He had been putting off applying for the deferment of his student loan payments. Sallie Mae’s constant stream of phone calls pushed him to finally submit the form. He felt relief; he had six months to focus on putting off the things he really wanted to do.
Backward <> Forward
Wordsward
Maggie spent money faster than she could make it, but her painted pine cone collection was crucial to her quality of life, and if going in to credit card debt meant sustaining the flow of immersive, transportive moments that she shared with each new delicately decorated cone of pine, she would have no qualms sacrificing her future to feel whole amidst the present.
Years, pine cones, and bills piled up around Maggie, leaving her only with only one apparent option: she would have to kill the pine cone artist to increase the value of her collection. It so happened that no one really knew of Juniper’s work, no one really cared that he had “committed suicide”, and no one really wanted to buy any of his pieces from Maggie.
It only took so long for Maggie to pay off her debts now that she had no new pine cones to purchase. The day she had mailed in the final payment, she attached fishing hooks to all of her painted pine cones, stuffed them in two large gunny sacks, and spent the night hanging them on the branches of every tree she saw along her walk to the police department.
The people of the neighborhood were tickled with wonderment the following morning, but would never know of the misery that preceded the spectacle: a city’s forest of ornate trees.
Backward <> Forward
Wordsward
“Another cocktail party,” some guy said to the reflection of Bartholomew Smith, who seemed to say the exact same words at the exact same time. “More like another cock-of-the-walk-tail party.” The two winked in symmetrical unison.
When Bartholomew Smith, who is some guy, exited the bathroom, he had a semi-moist towel wrapped about his waist, another wrapped around his hair, and still two other hand towels, each wrapped around underarm hair. He walked into his bedroom and when he came out, he was wearing black slacks that had been washed but not ironed and an ill-fitting, dusk-blue dress shirt that billowed gently in all directions no matter how deep it had been tucked.
A 42 dollar cab ride to the city of the city, a bottle of wine that cost half that much, and a sudden series of deep breaths – Bartholomew stopped, mid-flight, on the indoor staircase. “Cock-of-the-walk-tail party? What was I thinking?” Wishing he had a mirror with which to consult, he reluctantly continued to speak out loud, “Damn it, Bart, you gotta do better than that tonight!”
Local TV Show Host, who was the host of the tonight’s cocktail party, opened the door to her apartment, answering Bartholomew’s elaborate knocks upon it.
Pleasantry-Exchange. Mild-Embrace. Acquaintanceship-Renewal.
Then: a room full of people: conversing, c0mingling, drinking alcohol.
“Oh, how sweet,” Local TV Show Host said as she noticed and grabbed the bottle of wine from Bartholomew’s out-stretched hand. “You shouldn’t have.”
Professional Homosexual Blogger leaned in, read the label and said, “Oh, honey, you reeeaaally shouldn’t have!” A cloud of innocent laughter surrounded the joke, prodding a follow-up from its author. “Please, get it out of my sight before I faint. I’m already feeling light-headed!” The cloud dissipated for the most part.
“Perhaps…” Bartholomew licked his lips and cleared his throat. “Perhaps it’s because of all that thin air up there on that high horse of yours.”
A newer, more dense cloud of laughter, one with potential for adiabatic expansion, hovered above those near the door and appetizers.
Imported Cheese Critic raised his voice to say, “At least Professional Homosexual Blogger knows not to spend more money on the wine brought to the party, than on the outfit worn to it, I might add.”
The cloud was turned a shade darker, colored in by collective, Oh-hoh-hohs that signified a “low blow.”
“Yes, you may add, Imported Cheese Critic. You may even ad hominem when you least expect it.” There was a wave of pressure inside Bartholomew that undulated with each uncertain beat and successful sentence.
The laughter was a tad sparse here, yet the volume of each haughty giggle saw to the cloud’s growth.
Monocle Salesman stepped in to what was becoming either a public forum or a boxing ring, and said, “Prepositions and nouns be damned! If you think you are allowed to make any phrase a verb, perhaps your poetic license should be suspended before you hurt someone….”
How true the Monocle Salesman’s former clause was, though no one was to know it quite yet.
And so it went that, much like the quickdraw legends of 19th-century gunslingers, everyone from far and wide in the living room seemed to want try their wits against Bartholomew’s. It was inevitable that fatigue should set in for Bartholomew, who struggled to keep the cloud growing until the unleveling of his head turned his wit mordant, and the cloud grew so thick and black that it moved Upscale Male Timeshare Prostitute to open a window for ventilation.
When almost all visible light had been blocked out by the thundering cloud, Bartholomew and Child Actor were trading bitter yet biting “yo mama” jokes in the dark. Suddenly, lighting struck the arugula-garlic aioli and a showering of purple and green raindrops fell, stinking of metal and salt, onto all the young professionals – and onto Bartholomew too.
Scalps sizzled. Hot fluids bled out from pores and orifices. Skins split to reveal muscle and fat that soon bubbled before disintegration.
The steam and smoke from the burning of hair, flesh, and bone began hissing and pouring upward toward an opaque cloud of screams.
Bartholomew Smith’s Obituary: Some guy.
Backward <> Forward
Wordsward
Rocking in a chair that does not, she looks back fondly upon her years that were spent dreading the future, mourning the past, and therefore, constantly spoiling the present.
First there was her childhood. Then there was her second childhood, the one when she really thought she had become an adult. Next there was her pre-adulthood, which is the stage that showed her she never knew what being an adult was like during her second childhood, but now that she was wiser, she looked forward to knowing in the near future. After that, there was her second pre-adulthood in which she spent nerve-racked, constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering when and where adulthood would hit, like an age bullet – a bullet constructed of age. Not-so-finally, there was adulthood. Then there were a series of additional adulthoods (second, third, fourth, fifth…), each one a melancholic reaction the one that preceded it, constructing embittered nostalgia for a time that was spent being bitter and nostalgic of another time. Eventually, she reached her post-adulthood, also known as pre-death, which is the stage she is in now.
But she does not dwell on these aspects, nor could she if she tried. Her mind’s eye is blind to most specifics, but can see numerous pretty, blurry images that stimulate confusing and exhilarating sensations that have all but been forgotten. She sometimes refers to these flickers as “the ghost light” – she adores the ghost light. She once made a wish upon the moon that each stage of her life would become a volume in an epic series of a highly-informative, leather-bound books, so that she could pore over every detail of her own existence and experience it all once more before she died. The series was to be called, The Complete and Unabridged Ghost Light.
She sometimes liked to speculate how the final tome would end.
“She, the most self-absorbed woman in the world, read the last sentence of her life: Now shut the book and die.”
“Another one in the clink?” Chubby Bernie asked, knowing full-well the answer, as he rubbed his tucked-in shirt that stretched across his intimidating belly and wondered about the man in black next to the passed out body of Bobby the Bottle, a regular.
“Uh-huh. Now, ya wouldn’t think it – on accounta only seeing his back, on accounta his head in the terlet, on accounta he was drunk and still is – but it’s the old Reverend Sheffield.” Replied Soft Jerry, the new kid under the badge, who was constantly shifting his cap by the plastic bill, trying to look like he’s worn it for years.
A few inches away from the greased surface of water in the toilet, Sheffield’s eyes opened, blinked several times, then locked shut. Dry-heaving. Shaking. Alive. On his knees. He wasn’t at all cognizant of his location, but he was vaguely aware of the conversation in the room.
“Old Sheff? You gotta be shittin’ me like I’m a bran-muffin!” Not even Chubby Bernie had so much as heard of such a thing. By Chubby’s estimation, Soft had to have been shitting him.
“No, sir. He was out breakin’ empties ‘gainst the the chapel steps. Broke my heart to do it, I swear, but I hadta haul him in.” Soft Jerry grinned his cheeks sore while snapping bubblegum between his molars. “An’ he’s all stinkin’ of corn-whiskey, mumblin’ how they ain’t no God no more, wiggln’ ’round like a night-crawler.”
Reverend Sheffield’s faith had been called into question decades prior, but in as much time he had successfully stifled the urge to answer such questioning. He would hear the voice of God and that would dominate all doubt. Recently, he had been prescribed Risperidone, and after months of taking it, he no longer heard the voice of God.
“Well, what on earth happened?” Bernie’s eyes were a sight.
“Reckon he lost his faith, C.B.”
Reverend Sheffield had first called his faith into question decades prior, but in as much time he had successfully stifled the urge to answer such questioning. He would hear the voice of God and that would dominate all doubt. Recently, he had been prescribed Risperidone, and after months of taking it, Sheffield no longer heard the voice of God.
(Jerry had hoped “C.B.” would catch on around the department. He knew Chubby Bernie was a perfectly serviceable nick-name, but when Jerry finally got labeled Soft, he wore it like a cap and gown, and he felt so touched by the gift that he wanted to return the favor, and then some. The first stage was “C.B.” If and when that caught on, stage two would be to start referring to him as “Radio.” Were “Radio” to stick, Soft Jerry would find himself in a unique situation, wherein he could refer to Chubby Bernie’s good moods as “FM” and his grouchy moods as “AM” And this development was sure to become a regular form of ongoing amusement for the whole gang – assuming everyone in this theoretical reality could get past the fact that the name “Radio” had first arrived under the implication that it was a Citizens’ Band radio. This logical discrepancy would sometimes keep Soft Jerry restless at night until he hushed himself by riffing dialogue in his head, always ending with a phrase comparable to this one: Radio, what’s got you all switched to AM about?)
“Well, I reckon no-fuckin’-shit he lost his damn faith, but where’d he go and lose it?”
“Could ask him, but I wouldn’t wanna be the one to smell the answer.” The rookie held his own within the brusque banter and this made Chubby Bernie smirk up to one side before making his third lap to the coffee pot that night.
In the morning, Sheffield woke to Bobby the Bottle shouting, “Forgive me Father, for I gone and sinned! It has been never since my last confession!”
“Go on, leave the Reverend alone! You said you’d play nice if you got your precious coffee.” Soft Jerry yawned over his own mug of coffee while Chubby Bernie snored beneath his cap.
Bobby the Bottle pressed his face in between two bars and said through a half-drunk giggle, “Anything you say, Softy!” And then quieter, to Sheffield, “How does it feel to play for other team?”
“Hmm?” Sheffield could feel his heartbeat in every part of his face, and when he raised his head and tried to focus his eyes, the pulse rate seemed to triple.
“Now that’cha got you a taste for sin, you gonna keep it up or pray for forgiveness?” Bobby the Bottle was still riding the drunk out before the hangover took the helm.
Sheffield had not much more strength than it required to squint and grimace under the flickering florescence that obscured the gleams of natural light coming in off the sunrise. Soft Jerry tried to throw a pencil at Bobby the Bottle, but it bounced off one of the bars.
“Go on, now.” Bobby the Bottle had dropped just above a whisper. “Tell me: is this little hiccup gonna set well with your God?”
Sheffield closed his eyes without trying and said, “I have no God.”
“Oh yeah? That’ll be the hoot of the week. A preacher who preaches, ‘God is dead.'”
“How could God be dead?” Sheffield snapped back. “He hasn’t been born yet.” An unearthly silence fell, save for the metronomic contrast of Chubby Bernie’s snoring. Soft Jerry realized that the sleeping superior would want to see this.
“Hey Radio, wake up and give an earful to the Reverend!” Soft Jerry went blanch in the face and hoped that Chubby Bernie did not just wake up to hear that future nick-name slip. Sure enough, the snores kept coming.
Bobby the Bottle and Sheffield looked to Soft Jerry who was taking deep breaths. They both thought he had said this last comment to the radio on his desk.
is
a
cunt-sucking, grunt-clucking,
zit-licking, shit-kicking,
mud-eating, blood-skeeting,
pit-munching, tit-punching,
ass-swishing, bass-fishing,
skunk-hugging, spunk-chugging,
dirt-sneezing, skirt-teasing,
hair-puking, chair-nuking,
buck-hunting, duck-punting,
corn-shucking, porn-rucking,
cock-flicking, chalk-nicking,
kiss-chewing, bris-cueing,
shoehorn-using, newborn-fusing,
racist-swaddling, gray-cyst-coddling,
chump-schmoozing, flump-choosing,
punch-spiking, lunch-liking,
bird-chirping, turd-burping,
rabble-rousing, Scrabble-housing,
boat-bumping, vote-humping,
once-lucking, dunce-fucking
shit-bird of a clit-word, Gilda shrieked before taking in a massive and well-earned breath.
“Why do you say that?” I asked with genuine interest.
Because it don’t rhyme with nuthin’ and I hate-hate-hate it!
“What about ‘alphabet’?”
That’s almost as bad as a slant rhyme, you plant-mime!
“You sure know how to kill a mood, you know that?”
I zipped up my pants and never spoke to her again.
No more fucking around. I am to (and aim to) take this day on headfirst and headlong. Is that redundant? Let me check my computer-phone. Hmm. Okay, so: not necessarily. I mean, sure, the first entry of definition for “headlong” is simply “headfirst”, so I guess so, but that’s not all. According to a second entry, it also means to do something “recklessly“, so, like, yeah – wait, is that really what I meant? That I would take this day on recklessly? No. Yes! Yes: why not? I’ll be recklessly taking this day on, and while I will happen be doing so headfirst, I do not necessarily think that the two are related. Maybe a little, but even if I was taking this day on footfirst, I would still be reckless about it – that much I promise. Phew. Okay. There we go. Lastly, there is a third definition which reads as thus: “without pause or delay” and that is precisely what I initially had meant. But, well, hmm, okay, so now I’m wondering, is recklessness pretty much another word for “without pause or delay”? No: the other way around maybe. Doing something “without pause or delay” can be reckless, sure – I won’t deny this – but, the fact remains, that someone can still be reckless while pausing and delaying. So really, it’s like squares and rectangles. The latter is the former, but the former is not necessarily the latter – and even the reckless/no-pause-nor-delay model is not as concrete as that example, so there. Plus, let’s be real for a minute. Not even synonyms are ever really synonymous with anything, because the sound and look of a word or phrase, not to mention its socially and historically altered use and misuse, will imply and evoke different things. It’s all relative, anyway, so: yeah.
Great. That’s settled. Moving on.
(Additionally, as long as we have landed on synonyms and the imperfect nature of the word itself, I can’t stop thinking about “pause and delay”. If one were to say, “I will be taking this day on innocently and blamelessly,” it could be seen as redundant, sure, but really, despite their seeming similarities, one could be modifying the other, and really the phrase is less redundant and more elaborate, or elaborative – as in “to elaborate” [See what I mean? Even by referring to “elaborate” as both a noun and a verb, I signify different tones, modes and reactive meanings, despite their intrinsic relatedness.].)
In conclusion, I will be taking this day on headfirst, as if diving (but with my hands behind me or at my sides), and with an unrelated, extreme recklessness that also has little to nothing to do with the fact that this on-taking of the day will be performed in such a manner that refrains from both pauses and delays, which happen to be synonyms, but, regardless of this label, the two inform and suggest independent and unique meanings that will all be avoided equally. Here we go. No more fucking around.
Oh, this was back in the years of licking stamps and the summers of skipping stones that my siblings and I (Consider, Comfort and Melvin) lived in a region of dusty Pigeons and a town of a single, roundabout road. As did the all children of the area, we went to a St. Ernie’s Parochial School, which was run by the Parish, who suddenly perished.
When the final Summer in that final year fell to Fall’s will, Consider and Comfort and I dawdled and bounced and jumped toward our first day of school, but when we got there, it was not. Nothing remained but the grass, whose blades stood tall and shone green, as if the floorboards of St. Ernie’s had never, ever slept there.
We exchanged looks belonging to eyes that looked far more crushed than surprised. Silently agreed, we all turned around, where stood amongst the trees, our peers and classmates in the snowing of leaves.
Everyone knew the facts, but that was all.
One young lad in the front was named Christmas. He sat down on his bag, pushed his fists into his cheeks, and asked, “Where?”
Consider touched a hand to his chin, a hand to that hand’s elbow, and answered, “I suppose..: Heaven. Yes, the whole building went to Heaven. If the school is not on the hill, then the only other place it could possibly be is Heaven.”
Everyone shared a thought, as sometimes used to happen in those days and years. This thought was: School left for Heaven without me.
A tall girl in the middle by the name of Female stood out in the crowd, cleared her throat, and asked, “Why?”
Comfort took a slow breath in through his nose and then let the same slow breath out of his mouth, followed by the words, “Heaven has not forgotten us. Heaven is testing us. We will pass the test as long as we all help one another by giving each other Heaven’s first gift: hugs.”
Everyone shared a second thought
The girl with whom I shared my first kiss was off to one side, a few feet away, and was also named Female. Her lips were a red heart that broke, horizontally, when she opened them to ask, “How?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I looked around for a spell, exhaled a lot and loudly, then finally made a fart noise with my mouth.
Female laughed; no one else did, including Female.
The congregation looked to my brothers, who looked to me, panning everyone’s spotlit gaze back on to me, and then in messy unison everyone in the circle bellowed one gun-powdered, “HOW?”
I didn’t know, so I said, “I don’t know! Why the Hell should I know? And, personally, I don’t think it went to Heaven. I don’t know if it did or not, but it sounds kind of ridiculous if you ask me. Heaven sounds kinda like chump change too, now that I think about it.”
Everyone closed their eyes. Everyone but Female, who began climbing a tree. As I neared the circle of children, it split down the middle to create a narrow pathway, but I like my personal space, so I walked around instead. I stopped to holler “Goodbye” up at the tree that Female was climbing and I smiled as I saw her underwear.
“Farewell” she echoed back and blew a kiss down, but it got stuck on a branch.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole town has perished by now.
Oh shit! That reminds me – I should probably call my parents.
The Rapporteur was on time. He was always on time. Just as the Head Exec of Body Execs was just about finished putting away his graphs which detailed the various heights of colored bars these days, The Rapporteur slipped through the door like a breeze you notice after its done caressing you.
Those on the left side of the room were relieved. They all knew he would be on time, but they all needed this deal to go through and they knew the Partner and Partner Company Firm weren’t able to pull it off themselves. Those on the right side of the room were waiting to be impressed, to be won over, to be told this deal was not just mutually beneficial, but also exciting.
“And now,” said the Head Exec, practically vomiting his sighs. “Our special report on…, um…”
“Hot dogs,” mumbled The Rapporteur, head down as he flicked open the latches on his briefcase.
“Hot dogs!” Cried the Head Exec. “The report on… hot dogs will be given by The Rapporteur shortly.”
Those on the left side of the room clapped in anticipation, much like children who are familiar with the work of a specific clown and then see this clown perform at a birthday party and maybe that’s the only reason they even bothered going to the birthday party at all. Those on the right side of the room yawned in arrogant unison, feeling – as a unit – threatened down to a juvenile level by the commotion on the other side of the room. They even began snickering and trading low-fives in a chain of chair-swiveling and hand-skimming until every last guest’s hand had been touched.
Then, well, of course:
The Rapporteur gave his report, which was only that of 6 or 7 minutes, yet seemed to be comprehensive of all detailed aspects of the modern hot dog, and even some supplemental material on the most popular kinds of sausages. The result: let’s just saw the maid would be pissed off again, cursing at The Rapporteur, because every time he leaves a room, she has to pick up all the jaws left on the floor.
And then he was gone before the closing applause could commence.
Until then, the meeting had nothing to do with hot dogs. The deal certainly had nothing to do with hot dogs. Yet no one from either side of the room decided to ask, “Why hot dogs?” They knew so much about hot dogs, they could only be grateful for such a gift.
The Rapporteur does not do market research. He does not do annual synopsis. He does not crunch numbers. He does not pitch and pander. He will not investigate any topic that does not drive him. When you hire The Rapporteur, you are not hiring a rapporteur; you are commissioning an artist for his next masterpiece, whatever that may be.
The deal went through.
Another year had gone by and this was only solidifying Ginger’s suspicion: he was losing touch. It was not that he was losing touch with his friends and family members, most of whom he would routinely contact in one way or another: a phone call or a text message; a postcard or a rock through a window; an electronic letter or a thoughtful Tweet.
Sometimes even in person, as was the case now: leaning against a balcony filled with peers in conical party hats. Reckless conversations filled with laughter floated around Ginger as he held an untouched flute of flat champagne and looked out at and into the seeming void of night, a moment later filled with a shower of distant embers – fireworks cracking their knuckles in the sky and then dying there, leaving only faint ghosts of smoke.
The first one, a blue one, was what set the underlying suspicion into epiphanic motion.
Ginger’s main problem, apart from his name, was that he had been losing touch with himself. This, of course, refers to the figurative or colloquial sense of “touch” as Ginger could still feel himself. For example, in the shower, when he would be provoking ejaculation, his body was operating in full with healthy tactile responses. But there was something missing, even in these moments of selfish intimacy. What had gone? What had left? It was emotion that should have been accompanying the exodus of semen from the prostate gland to the shower drain and tiles and curtain and knobs, et cetera.
The cognitive emotion of identity.
This is my penis, launching my sperm on to my shower mat.
He was, as far as he could tell, a stranger to himself without any practical means of communication, and what was worse, without any real desire for it. The only desire Ginger could muster was the want to want, because he could call upon thin memories of how good it felt, or rather he could understand or acknowledge such an existence of a good feeling as it pertained to desire. He did not feel these recollections and instead viewed them like one might the pages in a ledger that was once relevant.
It had been a full calender year since the sensation of identity began to flee. He knew this well because the first instance was the prior New Year’s Eve when his fiancè asked him, “Ginger, baby, hon, what’s your resolution?”
The thought hadn’t crossed his mind and this would have been more upsetting to him if it weren’t so upsetting to him, you see. Despite constant failure, he always had a resolution ready in place for coming year, because he loved blind optimism and how it would always grow with champagne. Ginger thought on this, his hands upon his lover’s enormous waist, and let the thought go with a shrug that doubled as his answer to the question.
Several months later, it doesn’t really matter how many, Ginger called the wedding off. And when she wept in his arms, he shrugged here too. Shrugging became his non-verbal mantra. One day he woke up and his shoulders were sore. He tried to shrug this off, but it led to a mildly painful reminder. It was this day that he developed a second technique with which he translated the meaning and motion of the shrug to his eyebrows and lids. The Facial Shrug, he might have called it, had he any desire to name anything anymore.
The days had passed him by, yet they were also catching up with him. It’s kind of difficult to figure out. Did they lap him? I do not know, but no matter the case, the result forged a sadness in Ginger’s next shrug, which was performed in perfect accordance with the routine of his motions, yet the feeling itself did not get “shrugged” off, nor away. This brewed up a flurry of worry, which Ginger immediately tried to combat with his back up, the Facial Shrug, to no avail.
This was a frustrating failure, because that’s the way he saw it, blind to the successes that were blossoming around him: sadness, worry, and now frustration.
Soon the fireworks fell dark and silent, and once again, a snarl of boozy conversations was the only backdrop to Ginger’s thoughts. He emptied his glass with one swallow and resolved that within the year, he would have a New Year’s Resolution prepared for next year.
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