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Subway (NYC) 01.07.2011 3:45 PM

Train: Uptown D Train

Station: Atlantic Terminal

Character: Hooded Timberlake

I stand at the platform. The D train arrives and walking in I am immediately hit with the stench of stale socks and Cheez-its. A homeless man, bundled in tattered rags, sits alone on a four-person bench, a nest of crunched crackers and pretzels at his feet. His shoes have been removed, his black-stained white socks wet, leaving spider-web trails of water behind as he slowly moves them back and forth against the gritty black plastic tiles. Almost immediately I exit, changing cars.

The new car carries within the normal and expected smell of stale air one tends to associate with mass transit vehicles, although it seems rare that such staleness-as-neutrality is ever encountered. I stand (as often I do) and diagonal from me and one person down sits a rather well-built man, each appendage forceful, spatial. His body, unlike most bodies, demands space. He is far from obese. His fingers trail downwards endlessly, each finger the size of a medium sausage link. On his left hand a gold ring. On his right index finger another ring, this one gold with silver etchings carved into its face. His feet are adorned with perfectly-clean, high top Timberlakes, tied with loose bow knots three empty holes down from the top. His jeans are tightly-pressed, loose around his calves, tight around his thighs. On his torso, a gray, loose-fitting hooded sweatshirt, the zipper slightly pulled down from the top. The hood is pulled up and over his head which he cocks downwards so as to hide his face. The hood builds to a point above the crest of his head. I will never see his eyes.

I watch him as he slowly takes out a miniature bottle of lotion. The bottle seems lost within his paws, a doll house accessory, a bottle in the possession of a giant Alice. He opens the lid, dabs some lotion on his hands, places the bottle slowly back into his pocket and methodically rubs his hands together. On his right wrist, a golden bangle, a thin silver watch, a black linked chain. Around his neck hangs a loose gold chain, medium in thickness. He is a Senator exploring the dregs of the American metropolis, of scattered dreams along winding tracks, a sports star avoiding attention through cloaked underground, undercover movement. I imagine him throwing back his hood, nothing but air revealed and the clothes expand and then collapse into a crumpled pile upon the subway car floor. As the D crosses over the Manhattan bridge, filtered light shuffles in from the snowy air outside, lights his chin which is covered slightly in stubble. I see this only for a brief second as he lowers his head further, shrouding his face fully in darkness.

The train stops at Canal. Hooded Timberlake stands, brushes his fingers lightly against the rough fabric of his jeans, straightens his sweatshirt, pulls the zipper up slightly to just under his chin. His head shoots skyward, nearly touching the subway car ceiling, his arms nearly stretching from car door to car door. His head remains tilted downwards as he exits and in seconds, he is gone. Those left in his wake panic for the air has temporarily been sucked out of the car with his exit. We look at each other, wide-eyed and worried, immersed in a vacuum. But with a hiss, the air returns, the doors close, movement resumes, the only trace of Hooded Timberlake the faint smell of aftershave on a bed of stale air.

Economics From the Left

All interviewees pictures and biographies can be found by following attached links.

Economics from the Left: Richard D. Wolff

Economics from the Left: Max Fraad Wolff and the State of Financial Affairs

PEN World Voices Festival 2010

Full coverage of the PEN World Voices Festival 2010 can be found on The Mantle. Click here.

Left Forum 2010

Full coverage of the Left Forum 2010 can be found on The Mantle. Click here.

Philosophy: Pushing the Limits

All interviewees pictures and biographies can be found by following attached links.

A Moment with Catherine Malabou

Conflict and Resolution

All interviewees pictures and biographies can be found by following attached links.

A Moment With Aldo Civico

A Moment with Alex Hinton

A Moment with R. Brian Ferguson

A Moment with Victoria Sanford

A Moment with the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM)

Subway (NYC): 12.31.2010 5:15 PM

Train: E

Station: World Trade Center

Characters: Pink Woman Pod

The afternoon commute. The E train is stationed at the World Trade Center, the doors ajar waiting for the people to shuffle in. Some run, arriving within the train in a pant. The next train sits across from us on the opposite track awaiting a likely departure in five minutes.

A pod of women is stationed to my right. Comprised of nine, they immediately exhibit group-think, positioned across from each other, talkative, finishing each other’s sentences. Should their talkative nature not give it away, they are all smiling– a clear indication that they are not from New York City. They exude joy and the rest of the train watches as they exchange missives about their NYC adventures, laugh at their occasional mishaps and quibble about how prices in the city are exorbitant. “I went to buy a sandwich,” one says, “and my jaw nearly dropped. The other women nod and the location of her purchase I think (likely along with most others in the train listening) was around Times Square. “Where was that?” another asks. “43rd and something,” she says. The sound of moving collar fabric is nearly perceptible as my fellow eavesdroppers nod their heads.

The pod is nearly split in half, five on the side closest to me, four positioned across from them. To my right (beyond a poor soul who inadvertently sandwiched himself in the bench of exuberance) sits a husband (silent, strong type) and an older, white-haired woman with a long, flowing pink jacket made of loosely-knitted strands of cotton, a knitted pink cotton cap with a bordering strand of dyed-pink feathers on the rim, a silky-white undershirt, and long, fake-diamond earrings with small hearts floating in each. She clearly emerges as the pod’s leader, the fun and youthful elder, the, “Oh that’s Joanna. Boy, she’s a hoot,” woman of the local block. Loudly and full of teeth, she tells stories about adventures she and her husband have taken around the world. He is the silent type, slightly overweight, graying hair, a bulbous nose and occasionally he compliments her lengthy monologues with an additional detail, an interesting side note. The other seven women all beam while she tells her stories, clearly adore her and ask her questions to garner further information on her and her husband’s adventures to which she gladly obliges.

I watch the pink woman pod with adoration, infected gladly by their joy and general joie de vivre. As I listen to the pink woman rattle off her stories, I imagine her in her early 20s, the girl of the party, the mid-30s woman who, now married, clings tightly to her mildly-successful husband but speaks for him as classy dominatrix. In bed, as in societal affairs, she is demanding and her husband, unable or simply not wanting to fulfill such needs, finds his release in work, she by over-compensating with joyful presentation, perhaps a tidy home or tightly-managed classroom or small business. It is an act yet one no different than any other generally employed and one quite well accepted in most circles. For who doesn’t wish to feel joy, even if it be feigned at least partially and perhaps only temporarily before transforming into a sense of the “real”?

The train’s occupants lose their interest when the pink woman pod falls silent, pink woman’s stories temporarily exhausted. The woman sitting diagonal from where I stand smiles broadly when the others speak, says nothing more than an occasional and inquisitive “Really?!” but stays ever-cognizant of the fact that they are being observed as outsiders, observed as misplaced smiles. I smile back at her when we make eye contact and she seems temporarily relieved that not all New Yorkers wear stony face make-up.

As the train stops and I turn to leave, pink woman leans her head lightly against her husband’s right shoulder. With her right arm she grips his right forearm and forcefully lifting, slides her left arm underneath, interlocking it with his manipulated appendage. He looks off, distant, in the opposite direction. She smiles, not noticing. I exit.

Subway (NYC): 12.30.2010 7:30 PM

Train: L

Station: Broadway Junction

Character: Headphone Man

After getting lost on the G train and later the A train, I ready myself to board the L at Broadway Junction in the blistering cold. As the train pulls into the open air station, water trickles down its windows from above, snow gathered on top, remnants of a subway yard cocktail party, machinations only.

I enter the train. Two stops later, a man in his 30s enters, headphones plastered to his ears. It is immediately apparant that he is less than sane.

He sits down nervously, edgy, wiry. He is by himself, humming and then it happens. He suddenly lets out a loud “ugh!”, an “ugh” that one would think would accompany some type of music but is so off-key and random that it just seems likea move of “ugh” terets. The train continues, the man occasionally blasts out an “ugh!”. For anyone that was not observant before, this man is now clearly recognized now as slightly unstable.

One stop later, a well-dressed couple of Italian men in their mid-20s get on the train. Unsuspecting (as most foreigners are) they sit next to the man. The doors close and with the first “ugh!” the Italian men realize what they have done and smile.

“Hey, how you guys doin’?” Headphone Man asks.

[Strained] “Good, good. Very good,” Italian Man 1 stammers.

[Pause] “Hey, where you guys from?!” Even to the mentally unstable, foriegners are easy to spot in NYC.

“Italy,” Italian Man 1 answers and immediately receives a loud, “Ohhhhhhh” from Headphone Man.

“So you’re the Godfather then?!” he says. I cringe. How stereotypically American. The uneducated movie reference. The Italian man stares, not knowing what to say, perhaps not understanding and truly, who would?

“Yeah, yeah. You’re the Godfather man,” Headphone Man says, thumping his thigh with a clenched fist. To another ”no answer” from the Italian men, I imagine him assaulting these Italian men in pursuit of a response to which the Italian men then answer, “No, No!” yelling for help but of course this is New York City and we observe far quicker than we act. “Two dead Italians on the L train,” it would read. “Man observes and documents the whole episode,” it continues. Welcome to America.

The Headphone Man never gets an answer so instead, even louder than before, “Ughs!”. The Italian men look at each other and laugh. Headphone Man is now humming something to himself, tapping his left foot wildly. Another stop and a rather busty and “full” woman gets on the train near Headphone Man. I await disaster as she turns, pointing a rather large ass towards Headphone Man but he looks, simply turns his head back to the Italians, and then as loudly as possible (imagine a 90 year old man yelling over Zepplin) says, “You know we have some mighty fine women in this city?” gouching the air with a thumb pointed towards Exhibit Ass. The Italian men laugh uneasily, the woman scoffs. Headphone Man pauses as if he knows he is in trouble, immersed in those laden silences where pressure seems to build from the stomach, gathers in the temples.

“Ugh!” he yells. And the beat goes on.

Subway (NYC): 12.29.2010 8:15 AM

Train: E

Station: 14th Street/8th Ave

Character: Old Jewish Man

Slouched against the railing, his head tucked under an invisible wing (right arm). He is ball-ish, each part of his body indicative of a distinct direction. On his head, a black leather Yarmulke (kippa), a gray beard that is 2″ long, fat, chubby fingers, a gold ring on his left ring finger. He has glasses which fit perfectly to the sides of his face, thin silver frames propped up by his wide and elongated nose. He carries a black canvas computer bag and has tucked it under his right arm. He looks akin to a mole which has been forced into sunlight and, tired and distressed, falls into a catatonic sleep to avoid reality.

The E train stops and with immediacy, he awakens looking left and right rapidly, as if nervous, disorientated, in need of knowing what is going on, where he is. He then sits seemingly stunned, chin pushed slightly forward, eyes once again almost closed. His head is tilted slightly upwards, his glasses near the edge of his nose. He presents himself as an 80 year old man when in reality he must be late 40s/early 50s. As the E train stops at World Trace Center, he stands up, clutching his black leather bag to his chest, burrows it deep into the downy fabric of his jacket and steps off the train left foot first.

Once out, he extends his right arm downwards, places the bag within his grip and begins walking foward gingerly, relaxed, as if at any given moment the cartons of eggs under his feet might crack. I pass him and our conversation ends.

Subway (NYC): 12.28.2010 4:50 PM

Train: 4

Station: Fulton

Character: Cape Cod

Waiting for uptown 4 train. People off work. I take notice. A tall lanky man catches my eye. Stands 6’3”, maybe 6’4”, a Wall Street type, well-polished, recently tanned, close-shaven and long, thin hair swept over to the right just so. His skin is white. No splotches, his nose slightly red still from the outside. His eyebrows arch smoothly over light brown eyes, eyelashes protrude slightly but not enough to make them a feature. There are no visible wrinkles on his face, a red and black plaid scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, fitted comfortably under the collar of a light brown London Fog which ends just above his knees. He is a presentation of carefully-controlled image.

His hands are covered with black leather gloves, a black leather bag strung over his shoulder. It is light though and does not weigh him down in its general direction. I begin concocting stories for him: he is the son of a wealthy banker that has just returned from Cape Cod where he was sailing with his blond, model wife and his dog, Chester, either a labrador or a golden retriever. As they sail along in his white yacht, they leave their house in the distance, a two-story, light blue and white job with a white picket fence and long, wooden slabs on its sides. There is a porch and most definitely a porch swing made of redwood but painted white to match the house. There is one pot for flowers (white) that sits at the top of the stairs to the porch and it is filled with white and yellow tulips. On the door to their house, a sign: “Welcome Friends” with a snowman, scarecrow, or angel all depending on the season, the nearest holiday. There are white cotton screens to cover the windows when they are away and right now they are exactly halfway down as they sail. They have no neighbors to speak of. Just rolling sand dunes, occasional tufts of bright green grass, and a long, wind-worn, wooden deck that seems to go on for miles. At the end of the dock there is a long telephone pole and at the top a bright antique lantern. The man jokes occasionally that it is their own personal lighthouse and while it is not in the least bit funny, the wife responds every time with a hearty laugh. He is happiest when he is sailing, loves his wife and his dog, does not want children. He is content and as a result, has no wrinkles on his face, no worry lines, and always carries a slight smile on his face.

The man shifts his bag, runs his slender index finger under the length of his scarf. He coughs gently into his hand. It is a calming cough to listen to, one non-intrusive and soft. One that says, “I am here but were we not in the subway, I might ask you to sit down and have a proper cup of tea and biscuits with me to talk philosophy and small business.” But I look at this man and think such a conversation might be dull and quite short for what philosopher has ever written about Cape Cod or dogs named Chester?

My yacht lands at Union Square. I exit, longing for the substantial, the calming Cape Cod left in the underground.

Subway (NYC) Fieldnotes: Defined

Definition of Subway: upon entering platform area via a series of steps, I am in the subway. Upon exiting platform area via a series of steps, I have left the subway. The aubway then is from steps to steps, point A of outside, above-ground world to point B of outside, above-ground world. It is also the trains which move above ground. But stairs connect us to subways, whether they be stairs up or stairs down.

Fieldnotes: hand-written notes, jottings made in the “field”, as in within the space of observation, amongst those observed. Subjective, descriptive, mini-vignettes. A snapshot, a character, a sense of the space or individual, perhaps an archetype.

NYC: a city, sometimes crazed, sometimes beautiful. Most of the time both.

Snow Drifters

It wasn’t beyond Peter to eat the woman’s leg. He knew this now after hours of internal debate and reprimanding himself for even thinking the thought. It was plush, vibrant, and in stark contrast to the drab snow banks building up on the outside of the A train on the upper platform in Queens. His stomach growls, he places the palm of his right hand, sweaty, against his brow pushing the skin upwards into burrowing folds.

On his right, an aged woman who smells of moth balls and whiskey, tight purple headscarf wrapped tightly over red, dyed hair. Her nose protrudes as probiscus, her legs like slender veined ropes tossed carelessly over the hard plastic of the subway seats.

On his left, a young man, tight curled black hair, deep brown eyes, a pair of earbuds snuggly resting against his ear drums, the beat of a loca-loca riding the still subway air. His foot in Timberland taps fervently against the black, speckled floor, the sole of his shoe smacking as it rips from the stale brown snow agua.

Above the air ducts suck in the freezing night air, run it through worn, warm coils, send it spirling down against huddled passengers. Down the car, a young child screams.

Across from him, the woman’s leg, supple, protrudes from a heavy cotton, plaid skirt. Heels frame the toes, lift the leg, position the muscle to drumstick, to sideways steak, to leg of lamb, rosemary and the family just around the corner. “Just one bite,” he thinks and down the car, the child screams louder.

The snow is getting higher. Six hours in. No one knows how much longer. “This could be it.” He thinks it, thinks how silly it is but thinks it nonetheless. “And what if?”

“That train won’t move, that platform frozen still, those lives in those cars, and those cars upon cars, and roads all blocked. We are stockpiled, frozen meats, the forgotten in a wintry Armageddon. But at least we have each other,” and he looks up and down that rounded, meaty leg. “At least we have each other,” he says leaning forward.

And the woman takes notice of a man leaning towards her, hands outstretched. She sees the hungry look in his eyes, that crazed “What does it matter?” glaze and she’s swinging her purse as hard as her arms allow and the passengers are screaming, that child frozen still. She’s beating that man to keep warm, just because she’s wanted to for so long. Not that man but other men. Other crazed and shitty men and her arms feel like they are going to fall off, can feel the steam plowing through her blouse, escaping at the crest of her bosom, warming her chin.

That snow piles higher and that woman stops swinging. There’s a silence to match the snow nearly covering the car windows and that child starts in again until that woman just looks, a look to end all looks, and that child is silent and the car is silent and there’s just more waiting to be had.

Cape Town, Early Morning Malaise

He feels the ache in his body once again, the unease of trying to understand why his partner awakes and leaves the room in silent, antagonistic form. It is a movement of distrust, a movement that awakens him, leaving him staring at the ceiling, wondering why he cares at all, why he invests in that which he cannot trust.

His partner sits typing on the couch. The computer is the portal to that which has the potential to destroy whatever glimmer of hope their relationship may have at any given moment. And those moments are few and far between these days.

He feels things, feels a general malaise has swept over the relationship. It is a complicated disease, a disease without name and at times, without proof. It is a throbbing, a pulsating movement across tundra, now barren and dusty. It is the feeling that try as he might, he will never trust this person that he is supposed to be with, that to be protected and to protect himself is the only way he can operate in the system they have built together. And this saddens him, deeply disturbs him. He feels himself slipping away and cannot think of a scarier moment than the moment one realizes one is no longer present, that one’s form has been changed, worn over intense weeks of conflict like stone which is eaten away at day after day by running water.

Doves sound from outside. The air is still. The house remains dark, save for the white light from his partner’s computer screen. He wonders how an otherwise peaceful situation could be filled with such angst, such gut-wrenching distrust. He wants out, wants to run. Jump in his car and just drive, away from his situation, away from this person and all the complications, away from this thing that he has created for himself that, like Frankenstein, has turned its wicked claws in his direction. He feels at mercy to his own doing and wonders how he ever let it get to this. He wants out.

Love

The Passing Pt. 1

Unease. Tommy turns. His stomach has wrenched up in knots, he looks into the fibrous wall before him, he lays still. As still as he can. And yet the images return. For two weeks now he has struggled with the image of his dog crossing the road, the oncoming 4×4 truck, far too big to be necessary on a scenic highway. The screeching of brakes, the thud, the roll. He had seen it all. Cradled his dog in his arms as it passed away. He didn’t cry once.

Dogs to him were the go-to when the human race failed him. Perhaps it was the control he felt he had over the creature, maybe too it was the unconditional love. Whatever it was, he saw himself moving closer and closer to these animals and further and further away from those close to him. The doctors had called it parasthesia. He had called it a vacation.

Rolly had been the small puppy in his litter. German Shepard, tall, thin but graced with long hair and a needy personality that caused him to whimper at the slightest movement away from him. He was lovable and Tommy had fallen for him almost immediately. The adoption assistant, an aged, gray-haired old woman bent slightly at the lower back and with a wobble in her left leg, had looked up at Tommy cockeyed.

“That one? You want that one out of all the others? Look at this one. Don’t you like this one better?” she had reached over, lifted up another puppy from the litter, turned it around as if she were Bob Barker and the puppy was a new toaster oven.

Tommy had grimaced at the theatrics of the situation, stared at her, and coldly stated, “Yes, this one.” It was just yet another instance of the banality of the human race, more than enough reason to further push him away from what he took to be a failed species.

He had taken Rolly home wrapped in a blanket his mother had given him when he was six years old. For Tommy the blanket signified the last time that he remembered the warmth of an embrace, the last moment that he could recall where someone had felt it necessary to acknowledge his existence, care for him as a parent should. His mother was gone but seven months later, his father a non-entity that traveled via Amtrak train across the Western states of the US. He had never known his grandparents.

When he was transferred to the adoption home, his father seen as unfit to handle the needs of a six year-old boy, Tommy had befriended an old man by the name of Edward that swept and mopped the floors of juices, crumbs and other child-induced stains at the adoption home. The closeness of their relationship sparked the interest of the caretakers in the home, some spread rumors of foul-play, and Tommy’s meetings with Edward in the playroom were more and more the center of the attention of the adoption home’s staff. A few months later, Edward was “let go” and Tommy was once again as alone as he was upon entering the home.

Rolly had taken quickly to his new home and Tommy, for the first time in a very long while, felt at home, a part of a family, centered in what he took to be a tumultuous and hostile world. The nuzzle from Rolly in the middle of the night had signified a need now met, a longing for closeness satisfied. The dog’s deep sigh was of comfort, calm, safety. Tommy felt provider to a new entity other than himself, relied upon, as if he now was given the chance to prove against all evidence that not all human beings were selfish and short-sighted, vindictive and cruel. He had wrapped his arm around the sleeping dog, pulled him in tighter and let his mind wander into sleep as his life unfolded before him in waves.

The Hole Pt. 2

That night she had dreamt about Donnie. He had entered her dream in a phallic-shaped catamaran, the two penises slicing through the rough seas like butter. It had been lucid and to her surprise in the morning, wet. Where he was coming from she could only guess but with a rapidity unheard of in the real world, he approached Felicia who sat stark naked and spread eagle on a deserted island of gruyere cheese. It had smelled awful but she had suffered through it for her approaching knight. Defying physics, the penises penetrated simultaneously. Her dream burst to the sounds of her own sensuous screaming. For ten minutes, she sat awake in bed trying everything in her power to fall back asleep. Sheep wouldn’t do it this time.

Felicia was bothered by the rabbit testicles that now adorned her car hood; bothered not so much by the testicles for she thought them rather cute but instead by the careless manner with which they had been sliced off and discarded. It was a flippant act of vandalism, careless and petty. She thought about the rabbits, los castratos, and felt pity. “All these unborn rabbit babies,” she would think to herself.

With her little pinky, she had removed them, one by one. They had made a slapping sound against her driveway pavement and she had written them off as her neighbor’s dog’s newest treats. She backed up, stepped on one with a ‘squish’ and with a rapid scraping movement she entered her car, sat down and started her car. She was headed to town, headed to her uncle, the unsavory bastard who had impregnated his daughter and later, committed her to the asylum when she had lost it following weeks of verbal abuse by the sordid brother of her mother. A diagnosis of hysteria. It seemed most of the town’s women had strangely been coming down with it as of late.

She arrived at her uncle’s house just as late as she had intended. He sat cross-legged on the porch, a worn, beat-down old man, his eyebrows bushy and gray, his eyes cold and distant. Felicia stared at the petrified lizard, watched his eyes pan slowly across her car, to her face and then down to his folded hands. He was ashamed before she had even exited the car.

From the “belligerent baby-breeder” as the townsfolk called him, Felicia had come to collect her cousin’s shawl, the one her mother had made for her on her 12th birthday. It was a horrendous piece of fabric riddled with worn bits where the moths had gotten to it but it had great sentimental value for her cousin, a reminder of a time in her life when things weren’t as fucked up as they currently were, a beam of hope in the white-stained halls of the asylum.

Felicia had received her request via a hand-written letter. With tender care, Felicia had loosened the top flap with her index finger, rolled her pinky underneath and gently ripped through the top. The letter had been written on soiled and very thin cardboard in pitch black ink. Felicia had held the letter up to her nose, let the smells of stale urine and washed linens roll over her. They were appropriate smells to accompany the letter which outlined her cousin’s extreme isolation and loneliness, her stigmata growing deep inside her belly, her crying sessions at night and sordid memories of her father. The white walls cried out to her of emptiness, she had said, and she had wanted on more than one occasion to cut her finger and paint them red. “Just for a bit of life,” she would say. Her letter ended with sentiments about her mother, fond memories of being pushed on the swing, fleeting moments on Sundays watching her mother walk in the garden, a type of moment we often walk past so quickly but sometimes remain the longest. These “traces” as she called them riddled her mind, bore holes into her soul, colored fancy a longing to be free of all that was past, make new memories while all the while being stuck in a place unforgiving to change or mental wellness. Felicia had finished the letter with a feeling of foreboding. She knew she could not ignore her cousin’s request and had to go see the man she so greatly despised. She had set the letter down quietly on her bedside, rolled over, and cried.

Her uncle hadn’t moved an inch, his face still turned downwards towards his hands. Years stacked upon his neck, he cringed, shoulders bunching as the car door opened and Felicia stepped out.

“Hello Robert,” she said, lightly but laced with a poisonous undertone.

Robert looked up, dark lines under his eyes, folds of skin gathering at the edges of his face. He was the embodiment of sadness and regret, a severity self-imposed, a mechanized body gone without oil. With a nod symbolizing decision, Robert stood and stared at Felicia with an utter repose of indifference, with the look of the walking dead. He could stand only for one minute until the weight of his carrion memories pushed him downwards to the seat once again. He grunted as he landed and Felicia approached.

“I came to get something for my cousin,” she said, walking taught and erect, up each step of the weathered porch prepared for violence. But Robert just sat, said nothing, could stare at her with those wicked eyes only as long as his neck permitted before it dropped once again to his hands.

“I’m gonna go in there and you are going to move, you hear?” She stood, hand on hip, eyebrows raised. With a creaking scream, she pulled the screen door open, pushed the inner door in, and walked inside.

There was a smell that she couldn’t quite place.

The Hole Pt. 1

Felicia knew of only one man capable of adorning her car hood ornament with strings of rabbit testicles. They had met a few months prior in the back of a dingy, dusty bar in El Paso, that kind of place families drive by and roll up their windows, the father stepping on the gas just a little bit more. The name of the place was The Hole and a flickering, dust-covered, neon cowboy lit up the entrance, his index finger and thumb tightly formed into a big “O”.

People of a particular type entered into the Hole. Mostly the destitute and weary, the alcoholics and more-than-occasional drug users. Felicia was none of these things. Rather, she was a “good” girl, a woman whose pride arose from her inability and unwillingness to lie or sleep around as her two sisters, dubbed “The Banger Sisters”, had. It was that “good girl” attitude that had piqued the interest of Donny, a 6’3” brown man, rolled from the soils of Texas, hardened by that noon-day sun. He had waltzed in one early evening to find Felicia sitting at the bar, lime and soda water in hand, stirring the lime around the bottom of the pint glass with a long red straw. He had smiled, she had taken notice but had quickly lost interest, and Donny situated himself far enough away to not bring attention to himself while still being able to maintain sight on his new-found love affair.

Felicia had perhaps noticed first Donny’s boots. Strong, weathered leather. Dark brown. Crusted over on the sole with what looked to be caked mud. Creases and cracks along the side of the boots. Her eyes had followed the creases of his tight blue jeans up his leg to his thighs, timbered and taught. To his outstretched chest, his veined neck. To his over-sized chin, grizzled face and the beginnings of a beard.

Donny had simply noticed her eyes. Leopard ovals pinched tight near the bridge of her nose. Seductive with care. Classy but sexy. Long, feathered eyelashes coupled with the odd piece of auburn hair swept to the side, framing her face. He watched her stir the drink. Precision as the lime swept in a perfect circle around and through the odd ice cube, her long slender wrist rotating just enough to guide the straw without moving her arm.

Donny wore trouble on the tips of his sleeves. Felicia could sense it from how he walked, that stout swagger coupled with the mischievous grin. She listened to him talk, heard the deep baritone voice, calm and collected, assured without being arrogant. Leaning over, Donny had whispered something to the bartender. Laughing out loud, the bartender had made his way past his bottles of drowned memories to her, set down a drink: a gin and tonic, extra limes lined up on the side of the glass. She had smiled and Donny had taken that as his cue to approach.

The introduction had lasted as long as it had taken her to down her gin and tonic. For Felicia, it was a mixture of bad teeth and horrible posturing. Pulling up a stool not one foot from her left hip, Donny had straddled her, leaned his left elbow on the bar, his right dangling dangerously close to her lower back. His invasion of her personal space had set off alarms, had caused her to drink faster, speak less, and begin to perspire which she would later blame on the gin when Donny took notice. In a matter of minutes she was standing.

Donny watched as she left without a word, already fixated on what he would refer to as the “woman of his dream within a dream”.

Felicia left, unaware that her future was now being written by the whims of an obsessed psychopath.

New York: Exit 3

“But he has nothing to say Debra,” Tom would repeat, each time higher than the next. “You keep asking him his opinion on this and there just isn’t one. He’s said it straight: he doesn’t know. What else could you possibly want from the boy?” Debra, the calloused lush that she was, simply scoffed.

“If the boy ain’t got nothing to say, he might as well die. This world ain’t for living with a sealed mouth, I can tell you that much.” She swayed back and forth on her heels, her cheap boxed Cabernet sloshing against the sides of her over-sized glass.

Yano, it was true, was a quiet boy who, more often than not, felt not the need to speak or give an opinion on the matter. It was often the case that in a matter of seconds he could see both sides of the argument or given situation and this understanding led quickly to a cancellation of not one in favor of the other, but rather a cancellation of the argument altogether. On matters of low importance such as the color of a shirt to wear to school, or a particular food to like or dislike, Yano excelled. These were definitive moments, decisions easily encased in the consumption or retrieval of a physical object. On matters such as lying as in, “Yano, you said you loved me but then you lied to me about doing the dishes,” the grays overcame the particulars and the absurdity of the claim deadened his lips.

“When a boy don’t talk, it don’t mean nothin’. He’s just tired Debra, that’s all. No need to go on about dying and all that. Leave the boy alone.” Tom would often defend Yano. It was Yano’s belief that this had nothing to do with him at all and in fact, it was the case that Tom was defending not Yano, but the childhood version of himself against an overbearing mother who, like Debra, was tanked nearly 23 of the 24 hours in a day.

Debra glanced at Tom flippantly, bringing the glass firmly to her lips with both hands. Smacking her teeth, she retorted, “The boy has the skin of a pussy Tom. If I can puncture him that easily, what do you think those moronic masses out there on the streets are going to do to him?” Debra would often speak in generalizations about “masses” as if she were their muse and knew their every move, let alone their names. Masses, according to Debra’s logic, were responsible for the large majority of the world’s problems including, but not limited to: global warming, obesity, speeding, water contamination, rug burns and that, “little pain just in the back of the head, sort of like a needle banging my brain” as Debra would put it or, as the rest of us would call it, a common headache. Yano, after hearing his mother’s rants about the woes connected to the “masses” and Tom’s sub-par retorts, quickly came to the conclusion at the age of eight that both of his parents were write-offs in his larger pursuit of a life not devoid of meaning and would wall up in a shroud of silence and contemplate things complicated, of which Yano found many.

Yano supposed that, at the end of the day, not much needed to be said. It was often the case that everything had already been said before or there were few, if any, to listen. To find someone willing to spend time to have a meaningful conversation, one in which both parties were forced to confront uncomfortable realities in their own lives in the pursuit of some understanding of a larger reality, was uncommon to say the least. To many, Yano found, he was much too young to take seriously or people quickly became uncomfortable with the idea that once one truth was reached, it would be refuted and the search would continue, undoubtably unabated. Perhaps too it was the manner in which Yano began such conversations: “I’d like to talk to you. But not just about anything. I want to talk to you about something really important, something that makes you uncomfortable. I want to talk in a manner befitting what the tool of talking was made for in the first place: to communicate. To pass on information but to grow with each other, move with each other, challenge each other, to create and destroy simultaneously, to…” He would continue in such a manner for minutes on end and, for a child that was known to speak so little, Yano on these occasions was quite literally unstoppable. He found very few to live up to his standards and as a result, lived the large majority of his formative years completely devoid of conversation or communication for that matter.

Debra hated the child, swore against the very day he had emerged from her womb. One could blame it on the drink but the distinction between the woman and the bottle was nearly impossible by now. Tom dealt with it through long business trips and sour whiskeys taken steadily throughout the day. Yano coped by conversing with himself in fanciful inner dialogue and walking nearly everywhere he needed to go. He was a prime suspect to be one of those children on the back of milk cartons and, in a matter of days, he would be.

New York: Exit 2

The subways seemed like a distant memory to him now. The oranges, yellows, reds on the cracked plastic seats, the greasy poles with layers of human grime upon them, the scuffed and speckled linoleum floors. He would later remember only the sensations of urine and feces, frozen moving airs of each subway car, the occasional homeless man or woman slouched in the corner, every other passenger a safe distance away. Safe enough to avoid the stench, safe enough to forget their resemblance to the blanketed mass.

His memories would soon become impressions really, existent nodes of operation implanted in the dark recesses of his mind. The synaptic flows associated with navigating a largely mechanized metropolis would slow, his life would become more countenanced, he would remember the follies of his high-speed lifestyle, laugh…sometimes cry. Chapters in his life would feel foreign, as if noir episodes, dream-like and of an ulterior being’s life. Such was the city he would come to find: as distance traveled, the grit and grime remained, the city engrained within his very being. Within his brow, the gum-laden sidewalks of Union Square. Within his neck, the towering skyscrapers of the financial district. In his toes, the stony sway of the Brooklyn Bridge. A place as large and divergent as New York congealed into a recognizable being and the memoried sensations arrived in pregnant waves. The hot dog vendor on 14th and 4th Ave, the schwarma truck on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the guards standing glassy-eyed on the stoops of rich residences on Madison Avenue: the recognizable New York arose again and again, only to recede into white noise washing the walls of his quiet, new life.

New York: Exit 1

He looks out the window, hears the garbage men rolling past, their tired bodies lumbering out of the dirtied vehicles, veiny arms straining to lift each bag and throw them into the compressor. The pigeons have gathered early this morning, congregating in front of his Haitian neighbor who sits, bent back and bag of bread crumbs in hand, tossing wistful handfuls of crumbs to the ground below. The pigeons proceed with regularity, as if composed of a daily musical movement, their contribution to the overture of the grand metropolis written in fluid steps, bobbing heads, the occasional flutter of grayed wings as a boy rides his bicycle down the tree-lined promenade. The air is thick, womb-like, hot and sticky and he wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve, looks at it in his left hand, checking for dirt left behind. There is none and this comforts him. He feels himself a beacon of cleanliness in a city dampened by the downtrodden, the filthy rich, the grit and grime of a never-ending pursuit.

The trees droop in the increasing heat. Yesterday his downstairs neighbor, a jazz singer and makeup artist, had come up to ask for sugar. It was cliche yet it was only the second time he had ever seen her so he engaged her in conversation, lent her the sugar and they exchanged smiles, forced into a joint suffering by the stifling heat and the longing for sweetness in their lives. She had smiled at him only once but it was a deep smile, a carving into the loamy soils of his persona that had rarely been touched. It was to be the highlight of his week and he treasured the exchange, rolled it around in his brain for hours on end, creating alternate scenarios whereby the request for sugar turned into hikes through unchartered forests, swims in the purple oceans in the Eastern coastal waters of the Atlantic, jovial dinners and lusty moments in public places. In the end he would return to himself as a dying star which collapses in on itself. He was left alone, an observer of the chaotic movements of the world of New York City which he knew only through the picture frames of his window panes, mere snippets of a city too large for any one person to ever truly understand.

The garbage men had now moved on, replaced by the criss-crossing movements of the sidewalk gentry. Older men, now retired, carved out the sidewalk spaces with their presence. As if surrounded by orbed forcefields, space was allocated to these men through furtive glances, downcast eyes, outspread arms and crossed legs. Their casualness was an enactment of force, a silent attack on the territories of the Parkway promenade. Their victories were pronounced through relaxed non-chalance, the fact that they did not move was a statement that they did not need to move. And so it goes.

He wondered if ever there would come a time when he would leave this place. He had never grown up Catholic but believed that flagellation was as common as breathing in New York. Perhaps it was through drugs or alcohol, stress or the continual pursuit of money, cloistering oneself in one’s home or flitting about as a manic social butterfly, but everyone seemed to have a guilt of sorts to expunge, a need to punish oneself, a need to deny life and wallow in the shallows or darkened depths of the dead. The metropolis was a place to lose oneself, to in a way give in to the notion that we are all born guilty or sinful, to accept this and in a way, give in. New York City was the whip near everyone’s back, the dirtied sore which everyone navigated on their way to work, to meet friends for drinks, to pick the kids up at the private schools, or have meetings at an upscale Manhattan restaurant. He had known other places, knew that the quality of life in New York City was poor as compared to other places he had been, and yet the allure was still there, that guilt-ridden pleasure of enjoying something that is so very bad for you, that thing which you say to yourself, “I’ll quit this just as soon as…” but never do.

He was quitting the city, taking a break and the scenes from his window became those of sepia moments of grainy film in a picture show. With a steadied right hand, he turned the handle of the antique camera, heard the whirring of the film through the feed, documented in memory that which he was so near to saying goodbye to.

Therapy

“There are three people here. Maybe more. I don’t know but I get the sense that they are watching me, that they are trying to figure out what it is that I am thinking.” Gertrude looks over Harold, feels like telling him to shut the hell up, that no one cares what he thinks or who he is, that he’s just another human being on the face of a planet littered with people.

“And what kind of feelings come up when you are in this space?” she says, tight-lipped and well-calibrated.

“Angst, sorrow, fear. I don’t know. All of them. I feel like I am about to burst, that I won’t be able to hold in the anxiety any longer. I am afraid of what will happen when that occurs.”

Occurs. Gertrude notices particular words that he uses. Occurs instead of takes place. She despises this man, dreads the 45 minutes they spend together week after week. One day, when violently ill, she decided it would be in her best interest to come to her appointment with Harold and proceeded to cough with full force into the air above and around him in the hope of spreading her sickness. He had offered her a tissue with a polite smile. It made her hate him even more.

“The space is small and their eyes seem to devour me inch by inch. I feel like if I stay in there, I will emerge only a piece of the man I was when entering. How does one deal with this feeling, the feeling that one is literally being devoured, lessened, ripped apart?”

She sighs. Calmly she states, “Well, you could leave.” She rolls her eyes a bit to the left as she says this. He takes momentary notice and grinds his teeth.

“But I can’t just leave, can I? I work there. People come to me, they order their food, they demand service, conversation. I’m in the cross-hairs of a social dilemma. At times I imagine them as a sea of insects clawing at croissants, drinking lattes, ordering frappacinos and other nonsensical coffee beverages. This makes me smile but then people watch me more. As if smiling is a crime in this city, right?”

“Hmm,” she says. Gertrude had been seeing Harold for years now. At times, it seemed to be decades that he had annoyingly engrained himself into her schedule. Son of a wealthy client, blessed neurotic, her hand was forced in taking him on as a  client. Perhaps it was his incessant repetition of the same narratives: the eyes, the feeling of being watched, a delusional self-importance, a fear of being forgotten. Perhaps it was the fact that on more than one occasion, he had stood up on her leather couches yelling bloody murder, grinding the soles of his dirty wingtips into the cushions, claiming that she wasn’t helping him fast enough. Whatever it was, she despised this man, longed for a car to accidently swerve off the road and flatten him on the sidewalk, a beam of steel from a construction site to lose its grip, plummet to the ground and bore a hole through his skull. She wanted his worst fears to come true, have his clients at the cafe turn on him and devour him in a 1970′s zombie film scene, the walking corpses leaping over the counter ripping him to shreds, the intestines and various other body parts flying up in the air for dramatic effect. But none of this would happen and knowing this makes Gertrude deeply disappointed.

He continues talking. She stays as neutral as possible. The daggers lay dormant in the recesses of her skull.

Animate Inanimate

“To really imagine the wall as communicative: this is maddening,” Edward says, his eyes bulging outward to the brink of popping. “You see, it’s truly all around us. The force. The actants. Energy. Things. Whatever you’d like to call them. We are in constant dialogue with every step we take. Can you imagine this? I mean really imagine what this means?” He leans into her face, his right hand stroking his cheek, his knees tightly-pressed together, his neck bunched as if a forehead deep in thought.

“To realize that the inanimate, the dead, the things (as we so brazenly call them) have agency, that they act upon us constantly, that they waltz in tandem with us every moment–to realize this brings responsibility, a responsibility greater than most are willing to take. It is the responsibility to see, you understand? To perceive clearly the web that we exist within. It is to recognize that all that we have considered inanimate, animates our lives at every moment whether it be the wind, the food we eat, the desks we sit in, the walls of our homes or workplaces.”

She looks at him as if he is mad, rolls her eyes to the left in a dismissive manner that allows her to hear but not hear, rock her head back and forth in understanding but not truly understand. It wasn’t that she wasn’t intelligent, nor disinterested, nor was it the fact that Edward had broken her heart twice and she had resolved to shut him out forever. She was afraid, afraid of what it might mean to begin to see and explore the ways in which her cubicle walls at work were in constant dialogue with her body, that the fibers in the Berber carpets were talking to her feet, her feet talking back to the carpet. That in a way, she was that cubicle and that cubicle was her. Nor did she want to imagine that her run-down apartment in deep Brooklyn with the sordid, stained walls and moldy shower, the cockroach-infested floorboards and broken mirrors actually composed her life, that the shambles spoke to her, that the materials infused her existence, were part of her. She was revolted. And afraid. There was a longing to expunge such thoughts, distance herself, block those feelings from entering into her purview. For her, to recognize that the material, cold, spoiled and indifferent world in which she lived was alive was overwhelming and sad. What would her cracked tiles say should she choose to hear them speak? What of the pencil she grips as she writes her letters to her ailing mother? Does it beg for warmer words, less sadness? Does it long to write words of love and healing in the place of regret? She shakes her head, can take no more, and looks Edward in the eyes.

“It is true that this can be frightful for we have created what at first glance seems to be a cold and indifferent world of the machine. But look closer. Mystery and magic are right before our eyes. If I look quickly at my desk for instance, I notice only a few things: the biggest scratches, the fact that it is a desk, the coffee stain in the right hand corner. But if I look closer, spend more time, I see deeper, through gradations of the object. I notice the speckled face of the wood, the chaotic pattern of the chipped veneer. If I look very closely, I smell the remnants of lemon pledge, see a crack that runs lengthwise across the desk, a strange discolored diamond at the head. If I spend enough time, I come to know the desk, little by little, with patience and love. And it is not simply a desk that I come to know. Encased within the desk are so many others: those that once sat at this desk, perhaps the child that ran her scissors across its face accidentally while cutting paper, those that made this desk. Then before, the saws which sliced the wood, the workers at the sawmill, the trucks that carried the wood, then the tree that once stood tall amidst other trees perhaps in the Great Northwest, perhaps elsewhere. From the tree to the water that the tree fed upon, the nutrients within the spongy ground which we ourselves are composed of. In moments of personal crisis I remind myself that we are all collectives, every last person, desk, bowl, hospital, apartment complex, taxi, pencil, book. If I look closely, I begin to see the mystery of all that surrounds me, all that supports me, all that constantly speaks to me if only I am willing to listen. When I feel alone or scared, you see, I remember that I am not alone and that everywhere around me the traces of all those past, present and to-come are here, all around me. It is not a metaphysical statement but one based on the material realities in which we wade. What would it do to see this?” Edward smiles, closes his eyes.

She pauses, looks to her wrist. Hanging loosely from her arm is a stone bracelet her daughter gave to her on her 40th birthday. For the first time, she notices in one of the amber stones a white streak shaped like the curved tail of a lion. She smiles.

House Mouse No. 1

It became difficult for the children to take him seriously anymore the day their father became a field mouse. Threats of groundings, corporal punishment, and the like just didn’t seem to hold when he said it from 2 inches off the ground while twitching his nose.

Samuel had awoken on a Sunday to the sound of his wife, Betunia, making waffles. While normally a soothing sound, that reminder of the slow paces in life and veritable pleasures that awaited a week worked hard, this morning every atom in his body longed to flee. Opening his eyes, he found the pillows as large as queen size beds, the bed a seemingly endless sea of wrinkled sheets and tossed duvet. He was, to say the least, confused and in nervousness, littered the bed with little pebbles of stool.

The first problem he faced was how to get down from the bed. This was easily accomplished he found by digging his claws into the loopholes of the duvet fabric and spelunking down the side of the bed, leaping off and landing squarely on his four paws. The carpet fibers were filthy and human hairs wedged into the Berber loops hung like nooses, awaiting his entrapment. Weaving through streaked underwear and rolled up socks, the smell of human filth was everywhere. He wondered how it was that they could become so accustomed to the pestilence of dirtied clothes, unwashed pits, sordid counter tops and stained toilet rims. The disarray of their existence seen from inches off the ground revealed a squalor he had never imagined existed: the nail clippings, droplets of lotion, lipstick caps and adventurous chap-stick, endless forests of orphaned hairs, the negative pregnancy tests lodged between the nightstand and the wall, their daughter’s picture, torn and worn at the edges. Memories sprung forth from the lower recesses of their home like nightshade and he imagined them floating upon past times every morning they had placed their feet upon the ground, crunching the hairs, displacing the chap-stick, massaging the lotion deeper and deeper into the carpet.

The door rises like a 40-story skyscraper and Samuel clamours to his back feet, front paws curled and held tightly against his chest and lifts up his neck staring at the door knob, symbolic of the impossible feat before him. He looks down to the base, sees the gap that he had never noticed before and suddenly, as if driven by the invisible force of habit, he is running towards the door, sliding sideways, and squeezing his body through the gap, driving his claws against the wooden floors again and again until he is through.

Bethunia is standing in the kitchen in front of him now, towering over him in his current form just as she had towered over him as a man, a boyfriend, a husband, and later, a father to her children. He wants to yell out to her, beg for her help, have her fix this mishap as she had fixed all the others: the wrecked car after a night of drinking, the money lost on pursuits of grandeur through craps and poker, the lost jobs and times he had forgotten to pick up the kids from school. Her posture is that of strength and confidence: chin held high, chest outright, head back, spine perfectly aligned. She whips the batter, spoons it out in perfect proportions with the large wooden spoons they had gotten from her mother for their wedding, and patiently waits for the light to turn green on the waffle maker. She is giant to him now and he wonders where this longing to have the situation fixed comes from, as if nostalgic for a time when things were pleasantly whole, a time that never was nor ever would be. She lifts her chin higher suddenly as if sensing his presence and turns her head, meeting the eyes of a disheveled, panting mouse near the bedroom doorway and slowly approaches, wielding the wooden spoon in her right hand.

Belle: An Introduction

Belle was a prima donna, a true believer in the power of “I”. Her ego washed the walls with the scented trails of cheap perfume and lotion wherever she walked and when entering a room it was the palpable annoyance that Belle brought that one first noticed. Loud and forceful, it was not uncommon for her to plop herself down on the couch, wedge her way awkwardly into conversation and speedily take it over with the force of a newly-born calf. The conversation would soon digress into ramblings of the latest pop culture motifs, the dress and circumstance of the feigned acquaintances gracing the television screen that Belle did not know but somehow believed took into account her opinions in their day-to-day lives. Others would listen as Belle, seemingly unconscious or uncaring that she had willfully trapped others in her web of, “Oh, did you see what he was wearing? Are you kidding me? Who does that?”s and “She was nothing but a hot mess. Did you see her on the latest [enter any TV show]“s, would continue unabated for minute after minute until everyone was strategically able to exit the room. Alone was something that Belle dreaded and after emptying the room, she would sit, her right leg thrown over the left haphazardly, staring into space until the silence had become too unbearable and she would begin the hunt for her next victim.

Perhaps it was her childhood that laid the foundations for the forceful and vacuous presence of Belle. Perhaps it was that she had never felt loved enough, that her parents never paid her much attention. Then again, perhaps it was just Belle. But when faced with the stench of a Belle let loose, one truly could only think of getting away and no manner of excuse could pave the way to any sort of understanding.

Her hips were wide, her ass large, her breasts over-ripened melons. Her hair was pulled sideways with the loose carelessness of a workday morning begun late, long strands of black hair curled at the tips from the incessant use of her index finger and thumb to play with the locks that had begun forming. Long, press-on nails graced her fingers, each painted with red and orange sunsets over oceans, little white sailboats near the lines of the horizons. These she would click on the hardened surfaces of her desk or a coffee table as she talked, creating a far more interesting distraction than the dribble that emerged from her mouth. Belle’s cell phone was her additional appendage that she seemed to focus in on with all her might, straining at the exercise of texting any number of the men she kept within the recesses of her vapid mind. She considered it rude to ignore texts while talking to a real, live person but this was more understandable when one realized that more often than not, she talked at a person, not to and that she simply never stopped talking.

Survivors of Belle’s conversations would later state that in a way, her presence was productive. It enabled them to drift off, daydreaming to the warbling of a woman unconcerned that her words were not heard, her points not taken seriously. One man later claimed that it was during one of Belle’s sessions that he came up with the design of his later heralded apartment complex, a building covered in wall-to-wall glass which gave it the veneer of transparency while directly behind most of the glass stood concrete walls, 2 feet thick. For many, surviving Belle’s onslaught was an apt lesson in the meaning of thoughtful speech. Belle, however, would continue to be oblivious.

What was perhaps most fascinating about Belle was her uncanny ability to fabricate authority on topics she had next to no knowledge about. The woman had an opinion on everything. Anyone that challenged this was met with the onset of rolling menageries of words violently piled upon one another in no particular order, her voice rising continually when met with resistance as if by being loud she would magically be right. The heavy silences of her victims would resound with spiteful deference and Belle would take this as victory, rearranging her chunky ass cheeks on the sofa, the leather squealing under her unwelcome weight. Transparent, aggressive, inane and superfluous, Belle would more often than not find herself alone, steeping in the uncomfortable recognition that human lifeforms seemed repelled by her presence.

Approaching Finitude

Ten sentences in, he stops. “What’s the point?” he thinks to himself and suddenly with that thought the keystrokes seem infinitely distanced, the ideas far-fetched and overdone. The pens, the pencils, the lined tablets and crusted coffee cups: they all remind him of that which he is not doing, that which taunts him from the emptiness of evenly-spaced, papered lines and a fatal cursor left unsatisfied. The old man in the corner that always threatened to rise up from his slumber does so now, his eyes droopy, his beard long and unkempt and riddled with food particles. His left leg slides and scrapes against the wooden floors of the one-man bar, his jacket hangs in tatters from the edges of his bony limbs, his cane held tightly in his right hand thumps periodically, resounding in the hollows of the bar’s underbelly. This is the man that he longs to forget, the man that haunts his work-less days, the man he wishes never to become.

The approach is long and slow, motion in lines of drawn certitude that weave through the fibers of the bar stools, the floorboards, the empty glasses and resounding silences on dusty lamps and crooked paintings. Memories flash before his eyes of times that once were, nostalgic rememberings of falsified simpler times. Vivid colors resound through the recesses of his troubled mind, mix with the images of a childhood birthday party: cookies and cream ice cream cake, birthday balloons, six magic candles that light again once blown out, the clown with the smeared makeup. There is a wanting to return but neither happiness nor sadness associated with these images. Simply to return which he knows, through all meanings of the word tragedy, he cannot.

The old man is closer now, bearing down upon him with his cod-fish breath, his rotting green teeth, his one glass eye slightly turned inward to the right. He says nothing, merely watches as the man approaches in a dreaded waltz. His craft is one of giving in, of accepting that which comes and rearranging it through fanciful prose, of seeing that which everyone else sees but in a slightly twisted manner, one not accountable to the rigid laws of a mankind bent on destroying the will of the imaginarians.

The old man is here, within him, nestling into his veins and begins to roll out prose through the tips of his fingers.  The fear gives way to exhilaration. He has given in to the man’s presence, embraced him within the lining of his being, and in tandem they jauntily walk through the empty lines of the pages, scattering color, expounding upon love, death, life and all the other nonsensical rantings of beings possessed by the power of the written word. He has returned momentarily to the land of the living through the embraced presence of a small and withered death.