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.