I write to you in haste because the rain is so light and kind and I must get back outside in it. Earlier I carried flowers in the belly of my shirt and I felt like I was holdling you, feeling your petals through the thinness of the cotton. You have let me carry you just like that, just as you have carried me from bedroom to bathroom, kitchen to car. All of this can get to me, and water pours out of my eyes as some sort of anchor. It is alright to cry, it is okay if I go all in this, if only to know what it feels to feel. I will hold it even if you grow inside of me and then beyond me through my fingernails. I opened up my shirt and let the rain fall on you while never letting a petal drop. I wouldn’t waste an ounce this time. With shyness I say I never wasted an ounce, and I know you already see this in me.
I remember the field I picked you from, the kisses I blew without hesitation. I remember the butterfly that floated casually over head as if it didn’t know that I was falling in love with it - as if it didn’t realize that I would have built a city in homage to it if a city is what it wanted, though I know quite well that no butterfly would crave a city. I pulled you from the field and I felt awful about that, really. I wondered if it hurt, and if you could be okay with that - thankful, even. Could it be that the being held in my hand is more than enough and the holding you in my hand can make me satisfied with this gravel that scratches underneath my feet, and this rain that falls on the back of my neck like morning kisses?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Day To Day With Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound, painting by Wyndham Lewis, 1938–39.
Ezra Pound is brilliant. We can all agree on that. I have been reading some interviews with him, people’s accounts of meeting him and of course gobbling up more of his work. (You can listen to him reading here.) But one thing that I noticed is that in most of his photos he looks either 'blown away,' stern or luminous. Which sparked me to write this. I would really love some feedback on this because I feel I am missing something if not a lot of things.
Day to Day with Ezra Pound
We sit on an interior park bench. A homeless mother is beside us, pleading with her crumbs to be attractive enough for doves. But there are forty pigeons. You teach me to stay as tranquil as linen, the even threads laid upon itself and calming one another.
You’re the center of modernism, she’s the trademark abuser, and I’m the abstract glass of religion. In mediation you say “We come back placed. Broad shouldered, bald men who smoke cigars return briefly as exhaust and vodka drinking moms are the air between coffee and the lid.”
You explain that you’re going to
You are amazed by everything. It was the bike paths and now it’s the birds being flounced by the updraft from the highway. But the contrasts are fluorescent, the flock recovers and shakes from a cloud like a dash of pepper, synchronized and settling onto a telephone wire, whispering something in French.
Settling one knee, you remove my shoe and study my feet to evaluate my steps – you say, “Jellyfish feet.” And I am offended. “You float. These blue marble veins are throughout. Baby toes like cantaloupes, they take you from the door in fruit salad sandals. What is your preference? Where are your photos? Have you ever seen anything? If reincarnation is exploration, dying is the imagine steam, you will return as blindness.”
___________________________________________
In other news...
The Broad Set Writing Collective has a reading coming up!
September 18th. 7:00pm @ Brickbat Books in
Please come by. We are going to have free beer, a fresh magazine and after join us for surrealist writing games at the pub around the corner.
Also, the amazing people at PANK Magazine continue their remarkable…ness with their take on some 'awkward topics.' It's a good read, check it out!
Toa Lin's new book comes out soon. He was nice enough to send me some stickers. Take a peak at Tao's blog for more information on "Shoplifting From American Apparel."
Lastly, Skive Magazine 12 is out! Buy a copy or download the free verse at the Skive Website. Check out the great stuff inside and also my work pages 206 & 207. Audio coming soon.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Why The World Is a Square
There you were.
You were staring at me from those lovely glasses you wear when you need to read or drive.
I was immediately captivated.
You said, "I dropped my pencil."
I said, "I think I love you."
You told me that your mother said you would never understand men. You think she was right.
I smile and start to sweat.
Your brother walks into the room and asks why we are both sweating.
"Because the air conditioner broke again and we were just running," comes out of my mouth like magic.
I stumble awkwardly out of the room.
Two weeks later you give me a cake with no writing on it. I still believe you to be my soul mate.
You call me on the phone and tell me that you don't want to wear a white dress to our wedding. I nod as if you can hear me. It's a nervous tic of mine. I kiss the phone softly when you say goodnight.
At this moment, two satellites who have grown fond of one another collide in space. They do not love like we do. They should have been more careful. The sun looks on with burning interest. The moon laughs and the earth just keeps spinning.
Sometimes I dream at night and I see our children and their children and so on and they are all smiling. There is lighthearted music playing in the background. They are all wearing black turtlenecks. I sweat awkwardly again.
When we die our souls will fly through the air in sweeping semi-circles and continually crash into each other. Despite your lack of arms or hands, you will hold me and beg me to stay near you in your own voiceless way. I will oblige, never having loved you more than in that moment.
You were staring at me from those lovely glasses you wear when you need to read or drive.
I was immediately captivated.
You said, "I dropped my pencil."
I said, "I think I love you."
You told me that your mother said you would never understand men. You think she was right.
I smile and start to sweat.
Your brother walks into the room and asks why we are both sweating.
"Because the air conditioner broke again and we were just running," comes out of my mouth like magic.
I stumble awkwardly out of the room.
Two weeks later you give me a cake with no writing on it. I still believe you to be my soul mate.
You call me on the phone and tell me that you don't want to wear a white dress to our wedding. I nod as if you can hear me. It's a nervous tic of mine. I kiss the phone softly when you say goodnight.
At this moment, two satellites who have grown fond of one another collide in space. They do not love like we do. They should have been more careful. The sun looks on with burning interest. The moon laughs and the earth just keeps spinning.
Sometimes I dream at night and I see our children and their children and so on and they are all smiling. There is lighthearted music playing in the background. They are all wearing black turtlenecks. I sweat awkwardly again.
When we die our souls will fly through the air in sweeping semi-circles and continually crash into each other. Despite your lack of arms or hands, you will hold me and beg me to stay near you in your own voiceless way. I will oblige, never having loved you more than in that moment.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Rolling Hill Pines Apt. Complex
It was a Saturday when it happened. I remembered because I had nothing to do that day but smoke cigarettes from the third story balcony and make constellations from the butts that littered the grass. A group of people arrived at our apartment complex; a non-descript number of them, somewhere between 11 and 54 professionally dressed grown folks lined up outside. I assumed the suits and fine dresses were to put people at ease.
All at once they spoke in unison to the tenants of Rolling Pine Hills Apartment complex located off of Route 27 in historic Mill Hill, NJ:
“People of Rolling Pine Hills Apartment complex located off of Rt 27 in historic Mill Hill New Jersey; please leave your domiciles and converse with us. We appreciate your attention away from your digital cable, internet porn and private drinking and assure you we will not take much of your precious leisure time,”
I was excited. Something like this so rarely happens and finally I could meet and greet my neighbors. Publicly, I wanted good relations with them so that I would not have another incident like the one that forced my mother and I to move from the Hidden Creek Village Apartment complex right off Route 99 in cheap Little Egg Harbor. I added another star to the grass and went inside to tell my mother the news.
However, she had beaten me to the punch, and was putting her shoes on as I opened the door.
“Did you hear?” I asked.
“Yes, now go downstairs.”
Looking at the other apartment doors open I tried to make eye contact with my neighbors and give them my trademarked smiled but to no avail. They stared at the group of strangers gathered and made no attempt to act in a neighborly way. It was Hidden Creek Valley all over again.
Most of the tenants gathered on the parking lot, some with baseball bats, some with erections and some with children. Juxtaposed with the group of professionals they looked quite shabby.
“Good people of this fine community, we mean you no harm” said the professionals.
Bats were lowered and erections went flaccid. Children remained the same.
“We have come to your fine domiciles for two reasons. First: to convince you, using Einstein’s theory of special relativity that you are all beings made of pure light and that you have all collectively manufactured the physical world around us through the selling of kidneys and the flexing of calf muscles.”
Some wise ass shouted: “I’ve been trying to tell them that for years!”
The crowed awkwardly laughed and agreed quietly to each other, recounting particular times the wise ass would sneak into their bedrooms while they were at work and leave informative, but tacky, pamphlets on their kitchen tables.
“We could bore you with the details but you already know this” said the professionals.
“Secondly, we would like your help with a search we have been conducting. Using the most high-tech physics available on the free market we have shot enough atoms at other atoms to determine the nature of the origins of our universe. We have discovered that it was a collision of a toy lightsaber manufactured as merchandising item from the Star Wars universe (of whose origins we are also investigating) and a large 1500 watt Microwave oven.
My mother gasped. The crowd gasped.
“After consulting numerous Ouija boards, we have come to the conclusion that the answer to the meaning of life can be found here. We have searched many communities of beings of pure light, and this group assembled before us is by far the brightest. We humbly ask your permissions to perform a search for these unmoved movers among both the people and possessions of Rolling Pine Hills apartment complex.
My mother began to cry, and I started another cigarette.
It was Hidden Creek Valley all over again.
****
Listening to: Cables by Big Black
All at once they spoke in unison to the tenants of Rolling Pine Hills Apartment complex located off of Route 27 in historic Mill Hill, NJ:
“People of Rolling Pine Hills Apartment complex located off of Rt 27 in historic Mill Hill New Jersey; please leave your domiciles and converse with us. We appreciate your attention away from your digital cable, internet porn and private drinking and assure you we will not take much of your precious leisure time,”
I was excited. Something like this so rarely happens and finally I could meet and greet my neighbors. Publicly, I wanted good relations with them so that I would not have another incident like the one that forced my mother and I to move from the Hidden Creek Village Apartment complex right off Route 99 in cheap Little Egg Harbor. I added another star to the grass and went inside to tell my mother the news.
However, she had beaten me to the punch, and was putting her shoes on as I opened the door.
“Did you hear?” I asked.
“Yes, now go downstairs.”
Looking at the other apartment doors open I tried to make eye contact with my neighbors and give them my trademarked smiled but to no avail. They stared at the group of strangers gathered and made no attempt to act in a neighborly way. It was Hidden Creek Valley all over again.
Most of the tenants gathered on the parking lot, some with baseball bats, some with erections and some with children. Juxtaposed with the group of professionals they looked quite shabby.
“Good people of this fine community, we mean you no harm” said the professionals.
Bats were lowered and erections went flaccid. Children remained the same.
“We have come to your fine domiciles for two reasons. First: to convince you, using Einstein’s theory of special relativity that you are all beings made of pure light and that you have all collectively manufactured the physical world around us through the selling of kidneys and the flexing of calf muscles.”
Some wise ass shouted: “I’ve been trying to tell them that for years!”
The crowed awkwardly laughed and agreed quietly to each other, recounting particular times the wise ass would sneak into their bedrooms while they were at work and leave informative, but tacky, pamphlets on their kitchen tables.
“We could bore you with the details but you already know this” said the professionals.
“Secondly, we would like your help with a search we have been conducting. Using the most high-tech physics available on the free market we have shot enough atoms at other atoms to determine the nature of the origins of our universe. We have discovered that it was a collision of a toy lightsaber manufactured as merchandising item from the Star Wars universe (of whose origins we are also investigating) and a large 1500 watt Microwave oven.
My mother gasped. The crowd gasped.
“After consulting numerous Ouija boards, we have come to the conclusion that the answer to the meaning of life can be found here. We have searched many communities of beings of pure light, and this group assembled before us is by far the brightest. We humbly ask your permissions to perform a search for these unmoved movers among both the people and possessions of Rolling Pine Hills apartment complex.
My mother began to cry, and I started another cigarette.
It was Hidden Creek Valley all over again.
****
Listening to: Cables by Big Black
Sunday, August 9, 2009
The Silver Pen and the Men in White Suits (One of Them Has a Beard)
First of all I apologize for the length of this piece. I thought about doing it in multiple parts but decided it wouldn't work as well. Let me know what you think and absolutely feel free to criticize it.
By Dr. Mullin
Religion has never played a big part in my relationships, which would explain how a semi-pious Catholic and myself – a raving Atheist – were able to coexist peacefully and even sleep together for two years without much of an incident outside the typical fight over stupid shit that, in the end, doesn’t matter at all.
I was lucky enough that it never came up that I think religion is a crutch for the weak and the excuse of all excuses to explain the unknown, and it never came up that she believed in a greater being and an afterlife and that everything happens for a reason.
And when I got down on one knee four months ago, she said “yes” without so much as a, “So how is this ceremony going to go, exactly?” I was fortunate.
Well, until about two hours ago, when she called me to tell me that she has been cheating on me for the past two months. And when I tell you that it’s because, “Jake, you’re just not a good Christian,” I hope I’m not the only one who sees the magnificent irony there.
And this brings us to now. I’m the only one home. I’m standing in the upstairs bathroom, same as I have been for about half an hour now, just staring at myself in the mirror. With an occasional glance, of course, to the nifty little piece of hardware I brought in with me.
This gorgeously morbid piece of machinery is a Ruger .22 rifle. Not quite something Arnold might carry around on him, but it should do the trick – at least that’s what I’m hoping. I’ve never done this before, obviously.
No, it’s not mine. It’s my little brother’s, which in and of itself is a little strange. It would be weirder if he hadn’t started carrying around knives some time in the past year. Don’t know why – and these aren’t just knives, mind you, they’re KNIVES, like two steps under Rambo himself.
I decided to get it from his closet when I realized that I was too angry to just let this bullshit go. I’ll be honest, my first thought was finding out who the other son of a bitch was and taking him with me, but I realize that she would never tell me anyway. Fucker.
And it doesn’t matter. All I want to get out of this is an end to all this crap – how the hell am I ever going to trust another woman again when the one I thought was perfect totally fucks me over like this?
Go ahead and call me a pessimist if you want, but you can go fuck yourself. I’m a realist, and reality sucks ass. Take it or leave it, kiddies.
And on the plus side, maybe she will realize it’s all her fault and feel like shit for it. That would be a nice bonus.
The gun’s loaded, but I’m not. Maybe I should be. Might make this whole thing a lot easier. I’m wondering if I can actually go through with it, if I can actually point and pull the trigger and not give a damn about what happens next. I think I can.
Time for the sickly-sweet embrace of death to take all the pain away. Wait – what? When did I become a manlier version of the singer from HIM? Fuck this shit. I pick the gun up, aim at my temple, and squeeze.
* * * * * * *
Huh. Somebody got it right with the bright light bullshit. It’s like being an inch and a half away from the sun. Must be an after-effect of the bullet tearing my brain apart. Neat stuff. I’m wondering what happens – wait, how can I still be conscious if I’m dead?
FUCK. It didn’t work.
I’m probably looking into the lights over my hospital bed right now. Someone must be operating on the side of my head, trying to remove the projectile. My parents must be in the waiting room.
This is how it would go. My dad has one hand on my mom’s right leg – he’s always on that side – and the other hand on his cell, getting a therapist all lined up for me. My mom’s crying, face in hands, wondering “What in the world could have pushed him to such an extreme?” The nurse at the front desk is watching them in empathy, thinking, “Fuckin’ kids these days.” It’s a male nurse. He’s overweight, which I think is funny somehow.
I open my eyes to see what exactly is going on, and the light dissipates. Now I’m looking up into a very pure, blue sky. No sun in sight, but it’s very warm and bright here. Where the hell am I?
I sit up at a slight angle, using my arms to brace myself. I look around and notice that my surroundings are distinctly…fluffy. Like I’m sitting inside a pillow. I’m scratching my head in disbelief and I find the wound on the right side. No blood comes off on my hand, which I think is odd. It feels like the forces of nature created a miniature Grand Canyon on my person. I hate the Grand Canyon.
When I’m done being fascinatingly horrified with my boo-boo, I stand up and see that there are people all around me, some seated just as I was, some standing, looking confused like I am now, and some walking ahead to some distant point on the horizon. Well all right then. Let’s see what goes on here.
The fluff is about ankle deep, but it doesn’t obstruct my movement. I wonder what’s underneath it? I dig through what I can, and the “ground” below is soft and kind of squishy. Definitely not dirt. Or anything else that ground should be made of.
A few minutes into my walk, I see what looks like a tollbooth up ahead, surrounded by tall, regal looking wrought-iron fence. Maximum-security type stuff, but for rich folks. I start to get closer to the booth, but notice a line of exorbitant proportions is forming in front of me. I join it. And wait.
An older gentleman wearing a hospital gown and bracelet gets in line behind me. From what I can tell he has no grotesque injuries, which may explain why he is staring at mine with soft intent and sadness. I ignore him.
The line moves relatively quickly, and just as I am becoming second in line to step up to the booth, the old man taps me on the shoulder.
“Did you do that?” he asks, gesturing toward my gaping hole.
I’m thinking intently about lying to him, saying I was the unlucky victim of an ill-advised game of Russian roulette because me and my drunken pals were all bored, but I decide not to. Why would he care anyway?
“Yeah, I did it.” He looks disappointed. “What? I had my reasons, and that should be more than good enough for you. You don’t even know what happened, so why don’t you just lay off?”
He turns away, but I can’t tell if it’s because he is chastened or if he thinks he is wasting his time on the young whippersnapper in front of him.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask him.
“It was my time,” he says. He shakes his head unhappily. “I’d was in the hospital for about a month, managing to hang on. For a second even I thought I might make it.” He looks down at his feet. “We were wrong. We were all wrong.”
I raise my eyebrows at the old man, and since he continues to stare sadly at his feet, I decide not to bother and turn around just in time to see that my time at the tollbooth has come. I step forward.
The curiously dressed man in the window doesn’t even bother to raise his head from the list he is poring over. “Name?” he says, in a voice that is unfittingly high pitched.
I squint curiously at him before answering. “Jake Douglass.”
He makes a check mark on the list and looks up at me, and now I’m face to face with what appears to be a 13-year-old boy. Who has wings. You have no idea how confused I am right now. This has to be a dream. Do people dream when they die?
“You know,” he says sternly, “you really shouldn’t have done that. Not going to do you any favors up here, that’s for sure.”
I can’t take this kid seriously. He’s trying to lecture me while wearing fairy wings? For real?
He consults the list again. “All right. Well you’re apparently going in for a talk before we send you off to your final destination. Not sure why, but don’t question the boss.” He points slightly behind me. “Take that hallway to the second door from the end.”
I turn and look, and there is indeed a hallway, just as fluffy as the rest of my surroundings. It looks more like a tunnel, considering that we aren’t actually in a building, as far as I can tell.
“Hang on a second,” I say, turning back to him. He looks perturbed that I haven’t just obeyed the instructions and gotten on with it. “You said, ‘up here.’ Where exactly is ‘up here?’”
He looks at me, puzzled, like I should obviously know the answer to my own question, and so turns once again to the list in front of him for the answer. “Aha, that would explain it. Instead of going to the second door from the end, head all the way to the end of the hall. Go on now. I’m not the one who can help you.”
“No, wait, what would explain it?” He must be tired of me by now. He makes a motion to someone behind me and suddenly I find myself accompanied by two men wearing white suits and sunglasses. The old man is watching me now, shaking his head.
“What, are you going to just take this sitting down?” I ask him. “Why is everyone so judgmental? Who are you people? What the HELL is going on here?”
Everything has stopped. I’m facedown in the fluff, one of the men in a white suit and sunglasses is holding me down using some kind of MMA tactic that I don’t know how to wrest myself from. The other man gets down on one knee and brings his face uncomfortably close to mine.
“Listen,” he says slowly. “We don’t want any of that kind of language up here, you got that? Now if you please, we would like to escort you to the door at the end of the hall without any further incident. How does that sound?”
I’m being lifted up before I have a chance to respond, and the two men are ushering me down the hallway to the door at the end. There are doors only on one side of the hallway, random hard points emerging from an otherwise soft, cushy environment. Like these men in white suits.
We’ve reached the door. One of the men opens it and gestures inside to a completely dark room. At the risk of ending up on the ground once again, I have decided to comply this time, and so enter the room. The door shuts gently behind me.
A single, tiny light source emerges from the ceiling and illuminates what appears to be a very comfortable chair in front of me, resting atop a short pillar of fluff. The stuff is literally everywhere. I presume this is a signal, so I sit down in the chair.
The chair is indeed very cushy. Just as I settle in, the entire room is awash in light. I cram my eyelids closed in an effort to protect my retinas, even shielding them with one arm while I grip the chair in discomfort.
“Good afternoon, Jake,” I hear a voice in front of me say.
The light is still there. “Uh…hi there,” I say, still squinting.
Finally the brightness subsides, and when my eyes are done adjusting I see another man in a white suit seated behind a desk about five feet in front of me. This one isn’t wearing any sunglasses. He’s looking at me, smiling a very kind smile. I have no idea why, but he does have a pretty awesome beard.
“Thank you, I appreciate that,” he says. He looks down at the desk.
I look around me, puzzled. He appreciates what? I guess he must have one of those Bluetooth earbud things and is talking to someone on the phone.
Without looking up, he issues a single laugh of amusement. “No, no, we don’t use those up here. No need.”
Interesting. I think I know what’s going on now. Go fuck yourself, beard guy.
He looks up at me, and I can see nothing but fury in the face that used to be smiling at me. Now he’s looking back down at the desk in front of him. He appears to be consulting some kind of folder.
“You guys are big on lists and stuff here, huh?”
“Jake, you shouldn’t be so happy with yourself considering your past actions, but then again you really don’t have any idea what is going on here. So, I don’t expect that I will find you quaking in your boots like some of the people we get up here.”
“Damn straight you won’t.” I point at him sternly. “I don’t know what you jokers are trying to get away with, but you can bet your fancy wardrobe I’m not just going to go along with it.”
“Trust me, Jake, we aren’t trying, anything. We’ve been doing this forever. I would say since the beginning of time, but since I was the one who began time, that would technically be incorrect.”
I laugh at his last comment. “How does one ‘begin’ time, might I ask?” I shake my head incredulously. “I don’t know what you’re on, dude, but seriously, I just want to get out of here.”
He looks up from the desk and smiles at me. “And once we are done here I would be more than happy to grant that request. We just have a few things to go over.”
He stands up and walks around the desk to get closer to me, bringing the chair along with him. He sets it down in front of me and sits.
“So let’s start off with an introduction,” he says. “I don’t think it’s quite fair to you that I know everything about you and you know nothing about me.”
“I know you apparently read minds,” I say wryly. I’m taking this very well, considering.
“Indeed you are,” he says. “This is going to be a little bit hard for you to understand, considering your beliefs – or lack thereof – but I will put it very shortly.” He smiles broadly at me. “Jake, I’m God.”
I just stare at him for a moment. Then I burst into laughter.
“Yeah, sure, whatever you say buddy.” I look around. “Next thing you know Elvis and Santa are going to come through that door over there holding hands and then Nicholas Cage is going to develop a new facial expression.” That strikes me as being even funnier, so I laugh some more.
“I’m glad you find humor in all this,” he says. “Truth is, you committed suicide, and as such you have a lot to answer for. Not only that, but you spent the last seven years of your life denouncing my existence.” He shakes his head. “Can’t say I’m a fan, Jake.”
“Oh, please. You honestly expect me to believe that since you sit me down in a fluffy room and ‘read my mind’ and have winged 13-year olds working for you that you’re a god, huh?”
“Not a god, the God.”
“Yuh-huh.”
“Jake, sooner or later you will realize I’m telling you the truth.”
“No, sooner or later I will probably wake up from this dream on a hospital bed with my friends and family distraught in the lobby and the police waiting to take me away to serve my time for trying to do myself a huge favor.”
“If that’s what you want I can certainly give you a second chance to redeem yourself and dedicate your life to my service.”
“To your service, huh? Is that service like in the fast food industry or service like, ‘Congratulations, here is your ball and chain and here is where you will be sitting, now row the goddam boat?’”
“Row the what boat?”
“Oh knock it off and answer my questions.”
He stands up and clasps his hands behind his back. “Very well. What is it exactly that you would like to know?”
“I want to know how I can get out of this stupid dream and just die and get it over with.”
He chuckles, then starts pacing the floor in front of me. “Well, Jake, for starters this isn’t a dream. And you are dead. Very much so, in fact. You’re in Heaven, my kingdom.”
I tilt my head in disbelief. “Look man, I know full well this is a dream. Why do you think this doesn’t hurt?” I gesture to my head wound. “You never feel pain in dreams, and if this sucker doesn’t hurt then this can’t possibly be reality.”
The smug look I’m giving him is suddenly interrupted by the absolute most unpleasant sensation I have ever felt – immense, skyrocketing pain grips my head, and I fall out of the chair, screaming.
“This pain?” he asks, just barely audible over my racket. “I’ve been gracious enough to relieve you of it since you’ve been here. And I will continue to do so if you agree to cooperate.” He leans down to me, as I am now writhing in the fluff. “What do you say?”
“YES! FINE!” I yell, and the pain stops instantaneously. I stay on the ground a moment, catching my breath, and then transition to a sitting position and look up at him. “What the hell, man?”
“I do what I must,” he says. “Please have a seat back in the chair.” I oblige, and he stands before me, arms crossed. “Suspend your disbelief for a moment, Jake, and you will know the truth.”
“If you are really God, then you already know that nothing you say or do is really going to make me believe,” I say. “Might as well give it up now, champ.”
“As supportive as that is, I don’t think I will.”
“Suit yourself. Hope you don’t mind having your time wasted.”
“Not particularly, no.”
I scoff. “Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry. You created time. You have as much of it as you could possibly need, right?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“Fine.” I cross my arms and lean back in the chair. “You give this kind of treatment to all the Atheists who end up here?”
“Yes, I do. I feel that it is important to explain to them exactly where they went wrong and give them a chance to redeem themselves, like I stated earlier.”
“Well to be honest I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out where I ‘went wrong,’ but sure. Go to town.”
He laughs. “You’re right Jake. So I’ll spare you the lecture, since you won’t appreciate it anyway, I don’t think. I’ll cut right to the chase.”
Finally.
“You have a choice to make,” he says. “The first option is that you return to Earth. You can accept the consequences of your actions and lead a fuller, better life in service to and belief in me.”
“Sounds super awesome.”
He ignores my sarcasm. “The second option is far less pleasant, and I think you might know what it already is.”
Interesting. “So first you’re going to have to tell me how facing the people who love me and going through mindless therapy that will, inevitably, just fuck me up more, is going to be pleasant, and then you’re going to have to elaborate on that second option.”
He’s either ignoring the f-bomb that I dropped or he didn’t hear it, because he’s not reacting this time.
“I’m ignoring it.”
Well then there we go.
“The second option is for me to send you to the underworld, where you will be forced into painful, never-ending manual labor in the service of the fallen angel, Lucifer.”
“So how is that different from you bringing me back to life, if I am in fact dead? Way it seems to me, I’d just be in your service – probably equally painful – until I died naturally, wouldn’t I?”
“If that’s the way you choose to look at it, then yes. Or you could view it as an opportunity to enrich your life and the lives of others around you, and then retire to the comfort of my kingdom when you pass away of old age.”
“So this is basically just a glorified old folks’ home then, huh?”
“Not quite. We do have a younger population up here as well.”
“Interesting. What’s the deal with bringing babies and people in their 20’s up here then, huh? Why not let them keep living?”
“It’s not up to me, Jake.” He sits back down in his chair, crossing his right leg over his left. “I know what’s going to happen, but I don’t make it happen. My direct influence ended after I created the universe.”
“So then you just watch with your popcorn while countries are turned to rubble and entire civilizations are lost to genocide?”
“I made a decision, Jake. I created humans to be a thinking species capable of walking on both sides of the moral line. I decided to let humanity figure out how to solve these problems on its own, and in turn make itself stronger and better.”
“Have you noticed that it’s not quite working?”
“Consider that your species has only been around for a few thousand years, Jake,” he says. “The evolution of the collective psyche takes much longer than that.”
I think about this for a second. “Like how long? Hundreds of millions of years or something?”
He smiles. “We’ll find out someday.”
“Oh, sure.”
He walks back over to the desk, still smiling, and picks up what he was looking at earlier. It’s a file folder. It has my name on the front.
“What’s that? My file?”
“Yes Jake.” He leans down and opens up one of the desk drawers, taking out a long, thin wooden box with no markings on it. “Do you know what this is?”
I roll my eyes at him. “Harry Potter’s wand?”
“No, Jake, but –”
“Voldemort’s wand? He’s gonna be pissed, you know.”
He shoots me a look that transmits nothing but “I’m fed up with you” and opens the box, pulling out a very shiny silver pen.
“Drew Rosenhaus’s wand?”
“This is the pen I use to judge people with, Jake.”
Well that’s not high and mighty of him at all.
He ignores me again. “I am going to use this pen to send you to the appropriate place after our conversation is over. It’s up to you. Is this file going to get bigger, or not?”
I decide that I am finally fed up with all of this. “So how many people do you pull this shit on during the course of a day? Because in all honesty, I’m surprised I lasted this long without blowing a gasket and ruining that fancy suit of yours.”
“Jake, you couldn’t harm me with the most powerful weapons mankind has ever created.”
Yeah well read this thought, asshole. I’m willing to try. Your fun is over.
I stand up from the chair and start run-walking toward him, and he doesn’t make an attempt to move or go for some kind of object with which to bludgeon me. The chair would do nicely.
I’m a foot away from him now, and I cock back my right fist. I put all my power and weight behind the punch I throw at him.
The room is full of men in white suits, all of them wearing sunglasses except for the one with the beard. I’m buried in a pile of them. Now I’m on my feet, being dragged out the door and back down the hallway and now to the right.
Now I’m being unceremoniously dumped down some kind of shaft. It looks like an old-fashioned well you would find in a Victorian backyard. It’s really hot in here.
Funny. I can’t seem to recall whether or not that punch actually landed.
By Dr. Mullin
Religion has never played a big part in my relationships, which would explain how a semi-pious Catholic and myself – a raving Atheist – were able to coexist peacefully and even sleep together for two years without much of an incident outside the typical fight over stupid shit that, in the end, doesn’t matter at all.
I was lucky enough that it never came up that I think religion is a crutch for the weak and the excuse of all excuses to explain the unknown, and it never came up that she believed in a greater being and an afterlife and that everything happens for a reason.
And when I got down on one knee four months ago, she said “yes” without so much as a, “So how is this ceremony going to go, exactly?” I was fortunate.
Well, until about two hours ago, when she called me to tell me that she has been cheating on me for the past two months. And when I tell you that it’s because, “Jake, you’re just not a good Christian,” I hope I’m not the only one who sees the magnificent irony there.
And this brings us to now. I’m the only one home. I’m standing in the upstairs bathroom, same as I have been for about half an hour now, just staring at myself in the mirror. With an occasional glance, of course, to the nifty little piece of hardware I brought in with me.
This gorgeously morbid piece of machinery is a Ruger .22 rifle. Not quite something Arnold might carry around on him, but it should do the trick – at least that’s what I’m hoping. I’ve never done this before, obviously.
No, it’s not mine. It’s my little brother’s, which in and of itself is a little strange. It would be weirder if he hadn’t started carrying around knives some time in the past year. Don’t know why – and these aren’t just knives, mind you, they’re KNIVES, like two steps under Rambo himself.
I decided to get it from his closet when I realized that I was too angry to just let this bullshit go. I’ll be honest, my first thought was finding out who the other son of a bitch was and taking him with me, but I realize that she would never tell me anyway. Fucker.
And it doesn’t matter. All I want to get out of this is an end to all this crap – how the hell am I ever going to trust another woman again when the one I thought was perfect totally fucks me over like this?
Go ahead and call me a pessimist if you want, but you can go fuck yourself. I’m a realist, and reality sucks ass. Take it or leave it, kiddies.
And on the plus side, maybe she will realize it’s all her fault and feel like shit for it. That would be a nice bonus.
The gun’s loaded, but I’m not. Maybe I should be. Might make this whole thing a lot easier. I’m wondering if I can actually go through with it, if I can actually point and pull the trigger and not give a damn about what happens next. I think I can.
Time for the sickly-sweet embrace of death to take all the pain away. Wait – what? When did I become a manlier version of the singer from HIM? Fuck this shit. I pick the gun up, aim at my temple, and squeeze.
* * * * * * *
Huh. Somebody got it right with the bright light bullshit. It’s like being an inch and a half away from the sun. Must be an after-effect of the bullet tearing my brain apart. Neat stuff. I’m wondering what happens – wait, how can I still be conscious if I’m dead?
FUCK. It didn’t work.
I’m probably looking into the lights over my hospital bed right now. Someone must be operating on the side of my head, trying to remove the projectile. My parents must be in the waiting room.
This is how it would go. My dad has one hand on my mom’s right leg – he’s always on that side – and the other hand on his cell, getting a therapist all lined up for me. My mom’s crying, face in hands, wondering “What in the world could have pushed him to such an extreme?” The nurse at the front desk is watching them in empathy, thinking, “Fuckin’ kids these days.” It’s a male nurse. He’s overweight, which I think is funny somehow.
I open my eyes to see what exactly is going on, and the light dissipates. Now I’m looking up into a very pure, blue sky. No sun in sight, but it’s very warm and bright here. Where the hell am I?
I sit up at a slight angle, using my arms to brace myself. I look around and notice that my surroundings are distinctly…fluffy. Like I’m sitting inside a pillow. I’m scratching my head in disbelief and I find the wound on the right side. No blood comes off on my hand, which I think is odd. It feels like the forces of nature created a miniature Grand Canyon on my person. I hate the Grand Canyon.
When I’m done being fascinatingly horrified with my boo-boo, I stand up and see that there are people all around me, some seated just as I was, some standing, looking confused like I am now, and some walking ahead to some distant point on the horizon. Well all right then. Let’s see what goes on here.
The fluff is about ankle deep, but it doesn’t obstruct my movement. I wonder what’s underneath it? I dig through what I can, and the “ground” below is soft and kind of squishy. Definitely not dirt. Or anything else that ground should be made of.
A few minutes into my walk, I see what looks like a tollbooth up ahead, surrounded by tall, regal looking wrought-iron fence. Maximum-security type stuff, but for rich folks. I start to get closer to the booth, but notice a line of exorbitant proportions is forming in front of me. I join it. And wait.
An older gentleman wearing a hospital gown and bracelet gets in line behind me. From what I can tell he has no grotesque injuries, which may explain why he is staring at mine with soft intent and sadness. I ignore him.
The line moves relatively quickly, and just as I am becoming second in line to step up to the booth, the old man taps me on the shoulder.
“Did you do that?” he asks, gesturing toward my gaping hole.
I’m thinking intently about lying to him, saying I was the unlucky victim of an ill-advised game of Russian roulette because me and my drunken pals were all bored, but I decide not to. Why would he care anyway?
“Yeah, I did it.” He looks disappointed. “What? I had my reasons, and that should be more than good enough for you. You don’t even know what happened, so why don’t you just lay off?”
He turns away, but I can’t tell if it’s because he is chastened or if he thinks he is wasting his time on the young whippersnapper in front of him.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask him.
“It was my time,” he says. He shakes his head unhappily. “I’d was in the hospital for about a month, managing to hang on. For a second even I thought I might make it.” He looks down at his feet. “We were wrong. We were all wrong.”
I raise my eyebrows at the old man, and since he continues to stare sadly at his feet, I decide not to bother and turn around just in time to see that my time at the tollbooth has come. I step forward.
The curiously dressed man in the window doesn’t even bother to raise his head from the list he is poring over. “Name?” he says, in a voice that is unfittingly high pitched.
I squint curiously at him before answering. “Jake Douglass.”
He makes a check mark on the list and looks up at me, and now I’m face to face with what appears to be a 13-year-old boy. Who has wings. You have no idea how confused I am right now. This has to be a dream. Do people dream when they die?
“You know,” he says sternly, “you really shouldn’t have done that. Not going to do you any favors up here, that’s for sure.”
I can’t take this kid seriously. He’s trying to lecture me while wearing fairy wings? For real?
He consults the list again. “All right. Well you’re apparently going in for a talk before we send you off to your final destination. Not sure why, but don’t question the boss.” He points slightly behind me. “Take that hallway to the second door from the end.”
I turn and look, and there is indeed a hallway, just as fluffy as the rest of my surroundings. It looks more like a tunnel, considering that we aren’t actually in a building, as far as I can tell.
“Hang on a second,” I say, turning back to him. He looks perturbed that I haven’t just obeyed the instructions and gotten on with it. “You said, ‘up here.’ Where exactly is ‘up here?’”
He looks at me, puzzled, like I should obviously know the answer to my own question, and so turns once again to the list in front of him for the answer. “Aha, that would explain it. Instead of going to the second door from the end, head all the way to the end of the hall. Go on now. I’m not the one who can help you.”
“No, wait, what would explain it?” He must be tired of me by now. He makes a motion to someone behind me and suddenly I find myself accompanied by two men wearing white suits and sunglasses. The old man is watching me now, shaking his head.
“What, are you going to just take this sitting down?” I ask him. “Why is everyone so judgmental? Who are you people? What the HELL is going on here?”
Everything has stopped. I’m facedown in the fluff, one of the men in a white suit and sunglasses is holding me down using some kind of MMA tactic that I don’t know how to wrest myself from. The other man gets down on one knee and brings his face uncomfortably close to mine.
“Listen,” he says slowly. “We don’t want any of that kind of language up here, you got that? Now if you please, we would like to escort you to the door at the end of the hall without any further incident. How does that sound?”
I’m being lifted up before I have a chance to respond, and the two men are ushering me down the hallway to the door at the end. There are doors only on one side of the hallway, random hard points emerging from an otherwise soft, cushy environment. Like these men in white suits.
We’ve reached the door. One of the men opens it and gestures inside to a completely dark room. At the risk of ending up on the ground once again, I have decided to comply this time, and so enter the room. The door shuts gently behind me.
A single, tiny light source emerges from the ceiling and illuminates what appears to be a very comfortable chair in front of me, resting atop a short pillar of fluff. The stuff is literally everywhere. I presume this is a signal, so I sit down in the chair.
The chair is indeed very cushy. Just as I settle in, the entire room is awash in light. I cram my eyelids closed in an effort to protect my retinas, even shielding them with one arm while I grip the chair in discomfort.
“Good afternoon, Jake,” I hear a voice in front of me say.
The light is still there. “Uh…hi there,” I say, still squinting.
Finally the brightness subsides, and when my eyes are done adjusting I see another man in a white suit seated behind a desk about five feet in front of me. This one isn’t wearing any sunglasses. He’s looking at me, smiling a very kind smile. I have no idea why, but he does have a pretty awesome beard.
“Thank you, I appreciate that,” he says. He looks down at the desk.
I look around me, puzzled. He appreciates what? I guess he must have one of those Bluetooth earbud things and is talking to someone on the phone.
Without looking up, he issues a single laugh of amusement. “No, no, we don’t use those up here. No need.”
Interesting. I think I know what’s going on now. Go fuck yourself, beard guy.
He looks up at me, and I can see nothing but fury in the face that used to be smiling at me. Now he’s looking back down at the desk in front of him. He appears to be consulting some kind of folder.
“You guys are big on lists and stuff here, huh?”
“Jake, you shouldn’t be so happy with yourself considering your past actions, but then again you really don’t have any idea what is going on here. So, I don’t expect that I will find you quaking in your boots like some of the people we get up here.”
“Damn straight you won’t.” I point at him sternly. “I don’t know what you jokers are trying to get away with, but you can bet your fancy wardrobe I’m not just going to go along with it.”
“Trust me, Jake, we aren’t trying, anything. We’ve been doing this forever. I would say since the beginning of time, but since I was the one who began time, that would technically be incorrect.”
I laugh at his last comment. “How does one ‘begin’ time, might I ask?” I shake my head incredulously. “I don’t know what you’re on, dude, but seriously, I just want to get out of here.”
He looks up from the desk and smiles at me. “And once we are done here I would be more than happy to grant that request. We just have a few things to go over.”
He stands up and walks around the desk to get closer to me, bringing the chair along with him. He sets it down in front of me and sits.
“So let’s start off with an introduction,” he says. “I don’t think it’s quite fair to you that I know everything about you and you know nothing about me.”
“I know you apparently read minds,” I say wryly. I’m taking this very well, considering.
“Indeed you are,” he says. “This is going to be a little bit hard for you to understand, considering your beliefs – or lack thereof – but I will put it very shortly.” He smiles broadly at me. “Jake, I’m God.”
I just stare at him for a moment. Then I burst into laughter.
“Yeah, sure, whatever you say buddy.” I look around. “Next thing you know Elvis and Santa are going to come through that door over there holding hands and then Nicholas Cage is going to develop a new facial expression.” That strikes me as being even funnier, so I laugh some more.
“I’m glad you find humor in all this,” he says. “Truth is, you committed suicide, and as such you have a lot to answer for. Not only that, but you spent the last seven years of your life denouncing my existence.” He shakes his head. “Can’t say I’m a fan, Jake.”
“Oh, please. You honestly expect me to believe that since you sit me down in a fluffy room and ‘read my mind’ and have winged 13-year olds working for you that you’re a god, huh?”
“Not a god, the God.”
“Yuh-huh.”
“Jake, sooner or later you will realize I’m telling you the truth.”
“No, sooner or later I will probably wake up from this dream on a hospital bed with my friends and family distraught in the lobby and the police waiting to take me away to serve my time for trying to do myself a huge favor.”
“If that’s what you want I can certainly give you a second chance to redeem yourself and dedicate your life to my service.”
“To your service, huh? Is that service like in the fast food industry or service like, ‘Congratulations, here is your ball and chain and here is where you will be sitting, now row the goddam boat?’”
“Row the what boat?”
“Oh knock it off and answer my questions.”
He stands up and clasps his hands behind his back. “Very well. What is it exactly that you would like to know?”
“I want to know how I can get out of this stupid dream and just die and get it over with.”
He chuckles, then starts pacing the floor in front of me. “Well, Jake, for starters this isn’t a dream. And you are dead. Very much so, in fact. You’re in Heaven, my kingdom.”
I tilt my head in disbelief. “Look man, I know full well this is a dream. Why do you think this doesn’t hurt?” I gesture to my head wound. “You never feel pain in dreams, and if this sucker doesn’t hurt then this can’t possibly be reality.”
The smug look I’m giving him is suddenly interrupted by the absolute most unpleasant sensation I have ever felt – immense, skyrocketing pain grips my head, and I fall out of the chair, screaming.
“This pain?” he asks, just barely audible over my racket. “I’ve been gracious enough to relieve you of it since you’ve been here. And I will continue to do so if you agree to cooperate.” He leans down to me, as I am now writhing in the fluff. “What do you say?”
“YES! FINE!” I yell, and the pain stops instantaneously. I stay on the ground a moment, catching my breath, and then transition to a sitting position and look up at him. “What the hell, man?”
“I do what I must,” he says. “Please have a seat back in the chair.” I oblige, and he stands before me, arms crossed. “Suspend your disbelief for a moment, Jake, and you will know the truth.”
“If you are really God, then you already know that nothing you say or do is really going to make me believe,” I say. “Might as well give it up now, champ.”
“As supportive as that is, I don’t think I will.”
“Suit yourself. Hope you don’t mind having your time wasted.”
“Not particularly, no.”
I scoff. “Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry. You created time. You have as much of it as you could possibly need, right?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“Fine.” I cross my arms and lean back in the chair. “You give this kind of treatment to all the Atheists who end up here?”
“Yes, I do. I feel that it is important to explain to them exactly where they went wrong and give them a chance to redeem themselves, like I stated earlier.”
“Well to be honest I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out where I ‘went wrong,’ but sure. Go to town.”
He laughs. “You’re right Jake. So I’ll spare you the lecture, since you won’t appreciate it anyway, I don’t think. I’ll cut right to the chase.”
Finally.
“You have a choice to make,” he says. “The first option is that you return to Earth. You can accept the consequences of your actions and lead a fuller, better life in service to and belief in me.”
“Sounds super awesome.”
He ignores my sarcasm. “The second option is far less pleasant, and I think you might know what it already is.”
Interesting. “So first you’re going to have to tell me how facing the people who love me and going through mindless therapy that will, inevitably, just fuck me up more, is going to be pleasant, and then you’re going to have to elaborate on that second option.”
He’s either ignoring the f-bomb that I dropped or he didn’t hear it, because he’s not reacting this time.
“I’m ignoring it.”
Well then there we go.
“The second option is for me to send you to the underworld, where you will be forced into painful, never-ending manual labor in the service of the fallen angel, Lucifer.”
“So how is that different from you bringing me back to life, if I am in fact dead? Way it seems to me, I’d just be in your service – probably equally painful – until I died naturally, wouldn’t I?”
“If that’s the way you choose to look at it, then yes. Or you could view it as an opportunity to enrich your life and the lives of others around you, and then retire to the comfort of my kingdom when you pass away of old age.”
“So this is basically just a glorified old folks’ home then, huh?”
“Not quite. We do have a younger population up here as well.”
“Interesting. What’s the deal with bringing babies and people in their 20’s up here then, huh? Why not let them keep living?”
“It’s not up to me, Jake.” He sits back down in his chair, crossing his right leg over his left. “I know what’s going to happen, but I don’t make it happen. My direct influence ended after I created the universe.”
“So then you just watch with your popcorn while countries are turned to rubble and entire civilizations are lost to genocide?”
“I made a decision, Jake. I created humans to be a thinking species capable of walking on both sides of the moral line. I decided to let humanity figure out how to solve these problems on its own, and in turn make itself stronger and better.”
“Have you noticed that it’s not quite working?”
“Consider that your species has only been around for a few thousand years, Jake,” he says. “The evolution of the collective psyche takes much longer than that.”
I think about this for a second. “Like how long? Hundreds of millions of years or something?”
He smiles. “We’ll find out someday.”
“Oh, sure.”
He walks back over to the desk, still smiling, and picks up what he was looking at earlier. It’s a file folder. It has my name on the front.
“What’s that? My file?”
“Yes Jake.” He leans down and opens up one of the desk drawers, taking out a long, thin wooden box with no markings on it. “Do you know what this is?”
I roll my eyes at him. “Harry Potter’s wand?”
“No, Jake, but –”
“Voldemort’s wand? He’s gonna be pissed, you know.”
He shoots me a look that transmits nothing but “I’m fed up with you” and opens the box, pulling out a very shiny silver pen.
“Drew Rosenhaus’s wand?”
“This is the pen I use to judge people with, Jake.”
Well that’s not high and mighty of him at all.
He ignores me again. “I am going to use this pen to send you to the appropriate place after our conversation is over. It’s up to you. Is this file going to get bigger, or not?”
I decide that I am finally fed up with all of this. “So how many people do you pull this shit on during the course of a day? Because in all honesty, I’m surprised I lasted this long without blowing a gasket and ruining that fancy suit of yours.”
“Jake, you couldn’t harm me with the most powerful weapons mankind has ever created.”
Yeah well read this thought, asshole. I’m willing to try. Your fun is over.
I stand up from the chair and start run-walking toward him, and he doesn’t make an attempt to move or go for some kind of object with which to bludgeon me. The chair would do nicely.
I’m a foot away from him now, and I cock back my right fist. I put all my power and weight behind the punch I throw at him.
The room is full of men in white suits, all of them wearing sunglasses except for the one with the beard. I’m buried in a pile of them. Now I’m on my feet, being dragged out the door and back down the hallway and now to the right.
Now I’m being unceremoniously dumped down some kind of shaft. It looks like an old-fashioned well you would find in a Victorian backyard. It’s really hot in here.
Funny. I can’t seem to recall whether or not that punch actually landed.
Labels:
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Summer Sadness
Since we are in the mist of summer and there seems to be a theme going, I will only add to it haha. I wrote this piece a while back and actually submitted it to Willows Wept Review but it got rejected. I don't know what's wrong but I feel as if something is missing with it so maybe you can help. Let me know?
Summer Sadness by Glen Binger
We did it on the beach tonight. Sex, I mean. We had sex on the beach about an hour ago. I’ve never had so much sand wedged in that crevice before. But at least the summer’s clear stars made me feel like my existence mattered. I know for a fact that she didn’t make me feel that way. She used me. For money, for rides, for sex. Anything really. Anything but a relationship.
“You gonna be around tomorrow morning?” She pulled her head through the white t-shirt.
“What else am I going to be doing?”
“I don’t know.”
We stood up and walked back to our bikes up on the boardwalk in silence. I wanted to die.
“Okay,” she pedaled off. “I’ll call you later.”
I walked my bike to 7-11 across the street and got a buttered roll.
“Do you have any Dutchies left,” I asked the clerk.
“I think,” she replied. “Rollin’ a blunt, huh?”
She reached below the counter, then came back up and handed me the cigar.
“Yeah,” I muttered, not the slightest bit surprised.
I paid the three dollars and left walking back towards the beach after locking my bike to a telephone pole next to the store.
*******
I flicked the roach of the blunt away and pushed my foot down, smothering the butt. My cell phone started vibrating. It was her. I didn’t answer it. I turned the phone off instead, crossed my legs and laid back into the cool sand. My eyes opened for only the starry, black canvas glued to the ceiling in front of me. The waves crashed in the background, giving off a natural, yet soothing, oceanic sound.
I let the stars pierce every piece of my exposed skin like a thin layer of chilly mist. I developed a likening for them and embedded the feeling into the front of my mind. It reminded me of the feeling I get when I ride a bike at night – pedaling as fast as I can as the smooth summer air forms and wraps around every curve of my body, no matter how soft or how jagged.
Then before I could think twice I was back at 7-11 unlocking my bike, getting ready to sprint-pedal down Ocean Avenue. My summer sadness was irrelevant as long as I could enjoy myself. As long as she wasn’t around. As long as I was alone, riding my beach cruiser down Ocean Ave on a weekday summer night. Only then did my existence matter.
-------
Currently Listening To: John Mayer, "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room"
Summer Sadness by Glen Binger
We did it on the beach tonight. Sex, I mean. We had sex on the beach about an hour ago. I’ve never had so much sand wedged in that crevice before. But at least the summer’s clear stars made me feel like my existence mattered. I know for a fact that she didn’t make me feel that way. She used me. For money, for rides, for sex. Anything really. Anything but a relationship.
“You gonna be around tomorrow morning?” She pulled her head through the white t-shirt.
“What else am I going to be doing?”
“I don’t know.”
We stood up and walked back to our bikes up on the boardwalk in silence. I wanted to die.
“Okay,” she pedaled off. “I’ll call you later.”
I walked my bike to 7-11 across the street and got a buttered roll.
“Do you have any Dutchies left,” I asked the clerk.
“I think,” she replied. “Rollin’ a blunt, huh?”
She reached below the counter, then came back up and handed me the cigar.
“Yeah,” I muttered, not the slightest bit surprised.
I paid the three dollars and left walking back towards the beach after locking my bike to a telephone pole next to the store.
*******
I flicked the roach of the blunt away and pushed my foot down, smothering the butt. My cell phone started vibrating. It was her. I didn’t answer it. I turned the phone off instead, crossed my legs and laid back into the cool sand. My eyes opened for only the starry, black canvas glued to the ceiling in front of me. The waves crashed in the background, giving off a natural, yet soothing, oceanic sound.
I let the stars pierce every piece of my exposed skin like a thin layer of chilly mist. I developed a likening for them and embedded the feeling into the front of my mind. It reminded me of the feeling I get when I ride a bike at night – pedaling as fast as I can as the smooth summer air forms and wraps around every curve of my body, no matter how soft or how jagged.
Then before I could think twice I was back at 7-11 unlocking my bike, getting ready to sprint-pedal down Ocean Avenue. My summer sadness was irrelevant as long as I could enjoy myself. As long as she wasn’t around. As long as I was alone, riding my beach cruiser down Ocean Ave on a weekday summer night. Only then did my existence matter.
-------
Currently Listening To: John Mayer, "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room"
Labels:
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Willows Wept Review
Friday, August 7, 2009
Summer and Summer Again
The water was filled with jellyfish and seaweed and you refused to get in.
“You’ve never even seen the Atlantic before,” I said, “What did you come all the way here for?”
New Jersey is famous for the shore even though the water is opaque. The first time I went to Florida, I couldn’t believe it. I had never seen sand under the water, or fish, or my own toes.
“I’m not really a beach person,” you said.
“How can you not be a beach person if you’ve never been to the beach?”
You made fun of my accent and I did the same to you. You asked why I chose to move here after traveling around all over the place, and I asked you how you could stay in the same place for so long.
I stood knee deep in the water and you sat on the beach, staring around at the families swimming and sunning themselves. I wanted to keep going but I came back for you.
I like light jacket weather and the colors of the trees. You’re used to warm weather and wide-open spaces, which Jersey City doesn’t afford. I took you to New York and showed you Central Park, which you agreed was nice. I took you to the farmland that no one realizes we have, and it reminded you of home.
I’ve lived in a dozen cities. The empty factories and abandoned warehouses that make you so uncomfortable are just part of the scenery for me. It’s the open spaces I can’t stand. When I met you I was planning on getting out of there as fast as possible. You were planning the same thing, but as I watched you standing in someone else’s field, after a few months of city living, you looked happy for the first time in a while.
I glanced all around me, wondering who might have been watching, feeling exposed without trees or buildings. You wanted to keep going but you came back for me.
I can recognize the sky when it’s about to snow, and the right kind of snow for making snowmen. My aunt wanted me to stay with her at her timeshare in Florida again, but I decided to stick around. I never mentioned it to you, and I never mentioned you to her.
Later I thought it might have been a mistake. But if I went down there I might not have wanted to come back, and you made me want to try to stick it out.
“I don't know if I can stay here for much longer,” you said as we made pasta.
“I thought you wanted a change of scenery,” I said.
“I did, but I think I need another one.”
We ate dinner in silence, and drank our New Year’s champagne long before midnight.
It was impossible for the weather to decide anything anymore. It was snowing one day, then sixty degrees the next.
You argued with me about why I felt restless, even though you felt the same way. You said I could never be happy anywhere. I reminded you that the only reason you came with me was because you weren’t happy.
Since I left school, that was the longest I’d stayed at a job, and stayed with a person. The weather finally decided to stick to hot and muggy. I packed up my suitcase to head south, and you packed up yours.
“Are you going home?” I asked.
“No,” you said.
“Well, where are you going?”
“Somewhere new.”
“Me too,” I said.
“You’ve never even seen the Atlantic before,” I said, “What did you come all the way here for?”
New Jersey is famous for the shore even though the water is opaque. The first time I went to Florida, I couldn’t believe it. I had never seen sand under the water, or fish, or my own toes.
“I’m not really a beach person,” you said.
“How can you not be a beach person if you’ve never been to the beach?”
You made fun of my accent and I did the same to you. You asked why I chose to move here after traveling around all over the place, and I asked you how you could stay in the same place for so long.
I stood knee deep in the water and you sat on the beach, staring around at the families swimming and sunning themselves. I wanted to keep going but I came back for you.
I like light jacket weather and the colors of the trees. You’re used to warm weather and wide-open spaces, which Jersey City doesn’t afford. I took you to New York and showed you Central Park, which you agreed was nice. I took you to the farmland that no one realizes we have, and it reminded you of home.
I’ve lived in a dozen cities. The empty factories and abandoned warehouses that make you so uncomfortable are just part of the scenery for me. It’s the open spaces I can’t stand. When I met you I was planning on getting out of there as fast as possible. You were planning the same thing, but as I watched you standing in someone else’s field, after a few months of city living, you looked happy for the first time in a while.
I glanced all around me, wondering who might have been watching, feeling exposed without trees or buildings. You wanted to keep going but you came back for me.
I can recognize the sky when it’s about to snow, and the right kind of snow for making snowmen. My aunt wanted me to stay with her at her timeshare in Florida again, but I decided to stick around. I never mentioned it to you, and I never mentioned you to her.
Later I thought it might have been a mistake. But if I went down there I might not have wanted to come back, and you made me want to try to stick it out.
“I don't know if I can stay here for much longer,” you said as we made pasta.
“I thought you wanted a change of scenery,” I said.
“I did, but I think I need another one.”
We ate dinner in silence, and drank our New Year’s champagne long before midnight.
It was impossible for the weather to decide anything anymore. It was snowing one day, then sixty degrees the next.
You argued with me about why I felt restless, even though you felt the same way. You said I could never be happy anywhere. I reminded you that the only reason you came with me was because you weren’t happy.
Since I left school, that was the longest I’d stayed at a job, and stayed with a person. The weather finally decided to stick to hot and muggy. I packed up my suitcase to head south, and you packed up yours.
“Are you going home?” I asked.
“No,” you said.
“Well, where are you going?”
“Somewhere new.”
“Me too,” I said.
Labels:
fiction,
Robin Barletta
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The August 1st summary
August 1st was the inaugural Broad Set Writing Collective reading. I waited outside The Starry Night Café going through Mary Oliver’s dazzling poetry collection, Thirst, thinking how it was odd that I had never read the piece Messenger despite having the collection for two years. I was nervous. What should I say to begin the event? I thought about the first time I read in front of Dr. Hess’s classroom and how I sat down, looked at the class and said “You guy like the Knicks? Neither do it.” Some laughed, some didn’t but that little stupid comment set some kind of tone which I was able to build my confidence off of. With that in mind I decided to tell the 35 people in front of me that I had tried relentlessly to get Queen Latifah to MC the event. Then I explained that she was busy and they were stuck with me. I would get into the more serious stuff, the listing of the thank yous. I wanted to be careful here. I didn’t want to gain any sort of rhyme for each person helped us in a unique and wonderful way and a rhythmic 'thank you' implies I am going through the motions. I truly wasn’t.
First I thanked Sam Ciero for his work in creating the Lo-Fidelity.
I thanked Laura Mortkowitz, which caught her off guard, for copy editing the magazine.
Then I thanked Lauren Cerand for her guidance and for her fantastic contributions.
I also thanked Dr. Hess for being a mentor and role model (roll, if you read the magazine, gotta love typos) for all of us.
I thanked everyone for being there and explained The Broad Set briefly. Then I read this poem because it creates an understated tone while explaining how a lot of us live.
First I thanked Sam Ciero for his work in creating the Lo-Fidelity.
I thanked Laura Mortkowitz, which caught her off guard, for copy editing the magazine.
Then I thanked Lauren Cerand for her guidance and for her fantastic contributions.
I also thanked Dr. Hess for being a mentor and role model (roll, if you read the magazine, gotta love typos) for all of us.
I thanked everyone for being there and explained The Broad Set briefly. Then I read this poem because it creates an understated tone while explaining how a lot of us live.
Messenger
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.
-By Mary Oliver
The reading itself went beautifully. Kiley got everyone going with her poignant piece. Robin had us all clapping with her piece. (Robin, that final line is perfect.) Glen, Andrew and Sam got us all laughing with their experimental pieces about Buildings, Bananas and Doctors.
We were done right at 8:00pm which allowed us to exit into a cooling blue night. We sat outside at a local tavern and held our beers up together and congratulated each other of coming together as a group and making something amazing happen.
We laughed louder than anyone and eventually began playing surrealist writing games which we learned in Dr. Hess’s class. On the way home I felt like a kid the day after Christmas. You may know the feeling where maybe you wake up the following day and remember all the great presents you have now. And you get excited and run to play with them. Only the gift I got on August 1st was accomplishment. It feels better than any Power Ranger toy I ever got.
______________________
I would like to take this opportunity to announce our second reading. September 18th 2009 at Brickbat Books in Philadelphia. Things start at 7:00PM and there will be free beer. If you come out with us after you can join us in our surrealist games.
Secondly - I am giving away 20 free copies of Lo-Fidelity, The Broad Set Writing Collective Edition Featuring Lauren Cerand. All you have to do is promote the magazine on facebook, your blog, your twitter or whatever and e-mail me the link, along with your address. It could be as simple as 2 sentences as to why we rock. If yours is the best one, I will buy you a drink at the Brickbat reading.
Broadsetwritingcollective@gmail.com
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