Friday, August 29, 2008
gosling
Everywhere I go there's a Caution Wet Floor sign, and I can't slip on the soapy vomit from all the feverish addicts, there are holes in my skin like the life of a conservative Catholic, I try to flip channels but I see statues being vandalized and bathroom stalls with pamphlets clogging the drains in the urinals, and the custodians grew up in rich neighborhoods with healthy grandfathers who played gleaming shiny fucking grand pianos, joined cults and orchestrated feasts for fish, they swam upstream with yellow spraypaint seeping from their bloody mouths, they swim through sewers and they reach the pipes, they swim up sewage systems and up into the light, finding themselves in toilets, fish staring up at the mall security in blue suits with brushed hair and a radio in his car, a secret cannibal that sees this graffiti scrawled in the parks by suburban ladies, Western morals, devil's music and the color black, a dripping marker, a flickering computer monitor, an investigation led by an agnostic deputy high-school graduate, above the peer pressure he now sits on a gnarled wooden desk, feels the urge to piss, so he stands, leaving the open case file, and goes into the bathroom stall through a series of violin strings he realized the dripping mockery of Jericho, that is the religion of this vandal--a diabetic, peering into a dark forest the cop is forced to follow, chasing the kid through purgatory and stumbling on ferns to reach their mothers, both scared, and finally they know what they've been running from and God is a gosling with a backpack, hat and black bandanna, standing still.
Friday, August 1, 2008
"a christless killer that steps on my stomach"
The girl in the hard hat stood, watching rain flow into the gutter. A man with a saxophone was beside her. She had asked him to play the final dirge for her raindrop. Her raindrop had always existed, and would always exist. "It's almost here," she said. The man, Case, began to warm up, playing scales softly. They stood and waiting in the gray morning. All of a sudden, the girl with the hard hat started jumping excitedly up and down. "It's here! It's here!" she cried. Then she laid face up on the ground and folded her hands on her chest, murmuring the speech she had written. Case began to play a very sad song. A few seconds passed, the song ended, and the girl stood up. She said, "Goodbye, raindrop." They walked home in silence.
The girl with the hard hat sat on her stool, writing a letter. She remembered seeing the crucifiction, when cola dripped from his tail, struggling to hold his head up. She was writing to her raindrop, telling the raindrop of the event. The crucifiction. She thought her raindrop would be interested to know about it. Maybe the raindrop had even been to that same spot, once. She told her raindrop about how a few years ago, she was playing baseball, and she had fallen down and cut her toes. It was an embarassing day. She told her raindrop about when her brother had been born, on the boat. Her brother, with the golden mane. She wrote her raindrop about the first day of his life, and the last, and about how they had always had fun, playing games and singing songs. Her raindrop was dead for now; it had gone into the gutter. But soon it would be back, somewhere else. She wrote that she wished her brother could have been alive to meet her raindrop.
She went to the racetrack that afternoon and bet on her usual horse, Flower. Flower did alright, but never won the race. Today, Flower came finished in fourth place, but it had been a close one. The horse could probably have come in third, but had an injury on its leg today. The girl with the hard hat was dissapointed that her favorite horse had come in last, but she thought Flower would heal and be able to race again. She was wrong, though. After the race, she met her friend Case, the horse's jockey. "Hello, Case," she said. "Bad luck today." Case looked sadly at her. "Yes, my horse is in a lot of pain. I think by racing her today, I made it worse. I need to put Flower to sleep." By that, he meant he needed to kill his lame horse. This upset the girl with the hard hat. She shook the jockey. "You can't! I can make him better! You'll see!" She was near hysterical with grief, and quite angry with her friend.
Then it began to snow. Snow was the same as rain, but the girl liked rain better. Snow meant cold. So it snowed at the racetrack, and afer all the other horses and jockeys had left, she was there, on all fours, screaming into the white nothingness.
The next morning, when Case went downstairs to get breakfast, he saw that Flower was gone. He walked all around the yard calling the horse's name, but she never appeared. Case thought Flower might have tried to run away, but he didn't know why. Flower would never do something like this.
The girl in the hard hat stood, watching rain flow into the gutter. A man with a saxophone was beside her. She had asked him to play the final dirge for her raindrop. Her raindrop had always existed, and would always exist. "It's almost here," she said. The man, Case, began to warm up, playing scales softly. They stood and waiting in the gray morning. All of a sudden, the girl with the hard hat started jumping excitedly up and down. "It's here! It's here!" she cried. Then she laid face up on the ground and folded her hands on her chest, murmuring the speech she had written. Case began to play a very sad song. A few seconds passed, the song ended, and the girl stood up. She said, "Goodbye, raindrop." They walked home in silence.
The girl with the hard hat sat on her stool, writing a letter. She remembered seeing the crucifiction, when cola dripped from his tail, struggling to hold his head up. She was writing to her raindrop, telling the raindrop of the event. The crucifiction. She thought her raindrop would be interested to know about it. Maybe the raindrop had even been to that same spot, once. She told her raindrop about how a few years ago, she was playing baseball, and she had fallen down and cut her toes. It was an embarassing day. She told her raindrop about when her brother had been born, on the boat. Her brother, with the golden mane. She wrote her raindrop about the first day of his life, and the last, and about how they had always had fun, playing games and singing songs. Her raindrop was dead for now; it had gone into the gutter. But soon it would be back, somewhere else. She wrote that she wished her brother could have been alive to meet her raindrop.
She went to the racetrack that afternoon and bet on her usual horse, Flower. Flower did alright, but never won the race. Today, Flower came finished in fourth place, but it had been a close one. The horse could probably have come in third, but had an injury on its leg today. The girl with the hard hat was dissapointed that her favorite horse had come in last, but she thought Flower would heal and be able to race again. She was wrong, though. After the race, she met her friend Case, the horse's jockey. "Hello, Case," she said. "Bad luck today." Case looked sadly at her. "Yes, my horse is in a lot of pain. I think by racing her today, I made it worse. I need to put Flower to sleep." By that, he meant he needed to kill his lame horse. This upset the girl with the hard hat. She shook the jockey. "You can't! I can make him better! You'll see!" She was near hysterical with grief, and quite angry with her friend.
Then it began to snow. Snow was the same as rain, but the girl liked rain better. Snow meant cold. So it snowed at the racetrack, and afer all the other horses and jockeys had left, she was there, on all fours, screaming into the white nothingness.
The next morning, when Case went downstairs to get breakfast, he saw that Flower was gone. He walked all around the yard calling the horse's name, but she never appeared. Case thought Flower might have tried to run away, but he didn't know why. Flower would never do something like this.
god's punishment
The wedding was in three hours when flakes of frog skin began to rain from the sky. Mr. Johnson peered up at the sky with furious intensity, one hand cupped above his eyes and one gripping his thick curly hair and pulling at it. His daughter, Trinity, was cutting her beard with his large pocket knife. Hearing her father's curses and oaths of rage, she walked out of the tiny house in her yellow dress. Noticing the flakes, she said, "Father, is God punishing me for marrying the lion from across the sea?" Her father narrowed his eyes and said, with gasping breaths, "Yesterday... I painted my barn... the color of your groom's mane. I wanted... to please God." "O father! We have mere hours before the ceremony! What will--" She gasped. Whiskers were sprouting from Mr. Johnson's face. He reached up and felt his face. "Trinity! I knew this day would come! On the top drawer of my bureau, there is a sack full of tiny seeds. Sow the seeds, and remain at this house until the seeds sprout. But on the day you see the crop, you must flee away from here, and never return. Do you understand?" Wiping tears from her eyes, Trinity nodded. "Yes, father." He kissed her on her forehead, then walked to the edge of the cliff and dove down into the fog. She ran into the house and frantically tore apart everything in the drawers of her father's bureau, but she could not find the seeds. Suddenly, bells began to chime and an organ began to play. The wedding was almost ready to begin. "No!" she screamed. "I need more time!" Doves began to swoop over her head and flowers sprouted from the ground around her. She tore the flowers up and threw them off the edge of the cliff. She needed room to plant the seeds! The flowers kept sprouting, as much as she pulled them up. Then she saw the lion, strolling along with his purple velvet hat on his head. His mane was tied in an ornate knot. "Lion!" Trinity screamed. "My father is dead! The wedding cannot start yet!" The lion looked mournful. "It's too late, Trinity. We must be wed today." "But the seeds are not planted yet! I have to obey my father!" "Do not worry about it now," he replied, and turned his head. "The end is upon us."
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