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Current mood:  weird Category: Writing and Poetry
"How ye' feelin', Bill?"
"Like a mean motherfucker, Dave-O! Like a good ol' rebel!"
"As well ye' should, Billy-O! There's always trouble waitin' when ye' leave yer own backyard, after all!"
"Incoming!" he screeched.
"Don't sweat the small stuff! Do you smell that?"
"What?"
"Bullshit, Bill! Nothing else in the world smells like that! I love the smell of bullshit in the morning!" I roared. "That smell. That tripe smell. It smells like -- dodging another bullet!"
"It wasn't just insanity and murder, there was enough of that to go around!", squawked a bystander.
"So who are you, the social conscience of America?" snarled Bill, seizing his lapel.
"No! God, no! I'm a saucier!"
"Un sorcier? Merde alors! Heathen!" screamed Bill, as he pulled his lighter from his pocket, "I'll fuckin' well burn ye' at the steak!"
"Execrable pun, Billy-O! Wretched! But seein' as we've both split from the whole fuckin' program, I'll forgive it!" I said.
"Forgive and forget?" he asked, roughly shoving his almost-victim away.
"Absolutely right!" I replied. "Forgive the offense and forget that the offender ever existed."
"You are clearly agitated, Dave!" said he, driving a powerful roundhouse kick into my lower thigh. "What is the cause of your distress?"
"Lack of spontaneity! Ow! Mind my nuts, you fuckwit!" I replied, as he hoisted me upon his shoulders in a "fireman's carry". "Predictability and patternistic behavior offend me beyond my ability to relate -- or to retaliate!" I sank my teeth into his deltoid and pulled his hair.
"Hey, asshole! How dare you dash me to the unforgiving pavement?" I squalled in indignation.
"Ye' bit me and pulled my hair, fucker, and it ain't like ye' hit it directly!"
"Ain't like you didn't have it comin'" I said. "Now help me up. My leg is still numb."
I extended a hand, and he reached out with his own.
"Uh-uh! Like so!" said I, shaking my head and closing my hand, save for the index finger.
Bill rolled his eyes and made to pull me to my feet by the extended digit. I broke wind loudly, and for a full two-and-a-half seconds. The little old lady upon whom I had landed convulsed violently for a moment, and then lay still.
"She's fallen, and she can't get up" Bill noted.
"Stroke or heart condition" I said. "Once they reach that age, they commence to dropping like flies. And speaking of that: Zip up, Bill. You're 'losing altitude'."
We continued along Thunderbird Road in silence for some moments, passing a bottle of Thunderbird.
"Dave, are you sure we're going in the right direction? I haven't seen a single white rabbit, nor a rabbit hole anywhere around here" said Bill.
"Ah!" There's one, directly ahead!" I exclaimed, pointing. "And speaking of that, how doth the little crocodile, anyway?"
"Feisty little bastard!", said Bill, patting the squirming burlap sack he had thrust through his belt. Say, Dave-O? I don't think this is a rabbit hole at all. It looks more like a canal of some sort."
"Let me have a closer look" said I, removing my 3D glasses. "Well fuck me dead! So indeed it is!"
I shrugged.
"I suppose it's as good a place as any."
Bill pulled the sack from his belt and upended it. The reptile hurtled thrashing through space for a fraction of a second, and then hit the water with a splash. Bill and I placed our hands over our hearts.
"Booooorn free/ As free as the wind blows", we sang, with genuine feeling.
"So what's next on the agenda?" Bill asked.
"Canadian raw milk Cheddar", I said. "For some inexplicable reason, I crave it whenever there's a series of school shootings."
"I'm kinda the same way about Belgian waffles", said Bill. "And did you ever notice that school shootings pick up anytime a Clinton gets anywhere near the Whitehouse?"
"I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it, but I suppose you're right. I gather that if she wins the election, her inauguration will be met with a veritable St. Valentine's Day Massacre in every tax-funded educational facility in the country."
"What if Giuliani is elected?"
"He'll outlaw guns, panhandling and prostate glands, Bill."
"And McCain?"
"On the 22nd of August, he'll give a speech on the site of the World Trade Center, in which he says: 'I have given orders to my Freedom Squads to exterminate without mercy or pity men, women and children belonging to the Farsi-speaking race. It is only in this manner that we can acquire the vital territory which we need since the open-borders policies I favor have led to this country becoming rather crowded. After all, who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians'?"
"Isn't it illegal to deny that in Europe?"
"Of course not, Bill. Not all genocides are created equal. Just ask any descendant of the surviving Kulaks. People don't give a shit about any group but their own. Human nature, don'tchaknow. See why I'm glad not to be human? They're an inattentive and inconsiderate bunch."
"Indeed they are, rather like those blithering schmucks back at McDonald's. You'd think elementary consideration would demand learning the language of one's host country."
"Indeed. We can ill afford this rock'n'roll lifestyle, Bill" I said. "Look, night is falling, both literally and metaphorically."
He raised his head and cast his eyes skyward. The sun was sinking in the west and stars punched pinpricks of light through the deepening cerulean canopy of evening.
"That was a pretty, if somewhat cliche description of twilight, Dave", said Bill.
"Blame the narrator, not me. My point is: Soon it will be dark."
"Doesn't the sun also rise?"
"Not here, it doesn't. Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars. And what is the sun but a nearby star? No, dear Billy-O, the sun will not rise once is sets. Ra strikes the reef of night and sinks. Osiris and his pecker are forever separated. And there is no Phoenix, Bill. Just three hundred-million dodos. They can't rise from their dead asses, let alone their own ashes."
"Glum, if somewhat poetic", said he.
"I feel rather poetic this evening, Bill. Let me lay one on you. This one flowed from the pen of the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovski, before he 'pulled the plug' and let his life flow from him":
'It's after one.
You must have gone to bed.
The milky way runs like a silvery river through the night.'
"That it does indeed" said Bill, looking skyward again. I continued my recitation:
'I'm in no hurry
and with lightning telegrams
there's no need to wake and worry you.
As they say
the incident is closed.
The love boat
has smashed upon convention'
"Oh! How I hated that fucking show!"
"Quit interrupting me, Bill. It's inconsiderate and boorish."
'Now you and I are through
No need then
To count over the mutual hurts, harms and slights.
Just see how quiet the world is!
Night has laid a heavy tax of stars upon the sky.
In hours like these you get up and you speak
To the ages, to history, and to the universe.'
"Sometimes" said Bill, "you'd imagine they were actually listening."
"That", I said, "is just your imagination. Only this, and nothing more."
A raven croaked and flew off into the last glowing smudge of day -- the "twilight's last gleaming" -- which lay upon the horizon like a band of hot iron on a smith's anvil.
"Nevermore" whispered Bill, shivering and zipping his jacket.
"Nevermore."
9:11 AM
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