We Have Done the Things that Whores and Painters Do

Close your eyes; I'm alive in your dreams, back in Paris before the war. I am an artist and you are the whore in my painting. Just a whore though, not less, not yet. I have captured your secret on the canvas and you have taken me in ways that we will both surely remember and laugh about. My name for you is "Petits Four" and that is ironic now. I am a Jew.

For days and hours I was consumed by your incredible aesthetic symmetry, my brush refusing to perfect your delicate proportions. Then, gradually and carefully, I unveiled the turmoil and the lust that scratched at your skin from the inside. You were a beast and we were beasts together and you were naked and raw like nobody or nothing that had posed for me before. I painted quickly and honestly until you and I were finished.

Then, I could no longer hold your hand or look at you in your face. My eyes were infected, senses numbed. I took what I needed and left you in a splendid and chaotic heap. Now I am here, in your dreams, to tell you I am sorry.

And when my time is death I bid that you return to my dreams and apologize also. To be who we were, in Paris before the war, is all that I desire. Speak and I will forgive you for laying down, for whispering my name or shouting it in the ears of Le Bosch while you were doing unspeakable other things to their bodies. You were a whore and I was a painter. We have done the things that whores and painters do.

I Never Told You This But I Was Born on the Day You Died

I see you, not with my eyes or in yours, but in words on the screen and floating by. These words that cannot be forgotten or contained in my mind tumble down the side of a mountain at even the slightest sound or movement. I am buried all the time and every day but I can feel you unearthing this rubble and tunnelling through the ice and snow. You do and will stand before me, always, not in Paris or a dress, but when it matters; your thoughts in mine.

Hi Daddy

Hi daddy, remember me? You drowned when I was nine. I'm fine, though I don't sleep too well at night. Worming around, it's hot. My feet get tangled in the sheets and I don't think about you until eventually I do. Are you still in that box, in the dirt? I picked the shirt that you were buried in but I didn't go to the funeral. Mum said, well never mind why. I want to dig you up and look at you. Do you smell like the ground? I would like to hold your hand when I'm feeling down. Like now. Even if it is decomposing or completely bones I think it would help. Things aren't going exactly okay for me and I want to sit on your lap and smell your neck. My friend is really sick and there's this thing with this girl and I know I could be happy but I need to sleep. Will you let me go? I promise I'll be back by ten. Sorry, sometimes I pretend that you are here in my memories, all those years when I was alone.

I saw you in the pool by the way, that day, and all I can remember is that you had a moustache and your hair was matted down in a straight line from your belly button to the rim of your bathers. I can't even think what colour they were. Is that strange? Sometimes red, sometimes blue. I don't swim much myself. That's obvious I guess. My girlfriend's name is Huo, that's Chinese for fire. She says I should take all my clothes off and jump in the deep end. She doesn't understand. Or she does. Either way, she got a job in Hong Kong and she's going. She's leaving me and that's what happens isn't it? In the end.

Clowns

A palindrome is when a clown climbs out of the vagina of another clown. And then another clown climbs out of the vagina of the clown who is climbing out of the other clown's vagina. And then a third etc etc ad nauseam to infinity. It's confusing. I hate clowns. Just thinking about them like this makes me want to vomit in somebody's open mouth. And magic. What is wrong with people? If your job is being a clown or doing magic tricks then you are an asshole. An ass-hole with a hyphen. Sorry to be so blunt but what the fuck is wrong with you? Do something else. Get a job. Watch TV. Rob a bank. I don't care. And this never-ending circle of clowns birthing clowns, is this what my life has become? Do I read the same backwards as I do forwards?  

I guess so. It's snowing now and it's weird because my thermostat is set at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If you live somewhere where weather is measured in litres then you should know that 80 degrees Fahrenheit is hot. Even though it is freezing outside, literally to the point where the sky is cracking wide open and falling into great white mounds in my driveway, it remains uncomfortably warm in my house. I wear shorts and drink beer and shout BOO YA at my dog just like I do in the summertime but it isn't summertime and everybody knows it. All it takes is one look outside and it all comes crashing down. God's sleety jizz splattering against the windows, gutter sluts doing whore angels in the dirty snow; it's winter out there and I hate it.

But no matter, I will get in my car and drive to work tomorrow, sliding around on the icy roads and when I get there I'll tell Dave he's a cunt and I'll schedule a meeting to brainstorm ideas for next week's meeting and then I'll drive back home and eat dinner alone with the phone in my hand and I won't call my father or my children and I'll watch that show about the guys who say funny things and then I'll go to bed and record my innermost thoughts into a tape recorder that I hold in my hand above my head and I will accidentally drop it and it will land on my face and I will say something like "that's about right."

But the next morning, well maybe not the next or the one after that, but one morning I will listen to the previous night's recording and it will say "clowns are okay" and I will look into the mirror and I will say "clowns are okay" and that will be that. And people who do magic I guess.

Bieber Christ

Our Bieber who art on a poster above my bed,

hallowed be thy hair.

Thy kingdom come

My hair will be done

at Supercuts as it is on your head.

Give us this day our daily four page spread in People magazine,

and forgive us our listening to Justin Timberlake before we knew about you,

as we forgive you for being Canadian,

lead us not into a bad haircut,

and deliver us from having to figure out any complex meaning in your songs.

For thine hair is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Stuck in the Moment

It's 1979 and Justin Bieber has just bombed the Masjid al-Haram, Islam's holy site at Mecca. Pakistani students are storming the local offices of Bieber's record company, Island Def Jam. They are burning it to the ground. I am in a reinforced safe room in the basement and I am okay. I'm writing with a pen on some paper and there's a girl and she is painting a picture of a man without a face. It's a protest piece. Something about facial recognition technology. She asks me what I'm writing and I tell her that it is a script for a TV show. It's the final episode of Welcome Back Kotter.

"What are you talking about?" she says. "Welcome Back Kotter came on before I was even born."

I tell her what I'm talking about. "It's the one where Horshack is dealing with being married and Freddy and Epstein have a fight."

"What year is this?" the girl asks. Then she says "look at your phone."

"My phone says it is 1979."

"Your iPhone?"

"Yep, 1979."

And now things are weird between us. And someone is pounding on the door. It's Bieber.

"Let me in," he says.

"Let him in," the girl says.

"Don't come in," I shout. "You'll fuck everything up."

"Can't stop me," Bieber says. "I'm a member of the United States 361st Psychological Operations Company."

"Shit," says the girl and then she sends me a text message. He thinks we're terrorists.

Terrorists.

TERRORISTS.

The word is in my brain. TERRORIST.

And things are changing. There are thoughts. Memories. TERRORISTS.

This isn't a record company. They think I'm a terrorist. The music is loud. It's hard to think. Why do I have my phone? Why is she texting me?

"It's in the painting," she says. "Tell me about the painting."

"It's not my painting."

"Look at your hands," she says. "Tell me about the painting."

My hands are splattered with blood.

"It's paint," she says. "Tell me about the painting."

I'm closing my eyes and I can see things inside of my mind. Words and diagrams. Calculations. Code. Hardware. Wires and lenses and plastic casings. I'm inventing facial recognition technology.

She's sticking a needle into my veins.

"I'm an artist now," I say.

"Once a terrorist," she says.

"But I sold it," I say. "To the FBI."

"Indeed," she says. "But what came next. Ibiza, of course. But what after that?"

"Art," I say.

"You don't think we would track someone like you? Tell me about the Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics."

"I packed it in after Ibiza. I swear."

"Tell me about the Hojatoleslam wal-muslemin."

"I was studying," I say.

"Studying what?"

"Fiqh, kalam, Bieber, tafsir, philosophy, science, language, literature. Please turn the music off. I can't think straight."

"You were Hawza."

"No," I say. "They wouldn't allow it. I was just learning. About myself. About the world. People."

"Bombs," she says.

"Bieber," I reply. "BIEBER."

I'm awake now. Bed. Hospital. Pakistan. The nurses are laughing and there is a soldier.

"You told them everything," the soldier says. "You should never tell them everything. Now come with me. We're going to see Justin."

Stories from Second Grade

ha aha hah aha h I just found these stories at my mum's house. I wrote these in grade 2. In 1978.

Dragon

Witch

If I Were a Ten Cent Piece

Shoes

Holes in You

His words are drill bits, rotating, poking so many holes in you. The torque and axial force, spinning verbatim,  breaking the skin, tearing through your muscles and veins and blood and organs and brains. Your bones are shattering and it hurts.

And when the words stop, the taste of titanium nitride lingers on his tongue, in your mouth and in your throat. You are affixed to a wall, a small picture of the wide open ocean. And battling the waves within the painting is a sinking boat in a storm. The sails are torn and the mast has snapped. Too far out, can't get back. Everyone on board will certainly drown.

But he'll stop drilling, God willing, and eventually take on other projects. The screws will loosen, over time, and you and your picture will drop to the ground to be found one day by the workman's brother: a silent man who talks with his hands and then you will finally understand the beauty of language.

About Girls About Women

Known a few girls, been with some women. Don't understand them, guess that's a given but sometimes I catch a glimpse and it's real. The dancing chimps, the boys and the men doing the things over and again, they don't see it, they don't know, cold mornings pissing in the snow while the girls and the women inside of the house and inside of themselves are warm and thinking and not scared of that mouse but screaming out loud, not scheming or tricking but what has happened to Daryl Hannah's face? It was weird to begin with but now and holy cow this is how they do it. Just when the locks are tumbling into words from the mumbling the birds start chirping and the girls and the women are back under the covers calling their mothers, seducing their lovers and it's okay and it's good. But the girls and the women are like ancient trees in a Sicilian forest, Chestnut Trees of One Hundred Horses and all I can see is the wood. A table, a chair with pretty hair and maybe the boys and the men don't even care but I want to tie a rope to the branches and swing back and forth until I have counted all of the leaves above. 


If it was me I'd never cut down a tree just to count the rings in its trunk. But the ramus supporting my rope will eventually crack and I'll be back in the snow with the rest of the boys and the rest of the men. Not trees any more, the girls and the women are springs, water from the mountains or jumping things. If only I could stretch them out and lay them flat, maybe they would recoil with me in the middle. But the riddle about girls, about women remains. And whether the sun shines or the heavens give rain, I'll always enjoy playing these games. I'm in love. 

Got No Soul

Got no soul, I'm a butterfly. Little girl's gonna catch me and watch me die. Ask her mum where I went:

"Not up to heaven because he wouldn't repent."

"What about hell where the bad folks are sent?"

"Just a ball of dust is all," she'll say, "now go back outside and play."

Little girl will look up at the sky to see if she can find another butterfly pretty as me.

Kid Can't Dance

Okay, yeah he's alright. Kid can't dance and his pants are too tight but his eyes they shine like diamonds when he looks at her and he buys her flowers and opens the door, nothing like the guys she's been with before. Kinda weird I guess that chin beard and leather jacket and country shirts and jeans tucked into his boots and his hair all combed down to the side but the little things like letting her drive and choose the movie and I bet he goes downtown when they're getting groovy. And she's happy in her face and in her brain not just smiling to cover the pain but actually calm and comfortable and so happy deep down inside her guts and I'm telling you this as someone who used to think that slut was nuts. She's a different person now but the same, better like a cloud that dumped all its rain and he is the reason why she is no longer batshit insane.

She's in the present, now, wrapped up with a silk ribbon and a purple bow and I need to open the box. There's something in the future that I've seen in the past. I've got to tell her that this thing, this kid, it's not going to last. He'll change and it might be tomorrow or next year or in ten, I can't really say exactly when but one day he'll wake up and instead of fetching coffee he'll tuck back in and think "what the fuck am I lacking" and he'll realize that nothing is ever about him. He won't go with her to Ikea because he's sleeping in. He'll masturbate then put on that t-shirt she hates that says "I play to win."

She won't notice of course or she'll make excuses and when they're married he'll make jokes about whips and nooses and they'll have some kids and get divorced. Better that I tell her now I guess that this kid who she thinks is more will end up less. "Take a deep breathe," I'll say, "count up to three. There'll be someone else, someone better, just wait and see." Then one day I'll get down on one knee and tell her that someone is me. And I can dance.

Standard Disco Beat

A team, led by Nick Neave of Northumbria University in England is filming 19 men aged 18-35 in a lab as they dance to a standard disco beat. One of these men, the one with the tapered jeans and oversized black and white checkered shirt, is Maximilian Müller formerly of Munich but now living in London Central with an Australian girl named Jazzberry.

What am I doing here, wonders Maximilian, who has recently begun thinking his thoughts in English. In this lab, dancing, in this cold city working with deceptive people and electronic machines that possess no physical feeling or sensation. In my life, what am I doing?

That night, while dining in a curry house on the Piccadilly end of London's Regent Street, Maximilian shares his thoughts with Jazzberry.

"You are doing fine," she says calmly. "You are happy with your life."

"I am happy with my life," repeats Maximilian.

"You are in love," says Jazzberry.

"I am in love," repeats Maximilian.

"And you are a good person," says Jazzberry

"I am a good German," says Maximilian. Then quickly, "no, that's wrong, isn't it?"

"You are a good person," says Jazzberry again.

"It isn't working," says Maximilian.

"Try it again."

"I can't think straight in this Gott-verlassen language. Why are we doing this?"

"In time, the questions will be answered," says Jazzberry. "For now, we must get on."

Maximilian closes his eyes. "Yes, we must get on," he says. "I am a good person."

"That's fine," says Jazzberry. "Enough for tonight."

The next morning, Maximilian wakes up, as he has every morning for the past six months or so, on the very edge of his king sized bed, ultra-soft 700 thread count sheets pushed down by his feet. He is naked. He lives on the 7th story of the Think Tower Bridge, in a serviced apartment, and there is a glass of freshly squeezed mango juice waiting for him on the bedside table. He can hear Jazzberry talking on the phone in the other room.

"Marvellous. Very talented. He's really coming along. Trust me. Oh, he's awake, I've got to go."

Jazzberry, also naked, now enters the bedroom and leans up against the the large glass window.

"I heard you just now," says Maximilian.

"Then I will kill you," says Jazzberry with a smile.

 "You will kill me," repeats Maximilian.

Now forty years have passed. Maximilian is old and he is fat and there is a package on the ground outside his front door with his name on it. Maximilian falls to his knees and he cries. He slides his finger under the tape and a pain shoots up through his arm and into his elbow. His body is like this now. Inside the package is an electronic device. He turns it on and then off again within an instant. It is a film of young men dancing. He does not want to be reminded of this time in his life, of the things he has done since learning to contort his body to a standard disco beat.

The very next day, while riding the number 103 bus, Maximilian dies. Quietly and alone.

Sexy Christian Girl Praying on Her Knees to the Sky

The sexy Christian girl praying on her knees to the sky wonders why jockeys vomit on the daily. She prays on it, out loud, and then turns to the young man who is kneeling beside her.

"It's disgusting," she says.

"Nothing is beautiful," Donnie replies. "Apart from God, obviously. And your gigantic tits."

"Donnie!" Shouts the sexy Christian girl who has just finished praying on her knees to the sky. "Stop it. You know I don't like it when you covet my body like that."

"Well, we all do it. You have to," says Donnie.

"It's gross."

"So is horse shit. But it's a part of the game. If you want to ride then you've got to stick your weight."

"Can't you just eat less?" asks the sexy Christian girl who is no longer praying on her knees to the sky.

"God made doughnuts, didn't he?" asks Donnie. "Why should I not partake in something so heavenly?"

"You don't have to eat the whole thing, though," says the sexy Christian girl who is still not praying on her knees to the sky. "You could just lick the sugar off the top."

"I've tried," says Donnie. "But once you get a taste..."

The sexy Christian girl returns to her knees, as if to pray to the sky once more. 

Donnie unzips his pants and smiles. "This will help," he says. "I'm still a couple of ounces over my weight."

"Okay," says the sexy Christian girl who will soon be praying on her knees to the sky again. "But next time you better lick the doughnut."

Enith Brigitha

My contribution to xTx's Zombie Summer ... (click Enith's tongue to go to the story)

14

Coke for breakfast; cola in the kitchen and a little caine she'd stashed away, this day, another day, another one just the same. Whiskey will shape her words tonight and smoke will mellow her voice. Or harden it, not sure but you like the way it sounds; she's fourteen. She binges on the adulation then fingers her throat, purging until she's empty inside and she is.

Her words are worth a thousand pictures of her plaster-cast painted smiling face because each one is part of the puzzle; each word has its place and when you listen and not just listen but understand then you will know that it is raining on the other side of the house, it's cold even though you are sitting in a square of sunshine on the carpet staring at the blue blue sky out of the only window in the room. The dog is basking too and you're reading a book and it would be so easy for you to just stand up and open the back door and stick your hand out and feel the tears that slide down her cheeks at night but instead you turn the stereo up and adore the voice of a woman who is singing to you through a child's mouth.

Undercover Stuntman

I'm an undercover stuntman. And a part-time grizzly bear.

I built a robot. And taught it how to "reach around."

I fought in the war "without a helmet."

I was a power ranger.

I was the stunt mustache for Burt Reynolds in Canonball Run Two.

I can tumble down the side of a mountain without breaking any bones.

I killed a ninja.

I wouldn't let let the doctors take my appendix out.

I drive a Mazarati that used to be leased to DMX's cousin.

I own a sandwich shop in conjunction with Matthew McConaughey.

I have an appropriate ballsack to penis ratio.

I slipped the maitre d' a twenty.

I capitalize appropriately.

My t-shirt fits snugly.

My pants are made from the finest Italian leather. Natural oils within the leather prevent chafing.

I am handsome.

I am the Great Dane of people.

So who are you to de-friend me on Facebook?

11/11

Dear Taylor Swift,

Sometimes I dont know if things are real and they told me that I am a "head case" firstly the first part is that I am a head case and I think I have to tell you that. And secondly of all I want you to know that I didn't rape that girl in 1976. 

After the concert you hugged me for seven seconds and you asked me if you could touch my hair which was sweet because usually people just touch it without asking and it makes me uncomfortable. But anyway, wow. I still can't believe you hugged me for seven seconds. I hope you don't mind but I spent most of those seven seconds pretending that you were a grizzly bear and I was all chewed up inside of your stomach. You were digesting me and all I could hear was your heart beating and gas rumbling through your colon. You fart, too, Taylor Swift and my daughter says that you're a slut. That's pretty harsh. I don't think you're a slut. I think you've probably been with a few guys. Done things with them. Ha ha I can just picture it. I'm still thinking of you as a grizzly bear I guess. But that doesn't make you a slut. I think sluts are more hardcore. Just doing guys all over the place. My daughter thinks that any girl who wears stockings is a slut.

I know you don't care what my daughter thinks but you should care what I think because I am a fan of yours. I listen to your music and I log on to your MySpace and I go to your concerts and you hug me.

What I am actually writing to you about, though, is 11/11. Those are my numbers. Everything. It's hard to explain but bad things can happen. If I don't, when I don't complete an 11/11 do you know that bad things happen? I don't want to freak you out because it is really just something private that I live with and people tell me that bad things won't happen but they do because I've tested it. People fall out of windows. For example every year on November 11 I have to write 11/11 eleven times on a piece of paper and at 11:11 on the clock I have to touch each one of my toes eleven times and each one of my fingers eleven times or somebody will definitely fall out of a window and even when I write or say 11/11 there are things I have to do it is very frustrating and this letter has already taken a very long time for me to write.

So I just want you to know and I need you to that you can't just play around with numbers like they don't mean anything to anyone. Why did you choose to release "Fearless" on November 11? My daughter says it is because 11/11 is just the same number twice and it is easy to remember and that it has nothing to do with people falling out of windows but you need to know that what you did, because of you a little girl who was only three years old fell out of a third story window of her apartment and she died and I know that it's my fault because I did not buy your CD until the following Thursday. But it is also your fault because you were the first 11 and I was the other 11 do you understand? There are always two parts and I am always the second part and the first part is the one that has to stop because once the first part is there I have to complete it and sometimes I can't do it in time because I was in the hospital and you can't buy CDs in the hospital. You are a nice person and pretty and such a beautiful voice but letting people fall out of windows is not being a good role model and now that I just found out that you have been nominated for the Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year and that award will be announced on November 11 I want you to please not win it even though I know you are going to win it or maybe you could just not show up that night okay? I will try my best to be ready to do my things but sometimes they don;t let us watch TV after 8PM so what can I do?

Oh, I better sign off now. I just dropped my nuts on the floor and I don't want the baby to eat them.

Your biggest fan,

Rick Morgan

11/11  11/11

11/11

11/11

11/11 11/11 11/11 11/11 11/11 11/11 11/11

I Watch People Die

Her face is lovely. Freckles and eyes. That smile, warm like the tiles on the side of a pool in the summertime. I dangle my feet over the edge and watch her slip under the water. Her skin, so white it's green, soft and her hair is a jellyfish; the tentacles dancing in their pyjamas, laughing and jumping on the bed with no grown ups and the boys are downstairs watching TV. She crouches down on the bottom of the pool and I want her to stay there because she's happy and I want her to live forever, ever down there where everything is in slow motion, a dream. But now she's launching herself up through the water and her head is born again into the daylight and she's splashing me. Laughing but she's dying. I can hear it in her voice and see it in the goosebumps on her forearms. She's cold. The other girls in the pool, too. The boys. They're changing, the water now draining from their faces like blood. I won't tell her, though, what she doesn't want to know. I'll say something funny and pretend to fall into the pool. I'll cradle her like a bride over the threshold and we'll spin around and kiss. We'll share a lemonade and lay out in the sun with the radio on and we'll talk about a book that she read and when she sleeps I'll sneak away. I'll go and watch some other people die.  

Snatch Match Dot Com

So many of my friends are single and AWESOME and for one reason or another they are having a hard time snatching up the perfect mate. That's why I've invented SnatchMatch.com! It's a scientific-based, patent-pending calcularization machine that is guaranteed to help singles snatch up compatible (and AWESOME) partners before they are whisked away by some dude/lady who is NOT VERY AWESOME!

So if you are single and AWESOME then simply answer the questionnaire below and you will be connected with someone who is just as AWESOME as you! Or don't. But if you don't you will probably end up with someone like my friend Mitch (he's definitely NOT AWESOME! but he is my friend so don't say anything mean okay).

1. What's your favourite episode of Quantum Leap?
   
2. [FOR GUYS ONLY] Do you consider yourself more of an A.C. Slater, Zack, or Screech. Keep in mind that A.C. Slater allegedly raped that one girl. And Zack used steroids to pump up but that was back in the SBTB days. And Screech is a douchebag but he allegedly has a huge penis (okay, not allegedly; I've seen it and it is very big)?
   
3. [FOR WOMEN ONLY] If you were in a gang would it be "The Knuckle Sluts," "The Vadge Hammers," or the "The Sarah Jessica Parker is Attractives"?
   
4. [FOR RICKY SCHROEDER ONLY] What's Alfonso Ribeiro really like? He seems like an okay guy but you can never really tell with celebrities.
   
5. Who was the boss?
   
6. Delicious bananas with a slight tinge of green on the skin or gross bananas with disgusting brown spots on the skin?
   
7. Dudes who say "Bro" or bros who say "Dude" or both (Matthew McConaughey)?
   
8. Golden Girls or Gilmore Girls?
   
9. Sexual fantasy: something to do with onion rings or Michael Winslow doing helicopter noises?
   
10. Perfect date: dinner and a movie or dinner and a movie with Elliot Gould in it?
    
11. Julie Andrews showing her boobs in the movie "S.O.B." (essay question)
    
12. Sexier: Mel Gibson on a racist tirade or Robin Williams in the nude?
    
13. If you met Ian Ziering in real life would you pronounce his first name like Ion or would you just go ahead and say it like Ian even though you know he prefers it like Ion.
    
14. Does this questionnaire have too many references to TV shows from the 80s and 90s: yes, no, or Mayim Bialik?

That was easy wasn't it? Now sit back and relax while your results are calcularized. You will be snatchmatched to your perfect AWESOME mate in no time!

Putting Things in Other Things

I suppose everyone puts things in other things to some degree but for me it's a compulsion. Not a sickness so much as a way to push through, to belong, to get on with all those people who walk and work and play and touch my life in random ways, completely unrestrained. I dread the mornings, that moment, the very second I'm awake when thoughts and dreams remain, not yet reconciled, scattered on the floor. "I'm in my room, in my bed, behind the door," I think to myself and then out loud I say "snakes eat mice" and it's that advice that allows me to sort my life into folders. Trapper Keepers for things to do, for feelings felt, for ways to start the day. "I'm okay" I say as I put my legs in underpants, feet in socks, then in sneakers, cereal in a bowl. Sandwich in a bag. Body in the car. Now I'm the buttons in a jar that I used to collect when I was two. The coins in a box, or found feathers that I stuffed in a pencil case, zipper closed to keep them in place.

But the containers are dropping, they're falling, now spilling, I'm spinning out of control. The mouse has escaped, or been set free by the snake, oh my snake is a girl. I know who she is, and I am the mouse. Still, I'm falling, not floating, closing in fast on the ground. I'm not in my car and my stomach is dry, no shoes and no pants, no time to ask why. I can see my house now down below, no roof and no walls, a sound I don't recognize. This is nice. The zipper is opening, the feathers have spread, the girl, she is my wife, waiting naked on our bed.  Hovering just above, my thoughts are now clear, nothing in anything as far as I can see. She's saying something, my wife from the bed. "Put yourself in me," she whispers and I will. She's the only thing I want or need to fill. That night my dreams and all those random thoughts, they converge and intertwine, neat but not sorted into files. The next morning she rolls over and touches her fingers to my eyes. "Go back to sleep," she says and I do, for once knowing that everything is fine.

She Sits in the Corner

She sits in the corner, with a notebook scribbling, reading, thinking, bleeding, and I wonder why she isn't beautiful when she writes. No lights tonight but the TV is on with the sound turned down and it's hot. She's not drunk but she's drinking wine and not eating the grilled cheese sandwich I made for her with tomatoes in it. I've eaten mine. She'll take her shirt off in a minute and I'll look at her breasts, dripping with sweat, and then I'll probably take the rubbish out and check on our daughter. She asked me once, our little girl, why you can't fill a net with water. I thought the answer was simple at the time, because of the holes in the net, and yet here I am, asking the same and now I think it has more to do with the water, the way it flows, the way it knows where it wants to go.

Now I'm in bed and it dawns on me, while she's out there, left hand tangled in oily hair, right hand clutching the pen too tight. Ever since the night we met she's been swirling around and through my net and when she sits in the corner with her notebook scribbling I can see it in her eyes. The anger and the fear, not hers but mine. She is beautiful, in fact, divine. I am the one who is ugly when she writes.

Quarter Past Nine

At all times, in his briefcase, by his side, he carries with him secret thoughts of suicide. A certain sadness, a Rubik's cube, and a lunch box packed with food that he doesn't like. Words scrawled on a notepad that he can't remember or understand. He tries to read between the lines, "everything's fine" but it's raining now, not water from above but lies, he's soaking wet, not dead yet but drenched by her betrayal. It's hard to distinguish between the love and the pain, both so heavy, he switches the briefcase over to the other hand, fingers slipping in the rain. He wants to set it down, to sever the ties but instead his veins are calling his name in a voice that sounds like hers.

It isn't her, though, he knows that briefcase was a gift at birth. Oh, the days that have begun and ended with crying, the nights alone, the dreams of dying, pondering the difference between life and nothing. Walking the earth, under the dirt, buried while all those people float on by in their balloons. Just once, when he was a boy, when he was a man, he wanted one of them to reach down and take him by the hand. Lift him up and carry him along, teach him the words to their impossible song. They tried, some of them did, some of them ran, some of them hid. But there were friends and lovers and strangers, too, who laid out plans, who drew Venn diagrams, who scribbled pictures of sunny skies. And he was happy for days and weeks and months and years or maybe not happy but okay. But like kids in the park he keeps coming back to that slide, scorching hot from the sun, the one that burns the backs of his legs as he begs for his feet to land on the ground but somehow on the way down he always flips back around and lands upon his head. Then the briefcase tumbles behind and there it is, always is, and it opens his mind to those ever present thoughts of death.  

Then on the train he overhears a kid with a giant face, a Muppet with messy blonde hair say that life isn't fair and suddenly it all makes sense. Everybody's going to die, it's just a matter of time. And now his watch says it's a quarter past nine.

Let The Children Sleep For Now

Let the children sleep for now, may the darkness keep them warm. With the sun will rise the truth; their world will crack at dawn. No father now, their mother now weeping in her bed. Let the children sleep tonight, the devil's name unsaid. Star Wars sheets and pillows soft, these dreams cannot be torn. But the bastard of death he waits not long before he must be born. So let the children sleep for now, calm before the storm.

How's Your Wife?

I know Larry from work but also because he went to high school with my wife. Sometimes he'll say "How's Sheryl?" or "How's your wife?" and I'll tell him something funny like "still slutty." Small talk from a small man as my wife would say. But this morning, well first off Larry went way around the back way through the copy room and he never goes that way because he drinks coffee in the morning and the coffee machine is right across from my cubicle but this morning I saw him double back that other way so that's strange for starters and then at lunch when I saw him in the cafeteria he started fumbling with his phone like he was willing it to ring but it didn't. Then when I say "hey Larry, how they swinging?" his face gets flush like I just asked him to squeeze my balls and he says "yeah" and I says "yeah, what?" and then that's when it happens.

"How's your wife?" he says but not normal like every other day it's all in slow motion like "how ...'s .... you....r....wi....fe?" and the corner of his mouth turns inside out then starts flicking up and down like some kinda weird tick and I can see panic in his eyes and he stumbles backward like I just socked him in the guts but I didn't even touch him.

Then all of a sudden there's no blood in my head. My hands and feet are tingling like how when you sit on them for too long and my stomach is warm, so warm like gross warm, and this is what people feel like when they get stabbed or more like when their throats get slit. Next thing I know I'm on the floor and Hector and Karen are touching my face and saying things but where's Larry? He's gone home they say, wasn't feeling well.

Then the end of the day comes around like it does every other day and I start back to thinking about what happened earlier in the morning and at lunch time and it hits me in the brain what my body somehow caught on to hours ago. And I always said I would never be mad at the other guy because I ain't married to him but the rage was coming and I was grabbing stuff like things that could maybe do some damage and Larry's fucking tick face was the only thing I could see through the mist of anger. Lucky he went home early I guess although a stapler was about the worst of it and that's the kind of thing that ends up on YouTube, some middle aged arsehole stapling some other middle aged arsehole in the neck or in the earhole or something.

Then I drive home yelling at some lady who didn't use her blinker and I call her a cunt and think about bashing her face in with a cricket bat and then when I pull up into the driveway I notice that the lights are off. Not one light on in the house and the dog is out back barking, high pitched like someone just ruined his life.

The only thing I can think to do is put my pyjamas on, crawl into bed, and watch a few episodes of the Gilmore Girls. Because that's what we always do on Monday nights.

I Read Books

I read books all the time about things, about girls, about men. Death, and yes, about love. Destruction, redemption, the depths, the darkness, and the light inside. Hearts closed or open wide. Despicable things. Connections, actions, burning bridges, mending fences. Consequences. Conflicted thinking, floating, sinking. Righting wrong. Standing up, being strong, fighting on. But here I am in bed where I read about these things, about girls, about men, and here you are, sharing this bed where I read about death, and yes about love, but you are a person, not pages or ink and I'm starting to think I'm not prepared for this or for you. What should I say, what should I do?  

I'll Kill a Bear

There's nothing you can do, she said. Don't buy a suit or kill a bear. Don't paint me flowers or stroke my hair. Don't get all weepy, it's creepy and don't write a song about footprints in the sand. Just accept that you cannot understand. It's not about you. Don't buy a ticket. Don't save the whales. I don't need any more Alpha males in my life. Don't make a mix tape that's all Billy Ocean. Don't set sail across the sea to be with me and please do not buy a knife or a gun. Don't punch a wall or curse at the sun or book a romantic getaway to the south of France. Don't buy me sexy underpants or read me poems over the phone. Don't discuss any of this with my friends or with my mum and don't come around when I tell you I'm not home. Don't say sorry or ask me if I'm okay. Just leave me alone for today. I'll give you a call tomorrow.

Smaller

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She is smaller than him. Not child-like, but short. Slim. She stands on her toes and clutches his sleeves. She looks up at him, into his eyes. Her hair is tied back, her tiny face is bright, alive with wonder and love. It is hard not to think of a girl adoring her father but she is a woman. Fully a woman. And although he towers above her, he is not her father. Not anybody's father. She wants him to pick her up, to hold her tight, to carry her to the bedroom. She likes being smaller than him.

But he looks away, to the side, the TV is on. A game. Football. Cricket. She whispers, something she wouldn't dare say out loud. But he cannot hear her. "How was your day?" he asks.

She's growing now. Taller. The tenderness in her face fades. Her body stretches. It bends. She is a monkey. A gorilla. Her hands, her nails are sharp. A werewolf perhaps. She grabs him by the neck and forces his head around. She looks down, into his eyes again, deeper now. She can see inside of him and he is not a big man anymore. He is folding in two. The thing inside of him is eating his guts out and he is crying. He is shrinking. He is smaller than her. Fully a man still, but weak and sad. She does not like being bigger than him.

Now she packs her bags. She is leaving. Her reflection in the mirror whispers to her. "You will always be small," it says, "but you won't ever be smaller again."

How Nice it Must Be

Mount Everest is littered with dead bodies. Climbers who succumbed to the elements. Crack faced porcelain dolls. One armed mannequins. That big ol' hill is a gigantic cryocompressor, freezing bodies and brains and people who, I am quite convinced, will one day thaw out and return to their everyday lives. Things for them will be different in the future. Better. Or not worse, at least. How could they be worse? They will wake up one day and ride the melting icecaps down to the bottom of the mountain. They will get into their cars. They will go home and ask their families what is happening on "Friends." Their families will hug them and tell them it is okay that their faces are kind of smashed up and that they only have one arm. They will be happy and loved and they will go to work and chat about how nice it is to be alive.

I envy that.

I'm frozen, too, wedged between rock shards, halfway up a particularly challenging alpine couloir. But I'm not ever going to thaw out. I don't want to. If anything I want to freeze harder. Feel less. Let the mountaineers climb over me. Let them shatter my head with their ice axes. Let them remark about how courageous I was to make it this far. How sad it is that I am dead. Let them come back for me on a future expedition, wrap my body in an Australian flag, say a prayer, and dump me into a mountain bowl on top of all those other climbers who don't want to thaw out.

Then let more bodies fall on top of me. My future the same as my present as my past. Concealed and frozen. Never really knowing how nice it must be to be alive.

blood on your face

in your dress with the pockets. hands in your pockets. nothing in your pockets. there's blood on your face.

where are your shoes? my favourite shoes. you don't have any shoes. are those dried tears on your cheeks?

your mascara has run, why didn't you run? you tried to run. there's dirt in your hair.

your purse has gone. your necklace has gone. the darkness has gone. it's still in your mind.

come closer to me. get warmer with me. come home with me. i will make you some eggs.

your name is flower

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colony collapse disorder

my love for you is a thousand million bees. swarming bees dancing on the flowers, sperming honey into jars, and stinging children in their faces. buzzing bees that hum along to peter bjorn and john.

but the bees are dying. they wander off to god knows where. they get drunk and they die. they implode and explode and disintegrate into thin air. they spontaneously combust. entire colonies are collapsing in the bathrooms at work. they are having epileptic fits in front of the TV and their friends are putting spoons in their mouths but it doesn't seem to help. and the few bees that do survive are left riddled with disease, suffering from a tremendous and unexplainable pathogen load. and their feet stink.

the scientists don't understand. they don't know why the bees are disappearing. maybe all these cell phones are emitting radioactive bee waves. or maybe some crazy girl bees are lacing all the bee food with rat poison. theories. hillary clinton has heard about it, too. she wants to know what is going on but nobody can figure it out. all we know is the bees are dying and soon our entire ecosystem will crumble. you'd be surprised how useful bees are. we need them to pollinate all kinds of different foods like apples or almonds or beef strogonoff. it's called entomophily and without it we will all cease to exist.

maybe something can be done, but honestly, at this point, i think we should just start seeing other people.

menstruating robots with beards

rani's father reads the wall street journal. on the toilet on the train, he retains all that business in his brain. currencies and stocks and thousand dollar shoes with silk lined socks.

but unlike the other wall street sluts and cocks, rani's dad gets rich when there's a decline in the value of his assets; makes his money shorting futures. maybe that's why he sews up rani's vagina when she's 12. and why he laughs at 14 when the blood seeps through her sutures.

rani doesn't understand, of course, why anyone would want her to be less. want her to wear her dead mother's dirty old dress. why her life like her hair is always a mess. but she goes on like any kid does. aware of the chaos and ignoring the buzz of the blow flies who lay maggots in her ears and in her eyes. avoiding her reflection is the only direction she knows. and so it goes.

until her sixteenth birthday when rani happens to meet her father's protégé. at a party for her there's no one rani's age except for the go-go dancer who's stripping in a cage. the protégé's name is dave. he talks to her about nanotechnology and she says "robots?" and he says "no, nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems on a molecular scale. it's where the next boom will be. where the money will be made. your father disagrees of course. so does the journal."

dave's appearance is frozen in 1991. mustard color suit, hair in a fade, but rani likes what she sees and she wants him to be pleased so she tries to understand. "tiny robots?"

"kind of," says dave.

that night in bed rani fingers her stitches as she pretends to talk to dave on the phone. hello oh hi let me suck on your bone but the dream is shortlived when her father opens the door and laughs in her face. she's been put back into her place. her mind has been raped.

still, rani's a smart girl and determined to escape. she e-mails dave and they go on a date. they kiss and their love is intense and that nanotechnology starts to make sense. in the months to come when the stitches are gone dave starts talking about a bioengineering degree at the university of bonn. dave sits on the bed and combs rani's hair. rani looks at him in the mirror. she looks at herself.

"I don't want to go," she says.

but dave sets her free.

"go and come back and you will see. you and me will always be."

so at 18 rani's bags are packed. without telling her father she sneaks out the back.

in germany everything begins to click. she re-engineers human cells and implants them in robots. she's figured a way to give an android a dick. a robot a beard and periods and hair. testosterone and estrogen. now she can rest again because this ingenious use of nanotechnology has made her rich. robots having babies. baldies getting nanobots implanted under their scalps. the practical applications are almost infinite.

finally saved, she flies back to new york and is reunited with dave. he is proud of her. "how's my father?" asks rani.

"broke," says dave. he shorted nanotech.

i die in my dreams

i cry in the shower sometimes, i die in my dreams. i want to ask my daughter what all of it means, but she's only three. now she's in her teens with skinny jeans and a boyfriend who cries in the shower and has wet dreams. god, let me go and come back clean, dennis lillee's fingers on my seams. i'm a ball in the air and life isn't fair and vivian richards will smack me for six. and out in the backyard of my brain i'll bounce for a while on the trampoline. i'm the king out here but where is my queen. i know, don't tell me again, i saw her face in my bed. mouth wide open like she just won the race to be dead. i stuffed it with jelly beans and poured chocolate sauce on her head. in shock i suppose and they came and took her away and i had to go to work that day. they told me to go back home and be with my girl. 12 years ago and i still cry in the shower sometimes. and die in my dreams.

methylamphetamine

nigel reads a lot about girls his age. they don't wear bras. they are promiscuous and lascivious and they engage in sexual activity with men in the backs of vans or in the woods or in basements with rock and roll music blaring out of giant speakers. they have big hairy bushes and long straight hair and they wear miniskirts and knee high socks. nigel thinks about these girls and he imagines himself sitting with them on a couch and talking to them. in his mind he puts his hand on their legs and then he touches their vaginas and kisses them.   

but in reality none of it is possible. nigel is in borstal training with 74 other boys. bigger boys who bugger him in the showers, beat him while he sleeps, and urinate on his face and in his trunk.

nigel is dead in the day and in the night; only alive in the pages of his favourite magazine. 1969. the girls and the politics and the music. 19 years old and 19 months to go.

but today there is a new boy settling in to the bunk above his. his name is otto and he talks about his kit, which is his clothes. and his hair. he tells stories about scooters and protests and making love to german and french girls and girls who are from liverpool. he has smuggled in a syringe and he fills it with a drug called methylamphetamine. he injects it into his veins and he puts his arms up behind his head and he says "everything is okay."

nigel does not know what it is like to think that "everything is okay." so in the middle of the night he rummages through otto's bag and pilfers the contraband drugs and their associated paraphernalia. he hides under his blankets and tries to remember how otto did it. he makes mistakes and spills the methylamphetamine. he pokes himself with the needle and he bleeds. he cries. loud sobs and other boys come and they laugh at him and tell him to be quiet. nigel screams obscenities at the boys and he tries to bite a hole in his own wrist. he wants it to be over but he cannot break the skin.

in the following days nigel's relationship with otto flourishes. they are friends now. otto tells him that his uncle is a teacher at the borstal and explains that he can get a steady supply of methylamphetamine. he shows nigel how to do it properly.

nigel likes the way the methylamphetamine makes him feel. he is strong and "everything is okay." he uses it everyday and he writes letters to his parents and to people in the government and to his favourite magazine. 1969. he tells people that there is an answer. he wants people to know that there is an answer.

nigel loses weight and he cannot sleep at night. he does not think about girls his age anymore. he thinks about methylamphetamine. he wants more. he asks otto if he can have more. otto tells nigel to relax. he tells nigel that he is giving up the methylamphetamine. he tells nigel that the drug is ruining his brain.

nigel then has what some may describe as a psychotic episode. he strangles otto until otto is dead. he kicks otto's head and face. the other boys circle around. some of them laugh. nigel does not understand. soon he is transferred to the men's prison where he suffers alone for 19 more years.

it is now 1988 and nigel waits for a bus. the bus takes him to liverpool where he gets a job in a donut van. he rents a room in a house. the room is advertised as a converted garage but actually it is just a regular garage without a car in it. he finds an old stack of magazines and one of them is his old favourite. 1969. he opens it to the letters page and sees the one that he wrote all those years ago. methylamphetamine is the answer, his old self declares. he crosses the words out with a red pen and over the top he writes:

"methylamphetamine is not the answer"

and then

"the answer = promiscuous and lascivious girls with big hairy bushes"

the next day while working in the donut van nigel meets a girl. she is a scouser with long straight hair. she is wearing a miniskirt and knee high boots. "everything is okay," says nigel to the girl.

33

former chicago bulls all-star scottie pippen has a big nose and an elongated head. basketball fans and casual observers have long attributed these awkward looks to genetics or to random weird lookingness. however, most scientists, and especially any chemist worth his or her damn, know/s there is more to it than that. they can tell, simply by the shape of his face and head, that scottie pippen is one of the rarest human beings alive; he is a natural producer of lanthanum. it gestates in his blood. it is absorbed by his bones. it infiltrates every cell in his body. it causes minor mutations and slightly above normal physical abilities. but more importantly, the lanthanum that grows inside of scottie pippen is harvestable.

recognizing this fact, and wanting to capitalize on it, over a dozen american, european, and asian nations court scottie pippen. they want to draw his blood. cut his hair. scrape his skin. collect his stool. and bottle his semen. they want to use the lanthanum that flows within scottie pippen to manufacture hybrid car batteries and other green technologies. they want to pay scottie pippen a lot of money in exchange for his biological gift.

but scottie pippen does not need the money and he does not want to be viewed as a freak. his image is important to him. even though he is a bit ugly in the face people tend to like scottie pippen. he is a nice person. he has done things in basketball and in life that very few others have even dreamed about. he does not want to ruin that legacy.

but scottie pippen gets migraines. his bones ache. sometimes he feels depressed. doctors believe the elevated levels of lanthanum are responsible for these neurological, physical, and emotional complications. scottie pippen thinks maybe some of these government scientists could help him control the lanthanum and its detrimental health effects. he agrees to meet with drs. pölönen of finland and magnusson of sweden. from his basketball days he learned the critical art of negotiation. negotiating with two external parties is ideal. more and things get confusing. one and you lose the upperhand.

so it is 2008 and scottie pippen travels to finland and then on to sweden. he still doesn't want the general public to know about his condition, or to be aware of any deals that may or may not be made in the coming weeks. so scottie pippen concocts a cover story. he will come out of retirement to play a few basketball games for topo in the finnish league and one for sundsvall, a swedish team. the scandinavian fans go crazy for scottie pippen. espn magazine writes a story about the comeback and how scottie pippen is really doing it for the kids. and nobody suspects a thing.

the meetings go well. the scientists and the government officials are excited. they offer scottie pippen long term deals with excellent remuneration packages. the doctors draw diagrams of the human body on a white board. they tell scottie pippen that his health will improve.

after the meetings scottie pippen sits with a woman in the hotel bar. she is from hamburg. that's funny to him because he is from hamburg too, but he is from hamburg arkansas, not hamburg germany. they talk about it and other things and it comes out that they also share the exact same birthday. he is attracted to her even though she has a big nose and an elongated head. she does not know about his basketball past. she likes him. they spend the night talking and kissing and he touches her boobs a little bit but they don't want to rush things. he feels good. he feels really good. his migraines are gone. his bones have stopped aching. he does not want to crawl under the covers and die.

scottie pippen calls the swedes and he calls the finns and he tells them that the deal is off. they decline the invitation to scottie pippen's wedding and they reopen discussions with china.

faceman from the a-team reads the perfect strangers theme song

car and a hose

alcohol methadone, knocked on the door but nobody's home. high on the streets now not on life. it's cold. used to be somebody telling people things but he never owned a car. something about cars in his head well he found his father and little brother dead in the back of one when he was a kid. that's probably it but aside from that he was okay. went to work every day in a suit, he had a girlfriend. she was cute and they lived together in an apartment. it was small and there were mice in the walls but they were happy and they cooked sometimes dinner or breakfast and they rented videos from the shop downstairs. then she was gone and instead of a beer in front of the tv he had two, he had three. kept missing the train and the rent was too much on his own and he didn't like to iron his clothes. what happened after that? nobody knows but now he's here and he's getting off the junk but it's hard, it's hard. he's weak in the body and he doesn't have any shoes and he wants to see a movie and sleep with a girl in a bed. he wants a friend who's not schizophrenic or otherwise fucked in the head. he wants new clothes and a job and a wife and a kid but he knows that waiting for him at the end of the road inside of a garage there will be a car and a hose.

easter hat parade

on the morning of my father's funeral there was an easter hat parade at my school. not my scene but the neighbour girl made a hat for me and my mum said i should go. go to the parade then come home. plenty of time before we headed out to the graveyard. it would be good for me and the girl would be disappointed if i did not wear her hat in the parade.

it wasn't a good hat. it looked like shaved pubic hair glued to a piece of cardboard with "ben's ester hat" scrawled across the front in crayon. i was embarrassed and i didn't want to wear it and when i got to school i guess the teacher had told all the kids about my dad because my friends were acting all weird and mrs stackfield hugged me and she cried. i put my headphones on.

when my dad came back from france he brought me a sony walkman. he always brought us presents when he came home from his trips. i only had one tape and it was unknown pleasures by joy division. actually it was my brother's tape but i stole it from him and i liked it so he said i could keep it.

then when that guy from joy division killed himself i hid in the garage and i yelled at my mum and i yelled at my dad and i yelled at my brother and i told them that i was going to hang myself because why did he kill himself. then my brother came in and he told me to stop fucking around because mum was upset and i told him that i was upset and then he said dad is dying.

i told him to cram it because i thought it was a trick because why would my dad die. he had a job and he was our dad and he brought us presents all the time because he liked to think about us and one time i heard my mum telling her friends that my dad was a genius. everybody liked my dad because he was funny like the time my friend chad from america said he didn't know his phone number and my dad said why don't you call your mum and ask and chad was mormon and dad told me all about how mormon kids are just like other kids except they believe in i forget what it is they believe in.

then my dad got sick and he really was dying because his eyes got messed up and he could see double and he couldn't kick the football with me any more. then he kept vomiting every morning and it didn't sound good because you could hear him in there retching all the time. he got skinny and the doctors said it was a brain tumour and then he died.

after that i listened to my joy division tape nonstop because it reminded me of him and also because it was still my only tape and also because i didn't want to talk to anyone. then after the hug mrs. stackfield told me to take my headphones off and she asked me about my hat. i told her jesus christ, no i did not make it and she said it was cute and not to say jesus christ and i said since my dad just died could i listen to my sony walkman and she said no and i figured that was about right because there aren't really any benefits to your dad dying as far as i can tell.

i thought i might toss the hat in the rubbish bin but then i saw the neighbour girl and she had a hat almost the same except hers said "lucy's easter hat" and that made me kind of mad even though she was a little girl because why could she spell easter right on her hat but on my hat she messed it up. she smiled at me and asked me if i liked my hat and i said it was cute and i told her i was going to wear it.

during the easter hat parade my hat was the worst one as predicted. everybody looked at me and i guess they were thinking about how terrible my hat was and that i must not have been able to make a nice hat because my dad died.

then i went home and we rode to the graveyard in a black car behind the hearse and it had leather seats. i looked out the back and there were a bunch of cars following us. they all had their lights on and we drove really slow. then at the funeral i couldn't believe how many people were there. i kept thinking wow this is a good turnout and i didn't cry. i felt kind of bad because you're supposed to cry at a funeral and i looked up at mum and she was crying and then the priest told her to pick up some sand and sprinkle it onto the coffin. she didn't sprinkle it though, she picked up the sand and chucked it really hard like she was mad at dad for dying which i guess she probably was. i wasn't mad at him. i thought about going back to the car to get my sony walkman but i decided i better not.

after the funeral we went back home because i guess we didn't have a wake or anything and there was a giant easter basket sitting on our doorstep. those big chocolate bunnies that i like and it was a really sunny day.

on thursdays i feed the ducks

he comes into her life, and into her vagina, on a thursday. he is at the lake with a boy and they are laughing because their remote control boat has somehow capsized. just out of reach so the man rolls up his pants and wades into the murky water.

"careful," she yells. "the bottom is slippery."

the man pretends to fall and he laughs and he is okay. he grabs the boat and returns it to the boy. the boy shakes the water loose and tests the engine. another voyage is begun.

"hi," says the man and she chats with him and the young boy follows the boat around to the other side of the lake.

"on thursdays i feed the ducks," she says and he smiles and then another woman is there. the woman is pretty/ugly, short skirt and a tattoo that runs lengthways up her calf. "books are gay" it proclaims in a cursive font. the woman says something to the man and the man points to the boy and says "he's got some spanish left."

the woman rolls her eyes and heads off towards the boy.

"ex-wife," the man explains.

then something strange. the sky and grass and the wind and darkness and light and sandwiches and music and trousers. it is a spaceship and it doesn't land it just floats there and then they are inside and the aliens are people and they are all burt reynolds and sally field. sally field approaches, gently takes her hand, and escorts her into a room with walls of light. burt reynolds takes him to another room, also with walls of light.

"what's happening?" she asks.

"what's going on?" he asks.

"we won't hurt you," says sally field.

"it's okay," says burt reynolds.

then sally field and burt reynolds talk to their prisoners. separately, in their separate rooms.

"we are freshmen in college," they say. "and we are conducting an experiment for our psychology class."

"okay," she says

"college?" he asks.

"we have an offer for you. an opportunity. we are presenting this offer to each of you separately. you must answer our questions on your own. you must not consult with your friend."  

"what's going on?" she asks. 

"what's happening?" he asks.

"we are giving you a choice," says sally field. says burt reynolds. "choice one. we will give you each ten million dollars and we will set you free. you will never hear from us again."

"okay," she says.

"sounds good," he says.

"choice two. we will kill your friend. then we will set you free and you will never hear from us again."

"the first one," she says.

"number one," he says.

"but there are rules," says burt reynolds. says sally field. "you must answer on your own. if you both choose option one, then that's good. you will both get the ten million. we will spare both of your lives. if only one of you chooses option one, we will kill only that person. the other will get to go down the bouncy slide and walk out of here. without any money, of course."

"that doesn't sound good," she says.

"seems a bit harsh," he says.

"if you both choose option two, then we won't kill anybody. you will both live. we will set you free."

"seems confusing," she says.

"i don't get it," he says.

"it's simple," says sally field. says burt reynolds. 

"no, i don't get it," she says.

"it seems confusing," he says. "option two. it's hard to follow."

sally field says "hold on." she leaves the room.

burt reynolds says "wait a minute." he joins sally field outside the rooms with walls of light.

"i told you," says burt reynolds.

"bullshit," says sally field. all you said was that you wanted an anal probe option in there instead of the killing.

"stupid humans," says burt reynolds. "what are we going to do?"

"fuck," says sally field. "i need an 80 on this assignment or i'm going to fail and i'm not going back to summer school again."

"what about the ducks?" says burt reynolds. "they'll get it."

"yeah, okay," says sally field. "fuck it." she points to a video screen that shows two ducks bobbing around in the lake. "grab those two."

now she's back on the ground, standing next to the lake again. he is next to her.

"that was weird," she says.

"totally," he says.

they talk about other things and they go back to her house and make love in her bed. 

it's ten years later now and they are drunk on champagne. they talk about the day they met. "i would have chosen option one," he says. "what would you have done?"

"there weren't any ducks," she says. "you chose option two."