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."

stay free taylor swift

taylor swift is a STAR. a street transvestite action revolutionary who sluts her cock out for money. she saves up enough cash to rent a house on the lower east side of new york and she invites dozens of other queens to live in the house. she is their mother and she buys them food and clothes and she tells them they do not need to prostitute their bodies to survive because she will do it for them. she continues to slang her wang to protect her children and she is a pioneer and a leader and an activist and things are changing for the better.

now it is June 28, 1969, still night time but morning, and there are riots at the stonewall inn in greenwich village. taylor swift is there and she is confronted by the police and she sings:

"Because these things will change

Can you feel it now?

These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down

This revolution, the time will come

For us to finally win

And we’ll sing hallelujah, well sing hallelujah

Tonight we stand, get off our knees

Fight for what we’ve worked for all these years

And the battle was long, it’s the fight of our lives

But we’ll stand up champions tonight"

upon hearing her inspirational words and commanding voice the village residents immediately organize into activist groups. their goal is to establish places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested. taylor swift fights hard, even within these organizations themselves, for the inclusion of transvestite and drag queen agendas. gay rights organizations soon spring up across the country and around the world. all thanks to taylor swift.

now it is 1992 and people who are walking see a body floating in the hudson river. they point and they yell and they call the police. a passerby recognizes the body. it is taylor swift. she is dead and the police, they say it is a suicide. jumped from the west village piers.

the queens and the gays and her family do not believe it was a suicide. they honor taylor swift by carrying on her legacy and each year on the anniversary of her death they throw flowers and feathers into the river and they look to the sky and they say "stay free, taylor swift. stay free."

and the sky looks back down upon taylor swift's family, and it sings in a familiar voice:

"hallelujah

hallelujah"

Grand Requiem for Praying Equally for All to Untie the Knots of Unjust Suffering

she lives in a room in a house with nothing; with nobody. terribly alone and she eats cereal three times a day and apples. she reads a lot with her face very close to the page. her glasses are cracked and her life is broken but she is okay because she has thích nhất hạnh. thích nhất hạnh is a buddhist monk and he is an author. she reads the things that thích nhất hạnh has written. she believes in them and she thinks about them and some of his books are in vietnamese. she lines the books up against the wall and she squats in the corner and meditates. she clears her mind of the bad things; she tunes out the sounds of the buses that keep her awake at night. she tells herself that her mind is the window in her room. it cannot close. she lets the birds fly in.

the next day she gets up off her mattress with a purpose. she will start her own school of youth for social services right here in her neighbourhood. she drinks some water.

she will talk to people and get them involved. together they will rebuild things. they will setup schools. they will build hospitals. they will find beds and tables and refrigerators for homeless people. they will rally against violence and war.

she doesn't have any apples. the milk is spoiled. she will have to talk to people tomorrow. today she will go to the library and ask if the new mindfulness bell is in. it probably isn't in yet. she will stay inside today. she's hungry and so she will read.

there is a biography of thích nhất hạnh. he is the dharmacharya now. he lives in the plum village monastery in the dordogne region in the south of france. he travels and he prays and he meditates and he is happy. he hosts retreats for famous actors and people who are not famous. she squats again in her corner and she chants. she prays for the wellbeing of the famous actors and the people who are not famous. she knows that everybody is connected; their happiness is important to her.

i ain't afraid of no ghost

aw, i ain't no kid. i've lived a thing or two in all these years. i've seen some shit go down. sharks tearing through human flesh like it was pancakes. men doing things men are not supposed to do. wars. streets. children with no shoes or toes. babies birthing babies half the size of they own self. blue thunder starring roy scheider. shit. depravity. i'm just sayin' that's where i'm comin' from when i tell you this story. i'm not a soft man. i ain't afraid of no ghost.

but this was somethin' else. their faces. bear faces. just imagine heads bigger 'an that kid on dawson creeks. teeth with gaps wider than tori spelling's cleavage. ugly. and taller than a mexican on stilts. but looks like a human not like an animal. arms and hands and legs but the way they move wasn't like no humans i ever seen. not like in the movies neither. them aliens in the movies they move like robots or like girls on the rag and they running but these aliens, oh i shoulda warned you. this story about aliens.

i had a gun on account of i was huntin' back there in the woods. just me an that's why nobody can verify what i'm tellin' you but i was there and i seen it and that's gotta be good enough because i ain't got no reason. no gains to tell you what i'm tellin' you unless lookin' foolish gets you rich someways, which i guess it does but no matter.

so it was lights comin' down and no spaceships or close encounters or e.t. type bullshit. just lights bright and sharp enough to burn a vagina into a marine like a laser but all over everywhere. blinding but i kept my eyes open 'n i saw the beasts materialize outter the lights. came out growlin' too and i didn't wait for nothin' i just started shootin' my gun right at those man beasts 'cause i know when somebody means somethin' and they meant somethin' from jump street.

bullets didn't do nothin' or i'll tell you i mighta not even hit 'em 'cause half the time i can't even hit no deers and they kept disappearing into thin air and reappearing right somewhere else. if it was a movie it would be george clooney in a suit and a bear mask and i'd be played by jamie foxx or jason bateman or john stamos someone who's a nice guy but who could fight dirty if his misses is gettin' raped in the alley. oh yeah, those bear face aliens were wearing suits. how do you like that shit. suits like they gonna fit in and then bear faces right on the top of it. some dumb aliens. then one come right up to my face like he gonna eat it for lunch and he says "we like 'em fat" and i says "well you come to the right place brother 'cause they all fat round here."

an he says "no i mean p.h.a.t. phat" an i says "that don't make no sense" and he looks sad like he was trying and it wasn't good enough and we went on and gassed for an hour or so and he was okay. i says "why you come at me like a devil in church and i coulda killed you with my bare knuckles" and outta nowhere he breaks out a mr. kotter impersonation and then he says "whazzup" like them kids in that beer commercial a few years back. i says to him "what the fuck is wrong with you? we were having a good conversation about life and love and global warming and then you bring this shit" and then i say "why you even here?" and he says he heard that the greatest american hero got cancelled and he wants to talk to some folks to see if he can get it back on the air. what the fuck? right. so then i tell him that's been off the box since a long time and he goes batshit like he's really gonna do some damage but he doesn't actually touch nothing but the trees.  

then i tell him about some of the other shows that he might like but he's seen 'em all and nothin' else matches up to the greatest american hero. then just like they came they go again and then on the news yesterday i seen that william katt has disappeared. so that's why i'm here, that's why i'm tellin' you this. they done went and kidnapped william katt. that's what i'm sayin' and that's what i believe to be true.

everybody lives in ohio

my mother spontaneously combusted. she used to sit on the kitchen bench and listen to records or read books or chat to her girlfriends on the phone while she cooked dinner. she'd pop down to stir a pot and then slide right back up onto her perch. she wore boots and i sat on the floor beneath her, listening and drawing, imagining. waiting for my dinner. lamb. onions. potatoes.

her name was vivian.

that's all for now.

a deep navy blue woollen dress with a thick red collar and hem. electric frying pan. a man. her hair was long. straight.

wait.

my feet were dirty. i didn't wear shoes.

that's enough for today.

stockings are hanging off the cupboard door. dangling. something's wrong. i'm there. i'm a boy. his hands are ...

i'm not ready.

i know him. from the pictures in the album under the boxes in the shed. i think it's my dad. i don't remember. she didn't tell me. nobody would tell me.

it's too much.

there's blood. the pan is burning. the cupboards are on fire. she's ... he's punching her.

i can't.

there are flames on the ceiling. the phone is on the floor and i want to say something, somebody is screaming. screaming.

that's it. that's all. no. there's not any more.

her knees are burning. her legs. i can see her skin. melting. dripping. inside of her legs. actually inside. it's a bone. i can't look. she doesn't have a face. he's not on fire. he's wearing jeans. he's standing there. he's watching her. why isn't he burning. he won't look away. why aren't i burning?

i need to sleep now.

it smells like a train. i can't see any more. i don't know any more. i don't understand. i need to talk to someone. i need to find people who know. but everyone lives in ohio.

another song is playing

inside a house, inside a room, inside your head there is a song playing. listen to the song, get on the floor. feel your way, past that shelf. out the door. don't open your eyes. there's somebody else, inside the house, inside the room, inside your head. quiet. wait. it's not too late. listen to the song, loud, now sing the song, no, stop. something's wrong. the music, it's gone. no more sound, no more edges, the room is round, floor on the ceiling, doors on the ground. you can feel the lies now open your eyes and see the half that you despise. deal with him now, cut off his face, fight dirty, below the waist, eat his brains, swallow them down and savour the taste. it's him. or you, don't let him win. be the hate, rise up tough, dominate, it's not enough. you're slipping, hold your feet. no. it's too late now, he's got you beat. there's nothing else to do. that half of you is dead. succumb to him. inside his head, inside his room, inside his house. another song is playing.    

die in a hole

i want you to go and die in a hole. i don't want you to scream or complain. i don't want it to be a hassle. i just want you to go away and die.

i will visit your hole after you die. i will walk around the edges of the hole and i will look down inside it. i will confirm that your lifeless body is rotting in the hole.

i will be careful not to lose my footing and fall into the hole. i do not want to land on top of you. i do not want your decomposing skin to get on my clothes and in my hair. it probably wouldn't smell good. my pants are dry clean only.

when your mother asks for you i will hang up the phone. when she calls again i will tell her that you are gone. she will cry and i will say "i don't know."

i will come home from work and talk to you and then i will remember that you have died in a hole. i won't talk to anybody.

i will sleep on your side of the bed. i can't sleep on your side of the bed. i will roll over and sleep on my side of the bed. i will look at your pillow and your head will not be smooshed up in it. i will think about that day in the snow and in the sunshine. you said it wasn't a snow man. it is just a big blob with a carrot in it. it's a snow blob with a penis. i will laugh about that day and then i will cry.

in the morning i will make too much oatmeal for breakfast. i will squeeze honey on the top in the shape of a heart and i will not eat it. i will leave it on the table and i won't be able to throw it away.

at work daryl will ask me where we were last night. i will think about slamming daryl's head into the printer. i will tell him that you are gone. i will tell him "i don't know." i will go back to my desk and i will look at that picture and think about that night at the christmas party. that was when you had short hair. i won't be able to get any work done.

i will get in my car and drive and i will say "e.t. phone home" and the car robot will dial our house phone. your voice will tell me that we are not home. i will park the car on the side of the road. i will look at trucks and cars and think maybe one of them will veer out of their lane and crash into me. i will think about dying.

i will come home and it will be dark. i will open the fridge door and leave it open and i will sit in the rectangle of light on the floor and eat cheese. i will wake up in the morning on the kitchen floor and the milk probably won't be any good.

i will get back in my car and i won't go to work. i will drive to the beach and think about that day. you got hit by that wave and you swallowed the water and you laughed so hard and you vomited in the beach. i tried to swish it around before anybody else could see. people don't want to swim in somebody else's vomit. you laughed again and we ate grapes because you always bring grapes to the beach.

i will take my suit off and i will swim in the beach in my underwear. my boxers have my name across the band at the top and i don't know where you got them. they are really comfortable. i will be lonely swimming in the beach. i will go under water and cry and when i come back up i will wish that you did not go away and die in a hole.

i will build a sandcastle and i will lay on top of it and i will dare the sun to burn me in my skin.

i will go back to your hole and i will look down inside of it and your body will be gone.

i'm old

these college kids are tiny little people. babies with beer bongs and books and they lay out on the same patch of grass that we did enjoying the weather but their conversations are not as clever. smoking dope in their skinny jeans and miniskirts; ironic t's. they share notes and jokes and STDs. i step on them with my grown up feet and they laugh and dance to the beat of a song that i tried listening to. it's crap. that one kid looks like john cusack in say anything. i'm so old.  

consumer behaviour

i am a coke or a sixty inch lcd television. she is single, female, middle-class, age 18 to 49, and college educated. she doesn't want to buy me. girls drink fresca. they buy shampoo.

---

she parks her motorbike on the footpath.

"you can't park there," says some guy.

"up yours, slut" she says to the guy.

"i'm not a slut," says the guy. "how can i be a slut?"

she doesn't answer him. she goes into the shop.

she says to the shop girl "give me the hugest most gigantic cup of coke you have because i'm going to drink it down my gullet and then get another one. i am so fucking thirsty. please."

the shop girl gets the girl two of the hugest most gigantic cups of coke you could imagine. the girl drinks them both down her gullet. the shop girl smiles at the girl and says "shit."

the girl says "yeah" and then leaves the shop. she sees a 60 inch lcd television pull up next to her motorbike. it's 1080p and she likes it. she wants it. she wants to watch grey's anatomy and lost on it.

---

there she is again. leather pants, god. i'm going to die of a hard on. but girls don't care how big their televisions are. i should just forget about her.

a girl

i'd like to know a girl in boots and a skirt and a shirt, hoop earrings and long brown hair. too much eyeliner we'd meet in a diner and eat. a hamburger or a reuben and a drink. a chocolate milkshake and she'd have something to tell me and it couldn't wait. a key, it's for me and why is she crying, she's happy. it's love. and that's the girl i'd like to know but it's okay if she doesn't wear boots.

she's got the hammer

she has a two year contract on the sydney to L.A. and she likes it. flying there, flying back. she's young and it's fun. but a couple of weeks ago she had a dream about ashton kutcher and a lot of girls dream about ashton kutcher but this was a bad dream. in the dream he was flying first class and she was his flight attendant and he said to her "i can't tell if you're a woman or a girl" and she giggled and the next thing she new she was getting raped in the cockpit by ashton kutcher and the pilots were all dead with blood on their faces and one of them was bruce willis and the plane was spiraling out of control, down towards the ocean below. then suddenly this was all happening to her in a tv show and a couple was on the couch watching her get raped.

"oh no," said the girl on the couch. "it's okay," said the boy. "she's got the hammer."

then in the dream there was a hammer in her hand and she could hear the boy saying "hit him in the face with the hammer." she didn't want to hit ashton kutcher in the face with a hammer but he was raping her and the boy just kept saying "come on, hit him with the hammer."

so in the dream she hit ashton kutcher in the face with the hammer. his teeth exploded into a million tiny diamonds and they rolled up hill, out of the cockpit, into the main cabin. the passengers all piled into the aisleway and onto the floor and they were stuffing their pockets with ashton kutcher's diamond teeth. then ashton kutcher jumped out of the plane. he had a parachute.

so when she got the call from operations, she cried. they asked her to be first alternate for first class. that's a big deal. especially since she'd heard that dierdre was pregnant.  first class. first alternate. but that also meant that the dream might be coming true.

"i'm not going to take it" she told her girlfriends. "i'll just stay back in economy."

"but first class is your dream," they said.

and it was so she took it and now here she is, sydney to L.A., and she's in first class and so is ashton kutcher.

she brings him a coke and he's nice and he's chatting to the woman next to him and then he glances up at her. "i can't tell if you're a woman or a girl," he says.

"i'm a woman," she says to ashton kutcher.

he smiles, his teeth gleaming, and he laughs.

then she hears that voice again. "hit him with the hammer."

she checks her hand for the hammer but it isn't there so she asks him if he wants another coke and he does.

after they land she sees ashton kutcher outside of the airport getting into a limousine. he sees her too and he nods and waves her over. "we're having a party," he says. "you should come." he hands her a card with an address on it. "no thanks," she says. "i've got plans."

arson

whenever she meets a man she asks him a simple question. "if you were a criminal, what kind of criminal would you be?"

that's how she screens the freaks out.

"a bank robber" is what the boring ones say.

"an arsonist" one guy says. "i would burn things down to the ground. buildings. buildings with people in them. buildings with old people in them. i would burn all the old folks down to the ground."

"i'd be a rapist" another guy admits. "not the bad kind. not vicious or violent. i would date rape girls and they wouldn't even really know about it. i would poison them with ghb and then wait until they were asleep and then i would make love to them under their skirts and underpants. i would rape them."

"murderer" another guy says, a little bit too quickly. "with a knife and i would stab it into my wife's face and into her body." she didn't know he was married.

"i would speed in my car," one man says. "past the cops and i would just keep on going. faster and faster and they wouldn't catch me or if they did i would get out and run into the woods or into somebody's backyard."

these are all men she did not date.

"jay walker."

"i'd send e-mails to people and tell them about giant penises and ask them to send money and i would send thousands and thousands and thousands of e-mails and even if only a couple of hundred people sent me money it would be worth it."

"mugger."

"i'd punch people right in their nads or in their noses."

"vandal. i would throw bricks into windows and on top of toilets and bash televisions in with a baseball bat."

these men she did not date either.

"a thief. i'd steal fedex boxes from people's doorsteps and open them up like it was christmas day."

she went to dinner with that guy and a movie but things didn't work out. he smoked and there just wasn't any chemistry i guess.

"polygamist."

"trespasser."

"stalker."

no, no, no.

"tax cheat."

no.

"drug dealer."

no.

then finally, a man, a handsome man, says "a criminal? no, i wouldn't be a criminal." and she says, "just answer the question" and he says "okay, i guess i'd be a ...."

but she cuts him off and says "no, don't tell me. i don't want to know."

40 drops of laudanum

the doctors, they say her diarrhea is fulminant. it occurs suddenly, without warning. it is intense and severe. explosive. and the smell. oh, that horrible smell. it's rancid. all things considered, this fulminant diarrhea is an ailment with which she would rather not be afflicted. it has no advantages, particularly of the social variety.

so on the evening of july 19, in the year 1837, as she is preparing for the dance of 1,000 gentlemen, her dressers wrap her asshole tight with cellophane. "what if it leaks?" they ask. "what if it leaks on HIM?"

"i will die of embarrassment," she tells them. "simply die."

then she prays. not to any god that you or i are likely to pray to; she prays to the lord of human excrement.

"do not forsake me, my lord, not on this evening. this one evening, my lord, i ask of you. seal my bottom shut."

then, as if in response to her prayers, a deep rumble reverberates through her stomach and colon.

"have i displeased thee, my lord? must you be vengeful on this very eve?"

and then splat. and rip and splat. the cellophane cannot contain the massive load of liquid shit. it's in her stockings, seeping through the fine silk netting. one of her dressers boldly attempts to stem the tide with her hands. the other vomits and runs.

she's in the bath now. clean again. a new dress has been fetched. her second choice, lovely but seen before. her bathers towel her off. she is cellophaned once more.

she arrives at the dance of 1,000 gentlemen, nervous, walking carefully. she dares not taste the shallot madelaines. 1,000 likely gentlemen do indeed fill the ballroom. twirling and smirking, their steps only outdone by their wit. handsome, all of them, but especially the one for whom she came. she waits.

half the night has slipped away and still she waits, vexing over 500 hundred would be suitors. her companions, the lady of redford and the lady of somerville, encourage her to dance. "practice," they say, "with an ordinary man." and well she might had she not the need to clench her buttocks so fully.

now he approaches, tall and of moustache. a pocket watch and a monocle. his conversation is joyous and clever. his dancing is in rhythm with her heart and not her heart. a part of her that is warm and throbbing. she has managed not to shit all over herself. she is happy.

then the evening comes to a close. the hall has emptied, partners have been chosen and not chosen and the laughter follows the crowd into the warm night air. he and her, flirting and he offers her a ride home in his carriage. she politely refuses, then with decorum dispensed, accepts.

in the carriage he holds her hand and inquires about the wellbeing of her father.

she loses control of her bowels.

again the cellophane does not hold. the carriage is filled with her fulminant feces. the stench is unbearable. he tries to outmaneuver the river of shit but he cannot escape his dreaded fate. it's on him. IT'S ON HIM.

she is horrified and she laughs. she cannot stop. she laughs and she laughs.

"can you not stop your laughter?" he says earnestly. "a terrible thing has happened."

"i cannot stop," she admits and then proceeds to laugh some more.

back at his house she is escorted to the bath. she is soaked and scrubbed. she is dressed in his sister's clothes.

she returns to find him playing the piano. he is playing it well.

"i must apologize," she says to him. "i have no control. it is a suffering that i shall know until the day i die."

"nonsense," he says. "there is a cure to be found. of that i am certain."

weeks and months pass before she sees him again. he has ridden the three miles to her house and he asks for her by name.

"these days without you i have been on a quest," he says. "and i have finally found a potion that will heal your rapid stooling."

"i have missed you so," she says, "and i do not want to doubt you. but housemaids and doctors have failed in this quest and i have come to accept it in my heart and in my colon. do not raise my hopes if there is no truth in your words."

"it is from the town," he says, "where they know about such ailments. it is laudanum and they say it is such that your bowels and your demeanor will be suitable for marriage."

"are you asking for my hand in marriage?"

"indeed i am," says the gentleman. "assuming this potion is good."

"let us begin immediately," she says.

at first she drinks but two drops with her tea in the morning and again two drops at night. within days her diarrhea is no more. her mind is clear and her pantaloons are clean. she is ecstatic.

the wedding is ordered and consummated and there is great passion between the two.

but slowly she increases her dosage. six drops then 10. he worries that it is too much. her mind is addled. she is confused and lazy. she does not dress until bed time and she dances without music. 15 drops now.

"i won't go back," she says. "i haven't shit in weeks."

"it's killing you," he says. "us."

15 drops becomes 30 and then 40. he threatens to deny her the potion entirely. she begs him. she will reduce her dose at least. he does not believe her. she says she will shit on his face.

and it is worse and worse. soon she is bedridden and catatonic. then she is dead.

he is distraught and he blames himself. he throws the empty bottles and the full ones out the window.

"ouch," says someone. it is her sister. the bottles have hit her on the head.

"oops," he says, out of the window. "sorry."

her sister has a lump on her head and she is attended to in the house. he apologizes. she talks to him and consoles him. she assures him that she is not with the shits. her stools are regular and firm.

not two months following the death of his first wife, the gentleman marries the sister. they are happy and they live on until they die.

Kania Rahadianti Purnomo Has 869 Friends on Facebook

dear kania rahadianti purnomo,

you don't know me but i've seen your name floating about. here and there. i like it.

you probably already know this but kania is polish for "elliott gould."

and in hindi, rahadianti means "was not in"

and purnomo is italian for "diner (the movie)."

i wonder what you look like. you probably look like elliott gould. with big tits. that's cool. i like elliott gould. he was in one of my favourite movies. it's called "diner" and it's about a group of chums who love to eat pancakes. it's set in the eighties and elliott gould plays this character called steve guttenburg. it's so great, you should watch it. blockbuster probably has it. i don't know, maybe not. the blockbuster near me only has three of the seven police academy series. one, two, and seven. that's weird, right? i mean, if they were going to just have three, why not one, two, three. one is the best obviously but after that number three is probably second. it's called back in training.

anyway, sometimes when i can't sleep i google your name just because i like to see it and read it and last night i noticed you have a facebook account. it says you have 869 friends. whoah, that's a lot of friends. i only have 44. part of me thinks "really? 869?" but then another part of me is more like "yeah, good on you."

you are probably really nice. that's why you have so many friends. i'm nice too but i don't have that many friends. i don't really understand how that works. maybe you're more outgoing than me.

well, i better finish up. you probably have a lot of catching up to do with all your friends. i really just wanted to tell you that i like your name. it's nice.

best regards,

benjamin king