PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Table of Contents



Introduction-----1

Felt Skin-----2

Shucks-----2

Infliction-----3

Skinfony Fjord-----4

Spades-----5

The Guppy-----8

Archibald Stegosaurus-----8

Coil-----9

Frown-----9

Garfield-----11

Nomenclature of the Unwilling-----11

Tall-----12

Paper in Plastic-----13

Soilstorm-----14

Gironimo-----14

Phantom Baphomet-----15

Pure & Still-----15

Mercy Me-----15

Disasterpiece Cremations-----29

Sivs-----30

Fiction Polaroids-----30

Marooned-----31

Wigwam-----39

Desiorama Enigmatica-----39

Baby Bears-----40

Everglades-----40

Peel-----42

Acknowledgements-----44

Introduction



Welcome all to my book, the project I’ve been working on for the past four months. I am here now, to ramble on about basically nothing, so if you’d like to skip right to the book, be my guest. This is just for those of you who are enthusiastic enough to hear what breathes between the lines of my eccentric piece of literature. In starting this project, I originally had planned to write a novel, which was where “Mercy Me” had come from. I wanted it to go along nicely with the idea of Senior Project, and writing a satiric book containing my opinions, philosophical viewpoints, and experiences here at SHS. That idea obviously did not take off completely due to time limitation.

I then decided to take some of my older works and integrate them with new works, into a collection of short stories and poetry, which became “Giraffes & Geraniums”. The title, itself, is named after the poems, which are the first and last pieces of the book, and I chose this because it is simple, catchy, and absolutely confusing. This sort of reflects what the book is about. It is an encompassing of some of my existential thought, put into poetry and prose. It is a collection of writing that takes you through the procession of torment, loss, existentialism, and rebirth.

All of the names in these stories have been changed to respect anonymity. A lot of these pieces have a lot of actual events or people. These can be very strongly apparent in stories like “Spades” of course, which is a completely true story, “Mercy Me”, and “Soilstorm”.

This is where I leave you, so enjoy!





Giraffes & Geraniums Pt. I: Felt Skins



The roses are cold

And mushroom blue

The garden trapped

Caged



The weight bears down

On her breast's sweet summit

For pain is pleasure



Bitter does the sugar catch

The budding taste

For a snail hides its face



A rose drops its arms

Shedding such a feast of feathers



Giraffes up tall

Geraniums broad



Roses bleed sap

As they wince within the wind

Cold and mushroom blue



Sickened by a rabid fire

Puckered to the piercing claw



Shucks



Down the darkest corridor

Prying eyes do peer

Opening like shudders

Letting in the world

And heavy does blue vision reek

Down darkness paling

Down color withering

Minerva cold with trembles

Weeping like a candle stick

And the third eye does rise

In one bald stare

In one bleating, bittersweet lament

The artist budding

And soon wilting

Down the darkest corridor

Down the deepest desert dawn



Infliction



Reptile of the faintest breed

Breath of the thinnest air

Another spine split through

The stem of the beehive

Releasing but a million hornets

To inflict electrocuting pain

Fangs exposed to the freest breeze

From the pen to the sword

From the broadest reptile

Green





Skinfony Fjord



Oh precious pearl resting on the tongue

Like an egg within the mother's grasp

Waiting to be hatched

Waiting to but spread the feathers out like curtains

Like peacocks elaborate

Oh precious pearl anxious

One pressing close to

Another

In one satin moment

As the pacing heart but livened

In one

Intensifying stir of the nerve

Sleek along the spine

And frail like a ghost



Spades



I chose this short story as the first piece in order to engage you with my writing style and personality. It's a true story, which tells a lot of my point of view mentally.

     Many times when I read a piece of writing I find myself looking at the writer as an "opponent” In my mind I say, "Impress me. I dare you." or "Is that all you got?" This is what goes through most readers' minds when first picking up a book. The best writers engage the readers' attention immediately, and force the reader to "surrender" to the work. I hope to do the same with "Spades". I hope, at the end, to make you say, "touché "

     I am not your enemy, though. I am the provoker, the instigator, the "surgeon” if you will, here to mold your thought like a sculptor molds a wad of clay. So, without further ado, I present to you...a dream...





    I went to sleep that night with the smoothest stillness. Darkness crept, spread around me like the ink of the octopus. The taste remained constant. Images oh, so abstract, yet as concrete to my mind as reality. Surfaces, mere surfaces pressing me to them. One, a surface of cold, chaotic stones, rubbed to me like sandpaper.

My mind switched like slides repositioning in a projector. Smooth. White. A surface of plenty and perfection. It was an off-white cream, as if I could dip my finger in, and produce a ripple. It was a perfect, unwrinkled, unscathed surface. Back to chaos. It was more intense than before, as if layered deeper.

      I was crunched down, pinched between the ground and the ceiling, within the dimensions of 1' by 1' by 1'. Searing pain in my head and neck, as I realized I was holding up what held me down, a concrete mass, a million times my size. My strength ran dry, and panic sped up my spine. There was only one escape. I woke.

Sweat coated my cheeks as my body suddenly shuddered back into reality. Forty minutes had passed, as the dull, pale moon shone through my window, adding subtle shadow of random objects to the dense black of night. As fatigue slowly drugged me back to sleep, the taste remained. The ink spread. Primitive, surreal, creatures marched abstractly across a desert, as if a Salvador Dali painting animated itself inside me. The dream evolved, thickened like pudding, blending with the cold mood of the night. Blackness blinded me, as the sound of an airplane winded down, as if landing. Blurred feeling molded in my heart, moistening, blending with the third eye of thought like play-dough.

Ruins like those of ancient Rome. I walked feeling the intense presence of others, many others. The feeling of an active city pressed to me. I walked, as the tall, half-destroyed buildings became taller, darker, becoming a vague contrast to the cold, gray fog that was the sky and folded on to the black outline of the last frays of “reality.” I was here, and I was now, and I was reality. I saw the figures of people, completely excited, as if in exploration of this futuristic, elaborate, dark city. I felt the creeping hands of which I could not mistake, My love, Caitlin, the one who was always there, and was here, now. She rubbed her nose to my neck, and said, “Can you carry me on your back?” Reluctantly I did. The thoughts of field trips sped to me like a freight train. The grip of control of the underlying, overbearing, five-sided fist-a-gon which was the school, now took presence. Rebellion in me crept out, creating more obvious contrast between me and what was, everything else.

I walked with my love on my back, freely, through the windy, labyrinthine city, which, in my head, was Seattle. It was intricate, nocturnal, like Batman’s infamous Gotham City. We all reached a long pool of water; as we gazed, the gray roof of some distant structure covered us.

“This is like no other city I’ve been to. Seattle is beautiful, because you can’t tell the end from the beginning, or the difference between one building and the next. Everything is interconnected, like an architectural surreality of Dr. Seuss.”

I said these words within the dream, why?  I’ll never ever know. But, through these lines, the personality of my human form cast through, temporarily pulsing aside the animal in me, the dreamer in me.

We wandered, admiring the intricate, twining caverns of “Seattle,” as the plot watered down, winded down, and the thick blackness rolled over again, like hills over a horizon line. We sat, in a dark parking lot, cars scarcely littered. The familiarity of the people around me told me they were my friends. We exited the cars, Caitlin on my back, and headed toward what looked like an amusement park, but was the same city as before, this “Seattle.” The city was in intense excitement and celebration, for what purpose did not matter. The mere idea that we would join them and celebrate alone, was all we needed to seduce us. It was now her and I, Caitlin and me. I heard my friends complain in the distance, that she owned me, that …I wouldn’t be around… I felt embarrassment, I felt…loneliness…

I ran ahead, feeling, savoring her tight grasp around my neck, her pressing her cheek to mine. I was out of breath when we got there, my friends already there, had left us…As I walked, I looked back at her, to see that she was younger now, at what age, I do not know. She did not seem younger than before to me, for within dreams, there is no before. There is no time, for there is no progressing memory, just me and now, as One. Dreams are a parallel plane to “reality,” and the deepest link between life and death.

We felt abandoned, watching the tall building produce clamor and party favors, overflowing with fun. We walked the near vacant city, her and I, and entered a far, back alley, as dark as a cave. In it, sat several kids from our school, none very dangerous, but none that we favored. One girl made a whipping motion with her hand to me; others laughed and called me “bitch.” Consumed with disgust and longing for solitude, I sped my pace, her and I together. The alleyway enclosed, blended to become an unlighted hallway. We walked, or should I say, I walked, until we reached a doorway, an open space leading to a room, covered in dust. I entered, revealing a single platform, covered in videotapes of horror films.

I gazed the surface at the many films: The Fly, Suspiria, The Evil Dead, Creepshow, Cujo, The Exorcist, The Shining. I had seen them all as I walked across, as if walking on eggs. Kaitlin cried out. I put her to the floor. Her lips had black and red lipstick; her eyes had black eye shadow. I noticed now, she was younger even still, than the two other before’s. She stammered out indecipherable words. It was apparent to me that she was the girl she always was to me, just in the body of her past self, a mere infant. She went into an insane seizure state, as I panicked to find help. I got up, with her in my arms, and I slipped!

Black.

Suddenly we woke up in a bed, the most enormous bed, miles long. My love and I, in each other’s arms, in her youngest age, and the millions of Seattle partiers, all tucked away safely into this irrationally long bed, fit for a thousand kings. Morning stung like hornets to our eyes. The other people vanished to the light, like vampires faded into sand, clinging to their loves. I looked in her eyes; she was her normal age, her normal mind. I kissed her tenderly on the forehead, as the bright of the sun, molded to darkness once again, blending that same contrast, which annunciated the two, distinguished our existence. As the darkness thickened, so it thinned. The ink subsided, settled like a snow globe after a long storm.

“Matthew! Time for church!” my mother called into my room. I had woken, returned to “reality” once again. I rose out of my bed at 8:15 am, and dressed for mass in misery and amusement. Through my dream, I felt rejuvenated, I felt the infinite darkness inside me bloom, the everlasting nocturnality spread through my veins like blood. Ironically, I played a Marilyn Manson song, and went to mass.

There, it felt like one humongous joke, the punch line being, “Jesus saves.” It was not a joke to me, though, because, personally, I held no real opinions either way. I did not believe. I agreed with certain aspects, yet kept my neutral distance. It was their “reality,” and so be it. For that one hour of mass I joined their “reality,” and almost enjoyed it. Mass started and ended, and when I got home, I began to write this story of my dream, to you all.



The Guppy



The boy knew the earth was round, but when he glanced again, he saw it had all turned flat like old soda, like a head that has lost its hair, or the fresh green lawn, wintered off.



Mother had always said to stay in school, to hide the tears that always seemed to drown his eyes. But fish never drown. Fish can hold their breath for always and always seemed like forever to him.



He was six years old, and he held his breath like the strongest fish does. Those fists flew fast, shattering the glass self-esteem he held. They never ever ceased to look past his swampy eyes. They were constant as the mountains never toppled, never conquered.



The boy knew his name was Jimmy, that’s what his father said, “ For all Jimmies were men, not boys!” Jimmy knew the world was flat, for Jimmy knew it all, but when he glanced again, he saw himself as James.





Archibald Stegosaurus



Oh, the boot but spits into the moment

Standing on the edge of every spur

Stretched out tall to summon all

To hear the fruits that pour from labor born

On a cold and edgy moment’s lip

Death makes life seem so alive

Within a deadly state

So close I feel its hot breath

Upon the edge of my diving board lip

With an angry engine rearing to dig into me

The more I see of death

Is the more I see of life

Ever stabbing me with eager spurs

Spitting dirt up from the tired earth

On the spur of every moment



Coil



The spider's web's been cast

The spider's spell's been spun

To trap the deepest contemplations

To venture every seven sea

To coil down the spiral staircase spine

And conjure boiling life

From a cold shoulder cloud

As the storm collects, advances

And all the spiders scurry

To their hidden burrow

And set their three course meals

For the rain to wrinkle all away

And crash the scrapers of the sky

Scraping skies to bitter skin

The spider's web's been cast

The spider's spell's been spent.





Frown



The crown of thorns

Sinks deep into

The soil of a heavy head

To plant a seed and rot

For loss is but a frown

And loss is but a simmer in the cheeks

Like an ocean tide

Calming down and dying

Loss is but a wrinkle in the flaccid bone

And loss is but the tallest crown to bear

A bend in the vacant heart

And when the blood and tears are spent

And dried upon the coldest memories

Worlds moan like wolves

Sadder still...



Garfield



This is the second story, if it isn't obvious enough. It's basically a story taken out of my own personal torment of the time, put into something philosophical and touching at the same time. The name of the character, "Garfield", really has no significance; it's just a name. Just a note...





Garfield looked at himself in the stained, discolored bathroom mirror of the old house. His eyes gazed his barren head. What had once been a blooming garden, thick with young hair, had decayed to a desertous wasteland of baldness. His scalp shone with a daring pink. His smooth skin had puckered to form a wrinkled, thick surface. His chest was flopped downward. His hearing dwindled, teeth vacant, vision shrank, and the sour scent of pipe tobacco was thick upon his tux. Where had it gone? Where were all his years now? The summer of youth had wintered off, the day bruised into night.



Death was always the thing that kept him living, but as he felt its clammy grip upon his steady heart, upon the rope around his neck, he felt otherwise. He sweated like an angry rainstorm, brewing thunder. Death made life worth living for Garfield, but now he regretted ever thinking such a thought. Death was not what made life worth living, he realized. Death was what made life a slow decay, a dying flower. He regretted all those years of useless thought. Life, now, was not a present, death was a present, life the past. He then realized that in order to die, one must live in turn. They were equal, parallel, and perpetually dependent upon each other.



A tear sprouted from his brown eye, like a newborn from a broadened womb. His eyes were the only things not completely encumbered by age, though his vision had dulled. Garfield’s eyes were constant, a steady infancy. He tightened the rope, the knot within his throat even more intense. He had no control over when he died, until now. He would die of his own hands, his whole life within his palms. He felt the thrill of playing God, of clutching death for himself, by his own watch, not time’s watch. He kicked the chair out from under him, and was suspended by the noose. The tear plunged to the floor, a silent plummet. It splattered.



It was Garfield’s 100th birthday that day, and what was left for his family was found. It seemed his generation had been edging to extinction. His sisters and brothers were all long dead, as were their spouses. He never married.

Nomenclature of the Unwilling



A rich man's glass is never empty

Never full

Never too heavy to behold

As he kills for meat

As he kills for sport

For ants only survive not live

Paper or plastic

Credit or debit

Ants will never overflow

For an anthill is never empty

Never full

Just mere surviving meat

And surviving sport

Never to live life

To the fullest of the glass

Drowning every animal

Who comes to draw a sip

And as I step upon the ant hill

To stomp the fire out

I paint slow reflections

Upon the frail glass of life

To dive deeper still

Slowly surviving



Humid



The ink of the octopus

Spreads virally

Within the deepest stomach

Of the blackest sea

Like a village

Guzzled and drowned

In the dry fount of famine

Like a vice upon its prisoner

Released



Tall



Tall is the burden

Tall is the order

Tall is the crown on his head

Tall is the busy heart

Tall is the busy life

Tall is me in all degree

Spiral panorama

Spiral getting shorter

Everyday



Paper in Plastic



Note: This is not at all targeted at anyone at all, in any way, including but not limited to violent acts, threats, or references. It’s just a story.

This story, sort of in time with The Simpson’s episode in which the baggers go on strike in the grocery store, is about what it would be like if a cashier did not withhold his restraint. As you may know, I work at Fitzgerald's Foods as a cashier, and throughout each shift I come across people of all calibers. But, it is always these sort of people that bother me, the ones who are apathetically and unhelping of the work I am doing for them. It's sort of a climax, in a way.





It seemed to never end: the infinite pattern of the humming scanner, the huge train of people, and the stone stress that sat comfortably in the pit of his heart. He felt like an apple core rotting in the icy air. He wanted everything to quit his cursed grocer job at Bohregard’s Foods. But he knew deep down, he’d be here all the same tomorrow.



Had he taken his pills today? It seemed like a thick fog to his memory, the recent past did. The people passed, shifted their position from on deck to the batter’s box. The lady was incredibly short pygmy almost, and looked like she would shrivel up into some sort or raisin. She had old hair with the slight tint of olive green. It reminded him of dead grass. He rang her up robotically: two rolls of Scott toilet paper, a box of Tampax, Herbal Essences shampoo, and a carton or Virginia Slims. His throat shuddered at the hideous thought of what she’d be doing with the items.



“Paper in plastic!” the old hag demanded with an impatient crack of the voice. It was more like the crack of the whip in Peter’s eyes, and he groaned with irritation. He felt that insatiable instinct to burst like a balloon too full of helium. The doctor’s ad told him to suppress himself in times like these. He had been to St. Mark’s Asylum 14 times this year, a personal record.



“Have a nice day” he growled through his teeth. Those words were the four words he always had to say, which emphasized the bleak superiority of the customer. Peter, with all his efforts to reach their level, was always, in the end, forced to his lower level. He hated service, and he hated people, and he hated repetition.



The next customer shifted up. It was Mrs. Margaret Michaels, the owner’s wife. Peter had always had a deep crush on her, but who wouldn’t if you saw her fair, ageless face? If you knew her as closely and intimately as he did? Yet, she was ashamed. She knew where she stood in the hierarchy compared to him, and pretended not to recognize him. He rang her up, bagging her stuff pathetically.



“Oh, I wanted paper in plastic,” she suddenly announced arrogantly. He groaned, irritated, just as he did before. He noticed the dead repetition again, the faceless customers with all the same expectations and wants.



“Have a nice day…Have a nice fucking day!” He exploded. Peter had snapped. The balloon had finally tolerated all the helium it could. He lunged at her. She shrieked in terror and ran for the office. Peter lay on the floor in tears. Charlie, the owner, ran out in frustration. He grabbed the phone and pressed the speed dial for St. Mark’s Asylum. He then grabbed his wife protectively.



“You’re fired from my store as of this moment,” he said in dull apathy. The asylum workers showed up, and Peter cried the whole way there, wailing the same four words he always had to say.



Several minutes passed inside the gaping walls of commerce, where the crowd of people stood in deafening silence. Then, in morbid denial, the endless rhythm of the store took its grasp, the lines kept moving, as if nothing had disturbed it.



Soilstorm



Dimitri sat in the beanbag chair, playing his old 80s Nintendo and listening to that song by "Gene Loves Jezebel." His throat quivered to hold back tears, as he fished through the soil of his thoughts, ever-so- thick with memories. They were fresh to him that phone call with his only love. He felt as if he sat in a hurricane, and he waited in its winking eye.



        Mario bounced along his merry way on his television screen. Dimitri stared back blankly, absorbed and drowned in thought. What went wrong? Why had she gotten so upset? He felt that wretched stone of despair settle comfortably in his stomach. He was the real wretch. He was the real screw-up, he thought. The night rambled on as his eyes aged and soon died. The stone in his stomach was now a mountain, as he weeped away to a desperate slumber.



Gironimo



Delicate Love

The most mild pink

Of the needle teething

Like hell frozen stiff

Bauling icicles

In the most speechless winter

Lost for words

Lifeless as a parachuting snow

Blanketing the autumn distant

White surface curtaining

Delicately wrinkled

Delicately loved

In clueless stupor

Bliss



Phantom Baphomet



Wolf of the furthest winter

Swept up every crumb I've dropped

To someday find my way out

Eons of an ever melancholy

Slowly leaking out the mouth

Of the volcano

Wolf of the keenest heart

Preserved like slowly dying

Chrysanthemums

Eons of the stretching tongue

Stuck tight to the stiffened winter

Long



Pure & still



A circle bent into an oval

Moved its spine

And broke its back

Mutter of the softest furl

Conceived of frail tongue

A circle but a hole

A hole but a window

Pure negating black

Mutter of the faintest voice

Ethereal blister

In one smooth fade

The warp within the oval

The perpetuation within

A circle

Pale as thin whispering

Pure and still



Mercy Me



I’ve always admired political satire, for its strange bends and its enigmatic depths. I remember, throughout my days, reading such books as The Giver, 1984, and Brave New World, and absolutely idolizing the piece. I remember hoping, someday, to write my own satire, to create a twist upon a flaw of humanity, or a political indent in the seamless hierarchy of the government. In this story, I bring up the question, “what is reality?” I answer it, too, with, “Reality is within the mind. It’s a perpetual change, constantly in complete metamorphosis.”

I created Dimitri from myself, taking my own polygon of a personality and warping it, into this ladies’ man, this school rebel, this intense philosopher. I must admit, too, these factors do reside in myself, in a milder sense. On the other hand, I do tend to be a real philosopher. The other characters were all people from my own life, warped into a mere few. Becca represents not one particular person, but all girls in general, who I’ve had a sort of connection to, on many levels, though remain as a superficial figure. Clark represents a merge of two of my friends from school. No, Ms. Mudd is not a representation of Mr. Mudd, the English teacher at SHS. “Mudd” was just a name taken from him, and has no real meaning beyond the story. She, as a character, represents an abstract companion, a personal answer to the questions of my life, a positive ion to even out my negativity…

But, enough from me…



Chapter One



My name is Dimitri. I don’t know where in hell my parents came up with such a horrid name, but I suppose it doesn’t matter much. I am here to tell you a story, which I assume you are expecting, seeing as you decided to open my book. I live here in the wretched town of Thorosberg, the deadest pit of suburbia. I am not, what you would call, a conformist. I am a very dark person, as you will learn later on. A lot of times, I feel like undeveloped film in a black-room, shriveling up as someone opens the door, exposing me to the piercing light. I am a junior now, here at Thorosberg High, and I yearn very much to be done with all of this, the suffocating school, the insensitive people, and ignorant atmosphere, which I absolutely despise.



I sat there, alone and scared in the stall, hoping, praying that Judd and his band of unrelenting bullies would be dumb enough not to come in here. It was the Monday after Christmas vacation, and as much as I had comforted myself into thinking they’d all forget me, it started strongly as it had been before. My bottom lip trembled in worry. I was cutting study hall again, something I always did 6th period. Detentions just never bothered me, or ever broke my spirits as they were intended.



A few minutes passed, and I came to the conclusion that they had either forgotten about me, or lost interest. My heartbeat became milder, and I opened the stall, slowly revealing the empty, disgusting school bathroom. The mirror was adjacent to the stall I had stowed myself in, and I stepped up to it to examine myself. Yes, it was safe to say that acne had invaded and conquered this sixteen-year-old face. As I stood, shaking my head in shame, I thought about the situation that had put me in this stall, and I thought maybe I had asked for it. Just 10 minutes ago, I was standing in the third floor stairwell, looking out the wall fully made of glass, watching the snow fall idly. Precipitation always caught my eye, snow in particular. To me, it was one of the most mesmerizing things to view in the world. The stairwell was a much better place for doing so than the cramped study hall classroom with a bitchy old teacher and a window the size of an air conditioner. I would often sit and watch, just for the sake of watching, in a dull, early afternoon such as this. Anyway, back to my story, I was watching the snow, as I saw Judd, Paul, and Mike, a few of his buddies, walk up from outside and start throwing snowballs like stupid apes who had taken too many queludes. Then, Mr. Zanithcus , one of the two vice principals here, walked out and yelled at them, I could not help but laugh when I heard him suspend the three of them. Then, suddenly, Judd looked up and saw me. I gave them all the finger and took off, as they headed inside after me.



I splashed a bit of water on my face to calm myself down. Just as I did so, a friend of mine, Clark, came into the room. Clark was a very talented kid I knew from art class. His biggest aspiration was to be a photographer. Now, I have seen his work, and he is not a very good photographer. The focus is all wrong, no composition, his photos all suck. But, when I said talented, I mean in ceramics. He can come up with the most astounding, incredible sculptures you’d ever see.  As much as he admired photography, and even idolized the art, everyone knew, maybe even he knew, he had no business behind the camera.



“Dimitri, how’s it going. Whoa what happened? Are you ok? You look all shaken up,” he said, followed by a concerned sort of stare.



I shook my head in disgust, telling him not to go there. It’s nothing, really,” I replied quickly. Bullies were a topic we both toiled with in those four years of roaming the halls of Thorosberg High, but it was the one thing that was just left unsaid. Maybe it was a sense of shame, letting another male push you around that prevented us from discussing it. Maybe it was just a sensitive topic for the both of us, but whatever the reason, it was left unsaid.



“Well, you better watch it. Ms. Langer knows you’re cutting. She called a security guard to look for you, just so ya know.” I didn’t care much, but it was nice to know.

“By the way, I like your shirt, where’d you acquire such a garment?” I asked with a mock English eloquence to my voice. It was a Frontline Assembly T-shirt, from their new recording. They play very electronic music, a style most people in this area are not familiar with. Clark and I were pretty much the only two people I knew listened to such a selection. For me, it was a sweet escape, to a world that only seemed to exist in the imagination. Clark was a very industrial-sort of person. He loved the industrial culture: the music, the style, and the German background. He loved it so much that it took him into his own fascination with war. He planned to join the Marines after high school. He had a very built stature, one that he had very recently grown into. His personality seemed to flourish almost from being a pathetic little nerd obsessed with war novels and video games, to this big, intellectual young man.



“Oh, I bought this online. Here, ya want the website?” I wrote it on the back of my hand, a habit I always seemed to keep.



“Why are you out of class? Are you skippin’ too?” I asked with a slight tint of playful suspicion.



“Nah, I’m just emptying the gas tank ya know?” he said as he stepped up to the middle urinal and assumed the position.



“Well, I’ll see ya later,” I said, my good bye finalizing the conversation and the encounter. The rancid stench of cigarette smoke and feces was starting to hurt my head. I left the bathroom and took a right down the hall. I strolled aimlessly; eavesdropping momentarily on each class that was going on, teachers droning on in Spanish or French. I was on the third floor, in the language department. I walked by Mrs. Caneski’s classroom and waved. She ignored me, for she was busy trying to calm down her rowdy class. She was my teacher in 9th grade, the year I received the nickname, “Gizmo,” a name I’ve given up trying to smother. It came from the gremlin named Gizmo from the old “Gremlins” movies from the 80s. The people who made it up used it as an insult, saying I look like the character. As the name grew better known, people used it loosely, not as an insult, but just as a name. Most people do not even know the origins of my nickname anyway. It’s funny to me how a heavy dosage of exposure can pathetically form a neutral basis on which society views things, in this case people seeing me as Gizmo, rather than as Dimitri.



I entered the nearest stairwell and descended to the first floor, to visit the art classrooms. These stuffy rooms filled with art supplies were my sanctum, rooms I’ve grown to use and love. A class was in session, but art students like myself were allowed to work quietly on art projects. I ritualistically went to the cubby shelves and selected a drawing I had been working on for the past few weeks and sat down to work.



Mrs. Gladstone looked at me in a way, as if to be interrupted, and told me that if I were to work, I had to keep my voice down. I nodded quickly. I noticed a seat over by Becca, a sophomore whom I always had a thing for. She was a beautiful girl with long, wavy hair that draped like curtains over her shoulders. Her protruding breasts seemed to bloom like sweet fruit on the tips of frail tree branches, ripe enough for picking. She was 5’1”, with huge brown eyes that matched the many shades of blonde and dark brown that all merged to make up the colors of her hair. We loved to share stories of our day, along with philosophical ideas and poetry we had recently written. The two of us were, in a sense, a “silent couple,” in that we have always been very flirtatious toward each other, but nothing ever came from it.



“Dimitri, are you skipping again?” she asked, absent-mindedly placing her pencil on her moist tongue, analyzing my dark, intense appearance. I couldn’t help but blush, and I gave her a guilty look.



“Ah, well. Listen, would you happen to have a smoke I could bum?” She was a huge mooch when it came to cigarettes, but I didn’t mind bumming her one.



“Yeah, sure.” I reached into the dark cavity of my pocket, and slipped her a Camel out of my pack. I handed it to her under the table covertly, and continued drawing.



“Thanks. So, how are you, Hun? Did I tell you what I overheard?” I replied no. “Well, in field ecology, I was dozed off as I always am, but Mr. Armheart woke me up, for the first time in I dunno how long.”

“Yeah, and…?” I could see this story was going nowhere, but I sat there in a puddle of boredom, trying to be patient. If I had heard this story just 5 days later, my sarcastic nature would never have been present.



“I’m getting to it. Relax! Well, I heard Chris McGraw and Phil Chattam talking about the teachers. They were talking about how Phil was told some rumor about the teachers taking over the football team, and how the system was planning on changing tradition, in which the teachers play football, instead of the students. It sounds stupid but, I dunno, Dimitri… I’ve always noticed a sort of severe emotional distancing between the faculty and the student body, especially when it comes to organized sports. Do you remember last year? When the coaches were accused of sabotaging the games, so that the team lost?”



I sat there, somewhat dumbfounded. I played the odds in my head. It was one thing I never thought that our faculty was against the student body. I did remember a small teachers’ strike in our school about 5 years ago. I was in middle school, but it was all over the news. Apparently, since it is illegal for teachers to hold strikes, many arrests, resignations, and firings took place. I remember hearing the reasons for their strike included unfair wages, too many hours, and too much involvement with students. In a way, I could almost see where this blooming conspiracy could have originated. I was not easily drawn into such idiocy without decent facts, especially if Becca had heard it from Chris and Bill, the biggest meatheads you will ever meet.



“So, whadaya think? What should we do?” Becca cut my thought stream short, and looked deep into my eyes with stone seriousness I’ve never seen on her before.



“I think you should know better to believe people like that,” was my only reply. We didn’t say another word to each other for the rest of the period. I was too engulfed in my own drawing. It was a portrait of Marilyn Manson, a man whose always fascinated me, to this very day. His complete absorption in his own self amazed me. Oh, what an artist he was, what a crazy, genius man. I was never one to heed to the pop culture and cripple my own sense of judgement, and replace my freewill with whatever my TV tells me, so I was not taken in by all the rumors of him. On some level, the rumors seemed to intensify his bleak appeal. It is very interesting how all of these false rumors have formed his image, and defining his own appearance as a person. It is very frightening to think that false rumors like these are so defining and significant in society.



In the drawing, he was posing for a photograph, with a dull yellow tint, sort of symbolizing the stale of glam, in my own views. He had his usual black make-up and accessories. I started out with charcoal, and now was creating more of a composition with watercolors.



The bell rang, notifying its pathetic flock of students that it was time for the last period of the day. I tediously lifted my weigh of my slim, muscular body out of the seat, and as I did, I approached Becca, as if greeting her after a long parting. I whispered the words into her unsuspecting ear, “Wherever this tide of rumors tilts, I will always love you,” and I tickled her ear with my tongue momentarily. She shoved her ear down to her shoulder, playfully avoiding me. She turned her face toward mine in a subtle desire, and grasped me to her perfect body. I rubbed my arm up and down her back in a steady rhythm, kissed her cheek quickly and left.



Chapter Two



“…Our school, to me, is just another example of how this entire species called humans depend on basis, a set time. They need that pathetic, ritualistic life in order to be happy. Bells must all ring precisely on time, lunch must always come. To me, it is a waste of precious life. It’s always seemed awkward to me to call ourselves, “human.” This gives us a set name, that we are, were, and always shall be, which I’ll never believe is accurate. All of existence is relative. We’ll never ever comprehend its entirety, partially because of this. We are never the same, ever. You, reader, before picking up this book, were different, in that you had not yet read my book, but right now, you are aware of what happenings I have just told you about. My point is, every moment, life shifts its gears like a bicycle, all of reality as we know it has changed, and the larger amounts of time in which change has occurred, the more obvious it is to us. That is how scientists recognize evolution of living things…”

I sat there in English class, draining myself of thoughts in to an old journal, which was almost full. I knew I was soon to buy another one. My serene thoughts were scratched out suddenly when Chris McGraw entered the room with his usual obnoxious nature.



“Fuck dude, I’ll slit her throat! I swear that fuckin gypsy is up to somethin’!” Chris said with his surfaced idiocy and racist self. His nostrils flared like an exhaust pipe on a hot rod. I rolled my eyes lazily and buried my head in my arms like an ostrich, intent on pretending not to exist for the time being. Chris kept going on about how our English teacher, Ms. Mudd. She was a young, intelligent, beautiful woman who was a bit on the bohemian side, a style that was appealing to me.

The rest of the class arrived momentarily, as did Ms. Mudd. She walked in with a slightly heightened speed and an uneasy, almost limpid quality about her mood. She addressed the class, revealing to me the reasons planted beneath her.

“Ok, guys. Before we start, I think we should talk about what most of you probably have already heard. It’s true… I’m a Wiccan…” She bowed her head, and raised it, as if responding to a random noise. “This does not make me a bad person, or a bad teacher, or a dangerous one either. We live in a free country and are free to religious practice of our choosing. Now, are there any questions before I move on?”

Chris jumped at this opportunity. “Yeah, I was wondering if you could turn this asshole into a toad, cuzz he owes me 10 bucks.” He threw his thumb clumsily in the direction of some faceless jock. The class laughed, all except for a few students, myself included. Ms. Mudd stood there with a hurt look, trying to hold back tears.

“And…others?” she said between the lump in her throat.

“Yes, I have a question.” It was Kitty James, a shy girl whom no one ever really talks to. “Are Wiccans able to tell the future?” A low moan of chuckles stirred within the room, but Kitty’s face was serious.

“Well, there are ways to, yes, Kitty---“ was her response.

“What do you think of this day?” I asked suddenly with a numb sounding voice. The class was silent. Ms. Mudd stared blankly into space, as if creased at the centerfold of her attention. There was a 15-second pause, and she responded.

“I-I…see me after class, Mr. Forrester,” she turned her back to me in a final sleek glance, sort of trying to sink the spade deeper into my layers, and assure me that she meant well. “Are there any other questions?” was her ending line of the topic.

Class dragged on. We were reading, in class, 1984 by George Orwell, a novel none of them could grasp. 1984, in its entirety, was a phenomenon of such incredible proportions. We discussed the obvious elements of the work. We discussed Orwell’s stunning prediction of the world being broken into three separate superpowers, the manipulation and everlasting dominance of the Brotherhood, etc, etc. But, the thing I always loved and noticed about this novel, was the underlying moral, which we never touched in class. It was that we, as a society, are losing all the elements that make us human beings, through exposure to propaganda and government control. This was evident in the book when people’s actual ability to think was erased. The underlying philosophy I drew from this is that humanity is on a gradual downfall.

I realized this entire downward spiral started in the formation of communication. When we started to speak, we expressed our emotions and thoughts into concrete understanding. But, our feelings are so intense, and so complex, that we could never express them into mere words. Words are just empty symbols there to settle confusion. Little-by-little, language has sunk into our thought patterns, and although language has served as an actual direction to our thoughts, it cripples them to mold to the, oh, so limited amount of words, sounds, and expressions a language includes. I think to myself, often, how incredible our species could be, if that basis did not exist, how unimaginably brilliant.

Class soon ended, and I reached down to pick up my bag, which I had covered with an assortment of materials and patches. School was out, so I was in no hurry to get my talk with Ms. Mudd over with. I walked up the aisle and stood in front of her.

“You wanted to talk?” I asked almost in a withdrawn shyness to my voice.

“Sit down, Dimitri,” was her reply. I did so in the nearest desk. She sat down in her oversized teachers’ desk as well.

“What do you think of them? This, freshly grown crop of rumors spread about the school, Dimitri? I’m sure you’ve heard much of them.”

“Well…I really don’t know what to think. I’ve never been one to listen or take part in the whole rendition of spreading rumors. But that’s all they are, right? Plain old conspiracies?” I looked up into her big brown eyes.

“In a way, Dimitri, they are never just conspiracies. Would you agree?” I gave her a perplexed look. “Okay. Think of it this way. Living things as they evolve, adapt to fit their surroundings. Cactuses evolved to survive with little water because they live in the desert. Fish have grown with fins and gills because they live in water. Following?” In nodded with an intrigued eye. “Well, humans are the exact same way. Live, existence, the moment, is such a relative idea, that it is so obvious man has always been troubled by the meaning behind it. But, we become accustomed to things, and standards are set, including conspiracies. It is my belief, Dimitri that 99% of reality is within our separate minds. For example, we believe, as a mass, that the sky is blue, grass is green. It’s a known fact, right?” I nodded understandingly. “Well, if we all started saying the sky was green and the grass is blue, so it would be. Humans see and hear what they want to. If they want to believe rumors, those rumors become a truth, almost…”

“Not exactly a truth, but an acceptance of a truth. There is no specific truth, I think. Because truth is something that is defined as specific reality, would you agree, Ms Mudd?” I was inspired to spill my thoughts.

“Yes, go on,” she replied.

“Well, you believe in reincarnation. That’s what Wiccans believe right?”

“More or less.”

“Well, someone else, say a Christian, will say we go to heaven or hell when we die. What makes your explanations more significant than theirs? Or vice-versa? Our opinions, explanations, even our thoughts are so insignificant in the scheme of things, that there is no telling if there is a truth, or not, or a single truth. Whatever we believe, we still die just the same, so it doesn’t really matter much.

“You may be right, Dimitri.” She sat there with her head resting in her porcelain head, like a planet resting comfortably in the hands of time, cradled, twirling like a basketball on the fingertip. My mind was drifting on her image.

“All I’m saying…is that truth is relative…” were the words I seemed to come up with, for I was mesmerized by her beauty. She leaned forward then and placed her dainty hands on my cheeks, holding my head gently as she had her own.

“You are an amazing person, Dimiri,” she whispered in my ear. The she cocked her head to the side, and pressed her lips to mine and kissed me, thirsting, begging for my own reply, as I slid my fingers slowly up the back of her neck affectionately.

She suddenly stopped, removing my hand from her neck.

“I’m sorry, Dimitri. You’re my student,” She lowered her head shamefully.

I reached for her.

“No, Dimitri…No…”



Chapter Three



“…Why, Journal? Is it me who drove her away?… We’ve been somewhat flirtatious all school year, a vague, hard-to-get flirtation. Why now, right when it has ripened to its peak, must it stale? Can’t it plateau, prolong? Why, Journal? Is it me who drove her away…?”

I sat in my large, overly soft Papasan chair in my dark, dense room, writing about the afternoon. Dinner was over, and my family had gone to bed. I looked up slowly from my work, draining of words to write. I looked around my ambient room. I could feel it, become it. The Beethoven symphony in the background mixed me well, blended me in, vagued the obvious; the incense burned, smoke thickening the brooding, drowsy atmosphere. The dim light, smoothing out the corners of every certainty. I saw all the artwork on my four walls, strange surreal images I had created all myself. I thought to myself, “What a mind, to conceive such a crop of work, what a strange, creepy, incredible mind I have.”

I was a night owl, and I loved it. I was like a vampire of every enchantment. When the sun went to sleep, my coffin door slowly lifted, to reveal my real self. I tried to put Ms. Mudd’s face out of my mind, to look at her superficially. She was right. That line between teacher and student couldn’t be bent or snapped, or faded…

I thought about the day, the real matter that I knew should be of higher priority. The rumors. I had talked to a friend of mine online, Justin Grange. He was Wiccan, like Ms. Mudd, and a genius with computers. They were two traits you’d never think to see within the same person. He was a very intelligent and intense character.

Anyway, Justin had heard much of the same rumors that the teachers were up to something. He had some interesting stories, such as the lunch ladies supposedly putting ex-lax in the food. Strangely, no one was hitting the toilets after lunch though. The janitors, also, supposedly stole clothes out of school lockers late last night. It seemed to me, that this whole warped conspiracy had become a dull, familiar dogma. It had started when Mr. Ferris, a grumpy old music teacher of 65 years, yelled at some students for smoking outside his house.

Justin and I shared many interesting ideas about the whole thing. Normally, it was never an interest to us to think of such idiotic cliché high school rumors. But, we did not focus our thoughts upon the rumors, rather the people believing them. I mentioned to him that an organized society relies upon basis, and these rumors shall soon become a basis. People will just come to believe and know as a fact that the faculty is the student body’s perpetual opponent. It will become a neutral basis that people will simply believe as truth. Racism was the same way. We cannot have order without racism, because then there is no comfort within a single environment. Racism is a very unnatural, synthetic concept, which is why I also declared to him that we, as a species of nature, are bred into chaos. Order never works, nor is it natural.

He mentioned then, that chaos means ignorance, as well. But, in my own opinion, chaos is not ignorance, chaos is confusion, which is already an overwhelming ambience to the human mind. We will always be within chaos about existence and reality, or lack there of. Ignorance is vacancy. Chaos can never be vacant, for chaos requires knowledge in order to be chaotic.

All of these thoughts swarmed my mind like bees to a hive. I lit a cigarette and dragged on it deeply. I got up from the nest-like chair and turned on the tube, slowly revealing a Seinfeld rerun. I quickly turned it off and sat on my bed. I read my book and smoked my cigarette and went to bed.

As the fatigue drugged me, I was soon asleep, and descended deep into the same immortal plot. I was dreaming. Fear drenched my salivating mind as I saw the man, neither bigger nor older than I did, in an SS uniform. I was soon to find out he was Adolph Hitler, and I was the Jew. I was abused, battered, almost killed until the Russians came and freed me. He was a monster, a merciless monster suddenly parted from his tight fist of control.

It was modern-day, and yet we both had not aged a moment. Hitler was beaten, battered, abused his entire life, and on the verge of death as two 700-pound wrestlers pounded him mercilessly with large objects. The crowd was unbelievably intense, jeering the dictator and cheering on the beating. His entire life up until now had been like this, and in one sick, morbid moment, I may have felt mercy, for him.



Chapter 4



I woke up in utter perplexity, drenched in sweat. I could feel the dream, still moist within my mouth. I could feel it slowly fade, slip away into the oblivion of forgotten memories. I had a huge cramp in the back of my neck, as if my spine had turned to wood, refusing to move without rasping out in pain.

The time. What was it?

It was still dark out, and the clock said four o’clock. The squeezing fuzz of fatigue gripped me hard, as I smiled with sweet relief. I turned over, soaking in the thick comfort of my bed. My mind slipped slowly back into a thrust of flowing statements, making absolutely no sense and the piercing wail of surreal forms in my head. They were the things that willed me: nonsense and surreality.

**********************************



It was nothing. The radio was burst wide open with the voice of Howard Stern. My ventures had passed. I got up and got in the shower, lazily rubbing the shrunken bar of soap into my skin. The kink in my neck still dwelled, recovering the memories of the nightmare. Had I actually felt MERCY for the one person in all of history I loathed the most? It was the most unorthodox feeling I had ever felt.

“Obviously, Hitler committed suicide, making the dream historically inaccurate, and Hitler would never have been at a concentration camp. But these factors are irrelevant, really.” I mumbled these words without voice to myself.

It was as if I was the one, single insane person upon this earth, alone upon my plateau of pure unreason. I was the negative ion, suffocated by the positive ions, outnumbered. I felt like Alice, on the opposite end of the looking glass, peering back, as everyone enjoyed, lived, breathed the only true reality.

Maybe that was how it was between myself and the student body at school. It made perfect sense, I was the negative space, the undeveloped film exposed to the light. It was all clear. The mercy I felt, last night, was a representation of myself, the living irony, black within a sea of white.

On the bus, indulged with the sweet milk of music in my head set, I spoke briefly with Clark, who rode the same bus route.

“Did you hear about the teachers? They’re all against us. It’s us and them, Dimitri.” I felt the clammy superficiality of our friendship slowly unwind and disappear, a very awkward feeling.

“You actually believe that? I mean, it seems a bit irrational, don’t you think?”

“Have two thousand people every been wrong?” I didn’t even touch that question.

At school, I seemed to be the only skeptic. How had such an idiotic rumor been spread so abundantly, and at such an amazing rate? It was absolutely baffling. Now, I must go on with my story.



******************************



I made my way to the cafeteria, at lunchtime. The thick, hot fog of the crowd swallowed me up, drowning me. There seemed to be an unusual, impending unfriendliness, more than before, like a dominant cold shoulder, cutting me off, distantly suspending me, transforming me into nothing. It was as if they could read my mind. I was a simple void in the raw matter of the pervading rumors, which had spread amongst them all like poisonous gas. We entered the café, one by one, two by two. I sat down by myself at a vacant table and ate the sandwich I had made myself the night before.

The chaotic storm of conversation flooded the room, as the hundreds of students mingled about this and that. I focused my eavesdropping thoughts upon the table closest to mine. Phil Chattam sat, ignoring a crude plate of cheap nachos he had purchased. He was focusing his anger and rage upon a girl by the name of Vicky Robinson. She was a girl of 16, the same age as me. She was pretty, tall, and somewhat popular. One thing I always liked about her was her unrelenting logic and free thought. She was in my geometry class last year and my algebra class this year. We never really talked, but I seemed to take notice of her every once in a while.

“You’re actually taking their side, Vick!?” Phil plunged his question upon her.

“What makes you think these idiotic rumors are true, anyway?! If you ask me, I feel sorry for them. You know how horrible it is, dealing with rumors?” she retaliated fearlessly.

Then Phil answered her with the most shocking thing to her, the most unpredictable answer I ever would have expected. When he said these words, I could see that they were now all the same, completely slave to the idea of the faculty here being an enemy to the student body. At that moment, it had all made sense to me now.

“Have two thousand people ever been wrong?!” he answered. They were the same words I had heard from Clark, concluding everything for me, answering every unbalanced question. Vicky stood up and slapped him across the face. She had lost her temper, and he had, too. He stood up and lunged at her in the form of a football player, a linebacker. It had drawn nearly the entire cafeteria’s attention, now, as Phil sat on her helpless body. He punched her square in the jaw. The crunch of bone breaking sizzled through my head like electricity through a carcass. He grabbed a plastic fork from the table as the crowd cheered him on, and he sank it into her left eye. She cried in dizzying pain, flailing her arms at him desperately. He got up and kicked her in the side one last time.

Mr. Zanithcus came running, as two security guards grabbed Phil by both arms. He struggled, fighting their grasp. Mr. Zanithcus knelt down in an extremely concerned fashion aside Vicky’s defeated body. He got up slowly, took off his sports jacket, and placed it over her face, solemnly. The crowd gasped suddenly as he began telling them off.



Chapter 5





I fled. I realized if she had been killed, I was sure to be next, eliminated, exterminated like a cockroach infesting a clean home. I exited the café out the far door, leading outside, and ran across the parking lot. I saw a car in the distance heading out, toward my direction. I tried to ignore it. Where was I to go? The startling cold of winter forced me into shivers, making my side cramp up. The car drew nearer as I kept running. I was half way across the parking lot, as the car pulled up, a 1995 Ford Taurus. Ms. Mudd sat behind the wheel, and waved her hand for me to enter the car. I opened the door and joined her. The smooth heat of the car stifled my shivers, as I sighed calmly. “We have to get out of here,” she said with an overly serious attitude, “I saw what happened in the cafeteria, and knew the rumors had taken over this town. You knew too…didn’t you…?” I nodded slowly. “We have to get out of here!”

“Where shall we go?” I asked, for her actions made very little sense to me.

“As far from here as possible…you and I…Trust me, Dimitri. They will kill us, too, eventually.” I knew she was right. These rumors were not like any other. They were an epidemic, slowly consuming everything. My life, up until now, had been dull, sheltered. Now I was sitting safe between the strong jaws of the Taurus, on our way to nowhere fast.

She turned on the cassette player and turned up the volume. I recognized the soft, melancholy sound of The Cure.

“You have wonderful taste, Ms. Mudd.” I looked up from my knees to her eyes.

“It’s Sabine, and thanks.”

“You’re welcome…Sabine…” The name dwelled thick on the sweetest tips of my taste buds. Sabine. The line between teacher and pupil was blurred, I felt.

She spoke, “I once wrote a story, Dimitri, about a man who hung himself on his 100th birthday. He reminded me so much of you, in my own mind…Not that I think you’d kill yourself…but, the man was in such despair, lost in deep insanity, engulfed in philosophical thought…I hope, one day, Dimitri, I see the day when I turn a hundred…”



Disasterpiece Cremations



The moth is but a staled butterfly

With graceful flight

Lusting over the sweet perfume

Companion of the endless night

Like a star that burns lukewarm

In the belly of a cave

Clearing out a path provoking

Spitting in the sun’s cruel eye

Blind him so slightly

For the moth is but a butterfly

The bat is a bird

The moth is but a rag



And you throw your darts

Like torpedoes set a-flight

And pin me to the wall

Grinding your sands between

Your salted teeth

I shy away

Withdrawn

For I am but a moth

Blackest bat about the cave

Blackest sun upon

The shore’s cruel lips



Sivs



Periscope blue vision

Expanse of the naked eye

Above and beyond

The endless desert

Like a picture sifted through

The lens of the camera

Soon exposed



Fiction Polaroids



Polaroids pale

Descending from your hands

Like a stale flock of maple leaves

Distilled by autumn friction

Polariods but flaccid funeral

As the piano laments but low

In one salivary

Release

As you release your memories

To the scorch of the bonfire

For polariods are ashes left behind

From the heat of the newborn moment

In one salivary

Release



Marooned

I wrote this story to portray some things I’ve learned from researching my topic. I learned from readers that they like an equal balance of depth and action. One reader’s favorite genre of literature is historical fiction, so I sort of built upon that idea and ran with it. The ideas, in a sense, are to question reality, and to never ever believe that one is alive or dead, but merely existing, to realize that the two, perhaps, are relative states, in parallel realities. The plot line itself was inspired by the short stories of Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka and the surrealism of Salvador Dali. It was meant to be the ending story of the book, but when “Everglades” was written, it was only fitting to put it second to last.



Call it an evolutionary spoof or a mix-up in the regulated chronology of time and present. All I know was, I woke up there, one morning. What year was it? God only knows. Why me, and then? Why, in general? This was the ultimate mystery to me.

My name is Jerry Winsted; I am 32 years old. I am a professional photographer in my small town of Plainville, Illinois. The night before the strange occurrence, I came home late from shooting a wedding. I was able to charge them $1,500, the going rate for my skill and talent. I guess you could say they were real partiers, because I got home at about 2:30 in the morning. Bianca, my wife of 14 years, didn’t mind my odd work hours.

When I woke up, there was nothing. No soft blankets or mattress, no steady ethereal breathing of Bianca’s sleeping form, just wind…torrential and merciless…was I in a desert? Yes. As consciousness slowly regathered in my head, I could feel the shifting of dense, boiling hot sand withstanding my weight of 136 lbs. I sat up, feeling the intensity of what seemed to be a sandstorm. Having fully awakened now, I panicked. My heart raced as I turned my head sharply in all directions, searching for signs of life, searching for answers, searching for anything at all. All I saw was the smooth perfect horizon line, bleak and flat, absolutely encumbering everything.

I soon calmed, after bawling for what felt like hours, and began to think rationally. Perhaps I was just mesmerized by such a sullen thrust of reality. I was alone, obviously, marooned to some place I could not locate with my own natural bearings. The land was familiar terrain, for we lived on somewhat desert-like land, only much less barren. Our community, over centuries of progress, sort of rejuvenated the land, planted crops, irrigated water into the fibers of the very soil.

I stood up, and bent backwards. A cramp slowly unraveled and subsided in me.

“I suppose there’s nothing to do but walk, until I find signs of civilization,” I muttered to myself. I was in the habit of talking to myself. It gave me sort of a special relationship with my conscience, like Pinocchio and the cricket. As I walked, I started growing light-headed after a while. I sat to rest my hazy head. I must be lost. There’s no better answer. But how the hell did I get here? I was absolutely baffled, and started to become upset again. I buried my head in my hands and wept, again.



Was I dreaming? There’s no way. There’s no logic. It was all too real, detailed…consistent. I noticed, when I dream, there is no specific scene, no definite plot, truth, or direction. That was the beauty of a dream. My mind was free of all reason, problems, and reality’s dull action-reaction structure with its bland basis upon nature. When I dreamed, I let go of everything, as if my very existence curled up, and hid within my head.

I was not dreaming. That much, now, was clear to me. My sobs were cut short by a long, smooth, melancholy noise, a strong low hum, of what no doubt came from an animal. It sounded like a muffled version of a droning didgeridoo. I looked up, startled, and saw the shape of…something…in the distance. Was I hallucinating? Was this some sort of trick of the heat? There, in the distance, stood the rounded body of what undoubtedly was a Brachiosaurus. I walked toward the figure, entranced. The closer I approached the hallucination, the more real it seemed a factor quite opposite to an actual hallucination.

In my high school days, I was a partier during my senior year. I drank a lot, smoked the occasional reefer. I remember, though, how I once took acid, my first and only time. I had had a bad trip, and cleaned my act after that night.  Nonetheless, that trip I took changed my life. I saw things through a sort of far sightedness. The further I was from the objects projected forth at me, the keener I could view and experience it, but as I came closer, it blurred, became a vague ambience absolutely embellishing me. It was as if it spread like butter, and came back into my head where it was, and hallucinated, seeing me in turn. Two parallel realities, opposite and equal, crossing paths, sharing thoughts. Nowadays, I’ll smoke the occasional celebratory cigar, but nothing more.

It was the thing that got me interested in photography, the idea of taking a split-second in history, and capturing time, the idea of making history a part of the ever shifting, ever tilting Now. That, to me, was, and always will be the greatest power, to manipulate time, to hold a split-second of history in my hands, to capture it within the four walls of the negative.

Yes, what stood before me, in my mind, was a hallucination, so I thought. I reached out in strange, morbid curiosity of this giant dinosaur, suddenly taken a-shock. I felt its cold, dry skin. It was as dry as something of an alligator, dryer even. It was his left hind leg, this Brachiosaurus. A spasm struck through me, like lightning through a naked river. My body shook, as I stood in the presence of what felt like some sort of…celebrity.

It didn’t seem to notice me, rather to stand there idly, I guessed in order to rest. My vision was scarce still, due to the constant dust in my face. The winds were vicious and merciless. I gazed up at the incredible creature before me, as it gave out a tremendous, deep moan. I cupped my ears, for I could not bear such intense sound. Never had I ever heard so deep a voice. It was a voice that you felt, a voice that you felt the raw pattern of the vibrations through the very marrow of your bones. The Brachiosaurus lowered its broad neck down to my level and took a long sniff of me.

Obviously, I was of nothing she had seen before, but as I gazed into her deep, numb eyes, I realized how much I really knew of her. She was just another science project, millions of years in the past, from this unbelievably great beast, to just another page in history. She was gentle with me, almost affectionate, in a puppy sort of way. Her eyes seemed so familiar, as if I could recognize her from some previous thought. Memories flashed back to me.

I remember it as if I was really there, in the school lot during recess, playing with model dinosaurs as a young boy, Brian and I. we were both dinosaur nerds. We could tell you any fact, any name, any period of time. I remember Brian was always the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and I was the Brachiosaurus. Perhaps that was the connection I had, subconsciously. As I thought back, I remember one girl, Janice, who was a real bully even to the boys, would threaten us, to either eat sand for her, or watch her burn our precious toys alive. It was about fifth grade then, so children had more or less access to matches.

I knew it all then. Over the years, my passion decayed and new passions birthed, leaving my dinosaur hobby to fade away into the darkest depths of my subconscious. I opened my eyes. My heart jumped a beat then, for strangely, the beast had not moved her head an inch. She breathed deeply, sucking me to her nostril like a vacuum. I panicked as she lifted her head then. Higher and higher like a fireman on a hook-and-ladder truck. The suction ceased, and I lost what little grip I had. Panic was furious in my veins as I desperately grabbed for anything…

ANYTHING…

I fell, landing on a coarse, rough surface, rigid as sandpaper. I sat up to a steady sound of enormous stomps. We were moving. Her back swayed as I sat up. My head hurt, splitting pain cutting through it like a blade through a melon. I took a deep breath, and lay back down with a long sigh. I looked up into the sky and closed my eyes, my vision red behind my eyelids. I began to speak to myself.

“I am in a dream…” she snorted “…This must be a dream, some deep realm of my subconscious. But… I woke up. No one wakes up in a dream… No one…” I thought for a moment. “As ridiculous as it sounds…I am back in time. Prehistoric time.” I then pictured myself as Michael J. Fox, in ‘Back to the Future.’ It was a ridiculous thought. “It’s all a dream, Jerry. Perhaps some enigmatic comatose state, or a coma.”

My consciousness blurred and soon disappeared as I went to sleep, mesmerized by the droning beat of her footsteps, and the marinating heat of the sunlight. I dreamt of my wife, our home. It was our wedding day in our backyard. Everyone was there. I saw the faces of my co-workers in our little photography gig at the time, Benny, Alex, Jordan, and Bruce. Their faces merged in this surrealistic metamorphosis. The figures of my four partners, now one figures, went up to Bianca, my newlywed, and kissed her. At first I thought nothing of it, just a friendly kiss, but as their lip contact drew out, anger roused. Fury boiled as the figure’s hands groped her, as she groped back, passionately. She breathed the name, “Brian…” I screamed, and suddenly woke. Immediately, I thought of my grade school friend, Brian. He was at our wedding, him and his sister Tracey. He was 22 and single at the time.

“It was a dream, Jerry, an all too real dream,” I said to myself in self-pity, “A dream within a dream.” I felt the raw angst in my stomach, as if Bianca really had cheated on me with Brian. He was a good friend of the family, but not extremely close with Bianca. I stopped myself then. I was a grown man, and there was no conceivable way that dream was reasonable evidence of anything.

My mouth was dry and my stomach ached with the vacancy of hunger. There was a heap of vegetation, ripped out of the ground. The dinosaur who had brought me here basked in the moonlight, chewing away, I grabbed a leaf of…something…and devoured it, one of those foods that was all aftertastes. I gagged it up, disgusted by it. I decided to venture out, in search of my own salad.

I walked. My footfalls were steady upon the mossy ground, and sturdy. This was because the ground of the forest was, in fact, sturdier than that of the desert. In the desert, I had waded through the feverish, blunting heat of the sand, feeling it soak me in like a sponge would soak up water. As I stepped, my legs would sink into the seemingly endless depths of the beach sand, down to my knees, sometimes even my groin. It was as if in every step, in every inhale I took of the heavy heat, I sank deeper into this faint existence, slowly becoming more an element of this baffling dimensia.

I slept frequently, as if I was a newborn babe napping every two hours. Perhaps it was the mind-bending, subconscious reaction to the reality of such an expanse, such a leap of time-travel, traveling through great eons of lives, trillions upon trillions of lives and deaths.

As I walked the wood, I thought of these things, adapting to this odd reality, trying to gain my bouncing bearings. I lifted my head, as if out of a shallow mud puddle of thought. I looked around the forest, viewing the thick, intricate mix of trees and shrubbery. Large, plump insects curtsied from healthy flower to healthy flower, drinking down their sweet pollen, which was liquid. The moon was strong and pale, shining upon everything in its focal point. The trees were of unspeakable immensity, the width of a large room. The muscular roots clamped hard to the ground and sank deep into the bed of soil. What unimaginable beauty! What grand harmony within this forest! It was like none I had ever seen before. I then remembered what it was I was in search of, my practical necessities.

My throat was dry and stung with thirst, as I heard the panoramic sound of running water. My head cocked to the side instinctively, creating a great cramp in my spine. I groaned in strain, confused about where the water came from. I walked on, until I reached a river, small, simple, and prosperous. My heart knelt in gratitude, as did I, plunging my head into the strange water, not caring what sort of health condition it may have. I let in gulp after gulp, my long hair drowned in the meniscus. I withdrew, my throad throbbing with pleasure, aching with the pure branding of satisfaction.

      I walked back, feeling a bit stronger. The tormenting thoughts of my wife seemed to temporarily fade. I had a water source, a companion, if you want to call her that, and a beautiful forest to spend my days. I collected dried sticks and birch bark, loading them all to the spot where the Brachiosaurus had sat. On the last trip out, I had gone too far. I turned around in confusion as to where to go and tripped on a muscle-fat root. I landed in a mess of vines and leaves, when I smelled the unreal, familiar scent. I got up, excitedly and saw the plants. They were incredibly large-size marijuana plants, with the leaves the size of ferns, all in one small patch. I felt like a little child who had stumbled on his father's stash. I hesitated, though, remembering my years of drugs, my years of incredible consumption of reefer. I knew better. I knew what happened when my parents caught me. They called the cops.

     I stood, considering my odds. On one hand, I had quit drugs years ago, and had no intention of starting up again. It ruined my life, and when I hit rock bottom there was only one way to go, which was up. I regretted ever trying it. On the other hand, I enjoyed it every time. My mind explored such euphoric realms, my thoughts absolutely fuzzed. There was no law here, in this time and place. I was free, completely free.

     I decided against it. I went back to the campsite and set up the fire. I was a Cub Scout as a boy, and could remember some things, but not all. But, one thing I had always had no trouble with was lighting fires. I was the only one in my troop who could rub two sticks together and make a fire. It took a few hours, but not without success. I set to work, rubbing two brittle twigs together over the neat layout of logs and tinder. I rubbed until my arms grew tired, and I had almost stopped, when I smelled the smell of burning oak. I looked down to see a tiny flame; slowly growing as it spread about the fire I had built. I sighed with relief and contentment.

My companion, who I had decided to name Matilda, was fast asleep. I sat back and gazed at her admiringly. How could such an incredible, unstoppable animal become extinct? It was inconceivable to me. My stomach growled with the vacancy of hunger. I got up slowly and set out for food. As I entered the thick wood, leaving the small field that lay just outside it where we had camped. I looked around at the various plants, the leaves and blossoms, the sweet, delicious looking pollen that looked as wonderful as honey. I picked several flowers that seemed to be satisfying to the belly, and a handful of leaves the size of a coffee table book. When I returned to my fire, I sat in the light and examined the entrees.

I had never been a great cook, but I knew how to prepare food for myself. I took a leaf and bit it, cautiously and suspiciously. The taste was very strong, like a piece of kale with too much pepper. I liked it, nonetheless. I took a blossom and sipped the syrup. It was like honey sweet and thick. I then poured a flower of pollen and nectar onto a leaf and took a large bite. My senses were on edge, and I felt a natural high electrocute through me. I lay back, and stared up at the stars. A slight buzz sneaked up on my mind, lightly producing a finesse vibration to my thoughts.

I stared up at the stars. They were plentiful and clear. It amazed me to notice that all of the stars were just as they were in my times. Orion, Big Dipper, Little Dipper. I found the North Star and sulked my eyes upon it. As I said, I was a Cub Scout. As I did, it seemed to shiver, as if craving the seductive warmth of the sun. It then throbbed, in and out, in and out. Panic kicked in my mind. I looked down at my unfinished supper to see that the leaf I had eaten was a giant marijuana leaf! I stood up, startled by the realism of my position. As I did my body was swiftly thrown off balance. My eyes swayed in all directions like a spotlight. I lay down in frustration, tired and stoned. As I looked up at the sky, I found the North Star once again.

“Ah, Bianca,” I said in an overly pleasant voice.

The star grew, suddenly, and drew back once again like a heartbeat. The beating of my own heart quickened its pace, racing, as if trying to catch up with the star. I gazed into it numbly, as a thick yellow hue surfaced at the edges of the star. I chuckled seductively at it. The farthest voice in my mind, trying to intervene with the drug’s magic spell, spoke in strange tongue to me, a barbaric language. It chanted and coiled around my thoughts as I kept my eyes peeled to the star. The color of the yellow melted, darkened into a smooth dirty blonde, the exact color of Bianca’s hair.

“Bianca…I am close…” I whispered desperately.

She reached a finger out, and I felt in my palm the feeling of a hand, grasping tight and determined. I drew her close and kissed her, and as I did, I felt as if I had left her, as if I was in someplace warmer, euphoric and radiant. Lights shone into my eyes, almost burning them. I felt her tongue caressing mine and I the same, but I could not see her. Was she here? No. My mind was sure of that.

As I took a deep breath through my nose, I heard the wise voice of a man.

“Yes, the salivary glands on her tongue are incredible!” he said analytically.

“I concur. They seem to be at least a hundred times as sensitive as ours,” another manly voice said.

I raised my head, and the kissing ceased. I drew up, feeling the length of my neck exaggerated. I looked myself over, and to my horror…I was Matilda! I, myself, in this body, was a prehistoric dinosaur! Panic roared and lost its temper in my heart as I leapt up, savagely. I looked around to see in black and white, clean-cut men with clipboards and white coats. They were examining me! I charged at them, knocking equipment over as I did, fixating my charge at one target, a small, skinny man with an evil glare. As I came closer, his mouth grew larger, swallowing me with a deep growl, and suddenly, it was calm. I was with Bianca, as she slowly drew her lips from mine.

“Was that nice, Brian?” I heard her say in an echoing voice.

“Brian? This is Jerry! Your husband! Your lover!” Wind struck me and I was swept away, or was it her who was swept away? The grip of the drug made it difficult to distinguish the movement of myself and other objects.

I woke up the next morning, about a half a mile further from the site. My head throbbed, as I looked up to see Matilda’s immense, loving self-strut towards me. My vision was blurry, and all I wanted was to sleep forever. That marijuana last night was no ordinary marijuana. I was tripping, obviously. It was the most disturbing experience of my life. I had quit drugs entirely, up until that point, and I had no intention on continuing it. It was a bad trip, and an eye-opening one at that. I got up and fed myself, careful as to what I ate.

I began to wonder, was it by coincidence that I picked the pot leaf? I was not in the premises that I had found the pot at all, and I would have smelt the marijuana distinctly. The enigma baffles me to this day. Was it my own head that tripped itself, to think it was the drug? Or was it that an accidental hallucinogenic leaf resided there for the prime reason, for me to pick it? Was I the center of this universe? It is an impenetrable mystery, which I can never explain.

Weeks went by, months even. Brian and Bianca’s imaginary affair haunted me, sometimes more, sometimes less. I grew accustomed to Matilda’s presence, and grew to love her. I taught myself to hunt smaller dinosaurs around the area, and I learned which plants tasted well and which didn’t. I grew used to the cold weather, and the hot weather of the desert, too. We were always on the move, over mountains, across deserts. The land seemed to go on forever.

Then, one morning, I found myself lying in an unfamiliar yet irresistibly comfortable surface. The rhythm of an unpleasant beeping was sounding in the background. I raised my head, and suddenly came to life. I was home. My heart sank in desire of my closest friend, Matilda. As I stood, I felt the strong urge to walk into the kitchen with a great accusation, pointed directly at Bianca. She was already up, as she always was before me. I stopped myself, reminding myself of what nonsense the idea of her and Brian having an affaire was. I entered the kitchen, slowly sinking in the deep recognition of my home. I saw Bianca, and walked stiffly to her side. There was a long silence between us. Then she spoke:

“I…I’m sorry about Brian, Jerry. I would have told you, but…I was scared…I knew how much you loved being the Brachiosaurus…and I couldn’t ruin that.









Wigwam



With one slow kiss

We’ll steer our separate turns

And split our separate ways

In the wigwam shade of the day

Staled by the open free air

We curl up like two small fawns in love

Who fold their cards

And fold their legs to fall to tiny sleep

My nose stirs and nestles in close and deep

To grow warm and droop asleep

Tulips reach up high and grow

Inside the dark wigwam nest

We calm serene as fawns in the nest

Barely hatched and can’t quite walk

In a tulip bed dusk has but bloomed to night

And our eyes dip slowly into the mud puddles

Our heads rest so close together

The curl of the wigwam night

Can still flourish gardens

Can still flourish litters of children



Desiorama Enigmatica



Why do the ropes but curl

            Like a spine to slowly climb

Why do I desire

Tears are the blood of pain

Drooling from the stone-sad eyes

And the earth but trembles

Wonders all enigmas

Why do I desire

Why do I think so rapid-water like

For tears are the blood of the deepest stone

Drowned at the bottom of the river

For all to forget

Oh, sweet desire on my rash-red lips

As I tossed my coins into the wishing well

To catch a yes or no

A simple fisherman

A simple answer to recieve



Baby Bears



Cold, Tired, Hungry

I am a fallen apple

Rotting in the sand

Growing a beard

And the rain kisses smooth

My poisoned youth

Renewed

Cold, tired, Hungry

In the black winter night







Everglades



Well, reader, you’ve survived until the end. This is a story that is based on a very unique and rarely used perspective. It is in the perspective of a narrator, talking to someone else in a second person. So, I hope you enjoy it. It’s the last story, and it sort of leaves you on a good note, relieved, drained, and hopefully a different person.



Remember when? Ah, yes. That was a time. Reminiscence is a habit of mine, yes, drawing up the past and squeezing it together until it cramps like an accordion. Ah, yes those were the days. Those were the moments.

     In fact, that reminds me of that afternoon. You know. It was a bright, adolescent afternoon in the daisy field. We walked past the aged ditch to where the meadow of trees and daisies lay the ageless elbow trees.

     "What an afternoon, Cyrano!" you said, grasping me by the hand in exultation. I had packed a picnic, and I quickened pace. We skipped along, picnic basket in hand, the fair sun drenched in heavy heat.

     Remember when? When I lost my breath? I sat down then, and lit a cigarette. You rolled your eyes in annoyance. You never liked my smoking habit, and frankly, neither did I.

     I ashed my cherry-flavored cigarette onto a single daisy lazily, lying down in the flowerbed. You joined me, letting your long, blonde locks fall over your eyes. You brushed them away with a slight giggle.

     You know, that will kill you. That's why you ran out of breath so fast," you said.

     "I know, I know. I'll only have one."

     "You really should quit," you said sternly. You knew how much I've tried, and yet you always seemed to remind me. We ate our scones and drank a small glass of brandy each, silently giving each other seductive looks, slowly sipping down our liquor. Silence speaks louder than sound, remember. Especially in this instance.

     "Would you like another scone, Elizabeth?" I asked coyly. You got up, and started skipping toward a distant elbow tree.

     You tilted your head, gesturing me to follow. Naturally, I obliged. Remember now? Remember when? As you reached the young tree, you shrank.

     "Elizabeth...?" I asked nervously.

     "Yeah?" You gasped, for your voice was that of a ten-year-old girl. Your body was that of a ten-year-old as well!

     "Cyrano...?!" you said with a clean blade of panic through your voice. "I'm young again...Is it the tree, Cyrano?"

     "I...I think it's the brandy," was my reply. I walked up to you, and as I did, my skin smoothed involuntarily, my throat was clean of nicotine, and my posture was shorter and straighter.

     "Some brandy, huh?" you said, holding me to your young, undeveloped body. We were two children in blooming puppy love.

     "I don't want this to end..." I whispered, and kissed you long and slowly, savoring the soft touch of your fertile tongue on mine. We withdrew, as you remember now.

     "It would be weird, Cyrano, to see two children making out, if someone were to show up..." you said with a slim regret.

     "I want to be like this forever, love." We walked away then, adoring our fertile age, but as we did, it faded. We went back to the basket with hands held tight. I looked at you and you at me. I touched the slight wrinkles under your eyes that had returned.

     "We're old again," I said chuckling. You laughed, too.

     "Maybe YOU'RE old, I'm only 28-"

     I kissed you suddenly, cutting you off. And remember when? When we made love next to the basket, in the field where time is not distinct? You and I?

     You sat up and sighed deeply. Then you ran off, down the sloping daisy field scattered with elbow trees. You ran by tree after tree, each young and healthy. I watched your form oscillating from age to age, illuminating in shades and textures of skin, changing from ear to ear of your naked body.

     I grabbed a cigarette and lit it, and started after you. I felt my body fluctuate as yours had, I felt my body grow and shrink, and grow yet again. My heart raced with thrill. I tossed my cigarette and sped up.

     You glanced back behind you, smiling at me. You had such radiance, such energy. Remember what happened? You sat by a tree. I stopped and stood in utter panic, in complete stale horror. I swallowed hard as I watched you, your motionless nude underneath the old, dead tree. A lump of pain collected in my throat as I ran to you, not forgetting my certain fate.

     So, here we are my love. In heaven? Hell? Limbo? We are dead together, perhaps, or are we alive? Tell me, love, do you remember when we ever were alive?

     "No"

     Neither do I.

     "You forgot stamps that morning, or was it this morning?"

     How did you remember?

     "Well, when you bought those cigarettes you were at the gas station, where stamps must have been used to ship them there."

     Well, I never did remember them. But, tell me, love. Do you remember you and I ever really existing? Do you remember our lives as anything different than what it is now? Do you ever question the fact that, in that field, we were dead, and now we are alive? Reborn?

     ...Neither do I...





Giraffes & Geraniums pt II: Peel



Everything is distant

As the unscathed skies

Oh, so far away



From way up high

People look like ants

Upon a rotting apple

Left alone



Slowly he is spent

Everything is shrunk

Like laundry in the belly of

The washing machine

Swallowing

The dirt of the day



Everything is distant

A cake to be baked

A slipper to be worn

A river to be swam



And the seeds are sent to bed

Tucked in tight

The growing boys

Soon men



As the unscathed skies do stare

So I stare at them

A deepened night



Like a growing cavity

Black

All the way down

A deepened night

Vague as the keen blade of distance

To paint a new horizon line

Across my staring face



A slipper to be worn

A cake to be baked

An apple-wish

Slowly spent

Acknowledgements



I would now like to acknowledge and thank the people who have supported me and helped me in the making of this book. The senior project teachers Mr. Sullivan and Mrs. Battaglia for their time and teaching, Mr. Hogan for his patience and literary insight, Mr. Archibald for his support, all the places in the school that allowed me to place my advertisement, and my Senior Project class for days of time and effort.



Time and tide,

   Matt