the pleasure machine

The girl who drew this drew it for a boy she was in love with. Well, wouldn’t that be nice? No, she drew it for a boy she was infatuated with, in lust with, not in love with. A boy she had dreams about. She sent it to him, but he didn’t understand it was a pleasure machine about to snap all of its bolts and spring all of its springs. That’s how things go for the girl who draws messages to the world – they don’t find many receptors out there. And even when people do look, they don’t see. The girl, she’s looking over my shoulder, thought that last sentence was dripping with feel-sorry-for-me-syrup (they tap it from the tree trunks of people in pain – there is no short supply). She wants me to erase it, but it’s already been written, so I’ll leave it anyway. But getting back to the main story – the girl who drew, drew a pretty clear message to this boy, but the boy was missing his receiver. He said, “that’s interesting.” The girl looked down and blushed to the edges of her ears. She couldn’t think of where to go. The space between her hand and his cheek was an ocean she couldn’t cross. The girl behind my shoulder just said, ‘cross that shit about the ocean out.’ I tell her, fine, you explain your difficulties. She says, I don’t want to. And I say, then leave the typing to me. But, now I see, I haven’t taken due care – her indecision has mucked up even this small attempt at clarity. But you get the message, right?

the fish

It was the oldest story in the book. Man catches fish, man falls in love with fish, fish leaves man, man is left fishless. He hadn’t realized it was in her nature to pick up and leave at the drop of another line. At first, the two had been in love, but they ended up just being in it together. He had the misfortune of being the second one to know. And in a team of two, that made him the last to know. For a little while, he sat across from her, slurping up his fishy soup, slipping into his fishy bed, hardly realizing that she had stopped being with him. For a while they did things as a team, and he didn’t realize in those last days that he was doing things on his own. For her, the end came predictably – like the period at the end of a sentence or the hook at the end of a line. For him, it came suddenly. He wasn’t watching for the warning signs. The sighs. The restless extra minutes it took her to fall asleep. The few extra hours spent away instead of near. The impatient looks into the silver backed mirror. He thought he had her caught and that was that. But, of course he was wrong. He underestimated the effects of a small pool, the effects of a small mind, and the desperate acts that comfortable boredom can drive some fish to – like taking the bate on a hook on a line on a pole held by a fisherman that might not follow the catch-and-release philosophy that the first fish-her-man followed.

the heart

I found a beating heart on the sidewalk one day. It was on its last legs, and what little blood it had left had drained onto the rough cement. I tried to make it as comfortable as possible with a bit of moss and the few dead leaves I found nearby. But, there is little comfort to be had in the last few breaths of life. I offered to listen as long as it wanted, and this seemed to bring more comfort to the thing than the finest sheets or the plumpest pillows might have given. It started talking in a low mumble so that I had to put my head close up against it to make out the words. The tale was long and vast and told of many things, some of which may have been true. Sorrows so deep that I no longer wondered how a heart so young could come to such an end so soon. Whether the memories told to me were embellished or not, I can never be sure, but the fact that any memory lives in the mind is enough to have it take a toll on one’s well being – whether or not the memory is fabricated or made from whole cloth. When the heart was done speaking, I kept still and silent for several seconds. In the wake of the soft, singsong narrative that I had just listened to, the silence held a kind of pregnancy. After a few gaping moments, the heart whispered, “I think I am losing my mind…I think I am losing my mind.” It had a far off, watered look in its eyes and then it went completely still. Those small, imperceptible flutterings and touches of life that go unnoticed save when they are not there, all stopped. I buried the heart in the grass next to the sidewalk and walked on.

the perch

There was no great view from the perch – just a view higher than everywhere else. That is, until there was built a higher perch. This higher perch wasn’t much higher, and the view was not much greater. But it was enough to belittle the old perch. And, while the second perch could look out over the old perch, the old perch always had the higher perch as a blip on its otherwise impeccable 360 degree circum spectacular. I managed to get up there one time – just once. I happened to be invited, as most are, simply so that the memory of the view from the higher perch could forever taint the enjoyment of lower perches. I even had to buy a new suit, just for the occasion. Two hundred fifty two dollars and ninety five cents so that nothing would be as sweet, or clear, or as high again as that view from the higher perch. Still, in the sweet moments of self-delusion, I would keep my own perch – that little place that I go to feel that the view is all my own and no one else’s. Never mind the man on the perch just behind who’s blocking whole swaths of the sky.

the creature

The creature lay low for years down in the pit of my belly – just below my rib cage and two inches from the dermal surface. It spent most of its time, if not all of its time, plotting escape. The creature had two main routes to choose from and only one objective to dwell in: freedom from the prison into which it had been born. At times, I was aware of it – thought its thoughts, plotted its plots, even felt as imprisoned as it felt (and as hopeful for the space beyond that prison). On some days, it would be set on crawling up my throat and (after tricking me into screaming at the top of my lungs) out of my gaping mouth. It would have been no great trick. Feeling something crawling out of the stomach would make anyone scream. On other days, the creature would decidedly settle on the southern route. This meant wallowing in some filth, but the route was more promising in other ways – it was Nature’s own and, therefore, less likely to resist the creature’s escape. You may be happy to hear that it did crawl out one day, and I did not resist its going. But, having attained the freedom of an unencumbered space, the creature started shaking violently. The sky was too big, the people too many, the streets too well traveled. I took pity on the poor thing and let it crawl back in the way it had left. But, it was never the same after that. Its bustling and planning and wanting ceased. And then, so did mine.

the profile

I went to a party this weekend where everyone was in profile. There wasn’t any hope of seeing people straight on or looking at anyone in the eye. Each woman knew which of her sides was best, and all the men were debating the weaknesses of the other sides. A few women dared to ask a man which side he preferred. Some said what the woman already thought. Others said both sides had merit. And still others said that the woman was sitting on her best feature. The men wore their profiles in their pockets, and they unpacked them item by item – education, income, status, wit. By the end of the party, everyone knew everyone from the side. As the party was winding down, I walked up to one profile and tried to turn her head to the front, but found her neck quite stiff. She said, ‘Oh, it’s been stuck that way for some years now.’ She tried to brush me away, but I put my hands on either side of her head and gave a swift wrench. With a great cracking sound, the woman’s neck gave way and I was faced with two dazzling eyes, as bare and painfully exposed as a child caught lying – and as relieved to be found out. But, it was short lived. My efforts had snapped the nerve cord and, after a few seconds, her eyes went dry and the shit came pouring out of her suddenly relaxed sphincter.

the look

There are few things in this world worse than a condescending look, folded up neat in the tweed suit of American propriety. Reputation is a shifting world of shadows, a chess game in which pieces and powers and talents are to be won and held on to in the ocular sphincters of others. Never mind if those things are in ourselves, it only matters that they are seen in ourselves by others. But, it is a dangerous game. Lurking around every glance is the naked truth - a harsh, unforgiving light - that doesn't cut corners or smooth out the wrinkles that end up in everyone's best sunday suit after long enough wear. Reputation! Reputation! Reputation! The golden dream of being well liked.