LoveSettlement

Thousand: Six Hundred Sixty-Two

2012-02-18T22:03:00.001-08:00

room is smaller than she expected. Still big. But more like a barn than a cathedral. “I wouldn’t have minded stained glass,” she says, stepping around a folded chair that has tumbled off a stack of folding chairs. In the middle of the room three tables have been set up. Two are covered with paper table cloths. Dusty bottles of soft drinks and punch crowd the edge of one of the tables. The girl snatches a plastic cup from a tower of cups and slams it down next to a bottle of seltzer. The twist-off cap balks at her tired

Thousand: Six Hundred Sixty-One

2012-02-17T22:41:00.001-08:00

and bears down on it, really driving it back and forth and forth and back and back and forth and forth, really going at it, her arms burning, her shoulders aching, the keybox shining, blazing, vibrating. She cannot look at it at all now. It’s warm, not hot like you’d expect of something so bursting with light, warm. And the vibrating, the hum makes her palm itch as she rises, her knees pop. She holds the box up again, as high as she can with arms worn down by all that. And the light flows into a circular room. The

Thousand: Six Hundred Sixty

2012-02-16T21:24:00.001-08:00

keybox against the floor, sliding it back and forth between her hands. At first it’s just something to do, something to do unmindfully, the girl’s weariness having overtaken any thought of pushing things a little farther. If the box brightens when rubbed some, will it get really bright if you rub it a lot? It is actually some minutes before the girl recognizes she is conducting this experiment and that it is paying off. When it gets through at last that the box is giving off more light and more light, the girl grits her teeth and squeezes her eyes

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Nine

2012-02-15T21:40:00.000-08:00

the atmosphere felt closer, warmer. A big hall doesn’t feel like that. At the very least sound carries farther so doesn’t seem all pressed together. The girl puts the keybox under her legs, her arm tired. If she looks at it, she can’t see anything else. She just sits there for a little, head sagging. Empty inside, not trying to crowd the emptiness with hopes, not picturing sanctuary around the corner, a smile from a janitor, a clean glass of water. A glass of water would be nice. She licks her lips with a gummy tongue. Idly, she rubs the

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Eight

2012-02-14T17:27:00.002-08:00

more squares of the institutional umber wink up from the dark. Wandering out there wouldn’t be much different from plunging into a fogged-in room, especially if the unexpected ally of a glowing keybox decides it’s done. The girl sighs. More tired than she knows what to do with, she leans against the wall. She can see it, she can feel it, and if it’s about to hurry off on some errand, it hasn’t yet. Her legs wobble. So she slides down the wall until she’s sitting. Don’t big rooms feel like big rooms? Just before she discovered the keybox light

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Seven

2012-02-13T21:45:00.000-08:00

meeting notes. Maybe there was something at the meeting about an impending change in the nature of reality? Might all the answers be in her cramped shorthand? It wouldn’t be the first time she wrote down what the teacher, the boss, or her mother said, without having really listened. The light continues to grow, and the girl can see the near wall curving gradually away before her and behind. Where she expects to see the far wall to appear, two or three arm’s lengths away, however, there is no wall, only more linoleum. She goes up on tiptoe. A few

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Six

2012-02-12T14:12:00.001-08:00

and sees her fingers silhouetted. Not imagining that, the girl says to herself. If only the darn thing were emitting enough light to be useful. She rubs the surface as though to encourage it and to her pleased surprise the box responds, its gold glow advancing to a glimmer. She rubs it some more. A gleam. A glisten. The rubbing has wakened the box somehow. It vibrates gently as the light increases. The girl raises the box above her head, where it won’t dazzle her dark-adapted eye. She blinks impatiently. Her left hand resolves first, clutching the creased and tattered

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Five

2012-02-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

judging the vibrations of the folded paper. If a wall popped up directly before her, her nose would not be the first to know. She only now wonders if the ceiling is coming down. If it does, she’ll just have to bonk her head on it. And if it is a ceiling bristling with spikes like some medieval torture chamber, well, what can you do? The girl is getting hungry. Thirsty, too. She reaches into a pocket and pulls out the gold box. Is it glowing? Yes, she can make out its shape. She brushes her hand over the lid

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Four

2012-02-10T21:34:00.001-08:00

been walking in the dark. Not yet an hour. More than fifteen minutes, easily. Long past time she should have come upon a door. Something clearly is different. She held her breath while listening but lets the air out now. She will breathe more evenly, more quietly. Who knows what she missed while huffing along. Certainly she’s been walking deliberately, placing each foot before adding the body’s weight. A stair step, a hole, could manifest at any moment. She’s been keeping her hands in front of her, the right held out and cupped slightly, the left sliding along the wall

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Three

2012-02-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

of silence. The girl stops. It’s true, isn’t it. Every sound comes directly from her. Her breathing. The creaking of her shoes. The scratching along the wall of the meeting notes; she’d fished them from her pocket to save wear on her fingers. Now. Standing, waiting. She’s not seeing lights. She’s not hearing the hiss of spume being blown from the billows. It’s just a dark hall in an office building. Not even dank like a dungeon. Stuffy, maybe. Is it getting warmer? Usually the girl has a pretty good sense of time. She tries to guess how long she’s

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-Two

2012-02-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

into the ring. I slide one arm in, I slide the other arm in. Like I’m putting on an evening gown. And then, slowly, slowly, the water falling away from my body in a rush, in streamers, in drips drips, I am reeled in. The girl does not need to close her eyes for this picture, the black sea heaving as lances of light cut across it, for everything is black and heaves. Only the light she sees must be imaginary for it illuminates nothing. It is only itself, harsh, commanding, striking out from a din of. Of. A din

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty-One

2012-02-07T21:14:00.000-08:00

the ship sank when really it wasn’t so bad, or there were lifeboats and emergency rations and flare guns and a radio somebody is calling for rescue on right now. Maybe the helicopters that swoop in, light up the howls of delight in the bobbing boats, maybe they’ll move on from those lucky duckies and sweep vigilant eyes across the jetsam and pick out my sad little brave little determined flail toward saving myself and down will drop a float ring right in my way, a twirling yellow rope tying it to the life above. Gratefully, almost indolently, I slide

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifty

2012-02-06T21:33:00.001-08:00

beginning.” She gropes on. Any moment she will feel the door frame, she will bruise her hip on the doorknob. “Every time, every time, every time,” she sings, forgetting the words. This goes on a long time. The girl thinks about turning around and going back but more as a story to tell herself, like the shipwrecked sailor clinging to the spar, kicking toward the island last seen from the burning deck but which might even now be falling away to the south and the swimmer’s tired legs pushing toward open sea. Suppose I could turn back, suppose I imagined

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-Eight

2012-02-05T22:10:00.001-08:00

farther down the hall? All right. Fine. What can happen? I get eaten by a leprechaun? One of those complaining zombies grabs me and drags me past my boredom threshold? Putting her hands against the wall the girl shuffles forward into the darkness. She begins to hum to herself. Then to sing. “Every time I see you falling, out of the sky, I get down on my knees and pray, I close my eyes, let the choir sing, sing the words that I can’t say, I feel fine and I feel good, it’s like a dream, no end and no

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-Seven

2012-02-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

going to have to count all the way to ten, am I? After door number six a shadow looms. The light’s gone out? The girl slows, impatient but cautious. She drifts over to the left, craning her neck to see into the gloom. Hugging the left wall should give the best view around the curve. The door she wants is here on the left, too. Or will be. Soon. There, in the deepening darkness, stands door number seven. If a light were on within wouldn’t the door crack be a gleaming outline? And why is it she’s not seeing light

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-Six

2012-02-03T20:57:00.001-08:00

it listening for something? Seems to have its head cocked. “Um.” The girl actually considers diving into the fog room. Instead, she spins on her heel and begins a brisk walk the way she came. One, two, and here comes three. The doors pass on her right. Such relief when she hears a muttering from behind one of them. Things haven’t changed in that room. Not yet. Somebody’s going on and on about how horrible everything is. And they’re not wrong, either, the girl reminds herself. Not completely. It’s that they’ve lost all perspective. Five, here comes six. I’m not

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-Five

2012-02-02T21:52:00.001-08:00

and dilated and the final darkness crept into that hole.” “You’re a leprechaun? Aren’t leprechauns green or something?” “I am what I am.” “Yeah. Look. I don’t mean to be a pest, but, uh, I think you’re the people the overseer warned me about.” “And where is she now, this overseer? What four leaf clover is she overlooking?” The girl remembers she’s cold, she even shivers. “It’s been great chatting and all.” She tries to remember how far away a door out of this place will be. “But. I don’t know.” The leprechaun isn’t looking at her, she thinks. Is

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-Four

2012-02-01T21:28:00.001-08:00

I would believe a thing you say? What are you, anyway?” “I am the Leper Messiah. I am the King. I am the Only One Left Alive.” “The only what left alive? The only leper?” “The only leprechaun,” says the thing, making a soft moan of it. “I am the only one left. All the others are extinct. They have killed themselves with bad habits. They led themselves down ill paths, sinful roads paved with good expense accounts. They indulged in self-abuse and refused to see the light, even when it was winking in their faces. Their eyes were fixed

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-Three

2012-01-31T21:20:00.000-08:00

nervousness, maybe because. No, it couldn’t be because anybody said anything funny. “Go ahead,” the thing says after a silence. “Go on in.” “I thought you wanted to go in.” The thing laughs again, longer this time, and the girl doesn’t. “Are you afraid?” the thing asks. “Of you?” “Of anything?” “I guess I’m afraid of tigers,” the girl says. The thing stands up on those weird gangly legs and walks past her, the girl turning so it doesn’t get behind her. It settles down. “There’s no one left at the dormitory, you know,” it says. “What makes you think

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-Two

2012-01-30T22:41:00.001-08:00

stump with a spatula. The head might have been a tree stump charred in a wildfire which someone fancied looked like a head and said, “Hey, let’s put it on top of this roadkill skunk and call it Pinocchio.” “You’re wrong about everything,” the odd thing says. The girl sneers, “Yeah? What are you, just another complainer? There’s this room here, seems to be empty, could use a complainer, it’s a complainer apartment, give you a good deal on it.” The odd thing laughs, not quite a merry laugh, but not entirely calculated. The girl laughs, too, maybe out of

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-One

2012-01-29T21:29:00.000-08:00

“I will never get anywhere in life. People hate me. I hate people. Everything is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.” The girl looks over her shoulder. A black thing is sharing the hall with her. It’s about the size of a foot stool. And it’s looking at her. “Wrong girl. Wrong day. Wrong way out.” “It was you who spoke,” the girl says to the thing, which moves a little closer on legs long and knobby that immediately disappear under it when it stops moving. “You’re wrong,” agrees the mouth, which looks like it’s been dug out of a mouldy tree

Thousand: Six Hundred Forty

2012-01-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

cranks up the noise. “I am so miserable. I am always so miserable. I have been condemned to be miserable for all eternity.” All fucking eternity. The girl sighs. Maybe that’s the job description, that’s the help wanted ad they answer. Seeking Persons All Varieties of Unhappy to Stand in White Rooms and Complain. Is the pay good? Aren’t they animatronics or something? They don’t really seem human. But what they say, yeah, that’s familiar. Your mother, that boyfriend who turned out to be as fun as quicksand, those days you couldn’t get out of bed. You’ve heard those words.

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Nine

2012-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

The hall the girl moves through on her duties has always been dim, and stepping into one of the white rooms a blast of brilliance, however monotonous or irritating that which the light embraces. The fogged-out room retains this brilliance, if it has lost all detail. When she pushes the door a little, teases the fog or herself with a sliver of egress, the gap is also a line of light. The hall is quiet. Standing directly under one of the fluorescent tubes in a ceiling fixture the silence is bothered by a faint buzz. Opening one of the rooms,

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Eight

2012-01-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

this door open, what will happen. The fog will roll out into the hall. You won’t be able to see where you are. Where will it stop. Will it swallow the world. The girl leans her head against the door. Can’t hear anything in there. No draft coming out. Try again. Go find the overseer. The overseer will know what to do. She’s the one opening the boxes, letting the fog out. Maybe she’s lost in the fog herself. Maybe maybe maybe. Who knows what’s going on. Right. Not me, the girl thinks, even managing a chuckle at the thought.

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Seven

2012-01-25T21:49:00.000-08:00

the white boxes. The door whuffs shut. Right. What to do now. Go back in. Forget it. Go back to the dorm. She gingerly pushes the door again, not noticing she’s holding her breath. The room’s are always painted white, white linoleum, white plastic trash can liners, white upholstered stools, it might just be nerves. Right. Seeing things. Seeing nothing. She continues very slowly to push the door into the room. The white box lets it out. That’s what happens after awhile. You leave the white box open and the fog comes out, fills up the room. If you leave

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Six

2012-01-24T21:59:00.001-08:00

stool. The girl expected the overseer to address her, of course, to nod at her, to scowl at her. Why did the overseer ignore her? It couldn’t be she wasn’t seen. That’s crazy. Maybe the overseer didn’t say anything because. The girl tries to think of a reason. Unable to dredge one up that doesn’t seem about as mysterious as no explanation at all, the girl glances once more up and down the hall, then pushes the door. The room is empty. Or something. Or nothing. She jumps back, gasping. The room is as empty, as fogged-in, as any of

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Five

2012-01-23T21:53:00.001-08:00

bites her lip. Right. The hair that’s in the jacket. That single suspicious black hair stiff as a bristle that the girl retrieved from the top of the cabinet in a pristine white room. She was trained to watch for stuff like that. Something that’s not supposed to be there. She is to bring it to the attention of the overseer. Didn’t the overseer see her when she came into the room? The girl was standing on a stool, not the sort of thing you’ll see in one of these rooms, a girl in a keykeeper uniform standing on a

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Four

2012-01-22T21:14:00.001-08:00

in a circle, meet itself. Considering how little different each room is, how similar the complaints of the residents, will she even recognize it if her visits begin to repeat? She entered from a door on the right. Right. There isn’t one visible just ahead, but for every ten doors on the left, one will appear on the right. Maybe it’s time for her to go back to the dormitory. She will get in trouble for losing her jacket, of course. The hair. That would show the overseer she. The hair that’s in the envelope. In the jacket. The girl

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Three

2012-01-21T21:42:00.000-08:00

into the room she takes another breath and lets it out. Remember to breathe. If your heart races you can only do so much to calm it. But if you concentrate on the breath, you can gain some control. The hall is quiet. She can’t hear the bountiful soliloquies of any of the occupants of the rooms. She can’t see the overseer. But then, the hallway curves gradually to the left and whatever is four doors ahead is out of sight. It’s enough of a curve, the girl thinks for the first time, that it ought to come back around

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-Two

2012-01-20T22:36:00.001-08:00

on her knees for further examination. She goes on to the next room. Where things are the same, though the monologue is louder, and the words slurred. The girl is hurrying now, pushing open the door to each room just long enough to glance into the corner and see the white box’s lid is up. When the girl realizes she is becoming frantic, terrified at seeing that unvarying sight that up to today she has never seen, she stops herself at a door. She breathes deeply, trying to force away the panic. “That’s better,” she says, lying hopefully. Before looking

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty-One

2012-01-19T23:09:00.000-08:00

correct her, so he can see the error in her ways and mend them.” “I thought you said he sees all,” the girl says on the way out the door. She doesn’t care if the creature tries to argue with her. But she’s not going to try pushing it over. One attempt at that is plenty. The occupant of the next room is mumbling and only when the girl passes by its elbow does she catch a few words. “Clean start over every little bit helps.” The white box on the floor is open and fog-filled. She doesn’t get down

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirty

2012-01-18T16:57:00.001-08:00

by.” The girl gets up off the floor, slaps dust off her knees, though there isn’t any, and straightens the creases of her pants. “She will do this, what he has told her to do. It doesn’t matter what she thinks. Her thoughts are his thoughts. She sometimes forgets and does something else and goes to him and tells him what she has done, as she does every day, even though he knows everything, even though he sees all, she tells him everything she has done that day, she is to keep track for her own practice, so he can

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Nine

2012-01-17T22:10:00.001-08:00

that what she usually does? “When the student is ripe the teacher will pluck her!” The girl jumps, then shakes her head. The figure in each room doesn’t talk all the time, but they drone on when they do talk and the girl rarely pays them much attention. She looks up at this one. Its suddenly speaking was a surprise is all. “The teacher will bite her, bite deep into her rosy skin, exposing her flesh. Bite deep, exposing her core, the very heart of her, where her future lies, and he will drop words in, words she will live

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Eight

2012-01-16T17:48:00.001-08:00

left holding her jacket that she wants to rush up and snatch it back. But this one’s arms are slack at its sides. The girl even glances at the floor to see if the jacket is lying there, dropped when the figure lost interest. But, of course, nothing but the reflection of flourescent light glares back at her from the tiles. The girl steps around to the white box, fishing out her gold box as she kneels. The lid is up. Inside, as in the last room, the box seems filled with nothing. The overseer must have opened it. Is

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Seven

2012-01-15T21:40:00.001-08:00

on with her rounds, if she pretends nothing’s happened. What has happened? She’s lost her jacket. Anything else? The keykeeper overseer came into a room and removed an object from a white box, a box, the girl only a minute prior, had prepped with an ant. The girl has never seen that before. She’s never had a look into one of those boxes, either. Seems there’s nothing to see, yeah? It’s a mite chilly without the jacket. The girl goes on to the next room. When she opens the door the naked figure looks so much like the one she

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Six

2012-01-14T22:21:00.001-08:00

of the cabinet. She put it an envelope. The girl draws out the contents of her pants pockets and checks them over. Her blouse, buttoned up to her throat, has no pockets, but she pats herself to make sure no envelope slipped in during the struggle. Not that it was a struggle. A brief capture, followed by an escape. The envelope must still be in the jacket. She glances at the door. Going back in is not something she wants to do. Maybe she can go back later. The room’s occupant probably will forget all about her. If she goes

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Five

2012-01-13T21:16:00.001-08:00

its usual routines have been interrupted. It doesn’t have an automatic next thing to do or say. The girl unfastens the buttons of her jacket and slides out of it, leaving the jacket hanging from the creature’s hand. She retrieves a few things from the pockets, the gold box with the ants inside, a placatory erector, her notes from the last meeting, coins, and the map. “I’ll leave you the glossary,” she says. “You might learn something.” She sidles around the unstirring figure and pushes open the door. In the hall she remembers the hair she recovered from the top

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Four

2012-01-12T21:22:00.001-08:00

have been cut and there’s no communication between mind and face. The only indication that something has changed is the lack of change. The grip on the girl’s jacket has pulled her to her toes. The grip does not loosen. She tries to lower her heels but the arm holding her up remains rigidly at that height. The mouth is open, if a bit less. No more drool has slopped out. “My name is Lou,” the girl says, softly this time but firmly, recognizing that this statement has found a place inside the troubled creature, has surprised it, perhaps, and

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Three

2012-01-11T21:39:00.001-08:00

we will look forward to getting together over coffee and donuts, we will begin to think we cannot live without each other because it is a lonely, frightful world and when you find a true friend you wonder how you made it all the days the days the days of struggling against phonies.” The girl unclenches her jaw, unbunches her fist. “My name is.” Is she really going to say it? “My name is Lou.” It’s disconcerting watching the creature’s face. Even when it responds directly to something the girl says, she can’t tell by looking. It’s like the nerves

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-Two

2012-01-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

at the corners and the girl wonders if the creature is starting to trying to smile a wicked grin a. “Who are you?” the girl asks, fear in her voice, which she hears, and corrects as best she can. “Do you have a name?” “A name!” the creature cries out. “A name! The little keykeeper wants a name! Does the little girl have a name herself? Does she have a name she will share? We will be buddies, won’t we? This little girl, this Susan, this Fatima, this Imelda, and I. We will be confidants, we will share our troubles,

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty-One

2012-01-09T21:59:00.001-08:00

the chin. “Hah!” the girl shouts, grabbing the creature’s upper arm and shoving it sharply against the ribcage. It’s like shoving a tree. The limb bends, but the trunk? Steady steady. “Hah!” the girl shouts again, lowering her shoulders and thrusting forward. Sweating, red-faced, she falls back. Has it even shifted its weight? She glares desperately up at the face. Does it even notice her? A hand shoots out and snares the lapel of the girl’s jacket. She gasps. The creature moans. “You can only go down so fucking far, bitch! I’m down as low as it goes.” The mouth twitches

Thousand: Six Hundred Twenty

2012-01-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

slides out of the left corner, dragging a long clear thread. The drop dangles, sways. “That’s disgusting,” the girl says. “I’m tired of having to step around you people. You things. From now on I’m going to push you out of my way. Starting with you.” The girl slips the glossary back into her jacket and moves toward this nemesis. She hesitates, not sure where she should make contact. It’s a head taller, but so skinny, unstable-looking. She avoids looking at the silvery hiding thatch of pubic hair, the sagging, papery skin, the drawn cheeks, the few stiff hairs on

Thousand: Six Hundred Nineteen

2012-01-07T22:10:00.000-08:00

a cobblestone. Not even a rung on a ladder, that would be out of the dirt!” “If you’re so good at it, what’re you doing standing there! You should lie down so I can step on you. Why do you stand there in the way?” The naked creature blinks, its eyes roving the room, from corner to corner. At last the vacant gaze settles at the girl’s feet. Do those eyes spark with resistance? Is there anger, motivating anger in them? The girl steps forward. “Get. Out. Of. My. Way.” The creature opens its mouth and a drop of drool

Thousand: Six Hundred Eighteen

2012-01-06T22:20:00.001-08:00

would be none.” The girl harrumphs. She looks around the room. “You,” she says to the naked creature. “I can’t even tell if you’re a man or a woman. I was told not to try. Are you even human?” The naked one stares, but at what? “You can never win! You can never win! Nothing you do ever makes any difference! It’s the same fucking thing all over again. Over and over and over again. Always the one getting stepped on. Always the one who has to lie down in the street while the people who matter use you as

Thousand: Six Hundred Seventeen

2012-01-05T21:52:00.001-08:00

swirly sort of Hollywood fog that boils and rolls out tendrils and creeps around your feet, but the other fog, the kind you don’t see up close, that you see only when you look into the distance and there’s no distance to see, everything more than a gentle stone’s throw away hiding or removed. The girl pulls something else out of her jacket. A little glossary. She looks up the word “fog.” “Avoid entering,” the book says. Under “box” she finds, “A container for things you don’t want to see.” Under “room” the book says, “The space without which there

Thousand: Six Hundred Sixteen

2012-01-04T21:44:00.001-08:00

she brings out she keeps closed in her fist, and the girl standing on the stool doesn’t know what it is. The woman strides from the room, without having looked at the girl. Nor has she closed the box. The girl climbs down from the stool, steps around the inhabitant (the girl always avoids touching the dweller of each room, as she was trained), and sidles up to the box. She peers into it and sees. Nothing. Not an empty box, but a white blank, shadowless, without depth or contour, as though the box were filled with fog. Not the

Thousand: Six Hundred Fifteen

2012-01-03T21:46:00.000-08:00

that’s not the way it is. Losers never win. You’re born that way. A loser.”) and curtsies before the white box. One speckled fist raps twice on the lid. The box pops open. The girl is watching from the stool. She captured the hair. It wasn’t long but was wiry, like a whisker. She slipped it into an envelope she drew from an inner pocket. The droning loser may or may not be watching the opening of the box, is turned that way, head alternately sagging forward or to one side. The old woman reaches into the box but whatever

Thousand: Six Hundred Fourteen

2012-01-02T21:37:00.001-08:00

the air moved by her movement, and. And just then the door to the hall opens, and an old woman steps into the room. She is wearing the same gray, militaristic uniform as the girl. Her hair white and styled into curls the consistency of meringue, a hint of blush on her chalky cheeks, a faint, unnatural red on her lips as though youth were still tittering behind a curtain in the high school principal’s waiting room, which is down the hall from wherever she has ended up, the woman steps around the room’s possibly permanent occupant (“But everybody knows

Thousand: Six Hundred Thirteen

2012-01-01T21:36:00.001-08:00

hair? She trains the tiny circle of light from the penlight directly on the wavering black line. “If there were really any chance, you know, I’d be okay with not winning, you know. If people who really deserved it won sometimes. That would be something, at least. Then you could be happy for them.” The girl hooks the leg of a wheeled stool and slides it alongside. Without taking her eyes from the strand, the girl climbs onto the padded seat and slowly, watching her balance, stands, reaches her left hand out for the black hair which is wobbling in

Thousand: Six Hundred Twelve

2011-12-31T21:51:00.001-08:00

running only on somewhat different themes. “None of it’s fair. It’s all fixed. They know who’s going to win every time. It’s all just a big joke.” The girl delivers the ant into the keyhole of the white box on the floor. As she rises, a movement catches her eye. No, not the ceaselessly complaining figure so like all the others. A shadow in the corner. She reaches inside her jacket and finds a penlight. The tiny bright spot probes the upper rim of the cabinet above the sink. Nothing, nothing, nothing. There! The girl rises on tiptoe. A black

Thousand: Six Hundred Eleven

2011-12-30T22:08:00.001-08:00

hurt somebody, you know. You really have to know what you’re doing. People get injured, and they don’t have anyone to take care of them. You don’t know!” The girl gets up, brushes more dust or the idea of dust from her pants, and leaves the room. In the next room, there is another white box, another naked figure, another pause to kneel and extract an ant. “I’m tired. I’m so tired. I wish death would take me so I didn’t have to be tired anymore.” In the fourth room the set up is the same, the plaintive, irritating monologue

Thousand: Six Hundred Ten

2011-12-29T21:44:00.001-08:00

think. They can just go on to hell.” The girl pushes herself up, slaps imaginary dust from the knees of her slacks and centers their carefully ironed creases. With measured steps she passes again around the complaining creature, closing the door as she leaves the room. In the next room there is another white box beside another naked figure. The girl settles down beside the box, removes again from her pocket the gold box and inserts an ant into the keyhole of this white box. “Do you think it will work? What is it? It’s dangerous, isn’t it? You could

Thousand: Six Hundred Six

2011-12-28T22:13:00.001-08:00

jacket she takes a small gold box. She pops the lid on the box and dips a finger in. An ant climbs onto her finger and walks rapidly around it. The girl puts her finger into the keyhole of the white box. When she removes the finger the ant has stayed behind. “I don’t know why people don’t talk to you. You’re standing there and somebody comes by and doesn’t say anything to you. It’s like you weren’t even there. That’s rude. I hate rude people. I won’t talk to them. They can just go to hell, that’s what I

Thousand: Six Hundred Five

2011-12-27T21:21:00.001-08:00

who wrote that just wanted to make people mad. We try to understand and when we fail, we know in our hearts that we were set up to fail, so we get angry. Deservedly so. And we are forced to retaliate. How dare they conspire to attack us! It is terrible, terrible!” This is all said with little emotional affect. Even the last words seem shouted without passion. The girl pulls open the door and steps into the white room. She steps around the naked figure and kneels on the floor before a white box. From the pocket of her

Thousand: Six Hundred Four

2011-12-26T21:30:00.001-08:00

AGRO lean slightly forward. What matters is how many times you’ve repeated it. The repetition emphasizes the importance. If you’ve said it ten times, if you’ve said it four hundred, what matters is the space before the grave filling with the same grievances you learned to pipe up about when you were eight or, at most, eighteen. “I wish people would write so you could understand them,” the figure intones, head shaking and shaking. “It doesn’t make sense that anybody would write something that you can’t understand. What is writing for, it not communication? AGRO. AGRO. I bet the person

Thousand: Six Hundred Three

2011-12-25T22:30:00.001-08:00

to the small waiting room where the lights are on and no one is home. No could ever be at home here, still and white like this, every surface without depth. Or so the leprechaun says. The one who is peering down from atop a cabinet. It looks like a spider to the naked figure standing in the room. But this brings no terror with it, this observation, that there is a spider, there might be a spider, a very large spider, black and hairy, crouched on the cabinet. On a piece of tape on the cabinet door the letters

Thousand: Six Hundred Two

2011-12-24T17:46:00.000-08:00

of tenure, a touch of misapplication. I have your hand. Would you prefer it back or sides? How many thistlemongers have run you over, their prickles rustling in a handtruck? Samuel, there is a shoe we need you to obey. Your future, wrapped in bubbles, has, at least temporarily, been returned to the original package. There is, truly, nothing new to say, only words to reencounter. They will be strung on a vibrating cord in the hallway to the left, painted in steel bowls in the gallery to the right. The girl wearing the uniform comes down the long present

Thousand: Six Hundred One

2011-12-23T22:11:00.001-08:00

white uniform tusk battle tip. A harrowing new adventure, maybe. Or the brash friendship of a set of tumble bunnies. Wild tincture looks curtain spent funk animal hikes, went earthward in a file perpendicular. Look, you who are listening. Abide awhile. There is no tongue in the groove. A mild venture capitulates. Catapults? Wait. Here is some patients, wear it in the patent accident. Cats. There were cats well. An octopus calendar manacle. You are watching television at eight o’clock. The remote remove of a renegade remora, marveling at the mine. Mine mine. All of it. Mine collide. A touch

Thousand: Six Hundred

2011-12-22T21:59:00.001-08:00

pelagic viper rounded with a kin oriented rental partnership, tufted but without gills and burning with the eros inherent in the titular nemesis, noggins dulled by rounding, frog attack parapets stuffed to the pillow menace with a fragile gravity helmed by a sentinel thickness crossed over by many tenuous symptoms of the more macular and the lesser kudu, hikes evicted tarragon on the merchant circuit wilting max satellite tump evangelist caldera avert works. A nebulous mixtape. Frangipani semaphore. Nickers emulating the mild form of the risky picket, yellow in the dandelion leaving’s bungled cup. Hyssop. Upstairs nail. Wild tipple badgering

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Nine

2011-12-21T22:00:00.001-08:00

and depressions. He walks up one wall, creeps across the ceiling feeling his way with his fingertips, pausing now and again to press his ear against it and listen intently, then down the other wall he hops, his feet together. He rides a unicycle down the hall and a tricycle back. Under the bed he counts the screws holding the frame together. He uses the sonar gun in the desk drawer to image the man in the mirror. He swims the tub for three miles until so far out of sight of the shower curtain that it looks like a

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Eight

2011-12-20T21:49:00.001-08:00

Happy? Bernie looks over at the drapes lit by the sunshine. When he goes over to the drawstring and pulls it and the drapes sweep open, Bernie is disappointed but not surprised to see the wall is glowing. There is no window behind the drapes. Who would put a light in a wall? Bernie runs his hand over the glow. Warm. A little too warm to comfortably lean against, but it doesn’t seem like it would burn. OK. Bernie moves about the room, tapping the walls, sniffing the corners, moving the furniture, shifting his weight across the carpet for creaks

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Seven

2011-12-19T21:51:00.001-08:00

Imagining he is imagining things, Bernie tries again. He turns the knob both ways, of course, just as he did a moment previous. He turns it one way then the other way twice around then back, as though he were turning the dial of combination lock. No luck. He leans his weight back, pulling, pulling. He pushes. He kicks the door, which hurts his foot. He can now scream, which he certainly feels like doing; he can curl up and sob, yes, sob!; he can throw himself back on the bed where he was happy, where he was happy, dammit!

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Six

2011-12-18T22:34:00.001-08:00

and as he breathes Bernie feels. Feels. A new heart. He sits up. Presses a hand against his chest. “What,” he says. “I don’t even know him. Do I? I don’t. I wonder what time it is.” Bernie adjusts the pillows, strokes them, smoothing away their wrinkles. Then he gets up and goes to the door and puts his hand on the knob and turns the knob and the knob turns and the knob turns and the knob turns. Bernie pulls. He takes his hand off the knob and licks his lips. “Fuck,” he says, the door not having moved.

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Five

2011-12-17T21:43:00.001-08:00

can he can he. He’s forgotten what it was he was thinking. “Can I go home now?” he mutters, though that wasn’t it. It was something else. He wets his hands and runs them through his hair, cocks his head to check out the improvement. Standing over the bed, he shakes out the wadded blankets and sheets. Then he sits down. He presses a hand where the body of the cowboy lay. He even closes his eyes and touches his nose to the sheet, breathes slowly and deeply. He wasn’t expecting much, really. But the scent of the cowboy lingers,

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Four

2011-12-16T21:12:00.001-08:00

a blue washrag. Having wrung it, Bernie is draping the rag over the side of the sink to dry and looks idly at the awkwardly sewn on label. On one side of it there’s a drawing of a goat head, its tongue hanging out of the side of the mouth; on the other, under “Care Instructions” there’s one word: DON’T. “Huh,” says Bernie, laying the cloth back down. “I wonder what sort of market there is for those.” He decides not to bother shaving and towels off. Nice clean towels. Soft and absorbent. He climbs into his clothes. Can he

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Three

2011-12-15T22:06:00.001-08:00

to find the cowboy gone. Bernie’s always been a light sleeper. How did the cowboy untangle himself from the bed? I guess them cowboys is good with knots, Bernie thinks, with admiring disappointment. He drags himself out of bed and yanks a rumpled tshirt from the floor. He remembers the bathroom enough to be cautious. Day’s still bright and the room, though shadowy, doesn’t seem to offer hiding spots for a giant spider. Or a cowboy on the john, for that matter. If any towels were used they weren’t left behind. Bernie sighs and washes quickly at the sink with

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-Two

2011-12-14T22:09:00.001-08:00

a dust mote trapped in a moonbeam, drifting deeper into the light. What time is it, anyway? Sweaty, one leg wrapped in the sheet wrapped around the nearer calf of the cowboy who murmurs again but this time in some dream, Bernie looks down that naked back, the furrow down the middle he imagines coasting down, he reaches toward it, palm up, two fingers paralleling like skis, and down we go, he says, almost aloud, the two fingers tipping to the left, then curving to the right, what a do run run. Must have slept some, Bernie thinks. He wakes

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety-One

2011-12-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

where there really are fucking angels and they’re all moving about the cabin, groping each other under the wings, songs as firm on entry as tell you you’ve got no choice really but to open for their verses, and every rhyme sliding in where there’s a pause, an opportunity to anticipate the one to come, the one that will summon the next, the throb of the engines in every celestial rib bending protectively over the sleep of the just, that blind and stirring sublime monster, threatening always to wake, how cute, look at the flutter of a feather, an eyelash,

Thousand: Five Hundred Ninety

2011-12-12T21:50:00.001-08:00

to the ear, bites the lobe (“OW!”), snuffles in the outer ear (“eek.”), then nuzzles brusquely Bernie’s neck, rasping away with his own new beard. He murmurs something. Bernie asks him to repeat it what did you say does that hurt the cowboy says how about this do you feel the feathers of my wings beating you air wind fire as I come in to land your skin I burn like this and this little tongue flickering over your nipple does it cool you. Bernie wonders if his ears are on this planet. Did they get rerouted to another plane,

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Nine

2011-12-11T21:42:00.001-08:00

to be. We used to do everything together.” “You are twins.” “You think we’re twins?” “You’re not?” A paper cup goes by, already partly filled with water. In the cup a lotus blossom soaks. Neither of the children notices. They move on from mysteries to certainties and from those to impossibilities. The conversation touches a tear and prickles with anger, then settles into a tired complacency and silence. “If an angel were to eat you,” one of them says, “would it hurt?” Bernie repeats this question to the cowboy, who smiles and nips Bernie’s chin. He nibbles along the stubble

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Eight

2011-12-10T21:34:00.001-08:00

“So did she believe you about the angels?” Bernie asks, dropping a slimy rock just as he sees the coil of black centipede unwinding from the underside. Ploop! it says in collaboration with the swimming hole. “What angels,” says Buttercup. “You didn’t tell her.” “No.” A soft breeze is wandering back and forth through the weeping of the willow, bumping up against this string of tears, feeling with an evaluative thumb and forefinger this other. “What about the,” Bernie starts. “We haven’t been sharing lately,” Buttercup says. “I guess we’re just not going to be as close as we used

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Seven

2011-12-09T21:51:00.001-08:00

dishes!” “You are washing dishes,” says Buttercup. “You’re going to dry.” “No, I’m not. I’m going to finish my painting.” “Yes, you are. When I do the washing, you do the drying. That’s the way it works. Besides, you can finish your painting, then dry the dishes. They’re in the drainer.” Mother is standing in the doorway. “Should I tell Bernie you’re not available?” “No, tell him I’m painting. And when I’m done we’ll go down to the creek.” “That sounds like a good message, Eula. Probably best for him to hear it right from your lips.” “I’m almost done!”

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Six

2011-12-08T22:34:00.001-08:00

as any old squash!” Buttercup is dipping up just a drop of red on the end of the brush, which is already saturated with yellow. Her tongue starting to push out at the corner of her lips, Buttercup swishes the brush across the paper in a quick circle. Emily considers the spoon again. She looks into it. There is something in the bowl, all right. A face. Looking at her. And. It’s not upside down. The face. And it’s not her face. “Girls!” calls Mother down the hall, she’s taking off her heels. “Your friend, Bernie, is outside.” “We’re washing

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Five

2011-12-07T22:04:00.001-08:00

butternut squash that’s not a fruit. And you said you wanted to name yourself after a fruit in honor of that barnstormer lady The Tomato which isn’t a fruit either. And you said it was a fruit because it grew out of a flower and that’s why you call something a fruit cuz fruits grow out of flowers, not vegetables, which if I ever said it to anybody they’d think I was crazy because everybody knows a a whatever a pepper or whatever a zucchini that’s not a fruit. Why don’t you call yourself Gourd, that’s as much a fruit

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Four

2011-12-06T21:30:00.001-08:00

ridge down the middle that smoothes out closer to the bowl, tines, or blade, rather than the pattern with the cluster of tiny flowers at the tip. She strokes the inner bowl. She feels something. A roughness? No. A slickness? More like that. Only. She can’t. What. “Eulah,” she says and turns to face her sister. “Does this spoon look familiar to you?” “Buttercup,” says the other girl, “and it looks like a spoon.” “Buttercup. Wasn’t it Butternut? You said it was Butternut. I remember because you said you wanted to name yourself after a fruit, and I said a

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Three

2011-12-05T21:36:00.001-08:00

in the swirl. Emily feels carefully around the invisible objects, making sure she gets every last spoon. But, of course, almost through the forks, which are easier than spoons, as you just have to squeeze them through the sponge, no need to drive around an inner bowl, what should Emily come upon but another spoon. It’s like it popped in from another dimension. She lifts it out of the water and frowns at it. It looks familiar, doesn’t it? There are two distinct flatware patterns, Mother does not like mismatches, and this is clearly one of the square-ended kind, the

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-Two

2011-12-04T21:52:00.001-08:00

the dish drainer and starts in on the silverware soaking at the bottom of the dishpan. She likes to do the spoons first because she likes to see herself contained in them upside down. That’s not the reason. She does look each over carefully to be sure she hasn’t missed a spot, but she doesn’t pay attention to the image reflected in the bowl. Washing’s by feel, mostly. Why spoons first? Fingers seek curves. If you’re going to have your hands plunged in hot water that goes cool after awhile, and the cooler the dingier, you find your comforts somewhere

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty-One

2011-12-03T21:22:00.001-08:00

in the middle. After washing the brush Buttercup switches to orange. Emily rinses the glass and holds it up to the light from the window. Just to make sure she runs her hand around inside, feeling for any fleck of stuck-on pulp that escaped her ministrations. Is that something? It might be. She holds the glass to the light again and peers into it. Shiny. Emily shrugs, dips the glass into the suds one last time, runs the scrub brush around inside, humming along with the radio, then splashes off the soap under the tap. She upends the glass in

Thousand: Five Hundred Eighty

2011-12-02T21:49:00.001-08:00

you always turn it down when a song comes on that I like?” Buttercup dips a brush into a ceramic cup. Impregnated with water, the brush touches the surface of the yellow pigment, then, full of yellow, goes to the pebbled skin of the heavy paper. Buttercup considers the effect, cleans the brush with a couple sharp swishes in the cup. “That doesn’t look like a banana,” offers Eula. “It looks like the skidmark I saw on your panties.” Buttercup chooses a brown and hops the brush across the yellow, letting it touch down gently, each spot spreading with darkness

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Nine

2011-12-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

a wail, “AAAAAAAAAAASK ME, ask me, ask me! Ask me, ask me, ask me Be CAWZ if it’s not today today today then it’s NEH Vurrrrr. Oh, it’s Never. Oh, it’s Never. If it’s not today then, what can I say, what can anybody say, what is there to say any other day. So ask me!” Buttercup turns down the radio again. Eula looks over at her from the sink where she’s been washing and rewashing the same cut glass tumbler. It had pulpy orange juice in it and the stuck-on bits required repeated application of the brush. “Why do

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Eight

2011-11-30T21:36:00.000-08:00

fatalistic blink that the spider is no longer in it. “That is a simple question,” Davey agrees complacently. “I wonder how long it will take me to find an answer.” He lowers his fingertip to the Rolodex. And the Rolodex comes to a stop. Ask Again Tomorrow, it says. Ask Again Tomorrow. Davey nods, as though this were the sagest response one could expect before all the gods and the councils of wise men, the klatches of grandmothers and interlinked supercomputers. Davey touches the controls and a tune he’s cued up starts with a cymbal crash, three loud beats, and

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Seven

2011-11-29T22:02:00.001-08:00

how to ask you this,” the caller is saying. I should hang up on people more often, Davey thinks. “But, well, okay, I’ll just come right out and say it. Do you have plans for after?” “After?” “Well, the world’s going to stop, right?, and there’ll be a mess and everything, but, the thing is, with the spiders and all, it’s not like we have to worry too much, there’s no sense passing up opportunities, I mean,” the caller’s voice drops to a whisper, “are you single?” Davey’s eyes wander up to the spider corner, and he notes with a

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Six

2011-11-28T22:51:00.000-08:00

dispensed with, really. Once started the Rolodex spins until someone taps it, then it reveals whatever you need to know. Sometimes it says, Outlook Not So Good. Sometimes it gives you a phone number. Davey’s been letting it spin while the woman talks. Why stop it? If the world is going to stop soon, what kind of advice can it give? Davey yawns. I still think the world needs a hand, he says to himself. He holds a finger over the shiny spot on the black Rolodex cover where he typically taps. Eensy weensy spider. Teensy tiny. I don’t know

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Five

2011-11-27T21:10:00.001-08:00

about, but before she reveals her own silly premonitions, pshaw!, who could credit the premonitions of a mere girl, even if she does have an advanced degree in wiccanology, a precognitive grandmother (she knew, to the minute!, when President Everheard would resign, and, yes, she assures Davey, everybody knows he hasn’t been elected yet, that’s the point), and a father who was a witch doctor in communities in Africa, the Arctic, the Antarctic (he had hot blood), and the Peruvian Amazon, the caller has one little question, just one, teensy and tiny and unimportant as it may be, so easily

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Four

2011-11-26T22:06:00.001-08:00

on about the track record of prophecies handed down by the old gods, how the Hittites knew about track shoes (and that track shoes would ultimately be found to be bad for your feet, particularly the really well padded and expensive ones made in sweat shops by the slight and malnourished), the Goths knew about heavy metal music (and that only long hairs would like it), the Caribs predicted MRSA, SARS, and mercury thermometers (although, the caller admitted, the Caribs seemed to think we would have moon colonies by now, go figure!), and, apropos of nothing, she had a premonition

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Three

2011-11-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

to stop spinning. Recently deciphered Ancient Mayan, Egyptian and Celtic Runes all agree. Not to mention the deus ex machina operated by the spider deities. They’re actually the ones who provided the key to the codes. It was a scientist who established communication with the spider deities. His name is Dr Arthur Pod. Weird, huh? Spiders are arthropods; this guy’s name is Arthur Pod!” “Spiders?” “Yeah. Spiders! Who knew the spiders would help us at the end of the world!” Glancing up at the giant spider in the studio, Davey gives his Rolodex a new spin. The caller is going

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-Two

2011-11-24T21:04:00.001-08:00

slow down, let alone give up the flying business, and this has been the case for all of, what, eight billion years?, worrying about what would happen if the plane crashed or stopped, wouldn’t that be crazy? What makes you so special that something that’s been going on exactly the same for eight fucking billion years is going to change on your watch? So how much should we be worrying about the earth stopping and everything on it being thrown out into the deadly vacuum of space? Davey has picked up another call. “In two days the earth is going

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy-One

2011-11-23T21:31:00.001-08:00

other hand, so what? If you spend your entire life on an airplane, which, as far as everyone else is concerned, is clearly in motion, a plane that never comes down, a plane refueled on the wing, it doesn’t much matter that, should the plane be stopped abruptly, you will continue in motion and be killed as your body bashes against the no-longer-in-motion plane interior, if in fact the plane never comes any such sudden stop. I mean, it might be a scary fate to contemplate, but if the plane has been reliably in the air, not once threatening to

Thousand: Five Hundred Seventy

2011-11-22T21:47:00.001-08:00

momentum of a mass spinning along the curve that keeps it steady before a continuous spherical explosion. Should that mass suddenly stop. every body would find out quickly how every moment of every day while crouched in a corner by the ceiling or tapping the arm of the green office chair that seems so dependably on a carpet in a room near the end of a covered walkway off the eaves of which minute globes disconnect and splash onto shadowed pebbles next to a rosebush, every body at rest would learn that immobility was hiding the damnedest velocity. On the

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Nine

2011-11-21T22:09:00.001-08:00

pose you some yes or no questions. Tap once for yes, tap twice for no. Is that acceptable?” Davey leans forward, the rusty coils of the old office chair squeaking faintly. The spider does not tap. “Is that not acceptable?” The spider remains unmoving. The spider’s stillness, however, is relative. Dust goes on swirling in air not yet settled after the opening and closing of the door. Moisture curls from Davey’s breath and pores and from the breathing pores in the spider’s underside. Electrons zip through the pathways set up for them. And the whole business is packed with the

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Eight

2011-11-20T21:46:00.001-08:00

eyes the elbow turn you have to take to exit the broadcast booth. You have to pass right under the spider. Which may have been there when he rushed to the mic and he didn’t notice. “You one of Dragon’s guests? He just forgot to tell me? C’mon, give me a sign. I know. If you understand me, tap a foreleg. Just one. It doesn’t have to be any big move. Yeah, I’d rather it not be a big move. Just tap. One. Ah. Tap. Ah. Well. Yes. That is a start. Not a coincidence, was it? How about I

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Seven

2011-11-19T21:48:00.001-08:00

have a projectile weapon of tremendous efficacy here in my left boot.” Davey gestures significantly at his tattered tennis shoe. “You wouldn’t be an enchanted, um, princess or anything? I’ve never met one of those. Not so far as I know, anyway. I could very well have. Met one, you know. Present company not excepted.” The giant spider seems not to be reacting to these overtures. Davey taps his knee with a finger. “You look familiar,” he lies. “I have the feeling we’ve met before.” This is not true either. “You weren’t at the Carnival of Arthropods, were you?” Davey

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Six

2011-11-18T21:41:00.001-08:00

he shot a man just to watch him apply himself to a new course of action in the face of a changed environment,” a patient and tender voice begins. Davey turns the sound down in the booth. He looks up at the spider. Did it move or was he imagining that? “Where did you come from? Yo! Spider! Yes, you. I saw that pedipalp twitch! You can hear me. Are you an ambassador from another dimension? If so, you’re not my first. I have a universal communicator in the drawer of the desk. You’re not dangerous, are you? Because I

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Five

2011-11-17T21:37:00.001-08:00

tract houses? The projection TVs? Ah, hell. I had a friend who went to hell. He took a tour, too. A tour led by a dog. A very fine dog, he said. He gave me the dog’s business card. I have it in a file here somewhere. Files. There’s so much to TARANTULA! Sorry. Uh. There’s a story I’ve been wanting to share with you. Last week I conducted an interview with a musical artist you may have heard of. Merle Obregard. The original gunslinger banjolele player.” Quickly Davey queues up the recording. “In his most famous song Obregard claimed

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Four

2011-11-16T21:54:00.001-08:00

laughed again. “I know! I know, huh? Anyway, so you made out like Jesus was some big, I don’t know, huckster?” “Motivational speaker.” “Oh. Oh, yeah. I see that. But isn’t he still in heaven? I mean, when he comes to earth, that’s when it all changes, right? Heaven is a great place, by the way. A great, great place. OK. I guess that’s it. Thanks so much for taking my call!” Davey cues up some harp music and while it tinkles away in the background muses, “I wonder what pictures they showed her of hell? The mineral springs? The

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Three

2011-11-15T17:53:00.001-08:00

One of the ladies from my group, who got her halo buffed? She said it made her feel light-headed. Ha ha! I thought that was so funny! I sat in on one of the slide show lectures where they showed all the hell stuff. God! That was awful! But later we actually got to meet Jesus! He was very nice. Soft-spoken. When he took your hand he’d look you right in the eye and you’d sort of melt. Completely! When I die I totally want Jesus on my side.” “Any suggestion of when you might meet that fate?” The caller

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-Two

2011-11-14T22:10:00.001-08:00

met Jesus. And. He isn’t like that at all.” “Oh?” “No! I went to heaven. I took this package tour. With my church group. It was all-inclusive; that means one price includes not just bed but all your meals and a few special extras, like a massage and halo-buffing. Everybody has a halo. Not just saints. Some people call them ‘auras.’ Same thing. It’s like this glowing around your head. If your halo is spotty it means you need work. Sometimes you need to work on your karma or you have to confess your sins and get absolution or whatever.

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty-One

2011-11-13T21:54:00.000-08:00

Everybody says that. Or. No, I don’t think I’ve heard that before. What makes you say that?” “Oh,” says Davey. “You’ve got your first name and you’ve got your last name. With those you have the major slots filled.” “Oh, I have a middle name, too. It’s Widget. Rotunda Widget Brunnhilda. RWB. That’s what I put on my monogrammed towels. And I live in Spring Spring, which is just like Sing Sing except that they have nothing in common. The weather’s similar, I think. I read that somewhere. Anyway, I’m calling tonight because I heard you talking about Jesus. I

Thousand: Five Hundred Sixty

2011-11-12T20:33:00.001-08:00

“Yes, caller, you’re on the air. Could we get your name and where you’re calling from?” “DAVEY THUNDER!! YAY! Gosh. I can’t believe I got on.” Out of the corner of his eye Davey detects a new shadow. He glances up. A spider, hairy and brown and the size of a dinner plate, fills a corner of the room next to the ceiling. “I can’t believe it. Really. I’ve been dreaming of this moment. Dreaming!” “Dreaming is free,” Davey says absently. “Yeah! So my name is Rotunda. Rotunda Brunnhilda, that’s my full name.” “Sounds full,” says Davey. “Ha ha. Yeah.

Thousand: Five Hundred Fifty-Nine

2011-11-11T21:42:00.001-08:00

to a tinkling piano that meanders up and down the scales and in and out the gills and touches here and there the fins of some old standard you can’t quite place but which is familiar as the insouciant compound eye of a blue-tailed fly. At the Battle of Agincourt, a poet once noted, a fly explored the protruding tongue of a young soldier. “Spring came to an earth soaked in blood,” Davey says, “and poppies threw open their skirts and bees poked their little noses into the blue fur suddenly exposed.” He taps the next light on the board,