. In short, I will be a living, walking inspiration for others to always eat Round Table, so that they can be as brave and chivalrous as me. And always, the emblem on my breastplate will be a pizza.
Sincerely,
Chris
I used to write. Back when whiskey was good but not necessary, and back when I could hang out alone in coffee houses without feeling alone. Writing helped me figure out who I am by letting me pretend to be people I wasn’t.
My lack of written word is not from lack of trying. It’s just that every time I blow the dust off my old typewriter, it resettles before I can write a full page. In the battle of me versus the words, I wish I could say one side was winning, but the truth is, there’s no fight.
Brutus Let’s shake on it.
Cassius And swear that we won’t puss out.
Brutus Nah we don’t need to swear that. If our reasons for doing this are ever gone – I’m not only talking about how our neighbors need it to happen, but also about how we’re getting screwed personally, and all the general shit going down these days – then we’ll quit and go play video games instead. That way the Man, who’s smarter than us, can continue until every fucking one of us is dead. But if all those reasons actually piss you off – and they had better – then…
Flamamorg the Roasting Red Knight rode his steed beyond the sunset, where he found the dragon guarding the gates of hell. With one singing swoop of his sword, the great monster with eleven tails fell, shaking every foundation of Earth. This was in the days when Earth was still shaped like a square and overrun with half-men, short-men, and giant-men. The festivals thereafter were so joyful that drunken sun forgot to rise for three days of darkness. But no one noticed, for they were in awe of Flamamorg and themselves. Things returned to normal, and many more adventures were had.
Dear Jennifer,
I received your letter. The news about your mother made me smile. When will you two get to go down to the city together? This country is bigger than I imagined when I left. Today I am taking advantage of day out of the mines by walking up to the ridge where I can see a large lake to the south and now by writing to you. I look forward to every night because it means I can dream about you again. Someday soon we will be together again, I have not lost hope.
All my love,
Clarence
Comment ca va monsieur? How it does go, my sir?
Sup?
Est-ce que vous voudriez du vin, mademoiselle? Is it that you would like some wine, dear lady?
Slap the bag?
Qu’est-ce que c’est que ca? That is it, that it is, that’s what?
What’s that?
Enfin, on peut bien facilement lire un livre francais qui était écrit il y a trente-six ans, mais on ne peut pas dire le même comme les textes anglais. In sum, on can easily read a french book written a zillion years ago, but one couldn’t say the same for English texts.
English evolves.
I feel love
said the tiny woman
crouched in her cigar chair
hair nettling in the wind.
I feel it in the dust
in the cracks
around my temples
inside my navel
her granddaughter didn’t want to think about her gran’s navel but stayed silent.
I feel love
she continued
in the relationship between things
between this chair and floor
I feel love
and respect
both need the other
I think
I feel love
said the granddaughter
but I don’t think objects love each other
any more than they breathe
It is us
she said
who find love
in everything.
He’d spent:
two years loving her
fifteen months dating her
twelve weeks researching diamonds
and twice his budget.
He’d gone:
to South America
to her city
to paradise
then to the family jewelerto the family jeweler.
She was:
everything the cards in walgreens said.
more than he could fathom
a five foot two brunette with puppy eyes and a melting smile
going to marry him.
He was:
sitting in his car
breathing heavily
looking at this tiny box
wondering
wondering
wondering not if she’d say yes, he knew she would
wondering if this band was special enough.
It couldn’t be.
It’s still summer, in my mind.
I slid onto my bike and arrived at the pool.
Friends joined, laughing, eating safeway croissants and brie on sourdough.
We sat half in sun, half in shade.
At 10:30 it was game time.
The shallow end, so we could stand.
Those special caps, so we felt legit.
Breathing air and water.
A giant played against us.
From halfway out he would rise ominously out of the water and launch his canon fist.
We dived, tackled, swirled, kicked, panted, struggled, giggled, roared.
Outside the classroom, we were still exactly the same people.
No one kept score.
Two shadows, moved apart across a dimly-lit wall.With purpose, or with none, it was impossible to tell. And others could only speculate as to the meaning behind the shapes, drifting gracefully to either side. It wasn’t until later, that someone spoke up. We should talk to them, he said. It’s not right. Everyone else nodded, but continued to watch. It’s not fair, he cried, they need to be helped! Again, the people did not respond. Over time, the shadows grew larger and seeped into other walls. It enveloped people in its wake, quiet and graceful but precarious. No one resisted.
I think the best way to be a satirist is to not realize that you are one. Many of the people I’ve met who say that they write satire are depressible and have a hard time being loose while writing. It’s like the comedian who tries hard to be funny and suddenly lashes out at the audience when not enough people laugh at his jokes (according to his own conception of their value as comedy). On the other hand, if you think you’re being serious and everyone else laughs at you, it is perfect – assuming your ego’s not too big.
Have you ever thought about how many spiders there are currently crawling vehemently, hanging tentatively from web strings, or laying tiny eggs in the pores of your carpet? It’s an interesting thought. Some might say creepy. Spiders used to freak me out, too, but now I think they’re kind of fascinating. One crawled up onto the table I was eating my lunch on today, and I just put my fork down and stared at it. Its little legs, almost mechanical in they’re precise, choreographed movements across the checkerboard table cloth. Then it went away, and I resumed eating my lunch.
When I get to heaven, there are a few things I hope to see:
1. A giant, interactive map showing every place on earth I touched. It would mark in blue paint every footstep I took and every object I grasped.
2. A scoreboard with my lifetime statistics in every game ever, from number of half-court shots made to my accumulated score on urinals with bulls-eyes on the rubber mats, like they had at my high school.
3. Recordings of every conversation I had on earth and transcripts of every thought that passed through my head.
4. The solar system.
A good mix tape follows the rules set forth by John Cusack as Rob Gordon in High Fidelity. First, kick it off on a high note, then take it up a notch, then take it down a notch. There are a lot of rules. Unify a theme and peel away at it. Not like an orange, with its rough flesh and penchant for breaking off in chunks; think of it as a tangerine, work your thumb under the skin at the bottom and wind it around to the top, preserving the protective layer and revealing the naked, vulnerable flesh inside.
All of 100 