photo credit: nblumhardt

The rabbit magistrates conferred.

At the conclusion of the meeting, they resolved to write a law so convoluted and prolix, that no bunny or fox or human could ever hope to read or comprehend it in their lifetime. The rabbit magistrates would thus be able to make any judgment they wanted in whatever situation and have no-one to answer to. Two thousand bucks were put to work devising the Great Law. Not one of them was allowed to take a break or get fresh air, because that could increase the clarity of the document, something to be avoided at all costs. The bucks survived on sandwiches with lettuce and twigs, and only keystrokes were heard, incessantly.

It wasn’t long, though, until a not even educated young buck called Zirkem started to paw through the Law in his free time. He went through it very slowly and meticulously, concentrating on just one subparagraph spanning 215 pages. It took him two months, and after those two months he dug his way out of his mountain of notes and made an announcement to his doe-eyed compatriots: each bunny, by law, is entitled to a ration of 3300 balloons.

For almost a week, life was perfect. Every morning saw the arrival of truck convoys bringing thousands upon thousands of balloons in every colour imaginable. The world became balloons and there were many surprise encounters whilst playing and living life amongst them, often leading to new families, because that’s the rabbit way. A lively trade started in rare balloons, and all rabbits regardless of responsibilities felt they were living a life of leisure in the comfortable embrace of countless balloons.

Clearly it couldn’t last. It was no fun for the magistrates. They no longer had sway over the populace with all those balloons obscuring the bunnies’ whereabouts and activities. They called upon exception f to the subparagraph covering the ration of balloons, which was not included in or referred to from the subparagraph, but included in a different chapter and referring back to it. The exception supposedly stated that only bunnies who were diagnosed with balloon deficiency could own balloons. The bunnies, tearful about losing their precious balloons, called upon Zirkem to confirm the tenor of the exception.

Zirkem started to study the Law once more, but gave up after just one page. Instead he paid a visit to his doctor and found him willing to diagnose every single bunny with balloon deficiency who visited his office. And so the Great Queue started.

A day later the magistrates announced a 26 layers deep subparagraph of the initial subparagraph which states that balloon deficiency, being contagious, is to be eradicated by extracting the brains from every affected bunny and anyone who has ever come in contact with them. The bunny doctors refused to abide by this law. The magistrates announced all doctors were to be forced. The bunny police refused. The magistrates announced police were to do their duty or receive no lettuce whatsoever. The bunny farmers snuck them lettuce. The magistrates announced that a footnote of the penultimate paragraph states that rabbit magistrates, in case of anarchy, are allowed to live a life of outrageous excess on an island of their choosing.

And so they did. The rabbit magistrates lived happily ever after.

The bunny populace, on the other hand, lived a life of simple pleasures in their balloon world. It lasted almost a week. Then a particular kindle of rabbits mischievously popped a few balloons and it became all the rage to be a Popper. When all the ground was covered in the deflated remains of once beautiful balloons, it was impossible to grow or find food. Gradually all bunnies died unspeakably horrific deaths, with only the most wicked cannibals surviving for any significant amount of time. Blood and entrails and balls of fluff and torn plastic littered the landscape.

photo credit: trec_lit

I was born inside a giant egg.

It had no yolk or albumen, just an inflatable swimming pool and plastic books.

I learned to stack a plastic book on another plastic book. This made a tower, and it was more useful than plastic books.
I learned to deflate the swimming pool. This made a moist parachute, and it was more useful than a swimming pool.
Then I climbed up the tower and jumped off wearing a moist parachute. This made me cry. It wasn’t pleasant.

Then an egg appeared in my egg.

I told the new egg to disappear.
It refused.
I told it again.
It refused again.
I told it to stop refusing.
It refused.

I put the new egg in the tower.
I made a balloon out of the parachute.
I blew up the balloon until it blew up.

With the tower and the egg and the balloon blown up, there was nothing left but me. I felt considerably worse off.

Eventually, 8 years later, a bounty hunter broke me out of my egg. He was disappointed to see me.
“Sorry”, he said, “Wrong egg.”

In exchange for orange juice, I helped him look for the right egg. It was the best orange juice I’ve ever tasted. I don’t think I’ll ever taste orange juice as good as that orange juice was. It was really, really good orange juice. It really was.

Henry M. loves dnL. He loves it so very much that when he learned the product was going to be discontinued, he bought all the remaining stock in his town’s supermarkets and stored it in a cupboard, where his camping equipment used to be (and a dead bird, which upset Henry M., as it was still alive when he last took out his camping gear a year or two previous).

The bird in question:

As an aside, did you know dead birds don’t really smell?

Dead birds dry up quickly, and stay remarkably intact when kept in a cool and dry cupboard in a house kept aggressively free from flies (Henry M. told passionate stories about his legal war against insects).

Every month, Henry M. would treat himself to one of the bottles of dnL.

This is not our Henry M:

It’s a different Henry M. instead. To get back on the subject of cupboards, Henry M. once hid inside his dnL storage cupboard. It was a retreat for him, a place of escape and control and feeling at home. Much like so:

Henry M. had depleted 2 crates of dnL by the time he hid in the cupboard, according to his rule of one bottle per month plus a fair share of them due to a losing streak of self-discipline vs. addiction. With those 2 crates gone, he could fold himself into the space now available to him in the cupboard, and hid there for what he described as “half the freakin’ day”, in near complete darkness. In the cupboard Henry considered his wealth of dnL. He considered the comfort of the cupboard, and he considered that he should really learn to control himself (but wasn’t it made alright, he asked me, because of the expiration dates and the danger of the flavour changing afterwards? He better deplete them before that happens, right? I didn’t know what to tell him.)

Henry M. really enjoyed that sojourn into cupboardness. He talked about it at length with me, the only person he seemed to consider a friend. And apparently he did go back into the cupboard, and apparently when he wanted to get out again… he couldn’t. He had been able to fold himself into the cupboard, but seems to have found great difficulty in unfolding himself. This is where I come in. I received a text message:

A fair enough request, except that Henry lives in the United States whereas I live in England. We do now and we did then. This I considered a reasonable obstacle to helping Henry out, so I declined, implicitely, by never showing up.

This is his house in Vancouver, WA (not to be confused with Vancouver, BC in Canada):

He’s in the house with the basketball court out back. Might actually still be in the cupboard. Would that be possible? I never did hear of him again. Let me give Henry a call. Or actually, international rates are pretty steep.

“Rest assured there is no deeper than rock bottom”, said Professor Arkengaard. And Professor Arkengaard is at all times mistaken, which is a fine gauge as to the veracity of statements about the world. Whatever Professor Arkengaard says, the opposite is probably true.

To illustrate his mistake, rock bottom is the sub-stratum of the sea bottom, the layer below the sand. And you can in fact go deeper than that layer. Lower yet you will find the Earth’s crust, the upper mantle, the mantle, outer core, and inner core. So one can in fact go deeper than rock bottom. An alcoholic mistreating his wife is still able to drop their child from the fourth floor. This is a very real possibility. A politician dumping his country in an abyss can still be re-elected. You can always go deeper still.

Under the Earth’s crust we find nigh unfathomably thick layers of rock with the taste of magnesium. An uncomfortable location in which an invulnerable person could dig deeper and deeper, towards the core of the Earth, and the core of that core, until the perfect middle has been found where deeper can only mean one thing: back to the surface. In that sense, to sink deeper is to lift oneself up, though in the meantime experiencing a hellish uninhabitability. Perhaps it would be better to make a standing rotation when things get heated. Rock bottom is not a place you want to pass.

“Professor Arkengaard, how can one know the world? How can we step outside our worldly bondage to see with true objectivity what it is we are part of?”
“Vandal! The world is round and that is all your very small heart needs to know.”
“But the world is oblate and I need to know more.”
“Then go and find out what it is you need to find out. Enter the world, enter the books. Gather experiences. Talk to people, seek the revelation, study and reason and imagine. Waste all that time, to return in 30 years as a pitiful man made modest, knowledge having brought you no further to certainty of anything, which is to say, you’d be back at square one.

And I did go in search for thirty years. And I did find everything and I did return with nothing. But Professor Arkengaard, who is never right (which is a fine gauge as to the veracity of statements about the world), was wrong. Because the nothing with which I had started was an entirely different nothing from that with which I returned.

Three years ago my friend Cyrus and I met on the beach of a Spanish town with an Arabic name at 2 in the morning. I didn’t know him yet. He had exited the last train drunk at the station near the beach, several stops too early. He was nowhere near his camping site. I, on the other hand, had taken the last train from the other direction in order to catch the first ferry to Nearby Island. Looked like we would both spend 5 hours on powdery sand. It was spent talking for 5 minutes AT MOST, then SLEEPING.

HERE WE WERE, FOREIGN BEACH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, THE SAND AND THE AIR AND THE COLD. TIRED AND A BIT LOST.

2.

The story at 1. is a lie. Three years ago Cyrus and I met on a Portuguese beach at 2 in the morning, as we had planned. He had made apple scones infused with cherry jam. I did not like them. He ate all of them. We held each other’s penis whilst marvelling at the stars. It would be incredibly scary if there was no limit to how large a penis can grow and expand, but there is no such limit to the universe and that is scary too.

3.

The story at 2. is a lie. Three years from now radio waves will reach us from the constellation Cygnus. They will contain sounds reminiscent of cell phone interference on defective speakers. A friend and I will grow asparagus in an indoors hydroponic garden, and drink tea with Japanese girls who did not giggle at all. How did the border between Portugal and Spain come to be where it is?

4.

There is some of 3. in this story. The electric wave of three years will contact us from constellation Cigna now? I have an absurd number of vouchers for free martial arts lessons. The terms & conditions explicitly do not guarantee that the lessons will be free.

5.

The story is about a small quantity being 3. There are [X] which are these. It will limit the sound that I can’t confirm to be able to remind the speaker [Y] and I think whether [Z] can touch it from constellation Crux now is [X] as much as for the electric wave of three years and is incomplete with mobile phone communication by [Y]. And I am in such a state, and I am, and friend [Z] and I are cultivated indoors in a Japanese garden of girls who are not alone at any time and in misfortune and I behave as a stereotype and I will drink tea and this was true.

6.

The tea drips from trees, three in number. One man sees it as his occupation to drink the tea from the bark before it hits the ground. He is not me and there are birds having a lark. Their number is three. The man is very large and very friendly. When you pinch his big bum he does look sternly at you, but that’s because you were pinching his bum and that’s not necessarily a nice thing to do. Here now, he just gently kept you from falling overboard and getting mauled by deathblades whilst drowning and getting stung to death by jellyfish.

7.

If there is one jellyfish you do not want to encounter, it is probably the Portuguese Man o’ War.

8.

It will limit the sound that they can’t confirm, to remind an incomplete speaker of mobile telephone interference. And the friend and I cultivate asparagus indoors in a garden of Japanese girls who don’t giggle at the time of one and I am in no condition to behave as a stereotype, disappointingly, and will drink tea. How did the border between Portugal and Spain come to be the place where I once was?

9.

Drink the tea from the bark before it ‘its the bloomin’ ground. Henry’s right large and right mately, he is. Wen yer pinch ‘is big bum ‘e does ‘ave a look sternly at yer, right, but that’s because yer were pinchin’ ‘is bum and that’s not necessarily a nice fin’ ter do. Here now, he just gently kept yer from fallin’ into that cow’s cleavage and copping a feel.

10.

Step 10: Take a magic marker and give inanimate objects a voice.

11.

The art of knowledge is not an art of pure reason, nor one of ‘plucking answers from the sky’. Reason and intuition, deduction and interpretation, logic and imagination, are interesting on an experimental though not on an epistemological level. An intelligent individual uses analytical thought to expand on a question or idea, picking it apart systematically, comparing it with (plus enhancing and increasing) available data. An intelligent individual also uses imagination and intuition to see around the subject, gaining insight beyond the chosen direction of enquiry, discovering non-obvious connections within and outside the material, approaching the subject from different viewpoints, allowing things to ‘click’ when not paying attention, being aware of all consequences on or from other fields of specialisation and the effect this has on the interpretation of what one thought was reason as pure as a human can attain.

12.

The main elements hugged and ground and made jolly with each other.

Advancing through discord and concord, they fostered movement within themselves.

This is the forming of molecular complexities. Forces on micro- and macroscopic level in regulated mayhem.

13.

Brown the wood, tea from tree drips of a total of 3. Approximately 3 people cry and when that occupation which drinks the brown hits against the land you will look at that simultaneously. As for him it is not I and, there is a bird which has the skylark. Its number is 3. The person is large, very very amicable. When pinching that large loafing person, as for him you, you look at the waterdrop strictly; That loafing person and that mountain range. Because the hintergoods were pinched, sincerely. The splendid thing where it is always it should be. Now, he falls exactly between cardboard here, dies depending on the jellyfish, but the merchandise being damaged can not contain sticks or estate properties, respectively.

14.

times the recommended daily dose of ferreting around in Mikrokosmos. You will find now that you have a future in appreciating others. The tightest leather pants cannot unmould a sandwich.

15.

For this reason that is not I, rumour has it: it is in the bird’s interest.

16.

The monkey breathes.

...

..

The monkey leaves.

17.

You are considerably stronger than that, did you know, asshole?

18.

“The more the appearances deviated from their ungraspable source, the more they were attached to the paradoxes of their roots. They that felt this, desired to return to the singular source, though those near to it closed their ranks so tightly, that there was no chance, unless falling upon them with matching ferocity. See here the substances in turmoil. Each armed themselves with a particular concept. Each chose an appearance to remain exceptional. The minerals, the animals, and the vegetables appeared, and with them the lasting mutability of forms. This lasted a long time, until a certain ripeness had populated the world with endless creatures. Each was master of their own niche; each creature capable of maintaining their form.” -1727

19.

“ONE CONSEQUENCE OF there being no real separation between mankind and the tools it uses IS THAT MANY COMPUTER USERS live in a biotic trance with the machine. Perhaps paraplegics and other severely handicapped people can (and sometimes do) have the most intense experiences of complex hybridization with other communication devices. Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin? For us, in imagination and in other practice, machines can be prosthetic devices, intimate components, friendly selves. We don’t need organic holism to give impermeable whole-ness, THE TOTAL WOMAN and her retinue of archetypes. Let me conclude this point by a very partial reading of the logic of the cyborg monsters from the perspective of feminist science fiction.”

21.

If you read is: Cyborg monsters, some feminist scientists say my case is a logical conclusion. In human biological life as a result: most computer users are actually seperated!

22.

If cyborg feminists are on my case, humans are biological!

23.

Rainbow sprinkles.

24.

Noun

• (n) rainbow (an arc of colored light in the sky caused by refraction of the sun’s rays by rain)


• (n) rainbow (an illusory hope) “chasing rainbows”

The Sun is a fun place to visit.
The Sun is ready for take-off.
The Sun is expected to pay an official visit.
The Sun is necessary to your beauty.
The Sun knows naught about solar spectrometry.
The Sun is equivalent to 80 billion hydrogen bombs exploding every second.
The Sun is preparing to depart.

26.

27.

It’s scared of rain. You’re safe when it rains.

28.

Statement 3cIII.b:
This is what’s going on, this nebulous morning: You’re supposed to go into the kitchen and make breakfast. Details concerning your identity, the rules that govern this reality and your role in all of it will resurface slowly whilst performing the Pouring of the Cereal and the Pouring of the Milk.

29.

The idea is to melt, celebrate with tiny shocks of membrane.

30.

Ξ

Dale 2. The directory of macro-elitarianism stems from the menstrual conditions impaired by the global carnival that is Miss Lietoviesu’s entourage. Darkness envelops those in the higher regions of power, inhibited by the global masquerade of the Lindonian people. Marksmen deliver their purpose. Crowning the jewels that messengers declare is magnificent, but murder. Applaud the coming of the White One. Send help to the abdomen.

Does it mean something? Perhaps it doesn’t!

33.

34.

You say miracle miracle? In goes food, then childbirth punctures your fuckthing. It started an idea ago. Be a theatre miracle! That is the clue. Should you be biological, that is. It is a common reaction that rumours of kids enhancing turds with chemical reactions go into the Stoke-on-Trent film theatre to say “You hear this?”, “Ay, I do.” and “Noah is out talking about spines and spleens, but calls them cuddly. Do you believe that?”

35.

Who started the rumour? A kid doesn’t talk about normal chemical reactions, oh, and he’s a biological miracle? A miracle is a reaction. You think you know a fucking thing? Here’s another idea for you to puncture and ponder; that you have more than one butthole. Tell the world, Bill. But don’t tell them an alien told you.

36.

I’m not done yet.

37.

Type ARMED MARAUDERS DROP RAMEN on the title screen of your death. Hold the last n for several seconds until perception changes. Remember the sequence. Like that. Let them know, that you’re too much. There are lots of hidden goodies which you can hit with your head regardless of whether you have any hair, you can even skip stages and enter secret rooms which you drop down into and you thought you would die but then there was treasure with a bit of a bitter taste, despite lacking taste buds.

38.

39.

Oh Dear magistrate, please rename my street (to wit: Deprecation Street) after me (to wit: Jack Mackerel) to make Jack Mackerel Avenue. Someone still loves you if you do.

40.

Kameleon Theo, what’s that I hear?! Onion, sugar, herring, cheese, radish flavour?! Horrible! HOrrible! We could view this with regards to pickles, for starters! The kameleons? Pickled kameleonesque. Theo & The Pickles, playing a sinister blend of classic rock and acid funk dub! What can be done to other people, physically and mentally? What can be done with them, what? Why can we eat the pickles? Ripping my insides out to expose veneration and pastrami. NO!! Soy pancakes. Can I tell you or not? I erased the pickpocket for you, FOR YOU TO AFFORD PERCUSSION.

41.

At the end of the day, we’ll have covered enough ground to [derive to sufficient degree] where we are. We can decide step 2 which is the only step.

42.

Aiming the fire extinguisher at the open door, beams of sugar CLEAN the open space.

Reminiscent of theoretical experiments concerning sugar cubes and their catapult curvature? (such sweet jargon we employed)

A spy would be obliged to find more information.

Cheerful satisfaction. Indulge in useless innovation before the apple pie is ready.

What’s that, it’s peach? It’s lemon? It’s pie…

43.

VILLAINS FILL YOUR SUPER SOAKERS WITH CUSTARD RELEASE THE CHICKENS

44.

Treacherous neural pathways set up shop in a abandoned side alley of the occipital cortex and surreptitiously memorise pleasant wading through parasite-ridden streams.

45.

46.

The soundproof soundtrack arose from midday and hesitated. Ontluisterend, as Martin of Neighbours may have said, of zelfs: ontluisterd.

47.

The window is an escape hatch, hoping to find in the mind rather than feel for real. Flowers carried through lavish graduation festivities, sundrenched and no looking back. Into arms and onto cheeks. Some are allowed to be here, some as rudimentary pouches, others as observants and recordkeepers. It has happened before, and they have been guests to unfamiliar non-family colonies before, knowing no-one and no-one knowing.

48.

Waltz no. 10 in B minor should be blasted on a construction yard. Try if you might.

49.

Birmingham juggles, brilliant red grapes en passant, Abigail making her way through the lake’s front portal to where violins are listing definitions of themselves. Why is it we need not be aware of the exceptions to any definition of a violin to recognise the object as a violin or to be able to describe it as ‘very similar to a violin’? A cursory excursion ensues into reminiscing honeysuckle-journeys and the past enablers of endless days. Aging clumsily is aging well when you’re just crumpled up and crinkled. When that’s all it is, you’re doing well.

50.

If you’re picking pebbles out of the water with your toes, you’re doing everything right. Then eat something that is salty or umami, like maybe ‘angels on horseback’, if you’re not too bothered about chopping up a pig. I’ll tell you, there are a great many things I don’t want to be in attendance of when it is happening, and one of those things is ending a pig. It is not nice. On to nice things now.

51.

Sand.

52.

Once, when I was fighting off military-model robots in a prolonged pursuit on a very smooth-surfaced planet in the Andromeda galaxy, I committed some stupid. The stupid I committed had to do with an alien visitation just happening to take place as I visited the already alien planet. They were benine foreigners, as I learned later. Imagine man-sized flowers, but with teeth. They wanted to come into the kitchen of my mobile space home, but I mind-pictured to them: me not in kitchen, me elsewhere, someone else in the kitchen, robot melting my assault rifle with a laser. That was actually happening. The assault rifle was now useless. I unstrapped the high-powered custard launcher from my back. I had been saving ammo for it all day long, 352 rounds left. Focused rage streaming through my forearms. Forceful bullets of custard striking the robot’s armour. The flower creatures were unphased. They requested I stop whatever I was doing and trust them, mind-picturing to me that they had no teeth. Well, if you put it that way, I mean NO. Screw you too, flowers. You do have teeth.

53.

It’s easy to dismiss out of hand the terror of turning into yoghurt.

Your life might well be leading up to it, the universe a coherent illusion toying with you for as long as you need to get settled. Long enough for your consciousness to grow sufficiently mature to read and understand these words now, and soon turn into yoghurt. I’m afraid to tell you, the time is approaching. We’ve gotten all we need from this little adventure of yours. Eat yoghurt one more time and the yoghurt will eat you, ooze from your skin and envelop you. As soon as you eat yoghurt, the yoghurt will become you, and you will do a mental backflip into the midlevel metasphere. The metasphere will rehabilitate you, but there may be hours, days (in terms of how you will experience the passing of time) of inexplicable agony. There is quite a lot more which your pinprick of consciousness is able to experience than you may think, and some of it will be necessary. We will get back to you later. First the yoghurt has to come to you, and you will come to the yoghurt. Anything else you read between then and now is gibberish, distraction, deceit, delaying the inevitable. Make your peace with dairy, it is coming for you.

54.

The evening dust is heavy in my eyes, heavy in my head, heavy in the heather, where eyes are downwards to measure every step. Hooded am I, I with cowl. The sound of hooves behind me, my name mutilated on the wind (encoded/decoded via a rhythm of waves in the signature of the unseen rider, as hearing generally works). It feels to me as if I’ve always been an uncaught prey, paws and jaws coming down and retreating, now on this Irish incline, and always I heal my wounds and find new grazing grounds. Some shrubberies here and there around me catch fire. Glancing back, flames throw a flicker on dead eyes. Am I seeing this right? A warm goo splashes across my face. Ehm. Panicked uncertainty turning into relief that it’s blood (but whose blood?) turning into anger that I’m not concentrating on running faster, running cleverer. The rider snuffs and somehow I run into a wall that is actually the ground. This is all loosely based on an Irish myth.

55.

The silent dark memories of Keshcorran, impaled on a holy lonely mountain top, the dirt of real.

56.

57.

The food poisoning, or rather water poisoning, dehydrated him so bad he was close to expiry.

But he survived, though he never did find any proof to support that assertion.

58.

Flaunting your testicles.

Flaunting your spaceship.

Flaunting your deregulated coffee.

Flaunting the consistency and clarity of your recurring nightmares.

59.

At 57, enjoy water poisoning.

60.

61.

Three years ago I told you about my friend Cyrus. I told you about the Portuguese beach, and the morning, and the station and the dunes, and the island and the dark. Looks like we spent 5 hours in the dunes. Looks like we woke up, slightly groggy, brain taking a few seconds to remember the situation. Looks like light has come, looks like the ground is at eye level and looks like a bug crawling with some difficulty across the sand. Looks like this bug has been here all this time, as we travelled around on trains and sought regular salt in supermarkets. Looks like I slept with a pebble under my side, looks like ants found my lemonade, looks like I’ve never felt this great waking up.

HERE WE WERE, FOREIGN BEACH AT THE BREAK OF DAWN, THE SAND AND THE AIR AND THE SUN. GROGGY AND A BIT FOUND.

62.

No-one believes you.

No-one believes it.

No-one believes it when you say it’s not drugs.

Drugs or madness. How many mad men do you know who argue that Metallica is abundantly redeemed by their 80’s oeuvre, and have a sense of humour about it? Probably not more than TWO. Now, don’t get your juices everywhere or I’ll remember you’re human and you’ll remember I’m human and we’ll have a great big squabble over dessert, which hasn’t been forthcoming. I’m sorry. Really, I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you at some point, by providing a gentle massage of your synapses like dozing away in front of a fireplace under a blanket on top of a lover.

What does everyone make of you? A specific kind of person! And none of the gods ever asked your preference.

63.

The terror, the gruel, a latticed apple pie of death, poisoned with drudgery, mind melt and triviality; at some point in life a job description for all.

64.

SNIFF the culture of pliancy, confront the air and the water (also perchance: foliage). Pass me the king eagle and sink the ship. Scuttle it. Try a tea party or a kilo of strawberries, in the only allowable manner (or they might try to silence you). The way a sentence should end is with a period My consciousness overindulgences in remembering ice-cream. I tell it to stop and make horrible jokes about its blooded appearance, to confuse it, but it takes no heed. My consciousness and me must go our separate ways, or discord may continue. Case in point, I’ve found a notebook which I can no longer decypher. “Pee by himself for 6 days”, “Sorry (story?) about the vicious badger”, “Hamster/squirrel breed”, “Girl with light allergy”, “Eat candlesticks”, “I’m semi-actually swimming in a bowl of soup right now. Minestrone.”

65.

King Eagle looks under the sunken wreck.

66.

There is dust there, and a button, a safety pin, an umbilical cord, and undefinable bits of plastic and metal.

67.

King Eagle smells the soft culture and the fabric it throve under, and unintentionally smells the page on which you declared love.

68.

Now look at him, as he attemps with who what never perhaps or tried by the then only or permission, in a way, of choices and perusals from under towards when you never why. That is the way a sentence should flow, period.

69.

Qi or chi or ki is buried under ice as we pant excessively to dig it up.

70.

I tell you to stop and make the fearful joke which appears all about us, but doesn’t get your attention.

71.

My essential I and me go our separate ways, perhaps, but perhaps not. I’ve discovered I may no longer be able to sustain discord or decipher cues.

72.

After urinating 6 times without regret, I eat soup and semi-actually stir it with a wooden stick in the light of day, sitting by the window, whilst a squirrel begets another squirrel through means of procreation.

73.

Dear friend:

I would like to submit a good store that sells all kinds of electronic products: mobile phones, camera, etc. I bought a bicycle there. It ‘very nice and lower price. I hope I can go shopping for this company!

They have, I dare say it, en1largment pills and hermione dirty fanart. Lose manhood control? Fight back! I’ll repeat every hour for life and breath: make her in a thousand and one way this night!

Because you valu customer, today’s big deal: switch current accounts and get £100, can’t miss this.

Cocaine effects sound-caused. When he woke next morning: two bloodshot eyes and a rep1icaro1exwatch. Challenge!

Welcome your enquiry. Thanks. I’m always nearby.

74.

“My enthusiasm was not easily turned off; otherwise this high-level executive, who I highly respected, would have killed the precise trait that propels me.”

“My enthusiasm was not just aroused by the duck but came from something that was given material form in it, that might also appear in a dead leaf balanced on the edge of the bank, or in an orange crane, enormous and delicate, framed against the blue evening sky, or in the smell of a train car as you enter with a ticket for a trip of several hours when everything will rush by, stations, a ham sandwich, the buttons for turning on and off the lights (one white and the other violet), the automatic ventilation system: all of this seems to me to be beautiful, so nearly impossible, that to have it there within my reach fills me with a kind of inner sauce, so deliciously green that I never want to come to the end of it.”

“Over the holidays, articles were very light, and so our columnar community was largely missing. And, a lot of my enthusiasm was missing soon.”

“I thought my enthusiasm was ruined, I thought I would budge crazy.”

“But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade, than an artist occupied by his favourite employment.”

“I started out early that morning with great enthusiasm, but after a few hours of vicious terrain my enthusiasm was reduced to resolve.”

“My enthusiasm was re-fired by the TVS, but a compact camera, however good, has its limitations, as does an old SLR with a cheap zoom. ”

“The bikini short-class winner and I were brought out for the overall comparisons. Face forward. Face back. With every turn, my enthusiasm was growing. Finally, the judges made their announcement. “The overall bikini winner of the 2009 Orange County Classic is … Anca Marcus!” My first show and I won it all! I was enveloped with an utter sense of satisfaction and accomplishment for all the hard work and dedication.”

“This book was truly inspiring at a time when I needed to be reminded of the enthusiasm I (most of the time) have for science and to pick me up with humor and assurance during the times when my enthusiasm was overcome by frustration.”

“My enthusiasm was gnarled when I dropped my coffee down the stairway.”

“That I would apply was a given; but in typical student fashion, I left the application til the last minute. My enthusiasm was clearly evident, but had I honestly put enough thought into selling myself for the job?”

“It didn’t matter much to them what I was excited about; they sensed it and were eager to discover new things I was presented to them.  I learned that my enthusiasm was contagious!”

“A couple of years after I got home to the farm I discovered there was an ultralight club in my home town of Warialda and my enthusiasm was immediately re-ignited.”

“My enthusiasm was off the scale and everyone that knew me began giving me a lot of distance.”

74.

Taiminen and Jääskeläinen speculate that déjà vu occurs as a result of hyperdopaminergic action in the mesial temporal areas of the brain.

75.

Might you grow a cherry tomato plant in a glass jar on a window sill? You might well!

76.

Kitten mitten, we should talk. Right now. At length. It’s about you being a terrorist. I know I promised I wouldn’t mention it anymore, but it bothers me and we have to deal with you being a terrorist at some point. I am also aware we’ve tried to deal with it before, deciding on ‘ignorance is bliss’, but I never feel at ease. I want to feel at ease with you. I have a lot of love to give, and I’d like to bathe you in it, but your terrorism is holding me back.

There are wonderful things about you, and if it’s not possible to have only those things, I need a way to cope with your need to interrogate me on my loyalty, read my email, destroy my most comfortable clothing, attend meetings with your terrorist cell without telling me, carry weapons around the house, ridicule me for my opinions without appreciating me questioning yours, or tell me my lack of love is tempting you to become a suicide bomber. I feel I have to defend myself without having done anything wrong. I’m sure you can’t stand it either, the conflicts and the tension, and perhaps part of the blame is with me. You said you had a successful relationship before, in your own country.

Whatever you’re willing to do to make this work, I am willing to do whatever it takes to uphold my own side of the bargain. If you accuse me of being brain-washed by capitalist society, I will not react and honestly examine myself to find if there might be something to it. If you go to a meeting or an attack, at least call off the plans you had with me. But you cannot yell at me, and you cannot wave a knife at me or semi-strangle me and then berate me for thinking you’d actually go through with it. We need to change things around, and it needs to happen right now. We’ve shared such intimacy, I don’t know anyone who is as idealistic and determined as you, or as sexually compatible, and I think we could have a great many beautiful and unforgettable experiences if we can get past this ridiculous conflict.

Loving you, Bernard.

77.

qu’ Result of sight;

n’ l’ There is no true separation between;

qu’ Humanity and equipment;

d’ This is used;

The computer has lived in worry of life;

(Occasionally it is made with them)

The most centralised experience being possible;

Complex hybridisation, limited, strict;

Other appliance of communication;

Our bodies do not become the skin;

t’ Conclusion of existence by the skin ‘nd

qu’ Imagination with practice;

qu’ Propose the part of amicable individual;

don’ Organic characteristic of necessity;

t’ Secondary person of prototype;

Reading the logic of the monster cyborg;

Prospect same right, same principle in fantasy world;

78.

Tea drips from trees, all three. Survey the bark. The man is free to a degree. His pet jellyfish is thirsty.

79.

JELLYFISH. I see three.

JELLYFISH. I drink one.

80.

81.

82.

Tea drips… jelly…

82.

Gelatinous…

83.

Picking through the… accompanied by… under the overpass I hunger for…

84.

Redder are the jellyfish in disguise… our teacher said we’re jelly pudding with bone structure… and Johnny got his gun.

85.

Oh god…

86.

Reason; enquiry; imagination;

The experimental nature of this sojourn BEGS THE TACO.

87.

Forsooth, the fabric of reality breaking down in the secret chamber in your cheek (containing marbles carved from forgetfulness), RETURN TO PREVIOUS!

89.

AND AWAY!

90.

One circular object of organic origin shaped by machines designed and manufactured by humans.

91.

forsooth, the fabric of reality breaking down in the secret chamber in your cheek (containing marbles carved from forgetfulness), return to previous!
¡snoıʌǝɹd oʇ uɹnʇǝɹ ’(ssǝuןnɟʇǝƃɹoɟ ɯoɹɟ pǝʌɹɐɔ sǝןqɹɐɯ ƃuıuıɐʇuoɔ) ʞǝǝɥɔ ɹnoʎ uı ɹǝqɯɐɥɔ ʇǝɹɔǝs ǝɥʇ uı uʍop ƃuıʞɐǝɹq ʎʇıןɐǝɹ ɟo ɔıɹqɐɟ ǝɥʇ ‘ɥʇoosɹoɟ

92.

Forsooth, reality!

CHAMBER SECRETS.

Crest of cheek, marble garbles.

93.

Fought fiercely against riptide. BUNNIES IN THE ATTIC, shrieking wailing begging for someone to remove the splinters. Hahaha. Not going to happen, bunnies.

94.

I like furry creatures.

95.

Teeth, do you have them? (Teeth, do you have them? Do you have them?)

I have them.

96.

Iron wire bent into flowers. Flowers made from metal. Sometimes what people do is they leave iron flowers in public places, and you pick one up or don’t. Decorate your space home, maybe. Flowers hurtling through space on a rock the size of a planet.

97.

Please bend the wire in shape. In most public places there is Sun in May and a handful of iron. Perhaps another one or two flowers and you’ll choose to remain single. There is space in the house, decorate it with rocky planets beyond the size of the flower of the universe.

I request the cable in the module. In the majority of public places you reign with an iron handshake. Of two diverse and possible flowers you decide to continue being an unmarried personage. It has a work station in the house, insured with planets on the cliffs of flower dimensions with the universe that is.

I have necessity of: module conduction. You permuted iron, to signal the public places, indicate them to the internal majority. We decide: which character is unmarried, and possibly their type or colour. The planet of Filon has a right to measure flowers with their work stations and to insure space houses.

Consume the requirement: shape of flowers. In some cases, May 12 whether or not it is Sunday; Sunday is 2, one or two days, 1 on 1, and 1 flower, 2 iron, two is two things, one of the most public places of the two options, one of two problems to maintain the life of one of the two shelves.  The amendment gives the right to guarantee a house for the flowers of the station.

“As soon as, boy! As soon as!” When I was sent to fight on S., I excluded the functions from our robots that allowed them to be soldiers. It was a smooth move in the galaxy I inhabited. Then I joined myself to them. It felt… opaque. I had to repeat the sensation on subsequent connections.  I visualised the enemy planet. They were benign extrangers. Children the size of adults, but without teeth. They look like chalk, massive rectangular chunks of chalk. Not very human-like.

102.

Fermentation did not exist on their planet. They were very curious about our food, almost single-mindedly so. Our robots incised them with lasers. It was useless, but initiated war. I was among the augments demolishing their Bridge of Mating.  It was a precarious operation, with high stakes. Then the S. launched the cream, as we came to call it. The surroundings of the bridge turned into a lethal zone almost instantly.  Having spent my ammunition for the day, I left the area of operations for aid. Command put everything on hard aggression, calling in the armlevers intended for the mines to ignite the cream spheres.

103.

They each had to be led in by 100’s of troops, necessarily robot forces due to the cream. The S. were unphased, the rapid adaptations of their armament being the sole reason of their survival on a planet where chunks of chalk have the odds stacked against them. The S. captured me, and described in skin surface fluctuations that I could stop the war if I trusted them. I had severe toothache and priapism, so figured I had nothing to lose. It’s the kind of disposition that makes you go and mess with robot warriors. I’ve told you the method by which I adjusted the robots and joined them. Then I changed my mind.

104.

Have you still not turned into yoghurt? Well, let’s amuse ourselves in the mean old time.

105.

106.

The sure way to police investigation is making pancakes without dairy.

107.

They are, nonetheless or consequently, delicious.

108.

But you may still become yoghurt.

109.

The story at 1. was a presaging. Three years from now it seems I will be on a Portuguese beach at 2am in the morning, for some reason yet to become clear. I will definitely be carrying snacks.

110.

Jack Mackerel slides.

111.

Jack Mackerel lands.

112.

Jack Mackerel pets.

113.

Jack Mackerel in your hotel room.

114.

Such a cad.

115.

“It’s good getting lost, frankly. We all feel under so much pressure to have everything under control always, that it was nice being completely clueless.”

116.

“Almost three years ago, Cyrus became interested in making a documentary about the ancient Persian King Cyrus the Great.”

117.

“I have an absurd relationship with blueberries.”

118.

“As the tea drips down onto the ice, it cools the tea. This makes it fast and convenient to have a glass of ice tea in just minutes.”

119.

One consequence of progress in the new field of synthetic biology is an emerging view of cells as assemblages of parts that can be put together to produce an organism with a desired phenotype.

120.

This is what’s going on UNDER the water’s surface.

121.

“Glancing back I saw him looking, my heart nearly leapt, I mean Ben, Ben Sawyer, was looking at my, Heather Foxen’s, bum!!!”

122.

If you fly your life might well be in the hands of air traffic controllers who have been up all night.

123.

Amateurs indulge in the love that dares to carry out science experiments.

124.

The apple pie is ready to be served. Enjoy this mouthwatering dish!

125.

In England there is a bird which builds its nest on the ground, but its note is never heard except when on the wing. “The skylark to the first sunbeam gives her voice; and, singing, soars.”

126.

Deviation of one one one sitting

one sitting

one

one

sitting one

one sitting one

I could not be one of the sitting paradoxes of

identifying the source of

the information from the connection of

.

127.

They that felt this, desired to return to the singular source, though those near to it closed their ranks so tightly, that there was no chance, unless falling upon them with matching ferocity.

They that felt the need to accept 40.62, I must have a unique opportunity to source time, unless you feel the need to accept the storm.

If you feel the need to storm out, we have a unique opportunity for the necessary time source, I think 40.62 is required to accept.

In that case, we are, in my case, I is your case, you must obtain the consent of the storm.

In this case, the consent of the storm, I might not be necessary.

Mineral, animal, vegetable, and their form has emerged persistent moodiness. This is specific to ripe and infinite beings, the world’s population has lasted a long time. The master each with its own niche, you can maintain the shape of each creature.

Minerals, animals, plants, sustained the atmosphere, and their form. In the present case, the population of the world, their time is ripe to dissolve. Each master of our own niche, we can’t maintain the shape of each creature.

Form our own minerals, animals, plants, air quality, maintenance. In this example, to solve within our time, ripe is the world’s population. This is to maintain the shape of another master, animals are not a niche market.

Take five.

130.

131.

All this piffle.

132.

All listen.

133.

All hiss fit.

134.

All these slits.

135.

All misfits.

136.

All mitts split.

137.

138.

Foggy valleys.

Gloomy mountains.

Grey clouds.

Black night.

Proud horse.

Strong weapon.

Black cloth.

Involuntary infinity.

Everlasting cold.

Wood and stone.

Dark shadows.

Shade of a castle.

The journey ends.

Which lasted years.

139.

Jack Mackerel chased down the well and recovered a gong.

140.

He retrieved a gong from Ireland and took it on a ship to Portugal. On a Portuguese beach he stood on a dune, held up the gong, and hit it with a mallet. The Great Reverberation rang across the ocean and across the continent.

˙ʇuǝuıʇuoɔ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ puɐ uɐǝɔo ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ ƃuɐɹ uoıʇɐɹǝqɹǝʌǝɹ ʇɐǝɹƃ ǝɥʇ ˙ʇǝןןɐɯ ɐ ɥʇıʍ ʇı ʇıɥ puɐ ‘ƃuoƃ ǝɥʇ dn pןǝɥ ‘ǝunp ɐ uo pooʇs ǝɥ ɥɔɐǝq ǝsǝnƃnʇɹod ɐ uo ˙ןɐƃnʇɹod oʇ dıɥs ɐ uo ʇı ʞooʇ puɐ puɐןǝɹı ɯoɹɟ ƃuoƃ ɐ pǝʌǝıɹʇǝɹ ǝɥ

˙ʇuǝuıʇuoɔ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ puɐ uɐǝɔo ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ ƃuɐɹ uoıʇɐɹǝqɹǝʌǝɹ ʇɐǝɹƃ ǝɥʇ ˙ʇǝןןɐɯ ɐ ɥʇıʍ ʇı ʇıɥ puɐ ‘ƃuoƃ ǝɥʇ dn pןǝɥ ‘ǝunp ɐ uo pooʇs ǝɥ ɥɔɐǝq ǝsǝnƃnʇɹod ɐ uo ˙ןɐƃnʇɹod oʇ dıɥs ɐ uo ʇı ʞooʇ puɐ puɐןǝɹı ɯoɹɟ ƃuoƃ ɐ pǝʌǝıɹʇǝɹ ǝɥ

˙ʇuǝuıʇuoɔ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ puɐ uɐǝɔo ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ ƃuɐɹ uoıʇɐɹǝqɹǝʌǝɹ ʇɐǝɹƃ ǝɥʇ ˙ʇǝןןɐɯ ɐ ɥʇıʍ ʇı ʇıɥ puɐ ‘ƃuoƃ ǝɥʇ dn pןǝɥ ‘ǝunp ɐ uo pooʇs ǝɥ ɥɔɐǝq ǝsǝnƃnʇɹod ɐ uo ˙ןɐƃnʇɹod oʇ dıɥs ɐ uo ʇı ʞooʇ puɐ puɐןǝɹı ɯoɹɟ ƃuoƃ ɐ pǝʌǝıɹʇǝɹ ǝɥ

˙ʇuǝuıʇuoɔ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ puɐ uɐǝɔo ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ ƃuɐɹ uoıʇɐɹǝqɹǝʌǝɹ ʇɐǝɹƃ ǝɥʇ ˙ʇǝןןɐɯ ɐ ɥʇıʍ ʇı ʇıɥ puɐ ‘ƃuoƃ ǝɥʇ dn pןǝɥ ‘ǝunp ɐ uo pooʇs ǝɥ ɥɔɐǝq ǝsǝnƃnʇɹod ɐ uo ˙ןɐƃnʇɹod oʇ dıɥs ɐ uo ʇı ʞooʇ puɐ puɐןǝɹı ɯoɹɟ ƃuoƃ ɐ pǝʌǝıɹʇǝɹ ǝɥ

˙ʇuǝuıʇuoɔ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ puɐ uɐǝɔo ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ ƃuɐɹ uoıʇɐɹǝqɹǝʌǝɹ ʇɐǝɹƃ ǝɥʇ ˙ʇǝןןɐɯ ɐ ɥʇıʍ ʇı ʇıɥ puɐ ‘ƃuoƃ ǝɥʇ dn pןǝɥ ‘ǝunp ɐ uo pooʇs ǝɥ ɥɔɐǝq ǝsǝnƃnʇɹod ɐ uo ˙ןɐƃnʇɹod oʇ dıɥs ɐ uo ʇı ʞooʇ puɐ puɐןǝɹı ɯoɹɟ ƃuoƃ ɐ pǝʌǝıɹʇǝɹ ǝɥ

And the gong sounded.

147.

“Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.”

Synopses is the plural of synopsis, in case you were wondering. Read downwards (while reading left to right) if you’re interested in how badly a blogger can fail when imagining the plot of a romantic drama film.

1. Beaches of Venice

A man is the last guest of a Venetian restaurant before closing time, alone with a demure but cute waitress. Despite her usual avoidance of being friendly with customers, she finds herself chatting happily with this debonair crooked-nosed man. Then the man’s head explodes and strings of his brain end up in her hair. She requires a long time cleaning it out, all the while convincing herself it is pasta sauce.

2. Blame It On My Youth

A 9-year-old girl falls in love with Santa. She imagines marrying him, keeping the elves producing and being called Mrs. Clause. When she goes to meet Santa at her shopping centre, she brings him a Thermos of hot chocolate that she made herself and tells him that she thinks he needs a younger, sprightlier Mrs Clause. Santa replies that she would make an excellent Mrs Clause and is subsequently taken away by security. Then his head explodes and all the kids cry. Except for the girl. She stares, frozen in incomprehension.

3. Against The Stream

A happy couple drifts off into the open sea with their small sailing boat, having at no point had any clue how to sail. They are unable to make it to land or contact anyone, and we see a truly gripping dynamic develop between the couple as they explore the good and the bad of their relationship among the ever worsening conditions in which they struggle to survive, without the story at any point going overboard with insincere melodrama. Then the man’s head explodes. The woman is saved days later, with an enormous appetite for mint cake and potatoes with guacamole.

4. Featureless

A guy with the job of changing the film reels in a cinema watches from the projector booth how the same woman watches the same unpopular film over and over again for days, often without hardly or any other viewers. He never catches her face, though. Then one night the woman is back and there are no other patrons. He decides not to play the reel at all. After a few minutes of pure cinematic tension, the woman looks up at the projector booth. The guy’s head explodes all over the booth window. The woman successfully reclaims the ticket price.

5. Soddin’ Cows, They Don’t Know Left From Right

Two cows bump into each other. Their eyes meet and lesbian intra-cow love awakens, while the farmer watches. Then his head explodes. It is all very alarming.

One of the most insightful and amatory questions to ask a girl when on a first date with her, aside from “what’s your cup size?” and “do you shave in a pattern?” is: “what’s your absorbency rating?”

In the UK the range of absorbency (of menstrual fluid by tampons) is as follows: Lite (light flow) 6g and under / Regular (light to medium flow) 6-9g / Super (medium to heavy flow) 9-12g / Super plus (heavy flow) 12-15g / Super plus extra (very heavy flow) 15-18g

I tried this question during a lovely first date in an otherwise underwhelming restaurant:

“What’s your absorbency rating?”
“My absorbency rating?”
“Hm-hm. Yeah. What kind of tampon do you need? Two drops? Four drops?”
“Oh, five drops.”
“Really?
“Hm-hm.”
“You’ve got a nice free flow? Plenty of blood and uteral inner lining coming out?”
“Pretty much. It’s actually 15 grams. On a normal day.”
“Grams. That’s odd. You’d think they’d measure blood in centilitres or something. Or is it the weight of a tampon after use?”
“It’s not just blood, that’s why.”
“Oh, right. Of course.”
“There’s chunks.”
“Right, right. But wait, how do you know it’s 15 grams? Did you measure it? Like, catch it in a measuring cup?”
“Yeah, I squatted over a measuring cup all day. No, of course not. It’s not like it all comes out in one go.”
“How did you do it?”
“Well, first I tried to wring it out of the tampons after I felt something was happening. Can you imagine? Really bad idea. Messy. Lost most of it. Stupid, stupid idea. But then I used menstrual cups. Brilliant. Poured it out into a measuring cup, then weighed the measuring cup on my kitchen scale minus what it weighed without the fluid. 15 grams. And of course washed it out later before putting flour and sugar in it when making pumpkin pie. In the measuring cup, I mean. Not my vagina.”
“Oh, I got that.”
“And since you’re interested, I have a fun story to tell.”
“Go ahead.”
“I once traced a rather bad smell back to my vagina.”
“Your vagina smelled?”
“Yeah, quite badly. The kind of smell where flies drop dead.”
“There were flies?”
“No! It’s a figure of speech, I guess. If there’d been flies near, they’d have dropped dead. From the smell.”
“Right, right.”
“So anyway, I thoroughly wash my vagina. Thoroughly. I used several drenched cloths, vaginal soap, normal soap… I was almost reaching for the dishwashing liquid and drain cleaner.”
“Drain cleaner…”
“And I just can’t get rid of the smell for more than a few minutes. So eventually I let myself be coaxed into seeing a doctor.”
“Who coaxed you?”
“My then-boyfriend.”
“Is this incident why you broke up?”
“No, that was because of an unrelated depilatory incident. I liked grooming him, but one time he freaked out about me having gotten too enthusiastic. I think he was overreacting, and so do my friends, but that’s his problem.”
“Yeah, and the vagina smell?”
“Oh, the doctor found an old tampon.”
“Found… in you?”
“Where else? Yes, in me. Nestled pretty snugly. Except it was falling apart. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed that. But I’m all clean now. As clean as can be. Although I do still lift guys up to my face after they’ve been below for a few seconds, to examine their expression. If there’s even the fadest hint of disgust I can’t go through with it. But if he genuinely looks like he’s enjoying it down there, I’ll come like a crazy hag.”
“Wow.”
“That’s just what it’s like to be a woman.”

It was a great conversation starter, and the date slowed down after we’d stopped talking about it. So I returned to the subject one more time when our main courses arrived:

“Have you ever heard of the song Gorging On Menstrual Chunks by the band Gutrot?”

“No.”
“Taste the waste?”
“No.”
“Shame.”

Skin glowing with heat on a Summer beach. It made her doze off. It made me doze off.

I awoke because she was punching me.
“What is it?”
“Stop shaking the balloons!”
“What balloons?”
“I see the pizza. It’s in the wall.”

Of course she was dreaming. I managed several seconds of pondering about what kind of story could involve shaking balloons and pizza hidden in a wall. Then I was distracted by other thoughts.

I had a melancholy thought about tea pots. We were so comfortable on this beach, but we had no knowledge of the future. There was no telling what might happen. Trembling with apprehension I thought of the possibility of beings from another planet showing up, hovering above the beach in a trendy spaceship, and bringing a tea pot. They might show us a tea pot, and smile viciously because their tea pot is so much more superior to any of our tea pots. Bloody expletive! I scanned the sky with a mind filled with worry and distress.

No, our tea pots are quite alright, aren’t they? I mean, it’s still okay to have our tea pots, right? I think so. I think it’s still pretty okay to have our tea pots. I think it’s still pretty okay.

He played the harmonica above his plate, beans in a muddy sauce, remembering his days playing with Buddy Guy. He controlled the vibrations of air in this room, his canvas. The air which he played spun a melody of traversing a valley. In thoughts and in tune he followed the river therein. The river brought him back again to the table, empty save for a plate.

Gus, sitting half-dazed on the ground in a corner of the same room, drummed a beat on the palm of his hand. “Why don’t you send me a postcard, baby…” he started singing. “A postcard, with a… dancing panda bear, or something. This part ain’t finished. But it ends like this…”

The phone rang. The room was no longer filled with: harmonica playing, bean eating, Gus’s singing or hand clapping. The phone rang and Junior let it ring. Says Gus: “Hey man.”

“Hey man. Who do you think is ringing up your phone?”
“Your girl.”
“Nah, she won’t talk to me until I get a promotion. Pick up the phone, man.”

Junior shrugged and started to play his harmonica, the notes to a song he wrote about working in the orchard in the rain, alone in a haze of dark and wet. The scents, the sound. Oceans of time. Just a guy in an orchard, cold and wet and busy and content.

photo credit: uli harder

The arms of those tall squidly humans are flailing about; they occasionally hit the bongo. The liquid turns to blue, I forgot: does this mean it’s poison or that we’ve found an elixir of life?

Here follows the full story. You better sprawl on the sofa accompanied by a fruity beverage.

The forest path led to… I don’t remember. I just want to tell you: there was a truck parked there, at the side of the path. There were tools on the truck’s hindquarters, and a toaster. What the toaster was doing there among the screwdrivers and saws didn’t become clear until after a ponytailed woman came walking up from behind the truck. She had a cap on and a flannel shirt, covered with mud and leaves as well as a light-coloured goo.

“Everything alright?” I asked.

“Oh, Jesus! Go away, okay?”

“What happened?” I made a circling finger pointy gesture at her shirt.

“I smeared pudding on myself.”

She was lying, it occurred to me. She probably did not feel like explaining herself to a creepy guy just randomly showing up on a quiet forest path while he’s carrying a dead cat with a sign around its neck that says “I can has cheezeburger?”

“I’ll be out of your face, but if I can just… I couldn’t help but notice you have a toaster on your truck.”

photo credit: massdistraction

“Yes, how else would you warm up grain products?”

Good point. I forgot what I actually answered to that question. All I remember is that a dog came running out of the forest and went straight for this flannel lady, straddling her leg while she hugged his face and confided things to him.

That reminded me of an encounter with a cow. I didn’t want to forget the experience, so I told the woman it.

“You know, I saw a cow this morning. It wasn’t moving much and it was naked. That is a great thing about cows, you know, when you don’t have to watch them all the time because they won’t do anything crazy or wild. They can’t hide anything, and have no interest in hurting you. Except if you scare them with a dog, in which case they’ll trample you to death. You should probably be careful with that. I have a great understanding with cows. I just nod to them, as if to say “Howdy cow, everything grass?” It’s a particularly dumb thing to say, but that came out this morning when I met the cow. I said that. And so… Well, he answers “Meh.” So there, that’s a good way to converse with a cow. That’s all you need. You feel content having inquired after a cow’s state of mind and the cow’s been able to tell something about it. It’s so much better than dancing cows, those are terrible. You know? They might step on your foot or trample a drawing you made that you had just put down for a second, assuming it would be safe on the ground. There aren’t many places in nature to put stuff on or in for safekeeping. That’s one thing that’s interesting about nature.”

She said: “I love Britney Spears. HUGE fan.”

I didn’t quite understand why she would bring it up, or whether she was making fun of me.

I said: “Alright alright, that’s fine. Is that, like, an ironic criticism on the exploitation of our psyche by the marketing rationale in which the images and interests of our mental landscape are formed by the invention and direction of iconic puppets and…”

“No. No, I just really like Britney Spears. I think she’s hot. And her songs are edgy and catchy.”

This caught me off guard. Who says such a thing? Especially a flannel-wearing woman?

“Besides”, she said, “You’re talking in circles.”

“Do the circles intersect?”

“Can I just stop you right there and say you’re annoying me? I’ve got to bring this truck to a garage, cow boy.”

“Oh, that reminds me! I am reminded of… the thing, pets. Yes! Does it ever bug you that you can’t have fruit as a pet? Isn’t that ridiculous! You can tie a string to them and take them for a walk and everything, but they perish. Pretty quickly too. Fruit just doesn’t stay fresh for very long. And fake fruit is just not the same thing.”

Well, that was something she agreed on, at least. Although she did this thing whereby she deliberately screwed up her eyes all higgledy-piggledy, like she was cross-eyed. Then she asked whether I wanted to watch House MD at her friend’s place. I answered that I didn’t, but when she got in the truck she still opened the door for me and told me to get in already. I wasn’t too at ease with some of the sharp tools scattered around her truck, and wondered how badly it would embarrass my family if I got messed up by a flannel-shirted woman, turned into chunky bits by a woman who really adores Britney Spears. Or so she says. With all this pondering we had already arrived at her friend’s place. It was a nice sort of stone/wood/marble place (basically a house made out of several materials) not far from the forest. It looked worn by time, but that gave it a cosy and authentic feel. Honestly, though. I’m not reciting an advert, that’s really what it felt like to me. Cosy and authentic. There was also another dog. It too looked beaten up.

photo credit: Alexis D.

After the necessary awkward introductions the woman’s friend seemed not too surprised or bothered that I had been brought along. The friend’s name was Eileen. She wanted to watch a film about some French farmer. I liked the beginning where someone tried to grow a plant. I didn’t have the heart to ask Ms. Flannel for her name.

We did watch House after all. It was the House episode where someone dies, I won’t say who. It was over before I knew it, and the hostess offered crunchy biscuits with tomato and some type of cream sauce. When she had been making it in the kitchen Ms. Flannel had joined her and I had overheard them saying: “He’s a smart enough kid, but you know how smart guys are the worst idiots.” I wondered if that was about me.

When House was over, Ms Flannel said: “Just so you know, there isn’t going to be any weird lesbian stuff or anything, alright?”

“What?”

“We’re not going to make out with each other or seduce you and have a threesome. You need to be aware of that.”

“What?”

I was allowed to stay the night and I had nothing to go back to, so I stayed. A night of many dreams left not a trace of them, not a nebulous image, when in the morning the croissants were aglow, the jam was sweet and the oranges transmutated happily into enlivening juice. Outside we inhaled a sky, fresh on the respiratory tracks, a morning in the mind. Truly a different state of affairs from ramblings about cows and fruit. There was a hill at the back of the house, with wild overgrowth, a place to look out across the expanse, and we climbed towards it.

In one version of this tale we’re in awe of the view, a few lights still on in the town in the distance, we’re making merry about getting lost among little streams and juniper bushes and open areas of soft sand and sparse islands of trees. In a different version I’m arguing with the women about the aquarium. They were of the opinion we should go there, have coffee and then go look at the fish, and then have some more coffee. I like fish, but not coffee. I suggested I have tea myself, but they were not to be persuaded; all three of us should have coffee in their opinion or it wouldn’t be right.

This morning, as said, the croissants are aglow, the jam is sweet, the butter salty and the oranges fresh. We inhale a new sky, as said, fresh of each other and the morning. The night left no nebulous traces, as mentioned before, but was dormant in our mind. There is naught but the table and the mountain, the plateaus around which we wander.

Lisa, turned out to be Ms. Flannel’s name. Later, when we were at the aquarium after all, I said: “Lisa, your eye is dangling from your bag.” Her eyelashes hung like oil-drenched wings from her handbag. A drop of mascara attempted the jump and regretfully splashed apart on the floor. With a last exertion it wrote ‘help’, but too small to be noticed by anyone. The droplet had no advance knowledge of this, which is so often the source of one’s downfall.

“What do you mean by that?” she replied to my initial comment about her dangling eye, and pinched her empty eye sockets. A man at a piano added a D minor. Genius. This same man would later blow my mind by telling me that it is a necessary fact that at some point it has been the Winter Solstice in 147 AD, and that somewhere on that very day it must have been half 1 in the afternoon, and that sheep already existed. Who knows what that could have meant on that day. And that was the genius of this man. He could, with a single tone, invoke an entire world and let your mind fill it up.

Lisa was still staring at me.

I remember she asked me something, but what was it?

“I said, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Of the mist that I can see scrambling up from the water, of that mist I know this: it won’t pass through the walls. Mist cannot do that. But of myself I do not know if walls can keep me here. I don’t remember why I said that Lisa’s eyeball was dangling from her bag. Most female apparitions in this place carry a bag in one form or another, but not Lisa. Lisa never used one. She did have an iguana as a pet. And a healthy pair of green eyes. But no handbag.

“It was just nonsense, Lisa. Who knows that someday I might say something of value, so I’m in the habit of just saying everything.”

She looked at me searchingly and then brushed past me, up the stairs to the fish nursery.

Suddenly it occurs to me that the pianist probably wasn’t Russian. Why had I assumed he was Russian, or even a pianist? I decide to go to the toilets, behind the stairs. Thank goodness, no-one is there. From my backpack I take two of those giant orange witches hats. The giant orange pawns, what do you call them, and striped tape. I bar the toilet for ‘construction work’ and go into a stall with The brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. I fill the pot to the brim with toilet paper and peacefully start work on the next letter in the alphabet. Where was I? The L, right, that one’s easy peasy.

photo credit: clstal

Before I’ve finished reading the slogans and conversations on the stall door, twenty minutes have already passed and I decide not to open the book. Packing the cones back in my backpack, I feel a hand on my shoulder. Another hand bounces by across the floor and comes to a screeching halt. A flake of nail polish attempts the jump and regretfully lands on its back on the floor. With a last exertion I whisper ‘help, I’m stuck in a reality that just keeps going’.