IUD

Musette has her appointment with Planned Parenthood on Tuesday. She also has Wednesday off. The advisers told her during her consultation that she may want that extra day to recover. The location of her appointment is not at the Planned Parenthood we normally visit. Someone from the location we normally visit informed us that the provider of IUD’s wasn’t going to be in on Tuesday and that we would either have to reschedule or go to another location.

The other location is further away. We have to take a bus to get there. Walking is out of the question. Google said that the walk would take an hour and forty-five minutes. Even taking the bus takes thirty minutes, which is not good for Musette, because she gets carsick.

The bus stop is something like ten blocks away. We have to travel through Old Town, which is where most of the homeless and meth heads and drunks hang out. There are little plaques advertising The Green Man. Apparently his heart has room for the disfranchised.

We safely make it to the stop and board the bus. It is a weird crammed missile. I am glad I have Musette with me, taking up the seat next to me, because I could not stand sitting next to any of the freaks who enter.

A retarded man child sits behind a woman with the most saggy, native looking breasts I have ever seen. They drip over a bungee cord which she has stretched around her waist. She has an old, sick, little dog with her. The man child has a bike which he fastened to the front of the bus. He never stops smiling. I wonder if he’d keep smiling were I to mount him and punch his face into the floor.

A skinny guy, with a tribal tattoo wrapped around his chest is straight out of Trainspotting. An old woman and her son who may be her daughter look like twins. They’re dumpy, clumpy, and stupid as curd. They chuckle to themselves like appropriate existences. But the worst thing of all is that the guy who sits in front of me has a clump, cluster, or crop of hair growing out of a bald spot in the back of his head.

I try not to breathe through my mouth the entire trip. I don’t touch anything. If I didn’t have to sit on the chairs I wouldn’t, because who knows how many of these seats have been sharted in?

Part way through the trip the bus gets a new driver. We stop, one driver gets out, the two talk for a bit on the sidewalk, and then the other driver gets in. He has a few effects with him: a wicker cover for his seat, a coffee thermos, a laminated sheet of instructions, and a picture of his family. I could never be a bus driver. My grandpa was one, but I never could be. There is too much responsibility. Too much big blockiness. You’re always having to stop, pull over, and deal with the lowliest urchins imaginable.

It’s probably worse than being a truck driver. At least truck drivers get to be alone. They have their bedrooms in their cabins. Nobody’s coming in and out complaining about missing their connections. Just the road, the radio, a dog, and sometimes even the wife.

I’m amazed I don’t hear about more bus crashes. I’m amazed there aren’t enough crashes to justify shutting public transportation down for a complete reworking. There are machines specifically made to pad cake patties around the ice cream innards of sandwiches, and yet we still depend upon the muscle mechanics and proper brain functioning of low paid, middle to elderly aged men to transport ourselves and our loved ones from place to place.

When we get off Musette asks me if I’m ok. I must have been projecting my anxiety.

“I’m ok. How are you?” I reply.

She tells me that she is sick.

We sit on the lawn of a nearby Taco Bell while she regains her stomach.

Every Planned Parenthood I’ve ever been to has been located in a ratchet ass part of town, as though it is a disgrace to the wealthy, like they think it’s some sort of communist sex enabler, or an abortion shop. Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to take my mother there, but for Christ’s sake, shouldn’t a mom feel safe taking her daughter?

There is a Taco Time across the street.

A early nineties car drives by blasting party music from the 80’s.

The heat of jammed, mini-mall sidewalks cooks us. To our right is a carwash called ‘Spring Chicken Car Cleaning.’ To our left is a decommissioned house. It is being gutted, and transformed into something else.

“Why would you want people to think of chickens when they think of getting their car cleaned?” Musette asks.

“Nobody around here cares.” I reply.

 

The setup of this Planned Parenthood is different than the one we usually go to. There is an antechamber where a girl is standing, in short shorts and dangling headphones. She is filling out flash cards. She is not an employee.

Directly to our left, as we enter the main waiting room, is a row of windows, similar to the other location, but with more of a ready-and-waiting sort of feel. A girl with big, black rimmed glasses greets us. She has a tattoo on her inner forearm.

“Do you have an appointment?” She asks.

We tell her that we do. She takes Musette’s name. She then has Musette sign a bunch of colored forms which she had already filled out at the other location.

“We have to have you fill them out here also.” Says the girl. “Being that this is the location where you will actually be undergoing the procedure.”

 

We sit. There are only three other women in the waiting room. On the walls around us are Native American style prints, done in a round, red-dirt color, depicting women in feminine postures. One of them has her tits sagging out.

I point to it and tell Musette, “That one’s of the woman in the bus.”

She didn’t see her.

She points to one of a slender girl looking very proper.

“That one’s me.” She says.

One of the women sitting in the waiting room looks extremely uncomfortable. Her face is red, sweating and straining. She is rocking in her chair. I wonder what is wrong with her. She looks diseased. I wonder if maybe she should actually be in a hospital. Such random nonsense these poor, underpaid girls have to deal with, peeling back the flaps of panties to investigate strange irritations. All of these bus riding tragedies, panicking, desperate for answers, uninsured. Crying and gooing, oozing and stinging. A rock bottom feast nibbling away at the discolored gooseflesh down there.

Three men exit the doctors’ chambers. They are lead by a middleweight woman. They are on a tour. They zig from one area of the building to another, passing in and out of the waiting room. At one point I hear them talking about installing a booth near the front for Obamacare. The middleweight woman tells them she has a whole new set of furniture arriving next week. One of the men asks her why she would do that. He then tells her that they are planning on installing televisions and would like to know where good places to put them would be. The woman asks the room and none of us answer.

Musette’s name is called. I follow her towards the doctor’s area, but am told that I must wait before entering. Figuring it will be only a few minutes, while Musette is weighed and changed, I take a seat right outside the door. The chairs are different here. It is not an area a waiting patient normally sits. Nurses pass by pushing equipment on carts. They give me looks like I’m in the way. I decide to move back into the designated waiting area. Each row of chairs is occupied, except for the one which the diseased looking woman had sat in. I stare at the row, trying to remember exactly which chair was hers. I decide on one and pray I’m right, wondering the power of vaginal diseases, feeling the torn fabric of the chair beneath my butt, the stuffing having been so near so many rotten groins.

Another row of chairs becomes vacant and I move. I wait a while longer before finally being called back. The woman who retrieves me is a doctor. She’s older than any of the nurses, and wearing a white coat. She asks me who I’m here with and I tell her. She takes me to Musette who is lying in stirrups. Her pants are off and she’s staring up at a poster of a beach dock which has been pinned to the ceiling. She gives me a look like, “Don’t I look ridiculous?”

I think It looks like she is about to give birth.

“You can hold her hand and keep her comfortable through the procedure.” says the doctor, who then checks Musette’s vaginal color, informing us that it is good.

She measures Musette’s uterus, telling us that it is curved back.

“Do you have painful periods?” she asks.

Musette says that she does, but that her twin has even worse ones.

“Are you identical or…”

“Fraternal.” Musette says.

The doctor wonders if fraternal twins have similar uterul curves.

“Uteri that are curved back tend to cause more painful cramps.” she says.

Musette tells the doctor that her sister has to take prescription medicine for her periods.

“That doesn’t mean that hers are more painful than yours.” She says.

She then twists the knob of her uterus gauge, pushing its little pincers into the most sensitive of Musette’s pink spots.

“This might hurt a little…” she says.

Musette winces.

“You need to breathe, regularly and slowly.” says the doctor. “Help her with that.”

She looks at me.

I squeeze Musette’s hand.

“Breathe baby…” I say. “You need to breathe.”

Musette forces breath through her lips.

“Good, good. Now this is probably going to hurt a little more.” the doctor says, preparing to insert the IUD.

Musette winces, cries, squeezes my hand very tightly.

“There we go…” says the doctor. “In just a second you’ll hear a loud snap, and that means we’re all set.”

We hear the sound. It’s like a little cap gun going off inside her.

Musette isn’t looking any better.

“Are you alright?” the doctor asks.

Musette tells her that she is.

“It is going to take a few hours, if not a couple of days for the pain to go away.” the doctor says.

The doctor shows us a pair of metal strings.

“These are going to be dangling from your cervix. They’re going to soften after a while, but you can actually feel them if you reach deep inside of yourself. It’s good to periodically check on them. Here, feel them.” she says, handing the strings to Musette. “Do you want to feel them?” she asks me.

“Sure.” I say, knowing what the doctor is insinuating.

The doctor asks Musette if she is ready to get up.

“Can I just sit here a while?” she asks.

The doctor hesitantly allows it. I can feel her nervousness.

Musette lies back down.

She tells me that it hurt worse than she was expecting. She is having a hard time breathing. I wonder how easy it is to remove one of these things once they’re in. I pray to God for this to work. I don’t know what we’ll do if it fails. Condoms? Male birth control? Abstinence? Pregnancy?

Musette decides to get up.

“We have a bus to catch.” she says.

We pass the doctor on the way out. She gives us a worried smile. There is a window which we have to stop at to sign out. They always ask for a donation. Musette and I agreed that we were not going to give anything this time even though this is the costliest treatment we’ve ever received. We just don’t have any money in our account.

“Would you like to make a donation?” the girl asks.

“I can’t today.” Musette replies.

The thought of karma rushes through my head as we exit the building. I am holding Musette up. She walks like a grandma or a bomb victim. Her face has gone pale. It makes her makeup really pop. She looks angelic. I would be proud to have that as my death face.

I’m trying not to drag her along, but like she said, we have a bus to catch. We’re making good time until she looks up at me with those faltering eyes, telling me that we have to stop.

I lay her down upon the Taco Bell lawn.

“Just lie with me.” she says.

I lie there with battling thoughts of bus schedules and what I would tell her parents if she were to die. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but she told me when we were first dating that she knew she would die young.

I tell her that we don’t have to worry about making the bus. And then I tell her that everything is going to be ok.

She gets a burst of energy. It is palpable. I know what is going to happen next.

“Let’s go.” she says.

I carry her crippled self to the bus stop. There are two people waiting already. I pray to God for a seat. I don’t know what we’ll do without one.

We sit in the shade and wait.

“I see it.” I say, lifting her to a standing position.

The bus approaches. The display on it’s front says ‘No Pickup.’ It passes our stop by a few yards and quickly deposits its passengers. The two people waiting with us rush after it with their hands waving. It drives off before they can catch it.

Defeated, I lay Musette back in the grass. I wish that she could die in her own home, or a hospital at least. But there is some deeper beauty to this: out in the middle of ratchet town, surrounded by places like ‘Spring Chicken Car Wash.’ Between a Taco Bell and a Taco Time. An angel, crashed to the Earth she brightened for me. I asked too much of her. She was too delicate.

I spot another bus approaching. Salvation. Not even five minutes of waiting.

“There is hope yet.” I tell Musette, lifting her once more from her grave.

This one stops for us. There are even seats to spare. She and I both get to sit next to each other. No weirdos to deal with.

But it is a long bus ride. The combination of Musette’s cramps with her nausea makes for a longing for home so desperate that she wishes death had taken her back on the Taco Bell lawn.

I remember little from the ride; my concern was too focused on Musette. I kept waiting for her to either throw up or pass out. Hormones jolted through her body, which was freaking out over the foreign object wedged up in its most vital of parts.

We are dropped off in the city with quite a walk still before us. We take the same path home as we had taken when we left, down the Green Man’s path. Being crippled must send off some kind of signal because we were asked for directions by more than one person. One young man, a traveler, long haired and of a ‘gentle spirit’ stopped us saying, “Excuse me, do you know where I can find any good coffee shops around here?”

“Just go down this street, it’s full of ‘em” I say, pointing down the way we had come.

He follows my directions.

“Are there really a lot of coffee shops down this road?” Musette asks.

“I don’t know.” I said. “My main concern is getting you home fast. Whether or not he finds a good coffee shop is very low on my list of concerns.”

Another woman, driving in her car, stops to ask us if we know where OfficeStore is.

In this case providing her with the truth is the easiest method. The address has been burned in my brain due to the amount of times I had to give it to customers over the phone.

I give her the address and she thanks me. It feels good providing people with proper directions. I wish I could do it more often.

 

We make it home and I lay Musette in bed. Charlo thinks it’s funny climbing around atop her cramps. We have to swat him away like a fly.

We put a heating pad on her stomach and turn on the television.

“Your prescription is relaxation.” I say. “You don’t have to feel guilty about lying here all day, you don’t have to feel guilty about not making your own meals or me taking Charlo out all the time. All you get to do is relax, and I don’t want to hear any complaining.”

“Yes sir.” she says.

Laundry

The laundry doesn’t get started until ten thirty pm. I know that I, alone, will be finishing it. Musette and I place the clothes in the washing machine; and then we leash Charlo, and head to the grocery store to pick up some tomato soup.

The plan is to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Musette returns with more than just soup.

“I got, the soup, of course, some chips, some other chips, two packs of deli meat, these ones were the cheapest, a gatorade, and some more ginger ale.”

I had sent her inside instead of me because being inside the store, without a dog, is safer than being outside with one, especially when it is dark out, and your dog is a little cute one.

When we get home Musette instantly strips and gets into bed. I prepare to make the grilled cheese. The timer for the laundry goes off. Musette tells me she can’t get out of bed.

“I am getting ready to make dinner, can you at least help me?” I ask.

“I am tired.” Musette says. “And I’m the one who has to go to work tomorrow.”

She has been pulling this card more frequently.

“Fine.” I say, picking up the basket and making my way to the laundry room.

While moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer, crazy Jill from 327 comes in.

She starts talking to me. She doesn’t even have any laundry to do.

“I heard you come in here, and I thought you might be the man from next door, I was talking to him, and apparently he’s been out of town for the last few weeks. I guess it wasn’t even him who was in his apartment. It was someone else. He told me that he used to let some of his friends use his apartment, and they knew he didn’t keep his door locked, so they were coming in and sleeping there.”

She tells me that she can’t lock her courtyard door from the outside.

“It just doesn’t lock.” she continues. “Someone can easily enter the courtyard from the street. It’s true! If you reach your hand under the door there is a little lever which will let you in. That’s how 329’s friends were entering.”

“Oh, well that’s really nice.” I say, knowing that I am in charge of ending this conversation. “That means I’ll be able to get in easily if ever I happen to forget my keys.”

I turn towards my laundry and start sorting it.

“It’s a real security issue.” Jill continues.

“Yes.” I say, not looking at her.

“We should all be worried.” she says.

“Uh huh.”

“Well, I’m going to go and slip this note under his door. Letting him know that I’m sorry for getting him in trouble.”

“Ok.” I say. “See ya.”

Crescendo

I guess that’s when I decided to become my own hero, realizing that nobody else could do it so perfectly. I took the image, whom my favorite authors had allowed me to derive from their texts, and began the search within where I knew I resided. The ghosts of foes rose to meet me from their collective grave, such as my father, with his sarcasm and patriarchal tyranny; my mother with her dumbness and meek subservience; Musette’s father, with his annoying passive aggression; and her mother, with her sloven disconnect from reality. Musette was there, imprinting herself on my soul subconsciously. She was the image paused on my screen, which I watched, endlessly becoming, like all the others idols I had worshiped. My friends were there, karmically morphing from those whom I had stepped on into those stepping on me. And I was rushing to become a hotter liquid than them, killing myself to rise fastest on the mercurial thermometer of glory.

But I have never been the fastest of racers, which is not saying I am not a rapid runner. And although reaching the destination usually reveals my friends having already reached it, that shouldn’t matter so much so long as you stay with me, within these words; because here it’s about the journey, and we can fall in love, you and I, because we are both here together.

 

A Deeper Level

“The way forward is through the head.” says the master in my inner ear as I stare at the oven beseechingly. My right hand reaches to pull the handle. My voice calls out to Little Jizzer saying, “I think I’ve interpreted those instructions.”

He jumps from his place in the corner wondering if we’re going to eat before we go.

“There are plenty of calcium deposits for you to sink your teeth into up ahead,” I reply. “and don’t worry I’ve already packed a bag of granola bars.”

He takes one look at what we’re dealing with and shouts, “What the fuck man! Whose head is that?”

“It’s mine.” I say.

“It doesn’t look like yours. Besides yours is on your head.”

“Yea, but it’s mine on a deeper level.”

“Were you going to eat this person?” asks Young Jizzer.

“We’re going to eat him together.” I reply.

“That’s not a man’s head.”

“I already told you it’s mine.”

“Is that Musette?”

“No, but she’s in there. We’re already in Musette’s head. This is just a deeper level.”

“How are we supposed to fit inside a head?”

“Just follow my lead…”

The Smell of a Home Cooked Meal

Suddenly, from beneath the frumpled bed sheets, the spectre of the missing child pops up, naked but for sweat and ruffled hair, saying, “I really need you to be more respectful. I go through all this labor to provide for you the best possible life, and all I ask is that you acknowledge my presence.”

“Musette?” replies the investigator. “Where are you?”

“Here, dreaming.” she replies. “Or at least trying to. But it infuriates me, waking up to find you sitting there, burning the light into my eyes like that.”

“But I am trying to save you.” I say.

“Save me? From what? I’m the one who’s sleeping, in the middle of the night, like a normal person. How long have you been sitting there like that, hunched over, without moving?”

“Well, it’s hard for me exactly to remember, but I’ve been looking for you. Where have you been all this time?”

“I’ve been right here where you left me, of course.”

“In the fridge?”

“No, the oven, silly.”

“The oven…”

“You don’t remember? Don’t you smell that, or have your nostrils completely burned over?”

“Smell what? The fries?”

“Those aren’t fries sweetheart…”

Her Maniac

“Where does Musette fit into all of this?” asks Charleston.

“I get so tired of all the bitch’s shit, at the end of the day all I want to do is sit in my captain’s chair and unload wine jugs down my throat, gu-gu-guzzling that berry blast into my system so ruthlessly that my eyes spin, my stomach turns, there is a woozy dizzy swirl and I’m on the couch singing church hymns before the first episode of ‘What’s Up Floyd?’ has even rolled through it’s second act.”

“So what? Are you expecting to find her in the areas where you stand disconnected, absent from the present moment, staring into the screen of your phone, masturbating through the late night hours of the night?”

“Precisely; for there is magic in those moments. A magic so revealing, that by looking through its lense I pierce the picture of the truth I paint of her so clearly that I am warmed by my own imagination, cuddled by my own creativity, like as though I replaced her with literature, leaving her a cornucopia of sustenance, a sex hole, meat bag, lovely laugh and a conversation entity, spilling out her concerns, her demands, her artifices, hopes, wishes and pathetic goads, trying to get me wound up, so that I can display my defeats beneath her to her, trying to get me to tell her that I need her, am more dependent upon her today than I was yesterday, that she is that which is keeping me from committing suicide more than she is driving me towards it. Well guess what sweetheart, I’d rather put a potato launcher in your pie hole and pop that trigger tightly than sit here pondering the meaning of which shirt goes in the washer first, and which way is it to the proper boyfriend material; because I’m a rebel, a hero, a saint, a warrior, a badass, kickass boy, man, killer, psycopathic cult leader, and my heart is so big… beating so fast, and so hard, that that old woman in the plane who told my dad that I’m a heartbreaker was a prophetic crone; and you better listen to her, or you’ll find your soul sucker murdered, bleeding in my past, forgotten by my phoenix mind.”

“Don’t be like this… You’re going to get yourself in trouble.” says Charleston. “I don’t want my parents to split up. Just because you’re a maniac doesn’t mean you can’t be her maniac. Don’t you think it would be alright for you to protect her with your googly eyed violence? can’t you release it against everyone else in this world besides her (and me if you please)?”

“Oh, sweet child, this is a wild bronco I ride, my life, it bucks and strikes like a hurricane. At the center I am focused, tight eyed, and observant, watching this storm blow through the world devastatingly. I pray, and that is all, hoping that the path my life blazes leaves peace for its poor owner and those connected to him – but I can’t guarantee anything. Don’t stop being my friend though, for I am in need of love; without it I would be so much weirder.”

Blood Conjuring

The warm mugginess, which seemed so prevalent in the dense wood above, now seems overwhelming, as though what had been felt before was naught but a leak of this entirety. The lights are out, as if there were any to begin with; the only illumination present radiates from the inner spectres of soaring haunts, existing in each of our minds.

“Is Musette down here?” asks the inspector.

“We are getting closer.” says he who knows all.

The inspector slips, scraping his elbow against the ground. His blood rises to the surface of his vision. An alarm blots through his sight. It seeps through the spokes of his irises.

“Slam!” goes the refrigerator door.

He can almost see her brain dripping out again.

“Crack!” goes her skull. And “Crack!” “Crack!” “Crack!” again.

“What is this, a repentance tunnel?” cries out the inspector.

“Yes. A portal of self-forgiveness. For it is only by forgiving yourself that you shall bring Musette back to life. For too long you have been wrapped up in your own inadequacies, so distant from the world which you are immersed within, that all surrounding you dies, not excluding loved ones, or even soul mates.”

“Is Musette then my soul mate?”

“Whether she is or isn’t, she is the girl in your life, which means that she surely is.”

“And I have killed her?”

“Nothing can die, once you realize your true existence.”

“Which is what?”

“I can’t give you all the answers. For with all of the answers comes stagnation. You must live through the questions in order to live at all. Ask yourself and find true happiness.”

The inspector rubs his fingers in the blood puddles. Through the darkness he swivels two whirlpools. The pain in his arm intensifies. The realization of weaknesses stings harder. A star tunnel enlightens with the master’s face becoming flatter and blacker amidst an alignment in the heavens.

A faggy victorian room surrounds me. The prison cell of an evolving man. Day in, day out, alone with my meals, the window blowing the slatted shades. Deep in the crater of self-absorption, hearing “piss, shit, vomit, blood, pus, urine” over and over eternally within single seconds, within the faces of my best friends, who are lions stepping over my agony, stealing from me my sanctuary, reminding me that I shall never be freed, so long as I keep looking in the direction I am.

They forget about me with time, which is of course the hardest thing to bear.

“The song you wrote, with me at least once in mind, came on just now, and it made me feel lighter.”

“You are a sweetheart.” says the boy.

“Help me find her…” I plead to him, revealing my hidden intentions.

“Your agendas bring you no closer.” he says.

“But aren’t you my master, you who are not I? Aren’t you the world, separated from this ignorance which is the ‘Me’ of ‘I’?”

“I am a ‘me’ myself, ignorant as much as you, playing at God the same, and speaking with whatever magic we both conjure when necessary.”

“Can’t you help me find her, through that conjuring power you possess?”

“In order to find her, you must become her. That is all I can tell you.”

Creature of Heaven

She said that Mozart and Van Gogh were heaven creatures. That got stuck in my craw. It has been stuck up there for a while now. Every time I get stuck up there it comes and meets me.

“What matter is a dirty room to a legend?” it asks. “What value are roots to a star traveler?”

“One thing’s for sure; having a tower of dirty dishes sure smells, and becoming fat and bald is not the most graceful thing to do; nor is it a legendary way to live life. Not to mention that in order for my story to progress there must be conflict.”

“Is not she conflict enough!?”

“I don’t know if she is.” I reply. “Tis’ life in general which has my goat, or the shadow Death. The girl is an angel, a mentor, a vessel, and a blessing. It is kind of her to alert me to realities. for I must remain balanced to keep floating…”

“Explode to soar!” says Van Gogh.

“Soar to transcend.” says Mozart.

“Jump in, to be ripped apart!” screams Shakespeare, or as I like to call him Macbeth: the rampant minotaur, merged with the magic of Lilith, permanently fixed within the chambers of Castalilia, terribly frightening now, a god.

My human lightning is dim in the presence of divinity. Hermann Humbert stands beside me, adding kindling to his own murder. I can’t tell if he is stoking the fire or smothering it, but I think he is stroking it, taking advantage of my naivety, as they all do, within this whirlpool of pain, and insult, and horror, bad smells and bad sounds, gut drenched night, streaming graveyards of insects over my road glazed eyes.

“Is that even tangible sir?” asks the squid stomping cleat.

“My God where did that come from?” asks my sister.

“The stars, my love. Heaven above. This ultimate grandiosity I have attached myself to instead of you is taking me over and pulverising my guts.”

“Well, grasp onto me quick!” she screams.

“I am already married.” I say, holding up a true certificate of devotion.

“Then we are damned, the both of us; for you have crushed my dreams as equally you have your soul. Tis’ you who are Macbeth, not he.”

And the cleat keeps clomping, grinding my life into the grass, grating me through a pebbly lithosphere; a continuous clacking of beetle feet pattering my gored skull, planting maggots with their dance moves, to squirm nightmares through my infinite sleep.

The Messenger

We are sitting in the tub when she spurts out inquiring whether I am still interested in going back to school.

The switching of tracks is palpable.

“No.” I say. “Being that I couldn’t even keep up with my online education. I am wary of devoting myself contractually to such a costly time depriver. For it is time which does the artist most need and breathe. And it is time, which even now, in the throes of such complete obsession, I find myself still curiously too short of. I think the best thing for me to do is wrangle myself back tighter, fix myself into personal regulations, keep an eye on my health and happiness, and above all write even more regularly than I am doing at the moment.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“Well, Mozart, or your little Van Gogh.”

“I’m trying to have an adult conversation with you!” she says.

“And I’m not angry with you for that, just struggling to stay on that side of the fence.”

“It doesn’t matter if you are angry with me or not.” She says. “For I am only the messenger.”

“I should have recognized your face.”

“Isn’t the change in the tracks palpable?” she asks.

“Yes, but oftentimes it is difficult being aware of the sensations we are feeling.”

“That’s why you have to be in control of every situation.”

“Or you do.”

“Being such the case, we’ve chosen to reveal to you our nominee for this moment’s life alteration. I believe that you see as well as I the emptiness in your life where should exist a purpose and a propellant. College could be the perfect peg to fit that notch, or a job, with a down to Earth organization. Have you ever considered volunteering?”

“Who sent this message?” I ask.

“This message has been sent from area code eight zero zero nine four seven thirty, written by UNKNOWN CALLER on June ninth, eight seven zero zero at four thirty AM.”

“I would like to add this number to my do not call list.”

“Your request has been acknowledged.”

Turkey Dinner

Morsels of sleep. More than food. Charlo looking more and more appetizing by the day.

“I want to eat that skin off your face…” I say to Musette, my voice rolling like savage bow movements.

“I want to eat your ass.” she responds, her voice wicked with long repression. In these moments which you imagine to be your last it becomes easier to submit to subconscious fancy; but do not allow yourself to be too easily maneuvered or manipulated by these odd requests, because in most situations survival is the outcome, and a manifested subconscious nail, without a coffin, gets you right in the face.

“Do not drink the salt from the ocean, you were not meant to be a creature of the sea. Save those crystals for the porpoises and the mermaids, who are evolutionary offshoots of ourselves, and who depend upon those salt crystals like we depend upon carbon monoxide. If you eat my ass now, imagine how you are going to feel in the morning.”

“I suspect I will feel relieved, as I suspect will you as well. What cause have I for believing otherwise?”

“No cause dear sister, only concern; for in that soul of yours does exist the flesh, and my ass is a destroyer of flesh and a perverter of beauty!”

“Turn over and let me spank it then!”

I spin, I bend, she pulls my pants down, and wacks a mole. A red turkey blooms from the injury.

“My goodness, we are not forsaken!” cries Musette to Heaven.

“By God’s grace, yours and mine, we eat tonight, my ass!”