Two zebra-striped Angelfish bobbed upside-down on the water’s surface. Their exposed silver bellies reflected the light of the florescent white and blue bulbs that hung under the fish tank’s canopy. He walked over to the tank, pulled the lid open and sighed. There were no more fish.
Great, he thought to himself as he dipped the net into water, now I won’t be able to sleep tonight either.
Lately, he’d dreamt of silhouetted, humanoid figures that rode oil-spill-black horses and chased him endlessly through impossible labyrinths, until he awoke, gasping and covered in nightsweats, to an empty bed and silent cell phone. It had been forty years since he’d had nightmares as vivid as these.
They were, however, the very last thing he needed at the moment.
*****
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New piece of mine! It’s the first play I’ve ever written and I’m actually happy with the results.
I tried to paste this piece into the page but it was going to take too much work on my part to format it in HTML. So here it is in PDF format. It does contain strong language however, just letting you know.
Read it here.
Let me know what you think.
T.R.
The night is an obnoxious 87 degrees.
My fan spins on its lowest setting inside my window.
Other windows are open down the alley.
A fuzzy guitar melody streams out of one of them,
it’s out of place.
A man encourages and then congratulates his shitting dog.
A woman’s shriek echoes playfully from the outdoor pool.
The smell of fresh cigarette smoke filters through my fan.
Must be Shitting-dog’s owner’s.
A train’s whistle bellows off in the distance.
These are the cacophonies of the city.
Their presence thrills me as it proves I’m not alone out here.
The Reptilians Are Amongst Us!
My eyes are closed. I sit cross-legged atop a comfortable pillow. I’ve sat in this position for forty-five minutes now. Isn’t this what those yogis call the lotus position? Not sure. Somehow it’s the least of my concerns right now. My forehead rests agreeably in the palm of my right hand. Behind my closed eyelids I watch a molten tapestry of shimmering liquid jewels dance, swirl, spiral, and fractal in and out of dimensions I didn’t think were possible—maybe they’re not. Again, the thought isn’t all that important. It amuses me that when I try to focus on any one of these countless jewels they shy away, melting into that reality that weaves and flows behind my eyes. When I let my eyes relax I see columns of eyes surrounded in rainbow flames that slowly blink at me in a calm and satisfying rhythmic motion, like waves upon a beach. I should be scared because for the last ten minutes a voice in the back of my head has been saying to me, “Humans shouldn’t be allowed to see this.” But I put it out of my mind and try to relax as best I can. Just when I think I’ve got the head-space under control, I hear an entirely different voice in my head say, “Don’t open your eyes he’s looking right at you.” I, of course, open my eyes and am shocked to see an embodiment of pure evil: a denizen of the blackest abyss, a lizard wearing a human skin-suit. It’s then I experience true, unadulterated terror for the first time in my life.
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I’ve moved three times in my adult life. Each time it was easily the biggest hassle I’ve ever been through. Nothing takes more planning, timing and people-coordination than moving all of your belongings from one spot to the next. Getting your crap into the new place is only half the battle, of course. Once everything is in there you still have the bigger mission of somehow maneuvering all of your crap around in a limited space, trying to find the perfect layout; a balancing act that would make Jesus wink in approval. Please, no feng shui crap either. Personally, it is the longest part of moving but also the most rewarding. When you’re completely finished, the time to get to know the “built-in” parts of your place comes next. And nothing excites and pleases me more than learning the intricacies and nuances of my toilet.
That first time when you slowly slip your sweat-drenched pants down your thighs to your ankles and your buttocks slaps loudly against the cool porcelain, you’re aware that this is a rare event and you pause, letting the first lucky poo nugget “turtle-out” a bit, savoring the moment. I don’t count the time when you first began to look for a place as the first-time house-shit either. You know: when you’re doing a tour of the house and the landlord graciously leaves you alone, allowing you to look around in private and you immediately head for the bathroom to relieve yourself. That doesn’t count and shame on you for thinking it did.
I love taking my time and learning the personality of my toilet. Every day I learn something new about it and look forward to the time when me and my ceramic buddy will share quality time together. I’ll usually leave him (yes, I consider my toilet male, it this alright?) a Scientific American magazine to flip through and he doesn’t seem to mind that it’s a two-month old issue either. We’re at that level of trust and understanding but this hasn’t happened overnight. This is months and months of half-hour or longer talks and compromises.
Just this past week, I learned a valuable lesson from him. He had, up until this point, not informed me of his toilet paper to water ratio and thus exposed me to this fact by overflowing his water out and down the sides of himself, soaking both my bathroom rugs. Fifteen minutes and four towels later, I had the bathroom back to a manageable state, all the while cursing at him for the first time in our unique relationship. It wasn’t pleasant. But we both learned a lot.