Thoughts

A day in the life...

The door of the tiny Boston apartment flung open.  It hit the wall with a terrible Bang and slid back on it hinges. Edmond was through the threshold as the door rounded on its arch.  He looked around: a filthy couch, a coffee table cluttered with beer bottles layered in shirts and mail (most of which was strongly worded letters about a final something or other). Over a short bar -yep there it was- the kitchen light flickered. He’d hoped it would burn out while he was working. It hadn’t.  The tubes flashed suddenly bright then dim, it was laughing. The door gave a haughty, giggling creak as it swung back open. Somewhere above him pipes rang and cackled all joining in at his mockery.  Edmond lit a cigarette. Back lit by piss yellow hallway lights he cast a short, thin and insignificant silhouette. Smoke drifted around him, engulfing his form. It drew close, swarming him like a thick cottony fog. Edmond was oddly aware of the ground lifting from his feet. A moment later he was air born. His cloud bore him upward; he drifted through the crumbling ceiling tiles, through Garrison’s flat with its ceaseless, cackling pipes. Now he was peering down over Huntington ave. from atop a boiling storm cloud. A brisk charge of lighting rumbled in the surrounding nimbi. Edmond plucked out his cigarette and stomped out the clouds. The kitchen light flicked on then rapidly off. Two choices: stay and be driven mad -madder he corrected- or go and replace that -fucking- light.  . Edmond thumbed the pill bottle in his pocket. Danté, Edmond 2 tablets per day as needed. PR: Miranti, Vincent J. He concerted it, the way one considers a tooth canal. Do I really need it this time? Maybe it’ll get better.

                George’s was open almost all the time. Except Fridays and whenever the Patriots were playing. A great red sign announced: HARDWARE. SUPLIES. The door chimed as he entered.

“Eddy!” the cry came from a great mountain of a man sitting behind a stubby counter.  A swath of sandpaper-grey beard greeted him with a toothy grin. “How da Fuck ah yoo, man?” George’s bulbous form wobbled at some joke Edmond failed to understand.

Edmond had been attacked twice on his way over. Once by a loin and once by a twitchy man with ash'd skin. To the latter he’d offered his immortal soul which the man wanted nothing of and promptly let him alone. “Fine.” He answered.

“Da Sox’s on, watchu need?”

“A light.”

“I thought chu quit smokin’... c’mon, J.D.!”

Edmond was about to offer a reply but Sosa crushed a ball into far right field. He decided to leave George to his swearing at the Red Sox’s right fielder. Edmond found himself moments later staring at cardboard-wrapped glass. Most of them were frosted, some were clear. None, however, looked to be the ones he needed. Moments of thought came rarely to Edmond. Mostly driven away by the growing chaos of his brain; or ceaseless chaos of the world outside his brain. It these rare moments of tranquility he thought mostly of Sandra. Had she been real? That’s stupid. Of course she was real. She used to be a regular at Hitters. Mikey even talked to her.

 Sandra, of course, was real. Bourbon on ice Sunday through Thursday at 8pm at Hitters - she was clockwork. She sat at the corner of the rail in the inkiest of shadows. Black hair cascaded over her ears and pooled at her soft shoulders. Steel blue eyes pierced her bangs. Her eyes burned blue holes wherever she looked. Sadly they mostly looked down or away. She was impossibly pale. Her skin looked as if it should reflect silver light as the moon yet it was dull, almost hidden in the night. Edmond had never seen her outside the bar but he often imagined her – when he could. Not in a profane manner (though he’d not deny his brain bearing images of her supple body). Rather, he pictured her rare smile. Lips like merlot would part ever so slightly, revealing pearlescent teeth in a demure grin.  Those lips never showed more than a little incisor before falling away. Rarer still were her laughs. Her voice-

“Oi! Eddy!” George boomed from the store front, “ah yoo al’ight, man?”

“y-yeah.” Edmond held his head, “How long was I standing there?”

“Only, like, an inning – c’mon!” George swat the T.V., “Can yoo b’lieve dis?” He gestured to the fuzzy screen. “ne’ermind. Its 8.50.”

Edmond patted his pockets. “Shit.” He recalled, vaguely, giving his soul and wallet to a crack head earlier that night. “I forgot: I got mugged.”

“Only yoo, man” George shook his head.

“I offered him my eternal soul but…” Edmond shrugged. George wobbled with laughter. “Eh. I should've known it was worthless.”

A silence passed between them.

“Hey, I got these.” Edmond pulled the pill bottle marked: Danté, Edmond 2 tablets per day as needed. PR: Miranti, Vincent J. George looked at the bottle for a moment and handed it back, minus two tablets. “Thanks.” He collected the cardboard-wrapped glass tubes.

“Yoo workin’ tomah'o?”

Tomorrow was Friday. Sandra was never at the bar on Fridays. “Pr’oly not.” Edmond nodded and the two parted with farewells and went separate ways: George to his T.V. and Edmond to … well, who really knows?

Special Education Week (dis week)

Edmond wishes he could escape the dreams. the dreams frighten them. he only wants for them to talk to him as they do to others.

Slow down, you move too fast

As I've announced (or meant to announce) i'm seeking to down-shift my life. into a more managible and approprate gear for my current life path. (should i go in to car puns now?) i'll talk about my life and the effects of Slwingo the  fuck down.

Firstly, At work. working is a curious thing, some say they try to rob us of our cognitive-ness. Work does not make us sheep. but not not hinkting does.  I have a terribly naive nature - a fact that has alluded me for many yeasr prioir to this post. the more i obvere people (now) the more i can see patterns in behavor. the longer i obverse a persone the more i understand thire pattern.

I Hate my Job

Of my newest line of employment the world should know. I think I posted a note about Ge-angelo's newest hireling (me). No? Nevertheless, I hate working there. I dislike it so much. I wonder: did i ever feel the same about Monica's during my first week of employment? I don't know. If so, how long until her faults and flaws and failing dissolve from frustration to fun? 

Perhaps, for Ge-angelo's, never. I don't like my boss. I've not truly met my co-workers. Ah, it is all coming back like a rancid beef burrito from the nite before. (it's up-chuck) These are the same ambiguous feeling i held about Monica's years ago. And there the similarities end.

A consultation: a full bottle of Landlubber Rum (thank you, IRS for not begrudging me the mere 2,000 some odd dollars i made in 2009 and returning me cash monies (buy US saving Bonds)). the weight of a full 750 ml feels good in my palm. And I reflect on the congruence between me and it. As it empties and I fill. And more and more does it reflect me and I it.

Words

I wish words come to me faster or sooner or stronger - clearer
But they don't. They are slow, methodical things, whispering, creeping things like most of life they are Maddeningly so. a broken faucet don't the hall dripps. droplets plink echoing in the sink basin in the depth of night. It is so quiet. The shadows lure sleep. Yet, the sound comes again. Soon it fills the airs. Drowning all other noise. quiet once, quiet again. To lie (lay) awake and waiting, breath held, for the next drop least it steals dreams away.

A brief look inside The Iliad II

     The Iliad II wasn't a grand ship. A simple freighter used primarily for transport. It was dull and Spartan, lacking any real frills. Garret drifted in the dark, weightless bridge. The control consoles were dead. The Marshal hammered on three of them fruitlessly. Garret left the remaining one untouched, assuming it as lifeless and useless as the rest. He drifted towards the rear of the bridge, guided by chrome hand bars towards the Living pod. He paused at the bright, white door to check his pistol. It was secure in the shoulder holster. With a grunt he pulled the door and floated through. Simulated gravity grabbed him as soon as Garrett drifted from the sterile, weightless bridge into the Living Pod. The where the crew would've lived, he reminded himself. Immediately he felt the familiar draw of force pushing him to the floor. Grey steel greeted his boots with a thunk that echoed eerily in the empty Living Pod. Garret pulled his pistol from the shoulder holster. Its cold weight felt comforting in his hand. This ship, the Iliad II, was strange, though he'd been on ships like it. A sign nearby depicted a stick figure climbing stairs. The black symbol of a man marched unarmed up. Below the pictograph the letters F2 and an arrow pointed to his left. Garret went right. A few twists of the hallway brought him into a large, open lounge area. Here, the steel walkway turned to green carpet. Garret looked up instinctively. Above his head, across the length of the Living Pod the same green carpet stared back. The lounge stretched circular up and around, encasing the inhabitants in a calm, softness that Garret found unnerving. At the center of the cylinder, a ball floated, caught outside the artificial gravity. Garret imaged crew members having bets about lobbing objects across the space, trying to encourage them to get stuck in the weightless space above their heads. Furniture here was mostly spare. A few benches that mimicked the old wooden pews of a church lined up on the wall (floor) to his right. In front of him, a cupboard was securely shut, also in mock wood. Garret supposed that vainer served to remind deep-space travelers of more terrestrial times. A few extra bits of furnishings, a chair and a great couch offered seating. But Garret was focused on the ladder in front (and slightly left) of him. It ran up the far end of the lounge towards the center on the Living Pod, to an access door that would lead him to the engines of this space freighter. Suddenly, Pain split through Garret's side. Another bolt pitched violently through his chest. The shots came from two directions. Together, they forced him down –out- to the floor. The Marshal fell forward to one knee. His hand flashed out gripping the spongy carpet to stop his fall. The carpet was marred with the travel of hundreds of foot falls. In its grains Garret was reminded him of something - of somewhen. A shower of bullet hummed angrily above his head, crashing like hornets into to pews behind him. Garret saw none of this. Hot blood soaked into the green fuzz. His. Through the haze of gunsmoke the bright droplets bloomed. The worn carpeting rushed out. Before him a lush field spread green deep in the throes of summer. 
 

     As a boy he once stood in the same field. It was a planet Garret thought he'd never see again. Yet, he stood there now. Wind pulled at him rudely rolling across the field of -were they poppies?- red flowers. It carried the fragrance of summer and nectar. To the south a dark line of trees, an ancient forest, beckoned. The trees waved soft branches offering a delightful rest at the base of their trunks. Promises of easy life and whispers of pleasures lifted to his ears. The great red blossoms swayed in the afternoon breeze. Something else drifted in the wind. Something he hadn't noticed as a boy but remembered always. Smoke. And a tinge of salt. Like a roast dripping into the fire. It was the smell of burning flesh. He found out later it was the dreadful final memory of his father. Garret turned, whirling on his heels. Behind him those men -those Bastards- appeared. Just as he remembered. Only this time Garret's hand flashed to his left should where his Widow-maker waited in loyally in it's plain leather holster. To his fright, the pistol was absent. Garret stumbled back. Fear -was that the feeling?- squeezed his heart. Too long, the thought raced at the back of his mind, since I left fear. Southward the trees called to him. Louder now. The breeze smelled sweeter too not just inviting him to rest, to safety, but demanding it. They were only two. He could easily out run them, hide in the forest. Maybe even escape to the south where bliss was promised. He thought it a good plan. Gerald turned to flee. The green pasture spread out, flowers bright spots in the fading light.


     NO! A voice careened through his skull like a bullet. CAN'T REST, YET! The boy changed, then. The field dulled, its light sapped away. From green strains of grass to grey striations in carpet flecked with blood. STAND! The voice cried, FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR FATHER! Garret's gun was already in his fist -no need to draw. The hilt burned hot, wet with the stains of his wounds. A cruel life taught him well. The pistol blazed, his finger flicked the trigger until the cylinder clapped empty. The lounge fell silent again. Even the echoes of falling bodies held their breath. The marshal stood, his empty gun scanning the Living Pod for more blood to be had. None. He teetered. Then fell.

Late-nite-thoughts

                                 

At some point I wish'd to expess thoughts of these stories. But now i feel as a fly buzzing away other's lives.
buzzz buzzz buzzz
like the question that lingers in my head:

-what does it mean to Exist?-

any one whose contemplated existence has wondered the cliche of purpose. the question of why am I here? Outside the caveat of answers ranging from simple biologics to complex ideologies, the question is often lost to us in the fray of Philosophical notions. Few people can ponder their own existence with out the improprieties of vanity, Emo-ism, or ponce-itude. (i like 50¢ words). However, there is a growing population of folks who've been brought to life with an express propose. To be clear, i don't think ill of families like the Goldbergs (see Henry Strongin Goldberg). nor do i believe that PGD or any genetics work is bad, malicious or unethical. What interests me is the notion that someone could have a concreteness to their being -their existence (outside of love, biology, survival instinct and all the other demands humans might have for children).

 The reason one might've been created is nothing more than first forced steps of life.
Life come to those who continue the journy.

Forever and Questioningly yours,
-Marcus Miranti

Slow it down some

Recently I've become engaged to a new financial source. I've attained a day job.
A night/weekend job, to be presice. As i were in Iowa City, this some-times-er comes is in Food. I love Food. So, I don't beleive it's a step back (not a step foward, though.) Ge-Angelo's is Ames' Answer to Monica's. While both are fine Italian Eateries it would be unfair to compare the two.

I'll make this post short because there are other things distacting me.

cya next time,
- Marcus