Narrative Treatment 250308

Chapter chapter chapter chapter chapter chapter WON. Ooops. WUN. Ooops. Son. Oops. Ton. Oops. Wait. I know this. Could use some refinement. The word isn’t coming. Hmmmmmmmm.

Chapter chapter ONE! That’s it. Chapter ONE!This is how it begins. This is the moment we embark. The point from which there is no return. The establishment of the universe that only a page can hold. Standing by for formula to support the refinement of this universe. Standing by for the refined idea. Standing by, behind, across, on top, and through. In the beginning there was…there was…what was there?

Chapter One //

She looked out at the horizon from the deck of the ship trying to steady her inner ear. Find something to focus on, far away to steady yourself, the captain had said. Let’s see. The water is blue. No. It’s more than blue. It’s TEAL. Yes. How teal the water was. And the water was so beautiful. So vast. And she realized that the maybe the vastness wasn’t so scary. That AN OCEAN IS JUST A POND WITH A FEW EXTRA RIPPLES. Right. And her sea sickness subsided. Thank god. Throwing up was not an act she was willing to engage in. Not on this cruise. There was too much at stake. She’d SACRIFICED too much to get herself here as the lead cast member of the Cat’s the musical cruise liner tour.

When she first started singing, she could barely walk. That’s what her mother told. When she was two years old, growing like an impossibly hearty lima bean, she was able to sing a wordless iteration of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in perfect pitch. Her mother immediately enrolled her in a SCHOOL for gifted singers. Prodigies. Her classmates were all miracles of their own kind. Singers too like her, yes. But also, gymnasts, composers, physicists, swimmers, basketball players, dog trainers - any young person who exhibited extraordinary ability from any field could enroll there, and GROW LIKE A TREE, AND FIND ITS ROOTS TO FLOURISH.

She was so young when she enrolled, and after a year of intense training at just seven years old, she started wondering if her parents had made the right choice. Sure, she knew she had been born to sing, but in the early days she started FEELING THE OPPOSITE. She watched the myth making prodigies weave new adpatations of ICARUS’ KITE and felt a deep yearning for a CHANGE.

“Has it ever happened that a prodigy of one sort has switched to a prodigy of another sort at any stage of their schooling?” she asked the headmaster.

“No.” They replied.

And that was the end of that. She would sing and sing, and put any dreams of other roads less traveled to bed.
On the ship, as the lead castmember of the cruisliner Cats the musical tour, she was lonesome. The other cast members were much younger than her and only person she really connected with was the lead launderess on the lower deck.

“ACE OF SPADES WINS!” the launderess shouted.

They had made it a regular practice on Sunday mornings to visit the cruise ship’s brunch buffet, stack a tray full of pancakes and eggs benedict, and play cards in the laundry hall while thousands of dirty towels spun in circles drying for all the guests aboard to soil the next day.

“Do you think I could be a dealer one day. Like in a real deal Vegas casino?” she asked the launderess.

“BE TRUE TO YOURSELF AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW,” the launderess replied. And that’s how the RACE between her many dreams WAS WON-she sand her last rendition of Memory that evening and then got on a row boat and left the cruise ship for better shores.

In the row boat, she realized she was quite out of shape. It is hard, she realized, to row a boat. It is harder still, she understood, to row a boat against the ocean current. After eight hours of rowing and reaching no land, and realizing no dream, she fell asleep in the boat, and let the currents rock her to sleep. “I’ll start again tomorrow,” she thought to herself, and off she drifted across the land of dreams and the vast oceans.

She jolted awake the next morning to slap of a fish on her face and screamed. A man appeared out of nowhere and calmed her.

“I’m ERIC THE FISHERMAN” he said. As if that was enough to calm her.

“Well, I’m not JUST a fisherman. I’m also a SCULPTOR. This is my day job. I also used to play piano by my BABY GRAND CRASHED in a terrible highway accident. It was very sad. And very expensive. I found you. Funny how the JAGGED LINES OF LIFE glide us toward each other. Are you alright?”

“I’m so hungry. I’m so thirsty. I’m so lost. I used to be a singer. And now I’m a castaway.

ERIC THE FISHERMAN handed her a clump of dried tuna, a A SUPREMELY NOURISHING source of nutrition for the ocean bound. She ate it with gusto. The DIFFERENTIAL between her feelings of melancholy and her feelings of hope suddenly shifted, drastically. Funny what a little fish can do. She and Eric spent many days at sea. It turns out that ERIC THE FISHERMAN was not very good at his day job. Ocean navigation was hard. Stars and compasses and maps and wind. It all gets so muddy in hi creative mind. She reached out to embrace Eric, whom she had grown fond of.

“Please don’t look at me. I’m so embarrassed”

“Don’t run from my love.”

CHAPTER TWO

I’ve always wanted to adventure, since my earliest days. But something my mother always told me was: THE QUEST FOLLOWS YOU. My friend CLAUDE, however, told me this was a nonsense way of thinking: how can a quest follow you when you stay in your room all day, staring at the ceiling, scrolling on your phone?

CLAUDE was a PHANTASMAGORIA of impulses. When we went out to dinner, he would insist we take our half-eaten burritos and balance them on our foreheads and walk in circles around each other until one of them fell to the ground. When we went on a high-school field trip to the Natural History Museum, he forced me to vandalize an interactive exhibit about the body by writing “poop” all over the INTESTINES section of the exhibit. When we were made to shave our wispy beards ahead of our Senior Prom, he rubbed my RAZOR with poison ivy. My photos, as you can imagine, were less than satisfactory.

You might imagine I grew to hate CLAUDE. But it was actually the opposite. Most kids enjoy sweet treats and kindnesses; I am more the type that craved PETRIFIED PIES and other macabre formulations. Perhaps it’s self-hatred. Perhaps it’s aversion to THE MAGIC MINUTE when one feels a true sense of purpose, of joy, of centeredness. Regardless, I insisted that CLAUDE come with me to college. I needed that chaos.

We went to a school by the beach. The first week, there was a massive storm after a deep drought. “OCTOPUS SURVIVES MUDSLIDE,” read Claude’s initial article in the school newspaper. His bizarre whimsy endeared him to the student body, and kept me from brooding in my room constantly. He would bring me a cheap beer, and SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS WERE SITTING IN THE BOTTLE THE WHOLE TIME. I would be floundering in the deep end of the lap pool at the gym, and he would be there to pull me out with such force that it was like I JUMPED OUT OF THE POOL. And when Spring Break freshman year happened, we spent a single two-hour moment at a diner halfway across the country because he liked the name of it — while I screamed DON’T DRIVE TOO FAST the entire time.

When summer vacation came around, I was ready for a bit of a break from Claude. Life with him was a CIRCUS. The HAAHs of it were constantly counterbalanced by the SHIT! And the OH DEAR LORD! It was nice to spend some time with my boring parents, to balance out the life of REVOLUTIONARY COLOR Claude painted for me with the black-and-white existence of old TV shows, microwave dinners, and the like with my parents, my sister, and her BEAU.

My sister’s partner was an expert in PAPIER: a creator of whimsical creatures of all ilks, cranes and canaries and kookaburas, using only the sticky-white stuff. He would start each MORNING at sunrise, in my parents’ old patio space, and by the time I woke up the INTERIOR CIRCLES of the space were lined with new creations. One morning, after a fight he had with my sister, a strange slobbery thing was at the door of the porch. “EINSTEIN’S TONGUE,” he told me wistfully. And, I have to say, I could see it.

The space from CLAUDE was meaningful. I would, however, have occasional revelries of our boyhood times that made me miss him. He insisted on a sort of PILLOWFIGHT INTEGRITY that entered my brain each night when I layed my head down to rest. The shelves of my bedroom were lined with figures he had purchase for me — Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the like — a sign of his BUYING BOYHOOD for me, perhaps. His insistence on being the center of my life had a DISCIPLINE to it. His chaos had CREATIVITY, each PROPOSAL a reinforcement of his central PRESENCE. It was like I was a single car, and he was an entire TRAFFIC FESTIVAL of honks and chrome and pneumatics.

As you might be able to tell, he had built an ARCHITECTURE within my brain. As cool as the paper mache was, and as much as I didn’t miss him, his presence was like a splinter in my CROTCH.

Then, one morning, JAKE THE SLACKER knocked on my door. He was Claude’s archenemy throughout middle school; his name was a EUPHEMISM for the vilest words you can imagine. When you mentioned him to Claude, his face would turn the COLOR of THE RISE OF FASCISM IN AMERICA. It was that bad.

JAKE THE SLACKER dated Claude’s perma-crush, EVELYN. He dreamed the dream of A SON’S MARRIAGE with her: their DAYS COLLIDING from math class and recess, through gradutations of all stripes, into family and grand-family and death. Unfortunately, that was not to be for Claude, because Jake had a MUSICAL INGENUITY that not only compensated for his moniker but led him to a LINEAR-ADJACENT sort of stardom in the shoegaze world. He became quite rich, hiring someone named TONY THE SUSHI CHEF to prepare sashimi for him at a moment’s notice. He moved to Brooklyn and relished a SAVORY URBAN MATERIAL WORLD of his own creation.
So, you can imagine I was surprised when Jake showed up at my door, interested in THE PURSUIT OF JOY with me, down on his luck and looking for a jolt of energy. Once, he told me: TEACH A WITCH HOW TO GROW BROOMSTICKS AND SHE’LL FLY FOREVER. I remembered that when he proposed my adventure, and he gave a warm laugh. It was SAFE to say that the WINTER of boredom was about to lead to a RENAISSANCE of adventure with this old classmate.

Our first stop was a silly diner for a dose of KITSCHY CHOLESTEROL. This was in the township of FAIRBANKS, where we would often see our History teacher from sophomore year, JEREMY LIPSCHITZ, working a double-shift to afford care for his very ill DOGGY. “LIFE IS TOO SHORT,” JEREMY LIPSCHITZ would always tell us, and it made us sad he had to spend most of it working it.
The NEED TO STAY COOL made us leave the diner and head to some OSTENTATIOUS GARDENS nearby, where we might battle the ELEMENTS, look at some BIRDS, reminisce about the sweet tones of LENNY KRAVITZ, and engage in the GENUINE COLORS and TEXTURES of late fall in the Midwest. My companion had COINED some great NUGGETS in these gardens, and also said some incomprehensible German like AUGENBLITZ that no doubt was repeated from his great-grandfather whose CHRONICLE of the 1900s had gained some acclaim in his homeland.

On our way to New York, we listened to many new compositions of my friend. I AM BASKING IN THE WARM OF A GLOWING STAR was my favorite of them: truly transportive, yet minimalist. TWO OF US WILL DIE HAPPY was about some fleeing love he refused to disclose with me further. He played what he called his “masterpiece” for me, and when I asked him what the name was, he said only this: “THERE ARE PEOPLE, THERE ARE PREDATORS. BE SAFE OUT THERE. WATCH OUT FOR EACH OTHER.” That was more than enough to quench my IMAGINATION, and I negated any future PROPOSAL of mine to ask further about his songs.

When we got to New York, he took me into a basement with a group of hip people united in the PURSUIT OF MONEY. The PARTYGOERS displayed the sort of UNCONVENTIONAL IRRATIONALITY that most people only get to indulge on an occasional SUNDAY. One of them practiced EXPERIMENTAL THAUMATURGY. One of THE OTHERS was talking about a recent ALPINE ASCENT they undertook ALONE. An ancient woman who stood stock-still in a corner laughed nonstop and repeated: “THE NATIVES ARE CELEBRATING THEIR BIRTHDAYS IN PARADISE.” She was the most BEAUTIFUL person I had ever seen in my life.

I got very drunk and DREAMY. The RESTLESS energy of the trip, like a POLTERGEIST HAUNTING my thoughts, dissipated. We made A STUMBLE over to TEDDY THE BAGEL BOILER, yet another foodmaker in the private employ of Jake, and as we walked down the ROAD a certain BURN in my HEART struck up. I thought of my dear friend from home…my dear, wild, GEOLOGICAL DISASTER of a friend. I suddenly felt sick, like a MIRACLE OF MICROBES emitted from my skin. I started vomiting profusely right then and there, on the street. A man with silver hair passed me, intently, and said a single word: “TROPPO.” I continued retching.

We got to Jake’s apartment, and it was a KNOCKOUT. “GO TO THE BATHROOM WHENEVER YOUR BODY TELLS YOU,” Jake kindly reminded me. Many FURTHER DELIGHTS were to be had in this space, where I would assumedly spend the rest of my summer vacation. He had to REMIND ME that the THRONE of the bathroom I had vomited into was mine and mine alone, which was a POWER enough for me to embrace in a night that had partially now become a TALE OF HORROR.

He showed me a RUSTY TEXTURED STRING from an old guitar of Bob Dylan’s. He showed me a pelt from an old French Canadian FUR TRAPPER he told me is an unrecognized saint. I asked him what the man’s name was, and he said he only had a PSEUDONYM and that he also COULDN’T SEE. Looking through Jake’s collection revealed to me how THE WORLD IS ENDLESSLY CONNECTED, and that A FALL CAN BE THE BEGINNING OF A FLOOR.

I really wanted to go to bed, but Jake was going through it himself. He insisted ye another of his chefs make a DYNAMITE MUSHROOM OMLETTE (this chef’s name was SONJA HENNE) and proceeded to ask me some of the EVERGREEN existential questions of young people (as medieval ARMOUR hung behind him). “Why are all SOULS JAGGED HERE, in the earthly realm?” “What is the purpose of ACADEMIA when a man or WOMAN’S DEATH is the only true teacher?” “Who is CLINT THE BATBOY and why does he recur in all my waking dreams?” I could only hope to answer the final of these questions, as our old SCHOOL BODY president became a batboy for a time for the New York Yankees. He later became a clown, tying BALLOONS for a CARNIVALESQUE named SATURNALIA. A strange career path, but more fruitful than KENNY THE GAMBLER, that’s for sure.

I finally got Jake to stop talking and go to sleep. The PROPAGATION of absurd questions he asked me multiplied like FLEAS on a rat. The WOODY SPLINT on his pinky finger, which fell off during one bizarre gesture of his hands, caught the overhead light in the room, creating a DREAM PICTURE that sent SPIRAL SHADOWS through my mind. The bed I would take had AEROMATICS and fully BODY ADJUSTMENT technology, but I simply could not turn my brain off. I missed the SNUGGLY CRISPY SHINY of home, the ZOOMING ECOSYSTEM of my old life, the was I could tunnel my mind towards the simpler things. All manners of rife sadness took purchase. It was like FRANKENSTEIN MEETS STALIN meets DONALD THE CHEAT, and CATE BLANCHETTE or some other kind face was nowhere to be found to comfort me.

That’s when a new OPENNESS emerged in me. The REDWOODS of my youth grew upwards from the stale soil of my self-disdain. No more NURSERYMAN in my sterile sedakfjdasklfdjklasfjdk!!!!!!

CHAPTER THREE

In SPIRIT… I was a man like any other. But in my soul, I was pure INFORMATION. A number, a string of ones and zeroes. I was pure data and in this sense I was DIVINE. And how I got to be this way… It all started with some ADULTERY DURING AN EARTHQUAKE.
My name is SVEN THE NOT VAMPIRE. A traditional family name in my small country of origin, and not an uncommon one. My father was a TELEPHOTO journalist who was also a decorated veteran, having engaged in many a BATTLE IN NAZI GERMANY. He told me that no matter what the problem was in life, you could always “POKE IT WITH THE KEYS” - I was never sure what he meant by that. I always took it to mean “LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP” but as your trusted NARRATOR, I cannot lie to you. So I must admit that, GOLLY and HELLS BELLS, I never truly divined its meaning.

My mother was barely there, more AURA than woman. She sang like a NIGHTINGALE in our church choir, always next to her best friend, Sarah WORSLE, who would also do percussion on her meaty thighs in SYNCOPATION. Of course this meant that every song was always BROKEN through with hearty slaps… But that was our town. Quaint, sometimes silly, but with a certain homespun charm.

My first job was as a NURSERYMAN. I watched the babies. I made sure they didn’t poo too much before a change. I gave them baby food. Normal stuff, I guess. I never knew different. I FEED babies all day. Under the HALLOGEN lights. That’s what I told my girlfriend at the time, SEPTEMBER LOVE. A chosen name… Her family was a nightmare. She lived in an old abandoned railcar… the vibe was described by her friends as “FRANKENSTEIN MEETS STALIN” because she had a lot of old soviet memorabilia around the place for decoration. But I didn’t care about her politics, all I knew was that her embrace was SOFT AND WARM after a long day of crying babies. We ate a lot of stolen FRUIT. Like Aladdin did. She did puppets, making SHADOW LINES with her broken desk lamp. She had a cat named ELEMENTAL RAINBOW and one of those posters from an old office building, some fun-run event called “JOGGING TOWARDS JUSTICE”.

Enough about September Love… those memories… to go into them is like LIVING FROZEN. Too cold now, to touch.
But I was to tell you how I became EDDIE THE DIGITIZER, the only digital man… Ah, TIME IS LIQUID AND IT’S SLIPPING AWAY… But as HEAT RISES TO MAKE BREAD, so I shall make story out of the random molecules of my misbegotten past. THERE IS SUNSHINE BEHIND EVERY STORM, and no memory can hurt me now that I live a purely numeric existence, now that I am glorious data. My powers… You see if I am IMAGINING FLOWERS, then for me those flowers truly exist. In the architecture of my silicone mind, they are real.

I even created SEPTEMBER LOVE once, rising in the morning like in highschool to greet me. SHE IS THRILLED TO GREET THE NEW DAY I scripted. And it was so. But the flood of years creeps onward, outside my hardware, and I must acknowledge it. So I go DEEPER. I listen to the DISTANT MUSIC of my fears hopes and illusions.

I had moved to NEW YORK CITY! Where DANCE FREES, every WISH is granted, and even a dream that’s just a LITTLE ONE can come true. My apartment was no BEAUTY. My window faced a BILLBOARD for some weird on the go snack called ‘FLESH IN A NET’. But I was down the block from COBSTREET STRAND, where I could always get a fresh GRAPHIC SOUR, the hottest drink that year. Life was SIMPLE, even though I was immediately FIRED from every job I could get. And my hope to be the curator at the MET for ABSURDIST POSTMODERNISM shone BRIGHT for all of two weeks… Until it burned and went up the CHIMNEY, metaphorically, along with my only HAMBURG hat - literally that one. Didn’t realize my closet was in the old fireplace of that railroad apartment until the landlord decided to show a new tenant that we had a chimney.

I had roommates of course. We were a rare TRIO. Janice worked in INTERNMENT at the morgue. And Rico was trying to pioneer a musical genre called JOY & BLUES. Nobody liked it and he was always bemoaning the CATACLYSM that was his life. But that apartment was the CONTAINER of many fun nights, and dark INTERVENTIONS (Rico had a drinking problem, like many a musician before him). I remember when we made a mural on the floor and called it NUCLEAR DIANA.

Yes, when I look back on those happy, crazy years I can always LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE. So much VULNERABILITY. Even when the JACKHAMMER was a’jackin, or the NY MARATHON blocked the street, life was still a FIZZY dream. And I could always GO SEE THE STARS on old broadway. Or a VIOLIN concerto at THE MET… which still wouldn’t hire me for that curator gig. It was DIFFICULT. But I could always get a HELLO from my bodega guy.

But again, I keep getting sidetracked by the ICY, DELICATE filligree of my erstwhile biography. I don’t mean to be CAVALIER, but certain later events are SCREAMING to be told. PROTRUDING from my POLYGLOT mind, with much to TEACH me, if I can bare to look them straight on. A FIBONACCI sequence, a perfect numerical curve, spiralling away and away.

Ten years later I was a bodybuilder in the NATIONAL SEMIES. I had an absolutely ATOMIC ADDICTION to steroids. They made me SLEEP BABY, and how. But the crash wasn’t worth the rise. They called ‘em TRIPLE PURPLE on the street. And they hit hard. I was like a BIRD IN A FOUNTAIN then or a PLANT ON A PEDESTAL. I was a FACADE, a body with no heart, no idea who I was is what I’m trying to say.

One time backstage I met a famous actor who still did the bodybuilding circuit. He had a tattoo across his ass that read: “DON’T PANIC AMONG THE MUSHROOMS!”, rosey from all the red moisture of his exertion. He told me to “WRITE BUZZED, BUT EAT SOBER” and offered me my first TRIPLE PURPLE… Those kind of interactions became a MOTIF. A DURABLE pattern in my life. I tried to CONJURE other events. But I was only the RECORDER of my own experience. Something else had the wheel. And so I was out of control. I could have no PARTNER. A CONUNDRUM I could not escape. I had LINKS to no other man. My roommates long dead in the stock panic of 98. I had new ones of course, a WEAVER who kept to herself and spoke in a whisper to her COLLABORATOR, CLARINDA THE STAND-UP COMIC. And HENRY THE MINOR LORD. He wasn’t one. But everyone called him that because he had… an aesthetic. You know the kind of guy.

But how did I become digital? That really starts with adultery during an earthquake. That starts with… FELICIA THE CAT LOVER.
About Felicia. I wish I could go around the world so I could put a world between us. I wish her love for me was merely a GHOST, a CONFLATION of wind and shifting movement at the edge of my vision with life. But she was real alright. And she was a HIGH SPEED train of bad news. She was a TOMB that sought to contain me until the end of time. No amount of PSYCHOANALYSIS could have explained her actions. She was the tempest, and I her TEAPOT.

She had wed her husband, FABERGE JUSTICE, founder of KEY 2 LIFE storage, in a SECRET CEREMONY that August. They’d spent a lot of ENERGY on the event. It was secret because that was fashionable, or HAUTEN (GERMAN). They did it in the old AMPITHEATRE in the subway tunnels that were boarded up under 5th and Broadway. It was a whole HOLLABALOO. Not that I was invited.
I was at home at the time, out of work, going to fat from running out of money for TRIPLE PURPLES and trying my hand at poetry.

Some of my (admittedly terrible) work from that time:
BONUS BANANAS BRING BODACIOUS BUNS!
URBAN PLANNER ILLUMINATED
METAL NATURE ROMANTIC
SUNLIGHT IS
LIFE
OUTDOORS

Told ya it was bad. But still, I could find ways to ENJOY THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE. I’d put on the radio and listen to the hits of day, like I’VE GOT LOVE ON MY MIND, CRUNCHY TEXTURE (a house track), and my personal favorite YOU CAN DO IT! But I’d begun to feel like I had THE LAST SYNAPSE ON EARTH and it was refusing to fire. I was burnt out. And nothing helped. Not even my dog, FRANCIS THE VERY GOOD BOY. I’d go out to Central Park and try to EXPERIENCE NATURE… but even that park, so OLD AND SUSTAINABLE felt like an empty EXPANSE, a torture chamber MADE IN STONE, a world of SKELETONS.
I was a DECORATED veteran, or rather my father was, and I had stolen his medals. I wore them around the neighborhood, trying to be CONSPICUOUS.

I was the world’s only digital man.

How I got that way… Is for another chapter. For now… I can only say… Goodbye.

CHAPTER FOUR

What happens in the Great BEYOND? Will it feel like LOVE? Will it feel like all my hopes and dreams have been SATISFIED? Will I be able to WALK AND WALK forever without my ankles hurting? Will I see my sweet MOTHER again? Will my childhood dog be WITH ME? Will I be sad about the world I leave BEHIND? Perhaps the great BEYOND will be like a really fun craft party! With a PHOTOWORKBOOK station with SUNDANCE stickers BENIGHTED with ABSTRACT MUSHROOMS? It’s hard to say what happens there, the place after this place. But it was all that she could think about under the CANOPIES in her FERAL and MELTING backyard that she had been neglecting most of her life. Who cares about grass in an URBAN CITYSCAPE really? She wanted so desperately to be CAREFREE in all aspects of her life. She didn’t want to mow the lawn! She wanted to listen to music! She wanted to write postcards from TOY TOWN! She wanted to tell RENDELL THE PICKLE BRINER how she really felt! He could be such a tease in the grocery store every Thursday - the time she dedicated to purchasing pickles and not plucking weeds from her overgrown yard. RENDELL was a DELICATE soul and a had a OMNIBUS mind for history and cinema. He was also a fantastic singer and had released an original in EP in 1989 titled WINDOW BLUES SINGIN’ that was made up of songs about the DESTINY OF INFIDELITY-it went half platinum, a small vitory. The album cover had a GLIPH on it of TECHNICOLOR LICORICE and two PRICKLY LEAVES HOLDING HANDS. The more she thought about RENDELL, the readier she was to tell him her true feelings. She would do it at their pool date on Saturday! For sue. Because WATER IS LIFE TEXTURE - what better route to love could there be than a pool time confession of utter devotion!

But how would she communicate the depth of her feelings. She had to get it right. And she wanted it to be poetic, abstract, just like all the ORCHESTRAL WORK that RENDELL was such a fan of. Maybe she would say:

“YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW! And you’ve sown your seed….in my heart!”

Oh no no. That’s not right. Maybe she could try, “I DON’T LIKE ALL THE DOG POOP ON THE LAWN…but I really like YOU, Rendell!”

Fail. Pitooey! Terrible! That’s not how much she loves him at all. It’s more than that. Maybe she could say:

“IT’S A NEW DAWN, IT’S A NEW DAY, and you’re way more handsome than Micahel Buble!” Hmmm. Geting closer.

“ENJOY A LOVELY STORY-the story of how I fell in love with you. Shall we begin?”

Aha. She nailed. ODETTE THE BURGLAR of hearts strikes again. There’s no way that RENDELL could resit this declaration-like DRACULA sinking his teeth into REX THE SINNER or YOGI THE HUNGRY BEAR she would sink her proverbial teeth into the CRANBERRY CACTUS of RENDELL’s heart. She summoned all her POWER, locked it in the box of her mind, and settled in for bed that evening, thinking only of her entirely certain future love life with RENDELL.

ODETTE’S dreams that night were CHECKERED with WATER SPIRALS of HOLOGRAPHIC KNIGHTHOOD, SWAYING URBANIZED ECOLOGY, and obscure STATE SYMBOLISM like bears, and LARGE eagles, and GARDENS of CHILDHOOD TRAGEDY. In the middle of the dream she was surrounded by a cadre of MYSTICAL VISITORS, whose LIPs exhibited an ELASTICITY evocative of LE DANSE CLASSIQUE. They weren’t of this world. They had VELVET skin and MICE for fingers.— Don’t be afriad — they said. ODETTE saw the PORTAL through which the beings had WALKed, enough of them to comprise an entire VILLAGE, perhaps ten VILLAGES COMBINED. —We come to share ancient wisdoms from our world with humanity. REJOICE. For you, ODETTE, the college student JUNKHEAD who delivered the GREATEST karaoke PERFORMANCE ever of Mr. Roboto, you, YOU ODETTE have been chosen. You exhibited such great POTENTIAL, CHARACTERISTIC of the human capable of the BIOLOGICAL JIGGLING necessary to unite our worlds. Will you accept our wisdoms?”

Odette sated deeply into the PROPELLER eyes and the DRIZZLE noses of the alien beings and nodded her head. “I am. But HANDLE me WITH CARE. I’m only a girl.”

“No, ODETTE. You are the harbinger of the next millenium, which will be filled with DROOP LOOPS, KNICK KNACKS, and TENORS who conjure the memory of SUMMER IN THE CITY like you can’t imagine. Wow! Their voices. Wait to you here them. The age we bring as Earth’s first alien visitors will have you saying, “IT’S A PARTY!” Just you wait. It will be a REVIVAL of all your HAPPIEST RUSTY CYCLES (we understand that the SALY MAKES IT RUSTY) but trust us- it will be a MAGNIFICENT VICTORY that in stead of DIVIDING mankind, will get us on the PATH to LOVE, a WINNING MIRACLE, and a new bevy of TUMBLING EMO records that we know you all miss from the early aughts. We just have to give you these wisdoms first! Ready”

“Ready”

“The first and most important piece of wisdom for the new world where earth and our people coexist in harmony is—CATS GIVE THORNY LOVE.”

Odette on the BASE EDGE of her chair felt ENTROPIC BABBLES in her soul-nothing had ever been more true. These aliens were wise.
‘The second piece of wisdom is: A GORGEOUS BREAKFAST is the root of a soul’s contentment.”

“GOAL!!!!!” Odette thought. Breakfast fare was the most delicious. ODETTE asked this village of aliens their names and a handful of them emerged as the governing body, that they called the PSYCHOPHALLIC SNUFF BOX. Their leader was BOATMAN, their vice leader was SHADOW, and their secretary was called OAR COLLISION. Odetted WAVED and they all squinted their EYES like CHILDREN ready to WIN kickball-it was agreed. The SNUFF BOX aliens would work with Odette to broker a treaty of peace with the people of Earth. And that’s when she woke up!

In her bed, ODETTE could smell something fruity and floral. Was she having a stroke? The flowers she had on her nightstand were only DECORATIVE! Did her dog POODLE THE PIZZA bring some stray flowers in from the yard? Impossible! There was a THUNDERSTORM outside and POODLE THE PIZZA detested rain. What could that smell be? What her bathroom potpouri on FIRE? She leapt out of bed in her DIM and drowsy state to solve the MYSTERY. Through the window of the kitchen she could see a strange new kind of PLANT GROWING OUT OF CONCRETE. It was so beautiful, that little plant and its TOUGH VICTORY, living its life despite the cement. It made her heartache as she stood at the ktichen sink. She saw the SWEET TREATS she was snacking on last night crusting on the counter. That’s not where the smell is coming from. Was there a bottle of perfume leaking in her bathroom? She STEPPED down the hall and turned a corner too fast, bumping an ASHTRAY off the bookcase. “Fuck!” Odette thought, that antique might LEAK LEAD. No time.I have to find where this smell is coming from. Or all will be LOST.Her obsession over this mystery smell was becoming DETRIMENTAL to her consciousness, AN EPIDEMIC of an ENDLESS HUNT that had taken over her entire morning.

“C’mon Odette-YOU can do this. Just like GINA MARIE THE ARCHIVIST did at work when the musty book smell had degraded into GRIEF-ridden DEWY FLORAL odor STAMP in the MONUMENTS and landmarks file.

Odette made her way to the bathroom and SIMULTANEOUSLY screamed and shrunk into a SEEDLING of herself. She a body there in the bathroom. There had been a MURDER! CLAUDIO THE MERMAN was lying there on the tile floor. A victim of JEALOUSY she suspected.
“Alas poor Claudio. You mensch!”

CHAPTER FIVE

My marriage is unusual, in that it is unusually productive. My wife is a professor of LITERATURE, and has a special focus of inquiry with fantasy works. As it happens, I am the creator of a creature called EVERTON THE WIZARD — a franchise that has little fandom in the States, but is quite popular in the outlying provinces of Australia. “KRIKEY! A PURSUIT!” has become something of a catch-phrase that’s bounced around social media…not to toot my own horn or anything.

My days with my wife usually start like A WORLDLY TRAVELER WAKING UP TO A POUROVER AND A HIGH-ALTITUDE SUNRISE, except for the fact that we live at sea level. We import the finest coffees, realizing that BARING YOUR SOUL TAKES TIME and also a state of high caffeination. When we are not reading, I like to WATCH BASKETBALL ALL DAY and you would be surprised — there is much fantasy fiction ideas to be derived from sport. Our FIRST DATE, as a matter of fact, was at a Lakers game — and a child next to us was a functional wizard — a glorious twist of fate.

I’m telling you all this because, of course, THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING and I am not sure what my final work should be. My wife is A COOL OLD BROAD, SHE’S SEEN STUFF, but the whole apocalypse thing is a step far even for her and so I’m kind of on my own in this regard. She’s the coolest person I know, but NO AMOUNT OF COOL WILL LET YOU CHEAT DEATH. DEATH, it turns out, is also not great for creativity. I’m doing my best.

Looking for some inspiration, I decided to GIVE MY DOG A BONE — the bone of an extinct mammal of unknown name and origin — to see if it reacted the same as that of a normal cow or scorched body. I thought, you know, BEARS LOVE HAMBURGERS — animals can surprise you — and perhaps I would be surprised into inspiration. As it happened, NATURE SENSES what people needs, and my dog did something unusual…something that broke THE CIRCLE OF EVERYDAY EXUBERANCE…it nudged its head down under the bone and proceeded to wear it like some sort of fossilized cap.

That’s when I realized: I haven’t written a wizard that’s an animal! What a darn oversight! This all happened at around 1:30 AM, and although SLEEP IS INEVITABLE the TRAVELER’S JOURNEY of art must take precedence. To STIMULATE my creative mind, I first approached my PIANO and TIED US TOGETHER, TRANSFORMING my self into a yoked instrument of the divine. I then played a song I once channeled from various specimens of the VEGETABLE KINGDOM, chiefly broccoli and coriander: the song is called DEB IS HAUNTED BY THE INTERNET, and its theme is one of ditching our interconnected existence to return to the dirt.

That got me in a really CAPITAL mood to start writing my dog-wizard tale. As I know — as you know, too — that HONEY BEARS BRING HAPPINESS, I made my dog-wizard a companion of such a sweet-snouted creature. I put them going down A LONG, LONG ROAD AND THE JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN. The road connected a castle filled with SILVER STACKS AND SPOONS belonging to a pack of haughty badgers, specializing in CARVED MASSES of bows and arrows and other items of animal-war.

I realized quickly that my wizard-dog should also be like an ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING STUNTPERSON in that she should be able to fly through the air with little issue, and also leap off high parapets with no damage to her body and soul…

As I was spinning on this new idea, I had a sudden DIVERSITY of DIMENSIONAL PRINCIPLES enter my brain in a flash of inspiration. It was like the plot for a TRANSDIMENSIONAL GREEN MILE entered my mind for a brief moment — then left it, just as quickly. What remained in my brain was just the putrid memory of ROXANNE, THE LADY OF THE NIGHT, a woman I once loved with great great passion but who liked her PENNE SAUCIER than me. This, as you can imagine, was a sticking-point in our relationship. DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS, they say, but some strokes are simply a stroke too far. When it comes to penne, this is nearly always the case.

Anyway…I was too discouraged to keep writing my dog-wizard story, and needed something to take my mind off all this. ACTORS in television shows were not powerful enough…I tried. The plots of my favorite programs seemed FRAGMENTED AND SNUG at the same time: uncomfortable, vaguely unsatisfying. I next tried to find solace in the MAN-MADE CERAMIC delights of my half-bathroom: I stared at the cool tile, touching it with my burning cheek. No relief. I realize how privileged I was, no longer living in a dingy APARTMENT with CONCRETE walls and SKETCHES from garbage bins I had scavenged. Still, I could not DISTILL joy from my hole of ceramic solace. I simply could not.

I left my house and drove downtown. I passed a LIGHTNING TREE, a modern-day Burning Bush, and even then I could not manage to drum up interest. My brain was PITCHED to a strange frequency. I THINK I NEED A DENTIST, my mind said as I rubbed a spare molar. I think I need a drink, my heart said. I listened to my heart.

I paced over the CRACKING PAVEMENT and into a decrepit dive. I saw a guy that looks like he could’ve been nicknamed MAVERICK THE STRAIGHT-A STUDENT: wearing crisp khakis and a polo, acne scattered along his jawline, an overeager smile pulling at his face. The bartender had a BALLOON with the number 25 on it, and I realized too late I was being thrust into the celebration of a STRANGER I would normally CONDEMN.

I would rather be SILK WEAVING than be at a stranger’s birthday party when all I want to do is nurse a strong beverage. I immediately regretted not taking a volume of FASCINATING FOLKLORE from my wife’s private library, so that I could put my nose into it and avoid the revelry. Alas, I was ENTIRELY unable to avoid these peoples’ drunken interest in me.

The boy I named Maverick (I never learned his name, and I didn’t care to) make a HEART SHAPE with his hand in my direction at least five times during the night. Why did he do this? Such RUBBISH! We were not at a distance from each other. The DIVINE unfairness of me not being able to brood and have a DO-IT-YOURSELF evening of concentrated depression was like the utter opposite of a UTOPIA — which I would call a dystopia, usually, but saying “dystopia” is a cliche for a fantasy writer such as me, so I shall not mention. Please disregard the fact that I did just in fact mention it.

The father of the birthday-boy’s name was TOMASO, a GOLD-FINGERED Italian man who looked like he should be constantly carrying around a CANDELABRA and whispering arcane secrets in your ear in dark corners. I would normally take it as an opportunity to PRACTICE my Italian, which has atrophied in the years since I DRUMMED it up hitch-hiking across the Mediterranean LANDSCAPE of youthful revelry — but I could only sneer silently at this man tonight. SNAKE EYES! He laughed in my direction after tossing some dice on a table I had no visibility on. Why should I care? TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN! He laughed in his next breath. How can HE speak for the way time moves? HERE COMES THE SUN! He recited in unison with the Beatles tune playing in the background. It’s not true, I thought. The sun will never come up again.

For some reason, they tolerated my awful mood. They didn’t demand I take the STURDY LINED PATHS out the door of the dive bar and back home. The BIRTHDAY EDITION I was privy to, in honor of the half of a HALF A CENTURY his son had completed on Earth, was like a GLASS DOME that — in their eyes — turned everything within it to gold. They sang LA TRAVIATA in A CAPELLA form at the end of the night, and I must admit…I joined in for a small portion. It wasn’t exactly HOP-SCOTCH at the playground, but my mood had been lifted somewhat. The RETRO CLOUDY of my mind had transformed to a sort of modern sunshine that made me feel the EMINENT SUNSET of my life was still a ways away.

After giving my best wishes to a few new acquaintances — CHARLES THE BUG-CATCHER, SVEN THE KOMBUCHA MAKER, and ERIC THE BIBLIOPHILE — and feeling I would not burn any BRIDGES I had made that evening — I got in my car in an ABSOLUTE better mood than I had exited it in.

As I drove home, PINCHING myself in order to keep myself awake, I considered how I could build a RENAISSANCE within my own life. Should I move to LONDON and start an avant-garde underground techno troupe? Should I get a Ph.D. and work at the VOLCANIC HADRON COLLIDER? Did none of that matter, because I was simply an ORGANIC MODULE meant to return to the earth and whose wishes and desires mean absolutely nothing in the large arc of the universe?

I let that last thought go. I let all the thoughts go, actually. My EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE might not be legendary, but I know when to slam the brakes on what-ifs. Like GERRYMANDERING JURY SELECTION, some things are just not worth the effort.

I returned home and realized a few things about my fantasy dog-character. First off, his name must be CARIMDUS THE WINGED DOG. Secondly, Carimdus must be awesome. He should be surrounded by SNOWMAN AND GLASSES AND BITCHES (I simply mean female dogs in the last instance of this). This is a fantasy dog that should say compelling things like “LET’S TOAST TO OPPOSITES ATTRACTING ONE ANOTHER” while lifting a drink with his opposable thumb-having paws. He should say “LOVE IS IN THE HEART” and not have any heartworms. He should say “ALCOHOLIC COWBOYS SHARE NO SMILES” and share a smile himself while drinking heavily and wearing a cowboy hat. In a word, he should be a paradox, a barking bastion to the contradictions of puppy, pal, and all-powerful wizard.

I stopped writing at that point and went to bed, upon which time I had a most marvelous dream. I was somewhere out WEST, in a FORGOTTEN REVOLUTION where the PROPAGATION of cacti practically imprisoned me. It was BRILLIANT AUTUMN, and the YOUNG LIMB of a Saguro had its hand on my shoulder. I did not feel DISMISSED by the cactus; I did not feel it was creating a PRISON around me; the BRONZEY light coming down from above made me feel comforted and aglow, like tightly-packed SISTERS in an Elizabethan novel. I uttered a single word: WHA-HA! And then I woke up.

That’s when I realized something. I needed to stop writing my fantasy novel about a flying dog. I needed to leave my wife, my family, and I needed to start my life all over again. Whirling words entered my mind: SHARP GREASE CONTAINER, CREATIVE THE DIGITIZER, HENRY THE PROBLEMATIC KING. I embraced the nonsense. I wrote the words down and I rubbed my big dumb face in them. I licked their absurdity, and I laughed.

I then took a plane to the name of a small independent island country I am legally not allowed to name. The first thing I did was attend a BEN FRANKLIN SEX PARTY, where a group of scantily-clad Founding Fathers discovered many entirely-new forms of lightning. I will never forget it, and even if you make a trillion PRAYERS in my NAME I will never tell a soul another word.
Then I founded a coffee and pastry shop on this unnamed island, where I dedicated the next three months to perfecting a RASPBERRY TRIFLE so delicious that to even LOOK at it is to have a sort of metaphysical INTEGRATION with your truest self. I crafted the decor of the space in alignment with WABI SABI principles, creating a COHERENCE I was quite proud of. The trifle, though. The trifle! Its FLUTTERING STRATA created a BREEZE of flavor upon the palate! Its tasters would break out in MISERICORDIA, breaking down into QUIONS in front of me.

Needless to say, I became something of an icon on this island I cannot legally name due to impending lawsuits. I became the head judge of an UNDERWATER BAR FIGHT circuit; I also stepped in as the the head snorkel-fixer, which was practically a full-time job in and of itself. The TAPES from those fights can be purchased for a sum, if you are so interested. I can’t disclose the sum, because the POPULARITY of these tapes makes it more like a premium stock than a simple tape. You wouldn’t understand. I respect you, but you wouldn’t understand.

I also became something of a support of the INNOCENT VICTIMS OF OPPRESSION EVERYWHERE. I mostly supported them with my mind, and my good-wishes, but I also did befriend DENISE THE CAT-LOVER and EDOARDO, who were waging battle with a uncouth landlord. I also can’t tell you what happened in this scenario due to pending legal actions, but let’s just say this: some people got KINDA WET.

Now that I’m at the end of my time on this island, it’s time for me to pay my final respects. I have only one message for those I love, those I learned from, and those I will never forget:
“Don’t ever leave trash out!”

CHAPTER 6

It was an ARRANGED marriage. And I was NOT HAPPY. He was the type of man who looked you up and down at the bar and asked “WHERE U LIVE?”. The kind who called a date “HANGIN’”. He played video games in a sort of INFINITE FLOW. An ever BLOSSOMING CYCLE of hedonistic tip tapping on the controller while he shovled doritos into his mouth. ME? I’d read Herman Melville’s ‘TRAINS OF TRUST, TRAINS OF GOLD” in its entirety. I knew “I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD” wasn’t just from Titanic, it was also SHAKESPEARE. He had a tattoo in kanji on his neck that he thought said “DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY” but really - I can actually read kanji - said: CHICKEN + FLOWERS = HAPPINESS.

But his father was very rich. And my father was very desperate. So he was to be my husband. I thought “SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING” - you know? I told my mom: “This guy is worse than JERDO THE IMAGINARY BABY (a famous wrestler of the time, and a famously rude fool). She said an old saying that had been in the family a long time “IF YOU SEE TWO GUYS HUGGING, YOU JUST LET THEM HUG”. It had roots in the homophobia of our culture, sure, but it had come to mean much more. Acceptance. Peace. I knew what she meant.

I retreated to my room and put on some hard, staccato JAZZ. I had to think… I always thought I’d marry a COMPOSER. Or a COMMUNIST. The kind of man who wouldn’t flinch witnessing a GROTESQUE BEHEADING. Someone with principles and the guts to stick to ‘em. Instead, my future husband was in the living room, watching the game with my dad and screaming ‘HITS FOR 5 DECADES, SCORE!’. I DON’T CHASE MONSTER TRUCKS. I don’t date idiots. And I certainly don’t marry them.

I. Needed. A. Plan.

So I went to my stoner sister, Tabitha. She said, through a cloud of smoke “YOU GOTTA RIDE THE WAVES OF LIFE, BRO… ALL OF US ARE JOHNNY UTAH AT SOME POINT.” It must have referred to one of her infantile movies. The idiot. I went to the garden to think…
… Strolling the MAN-MADE PATHWAY between the sequioas (it’s a BIG GARDEN) I reflected on my situation… what was the KEY TO LIFE? Was it a Norman Rockwell existence, falling in love with the proverbial JENNY, MY HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART? No… It was what you did that mattered, not who you loved. It was the life of the mind. I could marry this doofus. I could. If I still had my work. My precious, essential work.

I hesitate even now to write what that work was… Looking back I see the callow youth I had been, so eager to go forth on a calamitous, ridiculous path.

I was…

…

Dear reader, I truly hesitate to say…

I was working on…

A…

Potion of UNLIMITED STRENGTH.

Why did I think I could accomplish this? I was 22, and had never taken a chemistry class I hadn’t failed, let alone biology. But I was in LOVE with the process. The QUALITY of my thinking, at the time, astounded me. Looking back, mere fantasy.

Even then in the garden, I was ‘working’. I plucked the bark of a DOGWOOD tree, and grabbed straight out of the air one of the SNAPDRAGONS that had become omnipresent in the NEIGHBORHOOD ever since the river had stalled and turned to a bog. I thought less like a scientist and more like a witch. I found an herb called SPIDERWART. Don’t ask me what I thought it would do, but I put it in that stew in the garage I called a scientific process and carried on.

Five years passed. I was a mother of two. My husband remained an idiot. And I remained a fantasist, playing mad scientist, out in the garage. It felt like a grand existence, because I was so deep in the FIRE of my BAROQUE imagination… But I was like the ‘alchemist’ who thinks he’ll finally find the way to transmute lead into GOLD. I was an idiot too. A bigger idiot than my husband.
That is until… BOB THE TRUCKER made my dream - of a potion of UNLIMITED STRENGth - A REALITY.

He’d drifted into town with NO POSSESSIONS. I BELIEVE I first met him at the gas station, where I went to buy the fritos that feed my fevered late night activity. It was a COLD night. The softly drifting snow WHISPERed softly towards the ground. The STACCATO NATURE of life itself, was clear to me as I looked at the moon. It was full. But I hadn’t seen it wax. It had been a sliver, only yesterday, I thought. An ear-splitting noise emitted from the truck parked at the dieself fill. It was the track that was everywhere that summer on the radio “CRESHINDO” by VERSATILE MATRIX. Bob got out. He was ugly as sin. No manners either, walked right up to me as I munched fritos in the drifting snow and said “NAME?” And yet it was as if some secret agent had finally appeared to my sleeper cell of an existence and spoken the VITAL CODE that would finally unlock THE FUTURE I was destined for. Bob was ugly, yes, but to me he was the BRUSSELS BASILICA. He was the argonaut JASON’S JAVELIN. He was TOKYO. He was SCIENCE itself. He was the hand of fate. And I reached out to grasp him.

His hand was strong, manly…. So strong in fact that I gasped and realized…

“You’re not superman, you wear no CAPE and yet… jumping JUNIPER… You have the KEY TO UNLIMITED STRENGTH, don’t you Bob?”

“Walk with me, child” suddenly his voice was deep as all of space. Maybe he was Superman… We went to the CIRCULAR AROLMATIC PARK that was ringed by the nuclear plant. It was a GARDEN OF NICE PETALS, the roses being in bloom. My mind was a PREGNANT EGG, yet to hatch, but full of mysterious new life. Bob addressed me, and it was like the voice of god.

“SEATBELT INCAPACITATION. That’s what they called it when I had my accident. But I knew the conventional word… I was paralyzed. I was just a trucker, never finished high school, but SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA FLY THE PIRATE FLAG. I went on the dark net. I thought PACK YOUR BAGS, ADVENTURE AWAITS and clicked those dark dark links. I thought myself a sort of NAUTICAL FRANKFURTER (It was here that his metaphors and similes and… whatever a nautical frankfurter was started to lose me).

“A THIRD YEAR SLACKER I’d known in junior high called me. He’d been the one on the other side of that link. I went to his lab. He’d discovered something.. The MINERAL OF EARTH. He’d found it at the bottom of a CONCRETE RIVER. Toxic runoff transforming nature into the divine, right from this very nuclear plant which rings this park. URBAN NATURE is no nature. It’s something worse, and sometimes… something greater.”

“He presented the mineral to me, it had LINES AND STRIATIONS. He claimed it was his SECOND SMASH INNOVATION, since he also claimed to have invented the special sauce they use at In-N-Out. That was obviously a lite, but his mineral. It had ORGANIC PATHWAYS AND SHAPES.”

“The slacker looked at and said ‘WE’RE ALL PEAS IN A POD’ til someone eats this mineral. Then… who knows. So I ate it. I ate the whole damn block of stone. I thought back to the tattoo I had in kanji on my ankle. I thought it said ‘BE HAPPY, IGNORE THE MISTAKES AND IT’LL BE ALRIGHT’. But I’d recently learned it actually read ‘FRANCINE THE LIBRARIAN.’

“That mineral tore my guts up. I thought I was dying. I say my exwife like she was an angel in heaven…. LOLA THE SKI BUNNY. She’d been heaven on the slopes that was for sure. She’d wear her trademark bunny ears and I’d watch the FUR FLOW in the mountain wind. She’d been part of a ski gang called the HEXA PETS. Bad news types. But WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF NAKED IN THE OCEAN, ENJOY IT. Sometimes you have no control, and its dangerous… but you gotta rock with the waves.”

“I snapped back to. I was paralyzed, still. And for a moment on that slackers floor I resigned myself to it not working. I thought YOUR BODY MAY BE CAGED BUT YOUR IMAGINATION CAN STILL FLY. But then…

… A sudden rush of strength. I’d only eaten a mineral, and yet THE MOST CREATIVE AND INTERESTING CREATIONS COME FROM THE SIMPLEST INGREDIENTS.

That goddamn mineral was the potion of unilimited strength. And I… I was as a god. My momma had always said “FEED YOURSELF NUTRIENTS SO YOU CAN MAKE THAT BROCCOLI AND ACHIEVE THE THINGS YOU REALLY WANT. But I didn’t need nutrients. I needed mineral. And now I had it.

Bob finished his story there. No mention of what he’d done with the strength he’d gained. Or whether he could offer it to me. He was my dream, suddenly manifest, and yet totally opaque to me. Around us, the COLORFUL RAINBOW PLANTS of that nuclear rose garden glistened. A newspaper in the wind flapped by, SUPREME COURT RENAISSANCE it read. On the back of that page THE CHERNOBYL OF MESOPOTAMIA. I didn’t follow current events. I had no idea to what those mysterious phrases referred. But I was finally alive. And I was finally free of my arranged marriage, I knew that. I would follow Bob anywhere. And I would have that unilimited strength if I had to kill him, myself, and every deity man prayed to to get it.

I went home to my moronic husband. He was playing FIFA. I kicked him in the head. I wasn’t strong yet, but I would be. And I wanted to practice my kicks.

He fell over into his guacamole. His head was sticky… with blood. He’d slammed it on the EDGE of the table. He was dead.
My mind snapped. I babbled incoherent axiomata. ONE PERSON’S TRASH IS ANOTHER’S TREASURE I screamed, frothing at the mouth. GIVE BABIES TO SANTA, EH? I yelled at no one.

EPILOGUE

I GO NOW.
BYE.