Why Hell Was Made
There were plans for a cookout. It was summertime in heaven and unseasonably humid. The climate had tempers high for weeks.
The evening before the event there was heated discussion regarding who would bring which items. Everyone wanted to bring potato salad; it was like that every year about the potato salad. God, who just wanted to enjoy a cool bath, threatened to cancel the whole thing if everyone didn’t come to an agreement pretty damn soon.
The arguing continued long into the night until an exhausted God silenced the group, “That’s it. The cookout is cancelled!” And so it was.
The next day a tall fellow who had been looking forward to barbeque approached God with a business proposal, suggesting that he would be happy to manage the entire event. God, happy to be free of the pains of planning an annual cookout, agreed to let him host a cookout year-round at an offsite location.
Work
A man looks up from his work and forgets to look down again.
Delay
The mailman wants to be a chef. He dreams of cupcakes and salads, shuffles his feet to the ticking of egg timers as he slips collection letters through door slots. At lunch, he eats tuna salad on crackers in his truck and imagines a too gray France. Tonight, he will murder his wife and son.
Goodnight
We’ve run out of excuses. Repetition or no, there is no love in loss.
Wishes
These cookies leave something to be desired.
I know, right, but don’t you wish they were really good?
Notes
I am splitting at the seams. Buttons are popping off left and right, affordable Chinese fabrics, failing after just under a year of wear.
There is very little space. Take a few steps back. Things tend to seem heavier in small spaces, because there’s no room for stacking. Everything is layered, simply and firmly. There’s no splinter in the middle as before. Vagueness abounds, but there is no knocking on the door, no telephone ring, no notepads, not thumbtacks, no real wounds of any kind, save the obvious.
When one accepts that the sum of all to be another extension of self, what’s next?
Decending (February, 2007)
Every other Saturday it nearly happens, quickly too, not like before, but somehow it leaves him feeling the same. He counts steps on the way down, hops the last couple, and pushes back thoughts as he locks the
A Girl (2004)
It’s Wednesday. Something’s gone awry, and someone is drawn awry. There is a scuffle, the sort that shifts tenses.
I hope you can read lips. Look closely, closer still… What is she saying? Can you make it out? I thought not. Something is about to happen. It’s decent, not descent. See, your prognosticator just made a typographical error. Yes, I’m sure it happens all the time.
She drums her fingertips, taps beats on a new’s years table. She doesn’t know this song and that surprises her. She likes it. She misspells things often but always looks out when below.
It’s Saturday. It’s raining. She considers a career in finance and seems taller in the rain.
A sitcom just ended. Her dress is filmy, chiffon, perhaps, but that would be odd. She misses her friends, is remembering too severely now and wants to stop. She grabs a pad of paper and finds a dark pen, but it’s too familiar- finds a mechanical pencil that someone left behind; she doesn’t want to know who- She wants to draw something beautiful but lists words she pronounces well instead. She numbers the list, which starts like this:
1. Septum
2. Fervor
3. Often
4. Throng
and continues on to twenty-something, words all but filling the page. Looking back, she wonders why she capitalized them. These are not proper nouns. She makes simple anagrams from the first and last letters of the words.
She lies on the bed with her arms flung wide, a curious spittle on her lips. It’s past time, but I will read to her or perhaps play the piano for a bit.
Do you see? It was like an animal, a strangely beautiful animal.
now then (a holiday dialogue)
well then…hello there.it’s nice to see you.and you.and me?yes, you.I see.yes?yes.here we go again, eh?wherefore, but before the grace…indeed.and how!why yes!happy holidays, too.and to you, sir.why, thank you.don’t mention it.you’re too kind.and you.quite right, we are.care to argue?not tonight, i’m afraid. too tired.ah, another time then?but of course!well, then i’m off.yes, yes, i must be going as well.take good care.and you, sir.(in unison) i shall.
Stop… and begin again
we are (still) no1ofcons and so you are you.