(no subject)
Macklyn’s Novel. More of a novella or short story than novel…nonetheless. I’m going to type to take up room. Ok.
Most modern men are out of touch with the feeling of comradery. Knowing that whatever you say or do is perfectly acceptable within a group of friends is one of the best things in the world. Such was happening the morning, period one. They, being free-thinkers and not caring for the majority, sat near the back corner in their own little world. The throats made strange cooing noises and were met with confusion. It did not matter.
“Chess is boring, most boring indeed.” Poseidon said.
“Oh I must disagree. A good game of cheese flexes the mind!” Ina answered.
“No no no. Checkers is the game of choice,” replied Moses. “Oh shit my leg’s stuck.”
“Lemme help,” said Poseidon. He went over to the Moses’ desk and started applying generous amounts of Crisco to his leg. The bell rings and they all file out of the classroom in a single line of dead looks and insufficient brain activity. The hallway was a mass of hot bodies and hormones flying. You could practically feel the buzz of sexual frustration. The locker flew open and a fresh cool breeze escaped.
“Let’s go,” Ina said, and stepped through the door, following by the others onto a plain. Small hills surrounded them, and the echo of bird songs bounced around. In the right light you could see the notes flying through the air. Penguins were flying and gumdrop trees were growing.
“The cabin’s gone,” Moses said, with a trace of longing in his voice. He walked over to a bare patch of land and sat Indian style right in the middle of the patch. This spot has traces of live. Shh, listen to it! Vibrating, exploding, possibly exhilarating, I’m feeling your passion, your longing and hope! There is an answer! Oh…I’m so afraid.
“Here it comes…” Poseidon said with an eye roll.
It is the magnificent Gigantic Uterus. She rolls across the land, spitting out eggs. By the way, a chocolate bar collects these eggs. You can buy one, it’s only a quarter! Turn the wheel and out comes your egg. Wait, wait…the Gigantic Uterus speaks,
“Hey guys, you want some weed?”
“Fuck off Gigantic Uterus. Your weed is just stems and oregano.” Ina replies, her arms crossed. The subway is almost here, I gotta go. I can’t miss it! It’s my only way home, you can’t deny it. Dissected pigs lay in piles, flies surround it. Kids and wind chimes are yelling. My white tile bathroom floor is heaped with fish. Yellow fish and blue fish. There’s water in my lungs, little jellyfish swimming in them. I can feel them, little tentacles shocking me, inside of me, they’re closing up! Shrinking rapidly. You feel me? YOU FEEL ME?!
“Oh man,” Gigantic Uterus says, rolling away. “Harsh.”
His eyes feel to the bay, white caps and laughter of seagulls. The gods must live in the bay. The melting snow high up on the mountaintop will run down the side, you will enjoy riding a raft down the rapids. The water will find the lowest point to travel. It is unselfish in that way. At the bottom your blues sits on the edge, drinking the passive feelings and cold machines. Let’s build some metal complexes! Right here! Right now! Tear down the forest full of baby deer, it’s ok, we’ll send them some beer. Aren’t you afraid my body is convulsing in anguish, there are jellyfish in my lungs. I can feel their electric presence, I can no longer breathe, oxygen escapes me. Green mold underneath my fingernails, you can no longer tell who I am, where I’m at, can you? Sure sure sure, I’m fine. I’m swell. I’m exactly how I should be.
“Is that smoke?” Ina asks.
“I don’t know, let’s check it out.” Answers Moses. And they were off. The journey made them weary so they stopped for coffee. With their warm cups and frothy lips they continued. At long last they arrived at the smoky spot.
“Oh, it’s just a cataclysmic rupture in the space-time continuum,” Poseidon says.
“Hm, well, now that we’ve cleared that up, can we please all join in for a sing-a-long with those penguins of a Rufus song?” Ina asks.
“God not again…” Moses sighs. “Fine.”
The three of them and all the penguins started to sing. The song they sang was Old Whore’s Diet by Rufus Wainwright. And what do you know; Antony emerged from under a penguin costume to help us in the rendition. When his deep, magnificent voice hit the stratosphere it unlocked the deep sea space frozen nuclear antechamber which ancient gods were enslaved. They awoke. Pan, Osiris, Mellonoma. They kind of, sort of flew but more like feel gracefully down from the heavens. Arriving a little to the left of the sing-a-long they hurriedly dusted off their bodies and joined in the big ring of people and penguins, holding hands and fins. Once the song was over they all formed an army’s regiment position and launched into Kids On Holiday by Animal Collective with shouts of HOLIDAY! HOLIDAY! In the sun, in the sun, they all formed one cosmic external mass with the lungs of Zeus and Jupiter combined. All at once, from the sky, fell ice guitars, one for everybody, including the penguins. With guitars in hand/fin they all scattered to the edge of the world, creating a force field of electric energy, protecting everybody unknowingly from the various attacks of evil space overlords that were probably green. Aren’t they always? I once saw a ghastly invader playing 2nd chair glockenspiel in the Hungarian Philharmonic. He was actually a bit more purple than green, so I was 100% sure he wasn’t from this planet. But after their breathtaking rendition of Ramones songs I went down and asked him to snort some red dust. You see, space creatures can’t deal with red things. He absolutely flipped out and started flying around with crystalline honeycomb daggers escaping out of his bellybutton. Running for cover I hid underneath a fat hippopotamus that was in the hall. I asked his name, he asked the time, I said it’s nine, he said his name was Lenny. This was just a part time job for him. His real trade was deconstructing old government houses that had turned into crack houses and people of questionable taste. He didn’t LOVE it but it got him and the misses by. I looked at his eyes, they screamed of life. Eventually the glockenspieler grew tired and was captured with a net by a group of security monkeys. With their prisoner in capacity, I got out from under Lenny.
“Thank you for letting me hide underneath you,” I said, giving him a hug.
“Oh no probs!” he said with a big hippo smile. “If you’re ever in Manchester stop by and the misses will cook you up a warm English meal.”
“Oh cool! Totally. Here’s my address if you want to write to me.” I said while writing down my address on his little pad of paper that he keeps in his pocket. “Oh my phone’s ringing.”
I walked away. Unknown to me at the time, but I had turned into a giant. There were birds flying around my head making fun little bird sounds. Everywhere I went I would have to shrink myself. How you wonder? Oh I just happen to know a spell taught to me by a magical wonderful stegosaurus. He lived on the Isle of Man and was a hermit on a moor filled with lovely purple flowers. He would roam about, collecting herbs and roots for his potions and would talk to the hold ladies in the market about the scientific properties of lettuce and radishes. Anyway, I travel around randomly doing whatever it is I’m randomly doing at the time. Changing sizes or what not. My favorite food is cashews! They’re good, and good for you. Let’s noodle this doodle!! This pen keeps kind of fucking up; I’m not a fan of it at all. I wish I would have remembered my pen. That type is pretty much the best pen I have ever used. I think it’s called a Bic Stic Grip…something along those lines. They’re a sort of cloudy white color and come in black, blue, or red. There’s a beetle. On my window. He told me to always eat ice cream, wear a hat, and move spherically, in many directions. I was fond of this useful knowledge, so I kept said beetle in a jar with a stick and a leaf, to recreate his natural habitat. His musings on life became more pessimistic and less useful until one day I came home for lunch and he was dead. I shed one tear, and found a shoebox. I put the beetle along with his natural habitat in the shoebox and a little blanket so he wouldn’t be cold. I guess that blanket wasn’t too necessary now that I think about it…anyways… I took the shoebox out to my backyard. The fire was burning something fierce. I brought in Thor to play drums and I placed the shoebox in the fire. A real Viking funeral. That was the only way the beetle deserved to be put to rest. All of a sudden an octopus walked to me and put one of her tentacles around, comforting me,
“There, there,” her sucker things gently massaging my back, “let’s go get some iced latte.” We walked, tentacle in hand, to the local coffee shop. But as we were within ten feet of said coffee shop she made a pop sound. Her insides squirted out onto the sidewalk and she turned a funky purple/green color. It was the month of April and I was not afraid. Ask my mother. I scooped up the octopus and her smelly guts, and put them in a Chinese to go box. It had a Chinese symbol and pagoda on it, red ink. Some of her ink kept leaking out of the bottom. There was nothing I could do to stop it, so I just held it away from my body. I’ve since used them in a quilt I made for my niece. Hopefully she’ll cherish it like I cherish my duck blanket. It’s still April and I’m feeling spherical. I wonder if that will have an effect on my learning capabilities. A book called Economic Documents: New York Edition saved my life once. See, I was traveling through high canyons and shallow waters being pulled through in a cart by a mule. On this voyage I was looking for new ways to make paper and was hoping to learn from the ancient cliff dwellers of Prince Albert’s Spine. Anyways, we were traveling next to a river of spinal fluid and I was daydreaming about lipstick and frogs with banjos when all of a sudden the rival paper maker, Smithson, attacked our caravan and the mules turned into war memorials and I was through into a temperature-less pit of sand and macaws. Having never spoken to a macaw before I was, at first, at a loss of words. Fumbling in my pocket, I found a pack of cigarettes. Pulling them out I asked,
“Would any of you like one?”
All of their eyes turned a shade of pink, and one of them with fantastic blue feathers said in return,
“Smoke makes our magical energy decrease. We’d appreciate it if you would put those away.”
“Oh, sure, sorry. I was not aware.” I said putting the soft pack back in my inner coat pocket. I sat down and looked around at the floor. And what do you think was on said floor but a first edition of Economic Documents: New York Edition. I opened it up. The pages were yellow with age and the spine creaked with stiffness. I started reading and slowly but surely all of the macaws fell asleep. I started backing out of the sandy pit and returned to the land of Prince Albert’s Spine. You should know that these Tic Tacs taste like old water. I don’t think they’re supposed to. A toucan flew dangerously close to my head and I had a fear that it was the flock of macaws. He landed on the tree next to me and stuck it’s tongue out at me. I gave him the finger and kept walking. I think he was offended because he then attacked my face with a yellow chair on wheels. I had seen that chair earlier. Max had tipped it over, set it on the ground, and lifted it back upright. I turned to open my locker and when I did it was full of empty root beer cans. I don’t drink root beer. How do Kleenex factories make their Kleenexes pink or blue? I’m sure it’s some sort of dye. My dreams, they hold secrets of my creative subconscious. Homeless people with spoons written on them and there are people being kicked out of the pool. All my life all I’ve wanted is a house or fortress made out of sticks. Ii was sitting in a cherry tree, outside of knowledge, not by a sea. Off in the distance all could be heard were explosions. I’m sure the wars of our fathers will be the end of it all. it’s annoying how almost every band has a political song or even a whole album. Yes politics right now are complete shit, but they’re improving. Besides I go to music to escape, not to listen to your bitchings about the current world state. Please stop and start singing about fun things again, like popsicles and architecture. Desks are so confining. Whoever designed the first desk was a masochist that liked to see kids squirm. I would like to learn how to play the violin, piano, and go to North Dakota to cut a record. I’m not sure how that would work out though because people from North Dakota are not very accepting and narrow-minded. (I assume.) My friend with dreads stooped at a gas station there on her way to Canada and she got quarts of oil thrown at her, along with her taillights bashed in. that type of environment could either be very depressing but good for the record or just depressing overall. My violin will be the connector between my emotional core and the world. You will taste my despair and smell my confusion. Good hand holding, good progress. We followed by having a wild hand party. Purple pencil pouches holding my pencils until I need to write.
“I have a nose sucker from my sister’s baby. I’ll get it for you.” Jessica said, with a smile.
“Thanks, but no.” I said, laughing. “Let’s go for a psychedelic Ferris wheel ride.” We can get some lotion, not a potion, for your dry legs. Oh look, we’re at the top, it’s so clear, I can see so very far, look down at the carriage below us. That guy is on fire! His body will soon burn to a crispy fry and we will roast marshmallows on his burning corpse. They will get an exotic taste, don’t worry. That’s the blood boiling out of his body. Luckily I brought this bottle of wine to enjoy with us on top this Ferris wheel. Let us play the Pick-A-Duck game with an ostrich. His name was Larry, he came from Australia. He liked to wear safari hats and multi-pocket khakis. I gave him the correct papered monies to give to the meth addicted carnie. He reached his long neck down to the mechanical river, overcrowded with slightly tarnished plastic ducks. You could tell they had been mistreated in the past. Anyways, Larry popped his head up and gave the wrinkled carnie his duck. It had a nine on the bottom, so Larry got to choose between a small stuffed lion and a plastic flute. He picked the flute. Currently he is the longest flute solo artist to stay on top of the billboard charts. I have a signed, limited edition acetate pressing of his first album. It hangs above my fireplace with a picture of us at one of his in Morocco. It was a good show. I was stage right and could see everything. When Larry played “Oh On Top Of My Glorious Ferris Wheel” he dedicated it to me. I danced like a square on acid and nearly avoided being kicked out. I like to put cedar wood in my fireplace, but not burn it. When I do want a fire I bring in a Ferris wheel and a drunk, covered in gasoline. It makes for real good conversation. I often receive numerous compliments when I have this attraction at my parties. They got closed down though. Too many people were getting dumb and crashing their jet skis into my neighbor’s lagoons. This moldy, skin cancer carpet is rough against my face. It leaves an impression on my face, red will little dips like corn on a cob. My shoes dislike it so much that they come alive and jump off my feet. They even grow little spindle legs with red high heels and run to the nearest linoleum floor. Zoos make me sad. Those poor animals, pacing constantly around a small, metal, fake rock, fake grass, fake, fake, cage. I once kissed a boy with no head. If he had a name I didn’t know it. He smelled like that smell when you finish sawing wood. It was a turn-on, I must say. His eyes looked like Bette Davis and he was fond of dressing in Civil War era debutante dresses. We often had arguments about the practicality of these clothes, so we went our separate ways. I though I saw him one day at the flea market but it turned out to be a partially burnt mannequin with a fake blue jay on its shoulder. He was bright blue, like BRIGHT fucking blue. I walked up to the mannequin and picked the blue jay off its shoulder. Looking around quickly I put him in my pocket and walked away whistling a tune. When I got home I put it in a jar with some doilies around it and turned it into a lamp. It has a purple bulb in it and when you turn it on you can see all of the bugs that live on my wall. It’s kind of like x-ray, except not really. We used a dirty butcher knife and a red folding table. It’s red so you can’t see the blood. The guy almost died but we saved him with a jar or peanut butter. It’s the equivalent of stitches. Not very many people know this. When he was in recovery he told me,
“I like to lotion myself.” I responded,
“Oh. Ok.” And checked his charts on my metal clipboard. “Hmm…you need some coleslaw on your face. I’ll send a nurse in to do that.” I walked to the nurses’ station and left a pink post-it on the big graph thingy for nurses. After a short while of hoping to be read and unstuck, nurse Johnson came and read and unstuck the pink post-it.
“Oh lordah, I wonder how long this has been here,” she said to herself, hurrying to the pantry to get the coleslaw. There were three varieties though, the normal, then bbq, and then tuna. Using her great reasoning skills she grabbed the normal coleslaw and went to he patient’s bedside.
“Oh deary I’m sorry! See I was on my smoke break and didn’t get the doctor’s note as soon as I would have. Ok let’s see where this coleslaw goes,” she said, checking his graphs on the metal clipboard. “Hmm, looks like 35cc on the left and 42cc on the right. ‘s a little strange, but doctor’s orders.” She applied the coleslaw. When she was done she put her fingers in her mouth and sucked off the excess.
“No use letting it go to waste,” she said, smacking her lips. Why did Helen Keller wear skin tight pants? So you could read her lips! Sign language is interesting. Is it the same in all countries? It if is I wonder if people from different regions of the world have different signing dialects…or would it be signalects? Very Malcolm-esque. There are place blue and neon green 3-D shapes sitting on a think layer of dust on Mrs. Cohorst’s desk. Actually, I think they’re on her filing cabinet, which is next to her desk. That kind of rhymes. I wonder if scarecrows ever actually worked. Maybe birds are so used to them now that they know scarecrows are just old sacks filled with straw and a pumpkin for a head. Perhaps at the very beginning, the first bird that saw one actually died from fright and the farmer was all like,
“EUREKA!” and ever since then farmers and growers of plants have been using scarecrows. Are straw and hay the same thing? You should know that. Although I am from a small farming community, I have never farmed. There’s some sort of herpes on this desk. It’s a deep red color and could be reminiscent of dried blood spatter. I’m afraid to touch it, but the urge is so strong.
“Let’s lead this lamb across the water,” Moses said, lifting his red robe up as to not get it too wet. He picked up the lamb and did cartwheels across the creek with lamb in hand.
“Fuckin’ show off,” Poseidon said with an eye roll and went over to Ina who was eating a bag of jellybeans.
“Can I have some?” he asked.
“You can have the black and green ones,” she answered. “I don’t like those.”
“Cool.” Poseidon said, and popped some jellybeans into his mouth.
“Are you guys coming or not?” Moses yelled across the creek.
“Chill the fuck out!” Ina yelled back, blood rushing to her rather plump face. “I’m so sick of his bossing us around,” she said to Poseidon, hushed.
“I know. I’m about to break his legs and watch vultures eat out his leg ligaments,” he said in return, pure hatred burning in his eyes. “Let’s go.”
“If we must,” Ina sighed. They chased after Moses and eventually caught up.
“God, you fatties are SO slow.” Moses whined.
“Careful Moses,” Ina replied. “If you’re not nice to us fatties, we will smoother you in your sleep with all of our fat.” She laughed.
“Oh yeah, can you imagine waking up with my fat ass right on top of your face?” Poseidon asked Moses with a chuckle. I wonder how Kathy Bates is doing. She’s a funny actress. I love Fried Green Tomatoes. TWANDA!!! Anyways…once at the zoo I was looking at the old, gray elephants. They had many wrinkles and huge bags under their eyes. Once acme up to me and we communicated through his long trunk. When he would say something his trunk would go into my ear and then when I responded I would speak directly back into the trunk. Here is part of an actual conversation I had with an actual elephant, actually at the zoo.
“Ho-hmm, do you have in your possession a tobacco pipe, not unlike Mister Sherlock Holmes’?” he asked.
“Why, let me check my pockets, I believe I do,” I said. “Ah-ha! I do. Here.” I put the pipe in his mouth. “Do you want Apple, Meth laced, or Virginian?” I asked him.
“Oh Meth laced would be most excellent indeed,” he responded. I loaded the pipe and lit it. “Ooh, this is good.”
“I’m glad you like it!” I smiled. “Well I’m going to go home, bye!” I walked towards the exit.
“Bye! And thanks!” the elephant said, waving his trunk wildly in the air. Later that night I was watching the news and eating a cup of Broc+Chee soup when a shocking headline flashed around the screen:
ELEPHANT TESTS POSITIVE FOR METH
It announced. “Elegog, an elephant at the zoo, was routinely tested for drugs today. Surprisingly he tested positive for meth. Officials at the zoo are trying to determine the cause of this. The most logical reason so far has been that Elegog is the head of the infamous drug cartel, The SodiePops, believed to be responsible for introducing AIDS and PCP to the United States.”
My eyes were wide with horror. “I have to leave, I have to get out of here,” I thought to myself. There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” I ask, freaking out. There was no answer. So I went and opened the door.
“Hay!” It was my gay uncle. I forgot he was coming to town and staying for awhile.
“Oh my god you freaked me out. I think the SodiePops are after me!” I said, very quickly.
“Dude, chill. I know them, they’re cool. I’ll call the Don Juan Habenero to simmer down.” He said.
“Oh, cool, thanks,” I said, and sat down on the couch. “Are you hungry?” I ask him. He shook his head no and continued speaking into his cellular.
“I’m starving, I’m going to call Chinese,” and picked up my phone. “Hello? Yeah, hey, can I have a number two? A number eleven? And fuck it can I also have a fifty-four?” It’s so annoying how air you breathe into the bottom of the telephone gets re-entered into your body through the top of the hole thing into your ear. It’s a constant stale cycle that you can only escape once in awhile. Then occasionally you get those bright red radish monsters that climb up your legs and make themselves at home on your hips. I’ve heard stories of six generations of red radish monsters living on one person’s hips. The lady at the Indiana Cantaloupe Stand told me to rub thousand island dressing on your hips and it would protect against those red radish monsters. I’ve also read that chalk dust sprinkled in your bed sheets helps too. My transmission isn’t working too properly as of right. I hope the red radish monsters didn’t get confused and think my car was a human. That would be unmost pleasant, unmost pleasant indeed. I know we call her Ethyl but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have hair on her legs, or legs at all. I can imagine an apple pie cooling on the windowsill of an elderly lady’s house and perfectly pedicured lawn underneath. OH THE AMERICAN DREAM! When I go to bed I like there with millions of thought rushing through my brain. The darkness gives my imagination room to roam. It’s impossible to recapture anything from t hose moments before sleep. With your dreamings, they get loose and fly away. climbing that ladder to the stars. The sound of the inside of a wave can best be described as the third track of Panda Bear’s latest release, Person Pitch. Hey I could write for Pitchfork! I’m starting to turn into a Pitchfork snob. I will think to myself, hey, album got a 8.4 I should pick it up. Also, I’ve found that I’m getting rid of some of the unnecessary friends I have, you know, the ones that you still hang out with just because you’ve had some decent memories and think to yourself, wow, that can’t be it can it? And continue hoping for future greatness. I have realized, yes, that is all there is and ever will be, some of them were better than others, some of them longer, a lot longer in a few special cases, but so be it. This is my life. I want to be happy so why submit myself to such unhappiness. It’s a very cleansing process. It’s like taking out the trash and finding that long lost puzzle piece underneath that you’re annoying six year old cousin tried to get rid of because he’s a brat. Or…something…along those lines. Anyways, we used to go to this cabin in Arkansas for a couple of weeks every summer. Well, that’s a lie, but for the purpose of the story let’s assume it’s not. Cabin-Arkansas-Summer, check. I would walk around on these trails and once on BIGEAGLESNESTFOXTROTPSYCHOCILIBIN trail, I looked up to see which way west was by way of the sun and guess what I saw? Good I just spilled iced latte on me, again! Oh yeah sorry. I saw the ghost of Big Mama Cass from the Mamas and the Papas. She was eating an apple, it was green, and she said unto me,
“Hey little dude walking on BIGEAGLESNESTFOXTROTPSYCHOCILIBIN trail. Take a look around you man. I mean, life! It’s just like, everywhere. See that root sticking out of the ground?”
I shook my head yes.
“It’s living! There is a life force pulsating through it man! Can you dig it?!”
I looked around, hoping I was in my bed dreaming but all I saw were the light strands of June. When I first started going there they all shone with ferocious energy, but now almost every other is burnt out and the ones still lit look dull and lackluster.
“Hey man!” Mama Cass yelled, small bits of apple flying out of her mouth. “God, I take all the energy to recreate my soul as a ghost and there you go , tripping out in your head.”
“Sorry…” I mumbled and bring my attention back to her.
“Anyways,” she said, but then looked confused. “Hmm… I don’t remember, well your unappreciative and I’m forgetful. See you later! Well…probably but…bye!” and she waved. In an immense state of bewilderment I walked back to our cabin and sat down at the table. Something was poking my thigh and I feared it was those red radish monsters. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pair of black cat eye glasses and I swore I heard off in the distance California Dreamin’.
I think this is the end of the story. It’s far short of my seventy-two page goal, but that’s what goals are for, breaking.