Nothing

It was beautiful.
That dangling bead of drink, suspended by a microscopic friction between liquid and follicle.
It lingered for eternity, elbowing the beard hairs on either side, trembling on it's prickly precipice. Sour and acidic, the droplet resembled the obvious tear.
It was something.
Nothing. Nothing. Leonard rustled his paper purposefully. It was 4 in the afternoon and he was working though his second gin, scanning the print which blackened his fingers, waiting for the phone to ring, for a knock at the door that would rouse the dogs.
For something. He wiped the drop from his beard.
He focused on his own quiet breathing, listening to it's rhythm as his eyes languished on the page, on the sentence "... dragging the river..." "Notify next of kin..."
A fly buzzed and flitted and landed on the thin edge of the paper. Leonard watched it rub it's front legs together, like a greedy cartoon character anticipating some ill-gotten plunder. He stopped breathing. It was something, that insect perched there, praying or plotting or preening.
Leonard sucked in wind forcefully, causing the bug to jump and the dogs to prick up their ears. He exhaled and waited for something.
For the next something.

Those teeth

Thom Skree's teeth conjured both predator and prey. They blinked briefly from beneath his mustache; the thin, long dentition of a carnivore that evoked bones blanched in the sun. He tapped his finger on the desk, or rather on the manuscript laying before him, breaking Harold's transfixion.

"Mr. Bansay. Harold, may I call you Harold? Good. Now..." Skree went on speaking as Harold slipped away again, staring at the movements of the face across the mahogany table. He was not alone, neither on his side of the desk or in his staring, as his mother beside him was equally preoccupied.

'Those teeth,' Harold's mother thought.

'That mustache,' Harold thought.

"Harold," Mr. Skree's voice cut into Harold's reverie. "Please understand, your piece is... unique. Provoking, but..." Skree's fingers emulated his teeth in length and impeccability. Their cuticles brushed invisible lint from his lapels. His tongue ran over his incisors, bulging out his mustache like a mouse under straw. "Given your recent... difficulties, our publishing house has policies regarding business with anyone involved as a defendant in pending felony charges."

Those "difficulties" played through Harold Bansay's daydream as he gazed at Mr. Skree's upper lip. The first, several weeks ago, involved the server at a creperie. According to the police report, the dust-up originated over a dispute of billing, but Harold knew better.

The second, only yesterday, was, in Harold's view, more of a misunderstanding. A miscommunication, really, a folly that under other circumstances would have been a forgettable nonevent easily laughed off, had the other party not been a member of the greater metro police force.

"And," Skree continued. "To be perfectly honest, this isn't really marketable. It's not really Sci-Fi, not suspense, well... We just don't know how to sell this."

Sweat beaded on the bridge of Harold's nose and nostrils. His mother shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

Skree cleared his throat. "Inventive as it is, a story about people who's mustaches control what they say is... AHHHHHHH!" Skree's calm demeanor was shattered as Harold suddenly vaulted across the desk, a glimmering strait razor glinting in his fingers.

Harold's poor mother was aggressively shoved aside as two burley men appeared from nowhere to subdue the ranting author. "I can cut it off, Mr. Skree! You don't know what you're saying! Let me cut it off, Mr. Skree! It's making you say these things!"

After the disarming and forcible removal of Harold from the office, Skree and Mrs. Bansay sat silently contemplating one another. "Mrs. Bansay... Um, I believe your son will be at the police station on 3rd and Morris." He offered a pained smile of consolation. "May I validate your parking?"

'Those teeth,' thought Harold's mother.

Figments

Outside, winds lift skirts and debris. Men with hard livers wipe their faces as they exit dim rooms of pungent air. Branches lash at their supporting trunks, agitated by ghosts and figments and dreams.

Inside, isobars coast in smooth tandem over the pull of a vibrant map. Their brilliant shift and sweep chart dark disturbance, predicting the hereafter. Specters in this box of lights and the shade in my thoughts leer.

The rock-stars of my youth have been sucked into the maw of their muses. Left to rattle my windows, the wraiths of their hot deaths howl like wolves in the wind. The world through the window tilts with the gusts, yet it feels like I'm the one leaning; being bent akimbo by haunts.

Dogs bark in my dreams.

Zippers & Nuts & 8 & 0

Tegan and I went to a Squirrel Nut Zippers concert last night. We (Tegan, actually) was able to procure the signature of both singers and founding members, Jim Mathas and Katharine Whalen.

We approached Jim as he mingled between opening acts, haranguing women with his disarming southern charm. He turned to us with the reek of malt. Obviously plastered, he scrawled "Tegan, *scribble* 2009" across the front of our cd liner. We recoiled to a safe distance.

Katharine was sitting alone after the show. She was gracious and genuinely nice as she put her name on her picture in the booklet. Looking back, we regretted not asking her to accompany us for a drink.

It was 80 degrees here yesterday. Tegan got a sunburn. I wonder if there is still snow on the ground in Wisconsin. Probably not much.

Hazel

What is the essence of a comfortable chair?

Is it the consistency of it's stuffing, the supportive lift of it's foam flesh? The specific way it buttresses our posteriors?

Perhaps its the upholstery. Leather (or faux) is durable and stylish, yet sticky on the backs of legs and occasionally inhumane. Plushy fuzz is delightfully soft on a bare bottom (tee hee) yet acts like a sponge for filth, which is, of course, the reason one should avoid seating the bare bottom upon them. Suede scuffs like an infant's skin, and is best avoided where boisterousness may ensue.

Maybe comfort is in the color. Do we revel in seats shrouded with scintillating stain? Or possibly we picture ourselves as others see us, seated on our fashionable accessory. Fashion screams wealth, which is why so many good folks want $300 for a used La-Z-Boy on Craigslist.

My chair is comfy, and I know why. From it's vantage, I am assured my favorite view: my wife's eyes. Whether they grace me with the steeple brow of tired patronization or squint with frustrated confusion, I will see them from my chair. Rest assured, in a troubled world. And that is comforting.

insomnia, anxiety, insomnia, repeat

3AM. My eyes pop open, wide and unwilling to close. With all possible stealth, I twist my head to glance at the clock. Over the next 3 hours I will twist in the sheets without relief.

Like a children's round-song in the key of shit, insomnia and anxiety perpetually chase each other. I fall asleep just fine when I first retire, but over the last several nights I've been awakened sick with dread. I breathe and tell myself to calm down, that stress only shortens the life-span, which is no comfort. Adding to the discomfort are the nightmares that always follow this nightly waking ritual.

If I am able to reclaim my slumber, horrible visions will shake me from sleep every 45 minutes. Lately, they have been chain-dreams: I awake from a dream about my dog being replaced by a doppleganger. I am having a heart-attack in bed, and Tegan rushes to get her stethoscope and the phone. My chest is burning, then I realize that Tegan is in her full scrubs, at which point I awake again. The room around me is disintegrating. There are holes in the plaster and voices at the door. I awake again.

I attempt to relax by following the blotches in the murk behind my eyelids. Normally, dark and light splotches dance like reverse footage of ink drops in water, sucking into the recesses of my skull in a soothing flow. But lately, their liquid blooms have been replaced by an out of focus bramble-patch. Last night, a banshee appeared in sudden clarity, with one large cycloptic eye and strangely fine teeth that chattered in a comically threatening way. Where have my ink blots gone?

There is one culprit that may be behind this. Tegan complains of anxiety when she drinks diet soda, or at least a jitteriness we attributed to the caffeine. I have been drinking an all natural diet ginger ale that doesn't have caffeine or aspartame, but I plan on cutting it and seeing if it cures this awful ailment.

In Quad We Trust

Fishnets and tattoos. Frilly skirts that are too short and pink underpants that peek out from beneath. Crash helmets and beer.

Tegan and I went to the roller-derby last night. At first, reading the rules in the program, I was baffled. There are more refs than active players on the ring, but after 2 minutes I understood why. Some of them call points, some penalties.

A cluster of nylons and kneepads jostle each other as they coast round and round. The crowd yells and stomps a thunderous rumble on the metal bleachers as one blonde bomber from the "Church of St8in" levels a competitor from the out-of-town "Terrimedix" as she tries to pass, sending her sprawling into the spectators kneeing in the crash-zone. I might add that according to announcements, in order to sit there you must be 18 and cannot be drinking beer. You also may not help any of the girls up.

Enormous entertainment. We know a few of the skaters. One of them, a polish girl who works at the dog wash, always seemed very nonassertive and a little meek, but her skating name is Slavic Slayer and she was throwing some nasty blocks.

Yup. I think we'll be doing that again.

deep thoughts

I've been seriously examining my existence. The shoes of my soul-searching are battered by the constant kicking of my self esteem. I've got questions.

First of all (and of the least importance), should I go back to school? Pursue a more fulfilling career? Do something that gives myself meaning? Join a Guatemalan paramilitary group?

And all this questioning muckrakes other disturbing quandaries. Why do I write? What compels this desire... Why do tiny fragments of prose spring uninvited and unevictable from my brain. Like today, folding laundry: His face betrayed mistrust, like a dog with ears pinned back. Or unwritten stories that could go anywhere: I'm not going to divulge the one that popped into my head earlier, because I don't like to spoil surprises.

Does this all mean something? Am I supposed to pursue this, and if so, how will I eat? Or do most people have this and just not remember it a moment later.

cheat

I'm involved in an affair, neglecting my faithful companion for a sleeker model.

I'm speaking about my bikes, of course.

For several years my personal local transport was attended to by a handsome, chromed commuter cycle. It has a leather seat and matching grips, a 3 speed hub and coaster brake that operates as well in the rains as the sunshine. It's fold out baskets can handle a bag of groceries each, or a case of beer. It's quality steel frame tips the scale at a hefty 45 pounds, and even in the highest gear only lumbers along at a slow jog.

Several months back, I picked up an old road bike from a coworker in exchange for a crumpled $20 bill. First came the uncomfortable adoption, the wobbling uncertainties of this funny new posture. Just when I began to gain some confidence, a skidding spill dampened my relations with this new machine.

I feel a little pang of guilt hopping atop this slick roller as my trusty, chromed warhorse leans neglected. But I can't help myself, and the reason is simple. I like to go fast. I do draw the line at some things: I do not believe that my bodily hair causes any noticeable drag and therefore will be keeping it. Spandex is very unforgiving and is better left to superheros and people I do not have to look at.

Perhaps I will tire of this new fascination and return to the comfortable rumble of my dutch bike. Maybe.

Do not resuscitate

Edward awoke alone. The sticky dark that greased his eyes was troubling. When had this night come?

His fingers glanced something smooth as he rose from the mattress, and for an instant he froze. After a panicked moment a memory fluttered from the muck. The bottle. How had it all come to this?

Ed pressed the squishy orbs of his eyeballs deeper into their sockets and tired to think. Ice rattled in the familiar tumbler as he located the bottle in the black. Waving his hand like a lost relative left at the gas station, his fingers eventually scraped the smooth surface of his remaining friend. His inflammatory companion. His fiery liquid love.

Fumbling with his free hand through the pockets of his discarded jeans, eventually he was able to free the ring of keys. He returned to the door for the hundredth time and began the ritual. One by one he pressed their corrugated faces against the unyielding keyhole. One by one they were rejected. Options exhausted, he slumped at his desk in his underpants. His gaze glossed at the sweating glass. His frowning lips craved. His frowning eyes desired.

*** Don't worry, this is not a continuing story. Just a blip. Believe it or not, this is complete. ***

Fermentation fascination

As my wife returns to nursing school, spending time attending the sterilization of so many microorganisms, I return to solitude. My thoughts turn to tiny colonies of coconspirators, perhaps induced by the Hunter Green scrubs that the love of my life casts to the floor with such nonchalance. So I began a new experiment in fermentation which recently came to an end.

Currently Tegan is brewing a batch of ginger champagne, and at this late hour it is my only companion, slurring burbled excretions... the prayers of yeast colonies conversing with their blogging gods.

I started some radish sprouts today, and attended my shelling pea plants in the garden. I also aborted some sauerkraut that was curing on a shelf in the living room for the last few weeks. Apparently, I am not much good at measuring, and an overabundance of salt rendered the pressed shreds of cabbage inedible. A shame, really. I had grand plans.... a few slices of homemade Russian rye bread, a grilled slab of marinated tempeh, some swiss cheese and 'kraut. I'll just have to stick with the Tempeh Rubin sandwiches from Cornucopia restaurant (or Park Street Cafe, if I can make it there during their insanely limited hours).

***sigh***

the end.

*** the end of a story... scroll down and read the other parts first ***

From the darkness of the doorway jutted shimmering feelers, poking the shadows with their glistening and strangely familiar contours. A quartet of eyes followed their bobbing.

One pair of peepers flickered lids from the floor, peering out of the darkest of corners at the miraculous parade. Fractured beams of moonlight bounced awry into nothingness, and Dirvin's eyes followed.

Roger, on the other hand, thought about the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy's ruby slippers. Afraid to settle his gaze upon his gorgeous reclamation shivering in the blackness, he focused on his bestowal. Rolled by his own pearled waves for three weeks before tumbling up the beach sands, the long loafers gained a shine reminiscent of the fabled shoes that delivered a little girl from Kansas home. His extended arms held them as steady as any brave man could.

Dirvin lifted his palms toward the huge fingers that held his treasured shoes. Roger lifted his gaze to the apprehensive face and hesitated. In one fluid motion, he released the flippers and snatched at his back pocket. Pitted rubber soles were snatched in eager grasp as Dirvin pulled his slippers close to his chest. Roger brought down his gripped fists and tried to look away.

On the beach, sticky sea bubbles refused to pop on the pointed rocks.

*****

The little town of Kennebunk hadn't felt the same since the storm had swept away a small part of their soil. Everyone's shoes were heavier, and their coffee was too bitter. Conversation at Estelle's was mostly shoe shuffling and the clinking of flatware on porcelain.

The memorial was placed near the jagged cliff where a shack used to lean. An enormous curled "C" dominated the horizon, followed by "arnation". The recession had left no extraneous funds for attractions unvisited by tourists, and so Nestle donated a left over crate to pay tribute.

Moving at astonishing speed for bureaucracy, the crate was condemned as an eyesore and a hazard to the greater public. Attending it's hasty removal, Clem Silter bounced an abrasive cast iron hook in his thickly calloused hand and studied the timber box for a proper anchor point. The crude, heavy claw made a muffled thud as it hit the sod, slipping from the suddenly frozen fingers that had bounced it.

From a toothy hole, Clem watched one filthy fist protrude followed by another, both preceding a crinkled sack atop two shoulders. A few moments later, Dirvin Morris was completely birthed from the crate of Carnation Instant Breakfast and shuffling shimmering sandals toward his outhouse.

And while there was no formal announcement, no official gathering of charities, a slow event took place. Individuals would stop at Dirvin's dwelling and ply their skill. Spare screws were shaken from their coffee cans. Moist boxes emerged from beneath moldy sinks to empty random adhesives. As the crate was connected to the outhouse and gradually made slightly more habitable, people left smiling. And the smile was infectious. And the town breathed well again.

And each twilight, two beautiful eyes batted their lids lazily, gazing at a very brown view and listening to the seagulls, and the waves.

Second to last part (pt 5)

•••pt 5 of the ongoing epic, please scroll to the previous sections•••

Splayed out in an ugly arc, stuffing the silent space of the 6AM to 8PM daytime viewing veranda, glassy eyed oglers huffed suffocating air and gazed over the masses and through the glass. Behind the smudged, scratched Pyrex brooded a blotchy captive circling his confines. Rusty red smears of oxidized blood muddied several of the panels forming the southern wall of the estate, along with soap, causing a shuffling discomfort in the populace. Yet despite the visual obfuscation, waves of washing purity emanated from the blotted partition.

Twelve days had passed since the last weekly town meeting. Dubbed by the next generation as "the shillyshally vs. the reactionary," the populace battled between two main factions. Those of the knee-jerk variety were verbose on the pulpit. Their platform stood on the assumption that should their shining idol be discovered, he would be eventually taken away. The meek and meager opposition to their argument was exactly that: meek and meager.

And so it was decided that a glass enclosure would be constructed, housed beneath a wooden shield. The passing of information regarding their new resident between towns would be punished accordingly. The shimmering beaches were quarantined to reduce the influx of tourists. A lone figure was allowed to prowl the surf's break, being still in everyone's best interest.

At some point of the evening, between the repelling remarks, quitely coagulated a collective shame. Eyes were cast to the scuffed floor, yet nobody in the room raised objection.

And now, on the veranda, a dozen days later, the crowd shifted it's weight from foot to foot, reading Dirvin's bizzare narrative scrawled in soap across the inside of the glass.

Reprinted here is his allegory:

Once there was an Irishman whose shit didn't stink. And one evening in a state of injudiciousness he proclaimed this vile aptitude to his audience of drunks. He lowered his trousers and strained a dirt upon the floor. His neighbors and friends came forth, delicately positioning their noses above the turd, withdrawing several moments later to proclaim his truth: there was no stink from his shite.
Then they hoisted him up and cast him out on the gravel.
"But why?" he asked. "There was no odor."
To which they replied, "Shit is shit."

With the cleaning crew assembling around their buckets and restraints, the spectators turned and dispersed. They whistled, for Dirvin's gift had left them lighter. The benefits of their captive canary, his very presence in fact, expunged any guilt they might have otherwise felt.

Except for the one person allowed on the beach whose grief was intact.

Pt. 4

(part 4 of a story. read Part 1, 2, and 3 first. Although, after re-reading them in the order in which I published them, parts 2 and 3 would do better if transposed. So read 1 first, then 3 then 2. Or don't)

On shimmering sands a shuddering man clutched the pulpy shreds sticking to his face, eyes closed and praying a child's prayer: to awake from this terrible nightmare. To open his eyes and see blankness, on his weathered floor, head shrouded beneath his cold brown curtain of crinkly comfort.

Roger's wind rushed into and out of him and soon he was dizzy from the effort. The exertion of dragging the man who refused to swim all the way to shore left his hands throbbing. His oxygen debt was compounded by the several minutes he had spent on the island screaming at the stone-still stranger before picking him up and hurling him, like so many plates before him, into the waves. As the land-mass drifted further to sea it had began to pitch, releasing huge bubbles of rancid fumes, seeming like some bloated stinking dog rolling over in the surf.

Through the fingers that held the remains of his identity tight to his cheeks, Dirvin studied his bluish companion. When Roger noticed the odd eyes peering at him, his exasperation erupted. He lifted his afflictive fingers and tore away the masking hands. With one great movement he slapped away the remnants of fibrous pulp that clung to the flinching face.
Roger stammered, transfixed by the sight, aghast, amazed.

For Dirvin Morris was the most beautiful person in the world. And as Roger opened and closed his jaw, the pain that racked his hands vanished, and the burning of his muscles dissipated, and everything seemed better in the world.

And around them, locals who had come to the beach to skip stones or paint or neck with their lovers all gathered, drawn like filings to a magnet, feeling their ailments and anguishes blowing away in Dirvin's beautiful breeze. They reveled in him, from his glorious copper hair to his now bare feet.

Before the sun could lay it's dry face into the cool relief of the horizon, the locals had whisked him into town where he was made to perch on the bandstand and remove all their sufferings with his orphic exquisiteness.

Pt. 3

***Part 3 of a moral-less allegory. Please read Part 1 and Part 2 first.***

There were stones in Dirvin's passway, and the road laid before him was dark.

The darkness was nothing new, having spent such a time beneath his paper shroud, but the rubble stubbing his toes was a disconcerting augury. And the darkness wasn't velvety depth it should have been...

He had awoken on the floor, which in itself was not out of the ordinary, but he had no recollection of retiring. An unfamiliar draft chilled him. He stretched his legs, plowing dusty detritus into neat little mounds with his velcro strap shoes.

Dirvin drooped his bag-head and pressed his bag-face into his hands. And felt something wet. Bringing his moistened fingers up into his very personal space and tapping them against his tongue, the tang of iron told him it was blood. As his digits revisited the gore they discovered something even more distressing: a hole. Desperately desiring to concentrate on recalling the previous evening, this new aperture was the supreme distraction. It required repair, posthaste.

Following the probing feelers of his long loafers, Dirvin made his way to the tumbling towers of yellow hogging the better portion of the room. Folding himself cross-legged, hunched like a crumpled Buddha among the thousand Carnation cartons, he began the task at hand. One by one, he would locate the blue and white adhesive tag applied by Rose General Market for pricing. Delicately, he would pry up the sticker and purposefully place it, slowly fashioning a bandage for his paper carapace.

And as the puncture began to fill over, Dirvin's mind began to relax.

Breathing deep and steady, he attempted to recount the evening's unfolding. He sighed and shivered and eventually slumbered, sleeping a grimy and grey sleep, splayed across a bright cardboard bed. And awoke in a panic.

His arousal was violent, as if some subconscious malice pressed a hot flint to his earlobe, and his flailing legs sent a plume of mildewed rot blowing away in the wind. As his fingers patterned dust into uniform ridges with their nervous scraping, memory flooded in like a backwash. Memories of a storm. A great storm. Memories of a thundering elemental colossus, the shuddering pitch of the floor, the choking black of his paper bag as he stumbled, and the great groan of the very earth he stood upon.

And it was pondering these newly found memories beneath his newly patched cap that Dirvin stumbled into the outdoors. After several minutes of investigation, it became clear that his outbuilding was no longer connected, it's aluminum and tin umbilical cord shorn jaggedly. After several more minutes he was aware that something much larger was amiss, for the sandy rut that had once led to town now only brought him to a void, an empty space where his slipper-tips dangled over the big blue sea.

Pt.2

***Part 2 of an untitled fairy-tale, please read part 1 first***

Large saucers coasted over the azure horizon, reflecting the jaundiced sunrise of a post-storm morning, their porcelain circumferences levitating for fifty yards before dipping (plummeting, really) into the burbling surf below. Followed by the occasional shoe. And on the shore, Roger Kessel heaved gigantic breaths and flexed his gigantic hands, watching the graceful arcs of his jettisoned flotsam.

Roger had a ritual. This particular rite was generally accepted by local law enforcement as an exercise in personal well-being. The consensus held that whatever reason Roger had for standing on the beach and pitching second-hand dishes into the sea, it was probably in everyone's best interest to let him proceed. And after all, 22 years of plates pulverized and polished by the tide lent the sands an ethereal shimmer that drew tourists from as far away as Brunswick.

As for the shoes, they did not accumulate. The steady pulse of waves ferried them to the beach, where Roger would retrieve and hurl them back in a perpetual, slow motion game of hot potato.

Roger's elongated digits were punctuated by bulbous joints that ached and festered. Several times daily, Roger would stop and glower at his extremities, sucking his teeth and grimacing before stooping for his next discus. And so he was caught glowering, bent and focused with pinched face and centered ire staring at his paws when the giant rock drifted past.

For years, geologists and seismologists would debate the feasibility of Roger's tale, while rational people would argue about the stability of his mental state. No matter what their opinion on the unfolding of events, the outcome and resulting phenomena was concrete. His fantastic narrative went as follows:

As his suffering fingers let fly the day's last projectile, his eyes were arrested by the strangest sight. On the waves about 100 yards offshore sailed a miniature island, a ship made of rock and earth. Perched atop it was a crooked cabin with a twisted tin tube protruding from it's side and over the edge. And teetering on the brink swayed a body, swaddled in disintegrating rags, with extended shoes jutting out into space and a paper bag covering his head, shuddering.

As he stood in shock, jaw unhinged and mouth agape in amazement, one thing became very clear to Roger. The boat was sinking. Each blue undulation of the water lapped slightly higher against the hull of the odd floating boulder. And so he did what he knew had to be done. He plucked off his battered shoes, heaved them into the swaying sea with all his muscle, and plunged himself in after, paddling with enormous, distressed hands, intent on rescuing this mysterious masked stranger from his floundering prison.

A story, or a beginning

A story...

Dirvin Morris lived in the smallest of saltboxes, a rickety rack of leaning shack precariously pitched west as if plowing headlong into a gale. His commode and wood-stove resided in an out-building connected via patchwork ducts, providing protection from a catastrophe at the hearth, but at the price of a lingering foul odor.

Dirvin hardly noticed. The air filling the paper bag he always wore over his head smelled mostly of his breath, which was itself quite pungent owing to his lack of hygiene. Had his dwelling been outfitted with indoor plumbing, it is doubtful the situation would have been any different, for the water required by most modern bathroom practices would most certainly cause irreparable harm to his brown paper burkha.

Why he remained separated from the word by that scratchy paper veil for so many years was local mystery. A semi-weekly debate was deliberated around the corner table at Estelle's Cafe, down in town, with the frowning and squinting old-timer fixtures taking long sips of their decaf coffee between postulations. One school of thought (and the one that is perhaps the most inviolable) holds that a traumatic brain injury and it's impact might compel Dirvin's awkward position. Other's say perhaps severe tissue trauma left him a horrific monstrosity, or perhaps a physiological aversion to sunlight would cause his face to melt if it was exposed.

Whatever the truth, they all sat silently watching every other Wednesday as he shuffled down the street to the grocer's to place his order, which would be hurriedly left on his stoop several hours later by the bike-bound delivery boy who sweated to sleep every second Tuesday.

And so he shambled between the hovel and the outhouse with eyes perpetually fixed downward at the extra long slippers contrived to forewarn of impending impacts, for his paper lid was penetrated by no perforation. Sustenance was mostly delivered by straw, and Dirvin was the largest consumer of Carnation Instant Breakfasts in the greater Kennebunk area. As a result, he had received several letters of thanks from Nestle honoring his loyal patronage, but long ago he had grown tired of straining himself reading one dreary sentence after another in the space afforded between chin and bag, so they sat unopened. And Mr. Morris sat every evening instead with a very brown view, listening to the seagulls and the waves.

Grind

Going and coming and going and going... like the pulsing tidal push polishes a plethora of pebbles into a podiatrists' pleasurable precipitate, life seems to wear the bearings of simple machines.

It's been a few days since I last dripped digital diatribe. Lately, I've devoted my sorry spare seconds scouring the Saharan state supervening our selectively superior soil. Remorselessly roundly rejected, I retire...

evaluation

Today is the birthday of Theodor Geisel. I just found out.

Several years ago, a dear friend of ours bought me a book for my birthday. (This happened before my current embargo on owning books which was spawned by our close proximity to the library. No need to buy and store when you can borrow.) It was a floppy yet strangely thick paperback entitled Dr. Seuss Goes to War. And in it, I found a new angle on an old favorite, a childish yet mature editorial on the state of affairs.

And so, instead of pondering my passing years by periodically planing the perturbing protuberances from my proboscis and cursing the curly hairs encroaching my chest and shoulders, I think about silliness. Nonsense, and how it changes the world as we know it, requires appreciation of a wider projection.

I appreciate the ridiculous, the zany, the slaphappy... My writing is punctuated by goofy alliteration in homage to my childhood favorites. I dance daily. I revel in the ridiculous rain.

Spoils

I have a grand and desperate desire to shoot off my grandfather's 1924 S&W .38 revolver. Five minutes remain of my 27th birthday, and by the time I actually post this diatribe, it will be over. I clutch this humming confluence of magnets and metals and radio-waves, suppressing the primitive urges of a hunter/gatherer.

It's not like I want to go frivolously blasting fully jacketed projectiles into the atmosphere with reckless wantonness... I want to line up spent Pabst cans filled with water, meticulously positioning their aluminum cylinders along a beautiful tangent, and then pick them off with 30 glorious grams of booming gunpowder.

And so I think about creation verses destruction, and it is my wonderful wife who winches in this whimsical wonderment. She has afforded me the tools of creation: a bread peel, an oil mister, and the perfect brotform. Maybe all these gears of the meek and micro living have influenced me, powered me to seek the feckless abandon in picking off beer cans from my fence-line.

But the bottom line is... my birthday kicked ass. Kicked all sorts of ass...............