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12.12.09

Abel, Abel & Associates. source

Two men. Two speedos. Early forties. Four long legs and twenty-some protruding ribs. Thick accents, no matter the language. Heads full of hair, chests full of hair, lungs full of Chernobyl (and what lungs aren’t?). They share the rapport of two who’ve seen the same womb and lived to tell about it. Brothers. One lounges on the grey, grey sand. The other does the breast-stroke in the Danube River. He breast strokes his thin neck into one ring of a plastic six-pack yoke. Stretching the plastic from his neck with a finger — the way a man might stretch a very tight, uncomfortable tie — he rushes from the waters, screaming. ‘I’ve just become another victim of society!’ His fellow of the uterus volleys a smack of the lips, a roll of the eyes. ‘Oh, you were born a victim.’ Dry brother hands the dripping one a slice of poppy-seed roulette. 'My Adam’s apple hurts,' says dripping brother. He's trying to swallow, you know, it all.

12.02.09

Hello, Kitty. source

He makes the decision to believe in reincarnation. What follows is a shake and a shout: ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ he asks his young cat, with whom he’s shared room and board for two months and counting. This man is a pessimist. He sees the worst in people. Given his new belief in re-embodiment, he now sees the worst in animals and inanimate objects, too. His lamp is an asshole. His chair is a whore. His cat is an adolescent, interested only in that, which makes the teenaged heart race faster. Like antidepressants and topical acne cream. Man swallows a handful of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, out of spite. 'Because I’m boss here.' Cat thinks twice before calling the paramedics. Lick, lick. Scratch, scratch.

11.26.09

Forever Twenty One. source

One perk of being a member of the Undead is that you can eat anything you like without ever gaining a pound or even a kilogram. Because she thinks of herself as a modern woman, however, she doesn’t want to perpetuate stereotypes, so she keeps this information to herself. Here’s what she does not keep to herself: her (figuratively) hot, emaciated bod. Floppy veins be damned. Clammy skin be damned. Decomposing ass? You, too. Damned. Anecdote: She washed up ashore a tourist beach one twilight, scoured her surroundings and found a shirt reading, 'Nobody’s perfect. But I’m pretty close!' She laughed so hard her jaw fell off. She has been wearing the shirt — no pants — ever since. She has also been wearing her jaw (no big deal, it happens all the time). Most assume she’s a drug addict, which she considers a decent enough front, so she goes through the motions and throws in the occasional 'I’m enjoying this release of dopamine!' to avoid suspicion. One morning, she wakes in sunny spirits. It isn’t until she leans over a mirror to snort some stimulants (just for show), that she notices something amiss. In her sleep, someone had plucked the gold teeth from her cold, dead gums. Son of a bitch. Why can’t this world let me be happy? (Her thoughts.) Were it still possible for blood to rush to her face, her cheeks would be red right now. So red, in fact, she’d joke: ‘Call me the People’s Republic of Cheeks.’

10.20.09

Death of a Salmon. source

Two centenarians sit on a log, which is bobbing in the East Sea. A cruise ship and three thousand passengers sink, leisurely, in the background. The ship’s ‘entertainment captain’ stays buoyant, owing to the inflatable triceps he wears under his sailor’s costume. His makeup is running, so he feels unprofessional and down in spirit. The centenarians, meanwhile, are having a wild, uproarious exchange. Between the two of them, they list upward forty things they find boring, including ‘newborns’ and ‘the bond between mother and child.’ Food from the noontime buffet floats past, and one of the centenarians grabs a puff pastry shell stuffed with salmon. With a gesture: ‘This! This is the brick life is built of!’ Four hours later, the sun will set. Two hours before that, creatures of the sea will detect baked salmon (and human) nearby. Forty-five minutes prior to that, a centenarian artery will clog. No, not the artery stuffed with buttery flakes. The 'entertainment captain' will administer CPR successfully, but the mood will turn dour regardless.

10.12.09

Stuffed Papa. source

One minute, Father and Daughter are canoeing. The next minute, Dead Man and Daughter are canoeing. Father’s suffered massive heart failure, and he’s sitting there like a big dumb rock with nothing clever to say. Daughter, in her early thirties, can pull neither her own weight nor dead weight. The canoe floats aimlessly on Lake Baikal, where only the brightest doctors and physicists rest and recreate. A small motorboat pulls up beside the canoe; two doctors dressed in civilian clothing jump in with Daughter and Old Rigor Mortis, over there. The doctors embalm the dead body, and Father looks good as new! At Daughter’s request, the doctors shoot down an eagle, stuff it with newspaper, and the eagle looks good as new! The five of them are the picture of happiness. Daughter empties Father’s daypack and treats the doctors to a feast. The sun is setting. Daughter hopes she looks attractive in this light. She proposes a toast to friendship.

10.05.09

The Attention Famine. source

Thinking ‘What’s the point of sitting at the head of a table if nobody’s talking to me?’ he announces: ‘I’m a vegetarian.’ In this small, third-story apartment, the dinner conversation stops. When someone finally yells, ‘Parking for meat-lovers only!’ he grabs a butter knife and throws it out the window. The knife hits a pigeon, bruising the animal’s wing, as well as its ego. The bird issues a string of profanities, so he points at the newly erected Gandhi statue outside and tells the pigeon to ‘Take a cue. Seriously.’ All smiles, he then folds a napkin into his collar and asks, ‘What’s for dinner?’In his heart of hearts, he hopes it’s Beef. Preferably, Wellington.