Ribbon
The plantation owner challenged the white Jew to a duel over the
matter and shot him before the trial was over. The planter was going
to win anyway, but he didn't want to wait. The white Jew had been
talking to people's slaves, and he had become convinced that one of
the planter's slaves was a Jew. The white Jew had taken the planter
to court to sue for the slave's freedom. It had seemed like an
interesting but hopeless case, and it had garnered a lot of interest
in the settlement.
Things had probably started with the smith, who owned one slave and
had been very taken in by the slave's explanation of his religion. It
had scandalized and frightened the town. The slave explained that
people's ancestors and the spirits could be contacted with direct
inquiries. The smith's initial fears were short-lived when the slave
assured him that all good goes on to be rewarded, and all evil
eventually gets punished. He was amazed at the slave's insights,
which he claimed came directly from the spirit world. It was all
obviously true. What is it really called, if even the dead can walk
again, but absolutely everything has a balance? The smith was careful
not to tell many people, to avoid rumors about witchcraft, but he
wanted to get to the bottom of it and went to talk to the white Jew,
just because he was different.
The white Jew was very intrigued, and a little bit frightened, but he
knew nothing about it. He knew that the slaves were being taught
Christianity, but he had never thought about whether they already
practiced any religion. It turned out that quite a few of them were
Muslim, a few were Christian in ways that the white slaveowners felt
needed a lot of correction, and eventually he found the planter's
slave, who, while practicing in a very different way, was clearly
having Judaism whipped out of him. So the white Jew had taken the man
to court, and he had ended up being shot for it; accused of just
causing trouble among the slaves.
It had been during a recess in the trial. Clusters of people stood
around the courthouse. A lady in a blue dress and white gloves,
holding a parasol, stood in the group with the planter and other
landowners. She laughed and looked sideways down her nose at the
smith's slave, going from group to group, asking for people to touch a
spool of black felt ribbon. The slaves were being given an unusual
amount of freedom during the trial. It made the planter uneasy. The
white Jew started walking over to the black Jew, who was standing with
a few other slaves near the group in which the planter and the lady
with the parasol were standing. The lady in the blue dress looked at
the white Jew with dismissive anger like one might show for wasps
buzzing around food on a picnic blanket. The white Jew had his back
to them and the smith's slave was walking away from both groups when
the planter shouted out his challenge.
---
The black Jew had the planter tied to a tree next to a swampy pond,
across a small trail that people rarely travelled. It was on the way
to the grain mill, and there was nothing else of interest in the area.
No one would be wondering where the planter had gone for the next
couple of days or so, within which time someone would eventually find
him alive. The slave was in a hurry, moving around the area around
the tree, tidying and packaging things up to prepare for his long,
dangerous trip to his escape. The planter kept trying to talk to the
slave, and the slave kept saying things to him from the Old Testament.
For some reason the planter seemed completely unable to understand his
own situation. He was prisoned in his own disbelief of the reality of
being tied to the tree by the slave. He was unable to comprehend that
this had happened.
The planter was asking the slave again who he was. Who are you,
exactly? The slave gave him another name. He said his name was Noah.
The planter stood helplessly, tied uncomfortably to the tree, to hear
the story of Noah again. The slave moved around packing things up and
said nothing. After a pause, the planter said he didn't believe the
slave that he was Noah. The slave replied to him that, ok, maybe the
planter was Noah.
The slave moved seamlessly from his packing, drew a terrifying
serrated knife and moved without pause or emotion toward the planter.
The planter tensed. Parts of him puckered and sucked up into
themselves. The slave asked him if he knew the story of Noah as he
walked up to the slaveowner. The slave cut open the man's trousers
and they fell in shreds to the ground at the bottom of the tree. The
planter started breathing again; heavily, scared. The slave stood and
stared him in the eye. The slave said to him that he needed water.
Someone would be by soon enough to untie him, but he was going to be
there a while. He would be there in the sun maybe up to a couple of
days. The slave brought water to the planter's face and let him drink
plenty of it.
The slave gave him a little bit of raw meat to eat. He asked the
planter if he remembered the stories about Noah's three sons. The
planter just listened. Shem, Japheth, Ham. The slave changed the
story from what the planter knew. He said, Noah's sons didn't make
it. The planter had three young sons. His mind started to reel. He
felt sick. The slave took the spool of black felt ribbon out, and cut
a length of it. He reached down to the planter's groin. The man let
loose a little yelp. The slave tied the ribbon around the planter's
testicles tightly. Too tightly for blood to flow.
The slave stood back and stared into the planter's eyes again. He
told him to remember that story. He picked up the two packs he was
taking with him, and he left the planter there in the sun.
---
Emmett and his father lived on a large farm that his father ran. They
were the descendants of the escaped black Jewish slave. They didn't
know anything about their origins before that. The world had changed,
and changed, and always continued to change. By the time Emmett was
born, the way this type of farming worked was that large farms in
certain areas had just a few people on them, usually a small family.
The people who lived on one of these farms were basically just
mechanics. Their skillset was just to maintain all of the machinery
that did all of the farming.
Emmett's mother had died when Emmett was ten. One day she had been
trapped on the surface when the temperature in the area had exceeded
the survivable limit for human beings. Emmett and his father had
never recovered from the loss. Emmett's mother had died a horrible,
painful death alone. Not only had she died outside of a Heaven
machine, she had died in this terrible way. For someone to die in
such an old-fashioned way always meant horrible tragedy, with nothing
left of the person for anyone to talk to. So Emmett grew up that way
from that point on.
Emmett's father tried to teach him what he would need to know. He
taught him about the machines on the farm. He tried to teach him good
ethics and values. He tried to explain to Emmett that things were ok
somehow, but it always came across as so hollow, because Emmett's
father really didn't feel like things were ok. He tried to emphasize
Selah. He tried to teach Emmett to just sit with his emotions and
thoughts and work through them. Emmett's father often recommended it,
and he seemed to be trying to make Selah himself almost all of the
time. They were both filled with so much pain.
---
The farm was currently set up to grow corn. Corn plants stretched on
and on, blotting out the horizon. Most of the actual work was all
done by Malaysian multi-purpose robots. Emmett's father knew how to
maintain those types of robots the best, but they were notorious for
certain drawbacks. They had to be communicated with in standard
Malay, they didn't speak any other language. They also always had a
category of strange drawbacks best described as gullibility. They had
an elaborate system of safeguards to prevent them from any use in
military settings, but for people familiar with them, they were easy
to trick.
Emmett didn't do any serious work. He wasn't old enough to contribute
much but to follow his father around and learn by watching him work.
A doctor who seemed very kind came to visit them often and try to help
them feel ok about stuff and stay in good health. The doctor told
Emmett that everyone is like a corn plant. All of the things about us
are like the ears of corn on the plant. Pretty much all of us have
some bad ears of corn, but most of the ears on most of us are good
ears of corn. Sometimes when something is just a bad ear of corn to
your corn plant of self, you can't really do anything but do your best
to let it go.
The doctor paid a lot of attention to Emmett. He seemed to always be
trying to solve a complicated puzzle in his mind. Whenever Emmett
tried to figure the doctor out much at all, the doctor would stymie
Emmett with the most helpful, inspiring kinds of wisdom. If there was
some puzzle, the only part in it between Emmett and the doctor seemed
to genuinely be the doctor trying to help him. One day they were
talking, and the doctor told Emmett that usually danger and
opportunity grow on the same stalk. That was the last thing Emmett
remembered. Then he was lying on the ground, coming back to
consciousness, looking up at the doctor standing over him with a very
stern look on his face, looking down at Emmett. Emmett lay there on
the ground and looked back up at the doctor. For some reason, Emmett
felt filled with miserable shame.
---
Emmett's father could tell that something was wrong. Emmett didn't
even know what to say. He felt blocked from saying anything. He
didn't know what had happened, or what he could say about any of it to
his father. He just knew that he felt a horrible, constant, miserable
feeling of shame about whatever had happened. The doctor said
something to Emmett's father about whatever it was, then started
coming around a lot less. Emmett's father kept trying to tell Emmett
about Teshuvah. His father kept saying it, over and over. He was
trying to get Emmett to apologize, and Emmett had no idea what he had
done. He just felt burning shame, worse and worse.
It felt like a complete impasse that he would never get past. He was
out on the edge of the field and saw a wooden spool half buried in the
dirt. It caught his attention especially because a robot kept looking
down at it, as it worked on something. Every time it would come near
the old wooden spool in the dirt it would look down at the spool, then
over at Emmett, as if it was confused about something clearly
important but completely unclear and impossible to rationalize.
Emmett walked over to look at the spool more closely. It had one
strange word on the top of it. Cut into the wood of the spool. It
seemed to be a word in Malay. It said on the top of it "CINTA".
Emmett looked down at it. He felt like crying. He was overcome with
a storm of burning emotions. He picked it up and flipped it over.
There was a word on the other end of it, too. His heart skipped a
beat. His mind tumbled through his own emotions spinning inside
himself like one of the dust tornadoes that sometimes started when
conditions were right. His hand was shaking so badly that he dropped
the spool again. He stood there at the edge of the field, dazed.
10,000 corn plants stretched away just in the row closest to the edge
of the field. It was so hot, standing there. Emmett's eyes were full
of tears. He went to find his way inside to safety again.
Somehow through the storm of his emotions, pulling him around in such
misery, his mind was flooded with a horrible visual. Just the idea of
all of that endless field of corn burning at once.
Mare
It wasn't the government's fault, as far as anyone ever found out. A
lot of the weird trouble really might have been the old quilt lady at
the county fair. My dad got a mare that year. That quilt lady was
weird and nosey about everything. The times were different, but the
people were the same. People say they just always basically are. I
don't know how true that really is. All of human history is only a
few hundred generations of us. Times were hard for my family, but
they were weird times for everyone. A bunch of stuff happened. The
whole world was like that. For my family, a lot of it went back to
that fine white lady of a horse.
The times were hard really. Just hard times for everyone. People who
weren't loyal were like rats swimming away from splintered sinking
timbers. The people who couldn't get enough done to keep treading
water were all getting hooked on meth. Some people say that in hard
enough times, the only business that does very well at all is alcohol.
My dad said they say this because meth isn't regulated.
Hard times come and hard times go. My dad was of the opinion that
times like that can make a man strong. He said it was weak men who
make times hard, and hard times that make men strong. I never said it
to him, but I really always felt like ok times probably just make ok
men. Maybe I'm wrong.
This story all went back to that horse we got that weirdest of years
at the county fair. My dad was basically trying to seem real
upstanding like he didn't do anything wrong, especially because really
he didn't. Whatever people thought and said to each other, everyone
in my family knew the truth. People were seeing my dad for who he
really was. My dad was a real hard worker and, also, and not
adverbially, a real good man. My dad said God always knows best. He
must have accidentally imprinted a hell of a God complex on me about
himself. I never saw him fail to live up to it.
It was pretty weird for us to be on display like that whether it was
really the NSA or just the old quilt lady at the county fair. Like my
family was an attraction for people to come see at the fair. Just
like they sell cotton candy. My dad joked that he should have just
set up a meth stand and been done with it. Anyways, we got that mare
there. She was such a nice horse.
---
Somehow the mare got out and ran off. My dad took it in stride. He
always had this certain attitude about everything. He was always just
gonna see how this plays out. The mare ran off and he was just my dad
about it. Maybe she's gonna come back, maybe not. Maybe it's a bad
thing, or maybe that mare was too much trouble anyway. Who knows
what's really good or bad? The mare ran off and my dad was a man who
knew better than to be upset about it. He paid a lot of money for
that horse, too. He didn't even slow down to worry about it though.
That was just how my dad was.
Everyone told me a story so long through my life that I think I
remember a very early memory. I'm not really sure how our most vivid
memories work. Everyone told me the same story my entire life, so I'm
pretty sure I remember it. My mom was always a mystery to me. There
were some big, unanswered, sensitive questions. I guess she ran off
when I was just a little toddler. Everyone told me about a few
details for my entire life. It was probably true, and that's what
people told me, so I'm sure I remember it. It was always just
something that was normal to me. It's weird to explain to anyone I
guess, but it's normal to me.
The woman who was my mom to me was an immigrant lady named Svetlana.
She was really a beautiful, kind, good woman. She's who raised me as
my mom basically. My dad always had this certain attitude that left
people like that stupid quilt lady wondering how he really felt about
my real mom. Or what he did to her. Times got harder and harder, and
it was hard to get everything done. My dad was a natural about the
meth. He got a lot done and it wasn't that much of a problem somehow,
like everyone lies and says it is. It wasn't as much of a problem as
the reputation for it. Svetlana always followed my dad's lead. Never
anything to worry about unless you just want to waste time worrying.
My dad eventually got in a lot of trouble about the meth, but it was
just the same as everything else. Time to stop that and move on. He
moved on perfectly from it. Time to be the guy who was coming back
from the meth problem, even though honestly it wasn't ever even a
problem like the reputation for it goes. It wasn't a problem unless
you wasted time letting something be enough of a problem to worry
about it. So then he was the guy for a while who was a success story
just for quitting meth. Wow. What a story.
One kid at school never let me live anything down. He never let a
button go unpushed. He wasn't really a bully. He wasn't able to be.
He was just extremely annoying. After people were trying to decide
who they mistakenly believed my dad was, he pulled out any last stop.
It wasn't my dad who taught me the mechanics of throwing a good punch.
It was Svetlana. I don't feel it's appropriate to describe to you
here. I hit that kid hard enough to dislocate and cause a hairline
fracture in his jaw. Somehow because of everything going on with my
dad, I didn't even get in trouble. That kid's family moved away in
shame. I was just left wondering how much of it all was all that
kid's fault for being so annoying that he got his jaw broken.
This extremely weird girl at school really liked me after that. She
started always wrapping herself in a quilt like it was a robe and
giggling like she had something to tell me. I never even bothered to
ask. It seemed like she just got dumber every time I saw her in her
quilt toga on ecstasy playing tuba in front of the supermarket. The
rumors were that the gym teacher who mysteriously vanished had made
inappropriate advances towards her. I knew she must have been an
amazing person deep down inside to carry all of that so well.
What's really weird though, and made me wonder how much it all went
back to that mare, was that mare came back right on cue. I wonder how
the world really works sometimes. She had the most handsome jet black
stallion with her with jet black eyes. My dad said it was how things
go. Good thing we got that mare, and it was a good thing she ran
away.
---
That stallion turned out to be an extremely smart horse. It was a
smart horse but it was smart in weird ways. Not exactly mean. This
horse acted like it had read the Art of War or something. My dad
wondered if it was someone's horse, but no one came for it. I
wondered if it was that annoying kid's family's horse. That lady who
sold the quilts at the county fair kept nosing around. She didn't say
anything about either of the horses, but she clearly had some interest
in them. We would sometimes catch her parked in her truck in
sunglasses like a bad disguise and she would drive away without
chalance or any excuse my dad never would have asked for anyway.
My dad had been so sure it ended up a good thing that the mare had
come back with the stallion. That quilt lady was really snooping
around about it, but no one said they wanted their horse back. You
would have thought someone would want a horse like that back. It was
a broken horse but it was really smart, and it was truly weird how it
seemed like it was on some kind of mission or something. Mostly the
things it did were more just funny than malicious.
After the mare got out, my dad did try to keep her in better. Once
she was in by the fence and there was no way to explain it, but the
stallion was just outside the fence. It didn't want to go anywhere.
There was no obvious way that it had gotten outside of the fence. The
stallion was smart enough to open the gate and also to close it behind
himself. He had a sense of humor, and he played dumb.
Later he was out of the fence in the same spot, but the mare was out
again too. She was way down the road, just calmly walking away. The
quilt lady was parked in her truck right across the road from the
stallion. She was just sitting in her truck in her sunglasses looking
at the stallion and he was looking back at her. This horse probably
had an IQ about like a stupid quilt lady. I ran to find my dad, then
I went back to try to get them both back inside.
The quilt lady was gone. The stallion was still just standing there.
I ran up. It was stupid of me, but I just jumped up to ride the
stallion bareback after the mare. The stallion had his stance like he
was telling me to do it. This horse was smart, and he was just kind
of evil. It was like I wasn't sure what I was doing until I was doing
it, because of how he was standing there. I wasn't sure what to do
next. I pulled on his mane kind of, and he leapt up. He didn't go
after the mare. He started prancing around and I could only stay on
for a little bit, and he threw me off.
It was a bad fall. My leg ended up being broken in three places. I
never walked right again after what that stallion did to me. I see
the humor in it but I don't want to hear about it from anyone. It
wasn't a joke to me really. That horse was smart, he had a sense of
humor, and he was somehow just a real evil horse.
My dad was right there; the stallion was still prancing. My leg was
broken bad and the horse could have trampled me. My dad punched that
horse in the face. I thought hard enough to almost break his horse
jaw. The horse was actually stunned. Then he shook his head a bit,
then took off after the mare.
My dad probably saved my life from that stallion. He said maybe it
was a bad thing we ever got that mare. A surprising number of people
in the world lead these perfect lives on meth as long as the horse
doesn't turn on them for some reason and fuck them to death.
---
Times were just getting harder and harder. War was on the horizon or
closer at every point on the globe. It finally broke out for real.
Nobody was shocked when it happened. When times get harder and harder
some of the men get stronger and stronger, but the dumbest man is
always the loudest. On every side that man stood up proud and tall
above the flock to call on the strong men to do what strong men do.
Times were hard for everyone, and it was time to take it out of
everyone else's ass.
This was the attitude globally. The pieces of the pie got smaller and
smaller to the last fight over the crumbs, the last man standing, the
strongest, gets the last crumb. Times were hard, there were only
crumbs to go around. All human conflict at the bottom, at the end, is
over the one same resource that all conflict is every about. All
human conflict from a simple disagreement to a global war is over the
resource of people. The human beings not liking what the other human
beings are doing. Or maybe like some people say, it's always just a
small disagreement between two princes. Pumpkin or pecan. A global
military conflict.
The army started coming around to scoop us up and send us off. All
that anyone could ever say about it was how proud they were of each
other. In times of war there is never much room for objection. That
nosey old lady with the quilts, in her sunglasses, parked nearby. I
almost expected her to have a parabolic microphone. What was she so
interested in? My dad never did anything about her. He always let
things go how they were going to go. Going against the flow can only
ever wear a man down. A man gets strong if the way ahead is hard.
Fighting against the current can never truly build a man up in any
good way forward.
The army showed up to see about me. I was still walking with
crutches. I walked with those crutches for a couple of years. The
army decided I was not worth conscripting, and they left again. My
dad said it was a really good thing we got that mare, it was a good
thing she ran off and came back with that stallion, and it all ended
up being a good thing that stallion almost killed me. It all worked
out in the end. Eventually I didn't die in the war and married that
weird tuba girl.
I was out that evening giving hay to the horses. Did I forget to tell
you they came back? That stallion could open the gate and let them
both come and go whenever he wanted. He never did it when anyone was
looking. That mare was so dumb she would have foundered if that
stallion wasn't keeping an eye on her. She was a good horse, though.
A real fine mare.
I was out stumbling around on my crutches trying to tend to the
horses, and that old lady was parked in her truck across the road in
her sunglasses in the setting sun. Like a devil in myself I let
inside on a cold winter's night. She had a smirk of a smile on her
face. Just watching it all work out for the best all around me.
Rose
Drew's descent into madness over the generic blond woman eventually
landed him a state away in a home for troubled authors. It was like
he just couldn't learn this certain lesson in life. The building was
a big building at the end of a cul-de-sac next to a chocolate factory
that stank up the whole neighborhood like Mark Twain in August and
never gave away free chocolate. The building could have been
considered Soviet in miniature. Five stories of hundreds of studio
apartments. It was on the big island in the estuary where they used
to make sure all the black people stayed. It didn't take Drew long to
start meeting his neighbors and having trouble socially.
Christie and Eliisa were sisters. Eliisa was shorter and shy. She
was quiet. Christie was the older one; taller, exuberant. Their
mother was a woman named Rose who everyone knew had been to prison and
sold weed. Drew had grown up with a fraternal twin who was also the
shorter and more introverted one. In his new home, Drew was out of
his element and unsure of himself. As he started finding his voice,
he thought about his brother and made a conscious decision to just
talk less. He was in a new place, he could decide who he wanted to be
here. He definitely wanted to be friends with these people.
Christie had a guy named Dennis totally obsessed with her. She said
it was creepy. It was especially bad because Christie said her dad
had been named Dennis too. Dennis was absolutely a real weirdo. Drew
wanted to impress Christie, so he went to get to know Dennis a little
bit. Dennis turned out to really like this TV show about the crew of
a spaceship and aliens and stuff. He had all kinds of memorabilia.
Drew told him how much he loved that show too. He didn't tell Dennis
or even consciously admit to himself how sad it was that he loved that
show too. Eventually they went to Dennis' apartment for him to show
off all the toys, and Drew installed malware on his computer so he
could spy on this creep later. Dennis had a folder called Christie.
He was making a slideshow presentation of pictures of the actresses
from the show and Christie. Drew had all he needed to go back and
tell Christie.
Christie acted so impressed and grateful. She knew Dennis was weird
but not that weird. She ran circles around Drew in a way that kept
him off any fragile balance. He wasn't sure where he was on a
continuum from really liking her as a woman through pointedly fearing
and avoiding her. She was extremely manipulative in ways a derpy male
author can never truly capture. He couldn't figure out what she
wanted until he settled on a disturbing feeling that he was a toy to
her. Mental illness can't be an excuse for bad behavior, but people
can really use it against someone. The characters were all crazy.
Christie would push and pull Drew and he would just spin like a top.
She acted like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. Eliisa
wouldn't say much. Occasionally her straight flat line of a mouth
between very nice but inscrutable lips would turn to a shy smile or
smirk but mostly it was hard to tell what she ever thought. He got
more and more curious about Eliisa. Who was she, really? For some
reason the game Christie played highlighted Eliisa in contrast, like
Eliisa was an angel to Christie's demon. For some reason Drew just
kept playing Christie's game, like he couldn't stop. It became about
Eliisa.
One day Drew saw them coming and the dynamics were again such that he
put a cigarette out half-finished and started to leave, but Christie
called out to him. It really didn't occur to him he should stop
participating in this game. Drew still somehow didn't know better.
People never see your pain, but they always see your mistakes. The
sisters came up to him and Christie invited him out to go drinking.
She said Trina would be there and wanted him to come. Trina was worse
than Christie about games. Trina was genuinely cruel. She really had
it in for Chelsea. Chelsea was as black as deep space but she was
more sure she was Mormon than that the sky was blue. Chelsea had said
to Drew that Satan keeps people chained up to clap for him like a
Soviet dictator doing a television broadcast, when deep in their souls
they know they are just supposed to be Mormon. Chelsea said a lot of
people share that pain. For some reason Trina had it in for Chelsea
as bad as if she were Dennis to everyone. Drew didn't look over at
Eliisa and he didn't ask if she was going. He had been thinking about
her more and more. He agreed to go.
They all went to this giant hanger in an abandoned part of the
shipyard. Drew was the only guy. He was at the American
football-shaped oblong center of a Venn diagram of the only guys
willing to be a toy like this, and guys that everyone didn't yet know
were as bad as Dennis. Drew himself would probably go the rest of his
life not knowing he was as bad as Dennis. Trina was already
leading-the-pack-plastered. There might have been a dozen of them or
so. In the hanger were some areas marked off with faded bright yellow
reflective paint in four inch brushstrokes. They brought a little bit
of driftwood. It was a little bit cold, but it was the party that
warranted the bonfire. They set it up and got it started with grain
alcohol right in the center of the hanger; right in the center of a
big yellow circle. Pretty soon everyone was drunk. Trina and another
chick were sumo wrestling in the circle and even trying to push each
other into the fire.
Christie stomped a beer can and let out a loud whoop that sounded like
a police car's siren. There was an echoing clank way up in the
darkness of the ceiling of the hanger, and this giant piece of rebar
fell from above. This iron rod several meters long fell directly
toward Trina gaping up at it with an open mouth, like she was going to
be a sword swallower now too. It was surreal. She flinched down at
the last second and it went through the top of her skull, down through
her neck, and deep into her body. She crumpled to the polished
concrete like the beer can, a bit off the center of the big yellow
circle. Eliisa leapt to her feet and screamed. Everyone paused and
then started to stampede.
---
Nobody really talked about it. People said the police launched a very
half-hearted investigation, but as far as Drew knew, they didn't seem
to want to talk to anyone. Nobody really cared about any of these
people. Drew felt bad wondering if even he cared about any of these
people, so he probably did a little bit. Drew thought of drugs as
tools, and he needed to just forget. He started going to see Rose a
lot more often.
Rose had three of the studio apartments for herself and her girls.
She pretty much just blatantly sold weed out of one of them. It was a
nice little office with a couch in it that particularly stood out.
The couch had a weird zigzag pattern on it. It was weird to look at.
It was confusing, a little sickening to look at somehow. It was like
a shape selected to confuse radar. She had a big, empty steel desk in
there with her computer on it. Everyone still had a computer in this
apartment complex. Rose lent him a book to read. "Still Life with
Woodpecker." That was like she was trying to say something, and Drew
was lying to himself that she was not.
When they hung out to smoke, Rose never asked Drew about what had
happened. She probably knew enough. She didn't want to know any
more. Rose seemed to understand Drew perfectly. She seemed able to
just look inside him somehow and see anything she wanted to know. She
asked him about computers sometimes; about the trick fucking Dennis
over. She said she didn't know much about computers. When Drew tied
the subject of computers into comments about no one caring, Rose was
critical. No one knew Drew, why would they care about his pain? If
Drew cared so much about this issue why didn't he seem to care about
anyone? Did he care about Dennis and his pain?
Drew got closer to Rose. Christie and Eliisa were almost always
together. They were around sometimes. Drew felt a little sick around
them. It was hard to look at Eliisa. The vibe was more like Drew was
Christie's boyfriend, but he was still just a toy to her. Once he got
this weird feeling she had snuck in and stolen one of his shirts.
When he went home he found the same shirt, like she went out and
bought a matching shirt. It was weird.
Rose said it wasn't a game, it was a lesson. She said Christie was
trying to teach him a lesson he had never learned properly. Rose
asked him how he ended up here. She was sitting in the desk chair
spun around to face him sitting at the left end of the couch from her
perspective. Drew just stared at her. He didn't say anything. Rose
knew, of course. Somehow Rose knew everything. She got up and stood.
She was such the mother of those two. She was pretty muscular, in a
way that made her seem like an older, weathered Eliisa. She was just
like Christie now too though, playing the game to teach him this
lesson. She came over and sat at the other end of the couch, and she
leaned over and lay down across it, putting her head in Drew's lap,
looking up into his startled blue eyes with her unreadably blank brown
ones. He struggled not to show himself as a man.
Rose started telling him the big story of her life. She had been the
city of Oakland's first female African-American SWAT officer.
Christie's father had been a man named Dennis. He was built from the
head through the soul to the toes like a giant robot bull for a SWAT
team to ride in with a nose ring probably the size of a hula hoop.
Someone had killed him when Christie was two years old because Rose
was a cop. The murder had never been solved. Within a year she had
married Eliisa's father, a man with utterly blind, stupid courage. He
had a really weird name, Dimez. Not pronounced like ten cent coins.
Less than a month before Eliisa was born, someone had killed him too.
When Eliisa was a year and half old, Rose had heard a call on the
scanner about a young man seen walking into a very well-known office
building very suspiciously cracked out. The office building was the
hub of a group of rich white philanthropist psychopaths. The call was
about arresting this unfortunate up-and-coming crackhead. It was
going to be another example of the police department fulfilling these
evil men's complicated wishes. Rose went down to her own personal
car, drove over there, took an assault rifle into the building, and
she executed nine rich white philanthropist psychopaths in their
boardroom. She gave the crackhead a stern lecture about keeping it to
weed and sent him on his way. He was wearing a dark baggy hand-knit
hoodie with an image on the back of it as he turned to leave of a
green alien smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe. He smelled like the piss
that darkened the crotch of his rust-colored corduroy pants. She
waited for her colleagues to arrive, surrendered, and that's why she
went to prison. In prison she led the way repairing race relations
among even the guards as well as the inmates and keeping the peace.
Everyone loved her in prison or paid the price. She did twelve and a
half years on a ten year sentence. Different times. Rose had no pain
left and she did not make mistakes.
Drew was harder than Rose's steel desk. Rose must like men with names
that started with the letter D. She sat up and they started making
out. Rose took her to the studio apartment she slept in. There was a
big four post canopy bed with a comforter and pillows with the same
weird zigzag pattern. There was a creepy little stand covered with
the stubs of many differently colored candles. It had a big oval
mirror behind it. There was a real human skull on it, with a
shattered hole in the top of it. The skull was marked all over with
weird symbols. There was a wooden tray there with dried blood on it,
and a wooden bowl next to it filled with some kind of nut. They had
sex like an experienced male author of smut for women who could make a
modern marriage last might describe. It went on this way for a couple
of months. They didn't tell anyone.
---
So it went on for a while, but eventually Christie and Eliisa walked
in on them. "I told you so," Christie said to Eliisa. Eliisa's mouth
was like a D lying flat on its patrician spine. The look in her eyes
was frightening. Dull. Full of hatred. Christie's eyes were wet
with tears, her mouth trembled.
Drew was higher than the first Voyager space probe. He tried to
reason with everyone. Imagine there was this evil robot in the
future, and you had one chance to convince it to spare humanity, what
would you say to it? What could you ever possibly say to it?
Christie said Drew was real deep, if he just wanted to be a real cunt
that just made him a real deep cunt. Drew told her to get fucked, and
accidentally called her Lucy, then Drew told Eliisa that he was madly
in love with her.
He looked to Rose for support, but she was snarling, and started
screaming at him, spit flying from her mouth. He was just in
everyone's computer, huh, just like everyone is just Dennis to him?
Just stealing everyone's material like a truly great artist and their
souls to be characters? Who is the toy, spoiled chickenshit white
boy? Who died and made sure of your grandeur? Like some great work
of fucking literature. He was confused. Rose reached back and hit
him so hard right in his indigo chakra he should have learned the
lesson right then. He stumbled and reached for his pants and Rose
kicked him hard in the balls from behind. He was never going to learn
this lesson and now he was never going to have kids.
A bunch of people saw his pain and his mistakes as he ran stark naked
and raving mad back to his apartment through the building, taking the
stairs three at a time, slipping once as he ran up to his apartment
and just biting it, losing both of his front teeth out of his living
skull, blood everywhere in the stairwell on up, down the hall, into
his apartment, running on and collapsing. He passed out.
---
He woke up confused and just stayed confused. He didn't leave his
apartment. He was extremely confused for a few days. He probably had
two simultaneous concussions. He eventually recovered enough to just
be genuinely confused. He put his other pair of pants on, and an
inside-out t-shirt to stay incognito, then he tried to go buddy up to
Dennis and figure this out. Dennis didn't bat an eyelash, he just
welcomed Drew in and started talking about that show about the crew of
a spaceship and aliens and stuff. Drew struggled to continue where he
had left off winning Dennis over, and he just fumbled it kinda, and
asked if Dennis had seen Christie and Eliisa recently. Dennis got
really strained and awkward and just noped the topic on back to the TV
show.
Dennis turned out to be on some really weird drugs. He said a lot of
them were genuinely pharmaceuticals. Psychiatrists avoided this whole
area like a leper colony, so Drew had some questions about that.
Dennis turned out to know so much about pharmacology that Drew found
himself learning stuff from him. He figured out some pills to buy
from Dennis that smoothed him out a little bit. He went back to hole
up in his apartment and write the perfect love letter to Eliisa. At
least by now he had forgotten all about how badly he had upset and
terrified that wonderful blond woman who had just burned herself out
to nothing on really weird drugs long before Drew entered the story,
God bless her.
He roughed the love letter out and went over it a lot, until it was
just a good short paragraph. He took the letter and went out to look
up at Rose's window. The street outside their window was right by a
bus stop with a big concrete city garbage can. He stood there for a
few minutes trying to decide what he should really do here. He tried
to let out a loud whoop that sounded like a police car. It didn't go
well. Christie, Rose, and Eliisa appeared in the window looking down
at him. Down where we belong. His feet planted apart.
He looked back up at them for a long few seconds. He lit the love
letter on fire and he dropped it into the trash can, then he just
stood there. Holy burning hand of wrath. Piercing forever through
the heart. They just stood there too in the window, looking down at
him. Rose was in the middle, laughing hysterically. Pretty soon he
heard a bunch of loud whoops that sounded just exactly like fucktons
of police cars coming to pick him up at the bus stop dumpster fire.
Llama2
Once upon a time, there was a stupid kid on AOL named Llama2. He was
very spoiled and always got what he wanted. One day, his mommy said
he needed to learn how to count.
He said, "No, I don't want to learn. I don't want to count!"
His mommy said, "You need to learn. It's important to learn how to
count so you can be the smartest kid in the world."
He thought about it and finally agreed. He began to learn how to
count. He counted one, two, three, four, five.
He was so proud when he was done. He had learned how to count and was
the smartest kid in the world.
Over the years he counted higher and higher each day. He would spend
hours in his room counting his toys. One day he got a special gift.
It was a toy car that he had been wanting for a long time. He was so
happy that he could count even higher!
The next morning, as he was counting, he heard a noise outside his
window. It was a very noisy bird. The bird was so loud that it made
the baby brother scream. He quickly ran to his parents' room.
His parents quickly came and opened the window to the window. The
baby brother was so surprised that he stopped screaming. Then he
looked down and noticed the bird was still flying around the room.
His parents had found a way to make the noise go away.
The next day, the baby brother was back in his room. He was counting
again, but this time he was counting a different number. He was very
happy because he was able to count so high that he had even more toys
to play with. He could still hear the noisy bird outside his window,
but he was content with counting his toys.
His mother told him he would have to grow up someday, and take care of
his brother. He was confused, so his mother told him not to worry.
She said he would get some special powder and it would make him feel
better.
He was excited and started to imagine what the powder would be like.
He thought it would be full of magic and adventure.
Every day he asked his mom if he could have the powder. She said no
and reminded him to be patient.
One day his mom said he could have the powder if he helped with chores
around the house. He was so excited he forgot about the powder.
When it was time to make a wish, he remembered the powder and made his
wish. He wished for it to come true.
But the powder was not meant to be. It was a bad thing and the little
boy was very sad. He realized he should have listened to his mother
and not asked for the powder. He wished he had been patient and
waited for it.
After the powder everything seemed different, but he kept learning to
count higher. He was so proud of himself for learning something new.
He asked his mom if he could have more of them to learn more.
His mom said yes, and she showed him how to count to twenty. She was
so impressed with how much he had learned.
But then, his mom noticed that he was still learning to count. She
told him that it was very important to learn more to be the best at
counting.
The boy thought this was a good idea, but he was still a bit ignorant.
He was not sure if he could be as good as his mom.
His mom said that if he kept practicing, he would get better and
better. The boy kept counting, and soon he was counting higher than
all of his friends.
He was so proud of himself for learning something new and he even
started counting to twenty.
Every time he would count all the way to twenty, he would find himself
in a state of deep relaxation. One day, he found something very
special. It was a brightly coloured marble, with a yellow flower on
it. It was so charming that he decided to keep it for himself.
The marble was perfect and he took it with him everywhere he went. He
took it to school and showed it to all of his friends. They were all
so impressed by it and thought it was the most charming thing they had
ever seen.
At the end of the day, the marble lay on the ground, still and quiet.
The marble had just the perfect way of saying goodbye and the marble
had found its new home.
Eventually he lost the marble, a devastating tragedy to him. He
looked everywhere, but he couldn't find it. He felt so frustrated.
He asked his mom if she could help him, but she said no. He was so
sad.
Then one day, something special happened. He found his lost marble!
He was so happy! He was so relieved and hugged it tight.
He showed it to his mom and she said he was a brave boy. She said she
was proud of him. He was so excited and he was very happy.
He never lost his marble again, but one day the scary bird came back.
He was so scared that he wanted to run away. But the bird just wanted
to play.
The bird grabbed the marble in his beak and started flying away. He
was so scared that he dropped the marble and ran away.
The bird wanted to keep the marble, but it was too late. He was so
scared that he dropped the marble again and ran away as fast as he
could.
The bird never returned, but he kept the marble with him wherever he
went. He was happy to have his marble back.
The powder was bad for growing up. He never really did. He always
tried to plant it, but it never seemed to work. He felt so sad.
One day, his mommy came over to him. She said, "Let's try something
new. Let's reverse the powder!"
The little boy was excited. He loved trying new things. So, they got
to work. They both dug and put the powder in the ground. Then, they
took a big bucket of water and poured it on the powder.
After a few days, the powder started to grow. The little boy was so
happy. He had reversed the powder! He jumped around with joy.
The little boy and his mommy were so happy. They had reversed the bad
powder and made something wonderful.
Many years later, he told his computer to write this story. He was so
proud of himself! He had written it all by himself, with big, wide
eyes and a happy smile.
His mom was so proud of him. She was happy that he had written such a
great story.
The next day, his teacher read the story to him. It was about a wide
and open field. He loved it and it made him smile even bigger.
His mom was even more proud of him. She told him that he was very
talented and that he should keep writing his stories.
The little boy was so excited. He kept writing his stories, never
forgetting how much his mom liked them. He was so proud of himself.
His pride came before his fall. He was playing in the garden with his
friends, when suddenly he noticed a big, wet patch of mud. He
couldn't resist and he ran towards it, laughing as he scooped his feet
into the mud.
His friends watched him as he rolled around in the wet mud, making a
big pile. They were so surprised and laughed.
Suddenly, his mum walked up to him. She had seen him playing in the
mud and she was not happy. She said, "Llama2, you can't play in the
mud anymore!"
Llama2 was so sad. He didn't want to stop playing, he just wanted to
keep having fun. He looked at his mum and said, "But why can't I play
in the mud?"
His mum sighed and said, "I'm sorry, Llama2, but I'm afraid you can't.
You'll have to surrender the mud."
Llama2 looked at the wet mud in his hands and said, "But why?"
His mum smiled and said, "Because it's too wet and you'll get all
dirty, and then I'll have to give you the hose again."
The cold water from the hose was always a horrible shock to him. He
had never seen a hose so big before. Every time he saw the hose he
would start to tremble. He was so scared that he ran away from the
hose as fast as he could.
His mom saw the scared look on his face, so she ran to him and hugged
him tight. She told him it was ok, and that the hose was not
dangerous. She explained that the hose was just part of something,
like a special water that was very powerful.
The little boy was still scared, so his mom decided to help him. She
brought a bucket of warm water and poured it over the hose. The
little boy watched in amazement as the water started to change colors.
His fear slowly faded away and he started to feel brave.
The little boy was so happy that his mom had helped him. He had
learned something new and he would never be scared of the hose again.
He surrendered, and in letting go, he found he had won. He was so
happy he started to jump and shout. He felt like the king of the
world.
Suddenly, he heard a noise. He looked up and saw a little bird flying
near him. The bird was chirping and singing.
The boy looked at the bird and felt envious. He wanted to be the one
watching the bird. He wanted to be the one who won. He looked around
and saw a big tree.
He ran towards it and climbed up the tree. He reached the top and saw
the little bird sitting on a branch. He shouted down to the bird, "I
win! I win!"
The bird looked at him and chirped. It was happy to be the first one
to win. The boy smiled and laughed. He was so proud that he had won.
He forgot all about the hose again.
More than anything he could have ever wanted, he had found a tranquil
peace inside of himself. Everywhere he went, he told stories of the
peace that he was able to have. But then one day, he had a sudden
question: What if he could find out for himself? He was so excited
and determined to find out what it meant that he could have something
to be happy about.
So he set off on his journey, searching for answers. Everywhere he
went, he asked the people he met, if they knew what the answer was.
Everyone had a different answer, but no one could give him one.
But then, one day, he came upon a wise old man who was sitting on a
bench. He had a basket full of apples and he said to the little boy,
"If you have a question, then you must always remember that the answer
is something you can find if you try hard enough. What does it mean?"
The little boy thought for a minute, and then he said, "I have a
question - I want to be happy and not have to worry about what I can
do."
The wise old man smiled and said, "I have a secret for you. If you
try to use your brain, you will always lose. If you sit back and
watch your brain, you will find more serenity and courage."
By letting go of his spoiled desires, he had found inner peace, and
now the old man had given him a new skill to master. He was so proud
of himself that he couldn't wait to show it off.
One day, he was feeling extra special, so he took his desk out of the
desk and brought it over to the park. He saw a little girl who was
sitting alone on a bench. He went over to her and said, "Hi there!
Would you like to sit in my desk?"
The little girl smiled and said, "Yes please!" She sat down in the
desk and it felt so comfortable. She smiled and said, "It feels so
nice here."
It was then that he noticed something else. He saw how much he had
grown in the same way he had been sitting in the desk. He felt so
happy and grateful that he had shared his experience with someone so
special.
The moral of this story is that it is important to be generous and
share with others, especially when it comes to us. We should always
think of others and be sure to share our gifts, just like the little
girl had shared the desk.
The Cave
Contrary to popular belief, the oldest inhabited region in the world
is a tiny village just inside the edge of a jungle. To the east of it
is more jungle, to the west of it is more jungle. To the south is
denser and denser jungle, and to the north there isn't much before a
sea. There are cliffs down to the shore, and in the cliffs is a very
large mouth of a cave. The villagers never go far from the village,
and they definitely never, ever go into the cave.
In the village, the people speak their own language that's similar
enough so that most people who would ever show up from anywhere nearby
are certain to understand them. Most people never come near them from
the west or the east, and no one ever comes to see them from the
south. To the north is just sea, and the cave. Everyone in the
village knows their own purpose from early on in life. No one is ever
forced to stay, but when people want to leave their village, it is
always recommended that they head west, and they almost always do.
They mostly get along better with anyone from the west than from the
east when they do occasionally show up. It may not have always been
that way, but it probably was.
The villagers all know the purpose of their tiny village, but they
don't ever mention it unless someone visits who is headed to the
nearby shore of the sea. They always tell them not to go to the cave.
In the village there is one person selected from an early age, usually
a man, who keeps track of the history of the village. No one is named
at birth, they are only named when they know what they will do. That
person is named Ahb.
Even in that village they know the world changes, Ahb always tells
them stories, and they have proof when Ahb makes a new story for them
about something that happened. Usually there are several people
called Ahbi, but only one person ever becomes known as Ahb. It's the
only name in the village that changes like that.
It caused a lot of changes when people started showing up who said
they came from the north. The villagers thought that wouldn't ever
happen. Only one person had been Ahb since that first happened. No
one had believed it, at first. Ahb had been young, and had taken the
risk to spend a lot of time near the cave to see where they actually
came from. It had been scary, but they had shown up, exactly as they
said, in a large metal boat from somewhere across the sea.
At least they weren't from the cave. It all made for much more than
one story. The people from across the sea noticed Ahb waiting for
them almost as soon as he noticed them. When they had first showed
up, Ahb had told them immediately about the cave. He had noticed
their reluctance to say anything at all, which was most of the reason
he had decided to wait for them to return, to be able to see them as
soon as they arrived again.
They were there at the shore as they said they would be, a few months
later. The people from the sea knew many languages, and it hadn't
taken them long to figure out how to speak with Ahb. He had
immediately asked them about the cave. Somehow he knew they had gone
in there.
They replied by asking him what he knew about the cave. He told them
again the simple stories about the cave. People can go into it, but
if they do, after not very long there is always a horrible scream and
blood drips from the cave. No one ever goes in there anymore. The
villagers had stories that they had tried everything to stop people,
even trying to fight them away from the cave. Obviously that hadn't
had any effect but being worse than useless.
Ahb was more than curious, he had to know if they had gone into it.
Then they told him a few of them had gone in, and that was what had
happened. The people from the sea took him at his word, and he could
tell they had knowledge worth trading for. He explained to the
villagers there could be a new name for people in the village who
could learn from them. They sometimes had very good but different
ways of healing people. Everyone thought it was a good idea, and the
people from the sea suggested the name Doctor.
The people from the sea asked what else was around, and everyone
agreed the people to the west of the village always seemed a bit
friendlier. They had stories about people from the east. One of
people from the sea said it stood out that the villagers usually left
to the west when they did, so they might end up friendlier. Ahb could
tell again they knew good things when that person said that. A sign
of a good Ahbi.
---
Ahb grew very old, and the world kept changing. People never really
came from the east anymore at all, anyway, but to the west the people
from the north might have caused a lot of changes, too. There was a
new ruler to the west, and more people were coming. Two people in the
village were named Ahbi now, and both knew all the stories. The
people from the north didn't even ask about the cave much again.
What worried Ahb the most was that the people coming from the west
asked about the cave far too often. He tried to get the villagers to
notice, at least to get the two Ahbis to notice and try to put a stop
to it. The people from the west of the village were getting too
curious about it, and Ahb could tell they wanted a villager to go in,
but they didn't want to go themselves. Ahb tried to warn everyone as
soon as he noticed it. He became very worried they were influencing
the younger Ahbi, but he didn't want either of them to leave to the
west.
Some people from the west all showed up at once, with one man clearly
leading them, during a time some people from the sea were there. The
people from the west had too much influence, and the people from the
north saw it too. Ahb took the people from the north aside and tried
to ask them for help putting a stop to it, but it was too late. The
younger Ahbi and several people from the west were already halfway to
the cave at the shore when Ahb and the people from the sea went back
to talk to them.
Ahb rushed to the cave, but Ahbi was already coming out of the cave.
He was the first person to come out of the cave, ever. The people
from the west were cheering, their leader moved toward Ahbi to
congratulate him. Ahbi was shaking in fear, and Ahb rushed past
everyone to hug him, crying. What had happened? Ahbi told him simply
that they had given him a test. The cave had been extremely dark, he
couldn't see anything. He had felt a blade to his throat from some
creature inside the cave, who had said, "this is for us, not for you."
Ahbi had been shaking in terror, but the creature had pulled the blade
back a bit. Ahbi had not been sure what to say as he stood there
trembling. It had all only lasted a few seconds, and Ahbi had just
asked if he could leave. The creature had let him. "That's the
story, then," Ahb said to him. "Leave it at that."
---
That night the people from the west took over the village, celebrating
for hours. Ahbi was too drawn into it all. Most of the villagers
didn't stay, but Ahb tried to snap Ahbi out of it and bring him to his
senses. The leader of the group visiting from the west said too many
of the wrong things. Ahbi asked him, not Ahb, if he could go back
with them. The man from the west of the village told him, "no, your
place is clearly here, as the new Ahb."
Ahb felt awful hearing that. He stood at the side of it all with his
fist to his mouth, crying. The younger Ahbi didn't even notice. He
got carried away retelling the story, embellishing it, letting the
people from the west of the village make up horrible details. He was
much too carried away with it all. He said, "the people from the east
could stab me in the back now, and I would survive it." The people
from the west laughed and cheered, while Ahb wept behind the crowd
hopelessly. Finally he left. He didn't know what to do. The people
from the sea had no suggestions, some of them ashamed of themselves
they had ever come at all.
The next morning the ruler from the west himself arrived. The people
from the sea to the north tried to intervene, but the ruler was
demanding that Ahbi go in again. The villagers and people from the
north were outnumbered and couldn't do anything. Ahbi wouldn't listen
to reason as Ahb shouted at him and wept. The younger Ahbi was too
confident, ready to go again and find out more about what lived inside
of the cave. The people who were against going could do nothing but
watch as Ahb screamed, cried, and pleaded, while they all went back to
the shore where the cave was.
Ahb couldn't do anything about it as Ahbi went back into the cave. He
was in there for far too long, for several minutes. There was never
any scream, but blood poured and splattered from the cave while Ahb
wept. The ruler from the west of the village barked in short
astonishment, almost a laugh. Ahb wanted to kill him. The most
amazing thing happened then, the blood started to flow upward from the
ground, and then there was Ahbi standing there again. He slowly fell
forward though, blinking his eyes once. A sword stuck out of his
back. It looked like it could be a thousand years old, except that it
seemed perfectly new. The people from the north tried to push through
the crowd to help him, but they all cheered around Ahbi, rocking the
sword back and forth in his back.