why’d i make him climb all that way
up fifty-five flights of goddam stairs
i didn’t need to break my only neck
in pursuit of prey in the month of may
why’d i make him muck in dung and clay
down sixty-six steps of slippy trails
i didn’t have to snap my only coccyx
in pursuit of prey in trial bay
why’d i make him jump into the fray
against seventy-seven blood streaked fists
i didn’t like to choke on my only teeth
in pursuit of prey when he fell that day
just who was that bolter anyway
what had he done that demanded death
i have soiled my only soul
in pursuit of prey i didn’t want for prey
an orange lays on the table
juicy and fresh
the apple is feeling rotten
much less than blessed
a radio on the wall
forecasts a storm
the tv near the window
declares the day too warm
two ants near my feet
fight for a crumb
a chaffinch takes flight
escapes the mortal thumb
life all around me
is full of small wonders
evolution’s more than
stray, successive blunders
that gives rise to hope
no, i’m not a mistake
forged in the heart of stars
you plus me, we equal awake
even if sometimes
i feel like a rotten apple
i’m an orange soul
warm beneath the leafy dapple
or: EPISODE 9 // Where Tati Battles Demonic Barbers and Tony Falls for a Bounteous Bouffant
In our previous episode, Tati threatened to drop Tony like a lead balloon, and demonstrated an unexpected knowledge of the Bible. And Tony? Well… Tony was just Tony (but with less hair and wearing a whale’s stomach).
“Tony!” Tati whacked another Acolyte of Beguiling Beauty on the head with her umbrella before sharply turning around. “Tony, what are you doing?! Throw away that bloody wig and help me, you fucking hamsters’ lick-spittle!”
Tony was just standing there. There were practically love hearts in his eyes for what looked like a dead rodent in his hands. How that thing could be labelled a wig was beyond her imagining. The Acolytes of Beguiling Beauty had them completely surrounded now, and all he could do was moon over this piece of shit!
“Call me what you want,” cooed Tony, stroking the ‘wig’. “But don’t be dissin’ this bounteous bouffant!”
Tati performed a head spinning, flying somersault and landed right in the middle of the group near Tony. Another second and the wig was swinging at the tip of her umbrella. She grabbed Tony with one hand and brandished the umbrella with the other, driving away the growling and hissing Acolytes.
“What the fuck are these things?” she grimaced. “They’re nothing like any barbers I’ve seen.”
“They kinda look a bit like Edward Scissorhands,” said Tony, almost in awe. “But more androgynous, and with more impressive hair. I just hope they don’t accidentally cut my bits off!”
Tony snatched the wig off of Tati’s umbrella and covered his naked willy with it.
“I don’t believe you!” Tati was furious. She grabbed the calamitous wig from him and threw it away, causing Tony to squeak. “We’re surrounded by an army of Johnny Depp zombies, and all you can think of is your silly doodle?”
“It’s not silly to me. I need my doodle!”
Tati smacked an Acolyte aside. It slid on its back down the wall of the barber shop, and ended up in a crumpled heap on the floor. She yanked Tony with her and cut a swathe through the rest of them, mainlining for the door.
“It’s kind of ironic that we materialised in this hellish barber shop,” added Tony, almost as an afterthought. “Given that we’re now, you know, bald.”
“No, it’s not ironic. You’re bald and a fool!” They were nearly at the door now. “It’s your wishes. The umbrella brings you to the place you wish to be at the most! And while I was trying to think of a safe spot your idiotic fantasies beat me to it!”
“But… but why would I dream of being at the barber shop if I have no hair?”
Tati shoved Tony through the door. He tripped and stumbled into the street, ending up on all fours.
“Just shut up and think of a better place!” barked Tati. She was trying to keep the Acolytes inside with the tip of her umbrella. It was quite sharp, and they seemed to heed this fact, cowering just out of its reach—though this didn’t stop them from clicking their scissor like hands in a rather menacing manner.
“From crater to a whale’s stomach—and now this! How is it that we end up in these ridiculous situations?”
“Stop whining!” snapped Tati. ” Just think! Quickly!”
She tried to barricade the door with her leg, her finger hovering anxiously over the button on the umbrella’s handle. Tony, still on all fours, looked at her horror-stricken.
This is the story of a billboard. An old billboard on the corner of Big Lasher and 20th. It was covered in endless layers of shabby ads. A bit of text here. A model’s face there. Some bird shit.
The bird shit was like a spray of iron pellets embedded in the metal and paper. That’s how hard it had gotten beneath the harsh, bone bleaching sun. To the lonely earthworm looking on from below, these were portents of doom. Well, they would have been portents of doom had the earthworm been able to see.
The fact that this earthworm was as blind as a worm—and deaf like one too—isn’t terribly important for our super serious scientific research. A gust of wind flapped paper over the model’s nose with a loud pop. Now, that detail is important. As is the detail that upon not hearing this, the earthworm crawled up. We’re not sure why it crawled up. Perhaps it wanted a view it could not see to accompany the sound it could not hear. No one can know the mind of an earthworm, okay? You just need to accept this.
If, indeed, an earthworm has a mind.
So, anyway, the earthworm eventually reached the billboard’s top. Unsurprisingly, it saw and heard nothing. It wondered where it was now relative to where it had been, and felt similarly clueless. It’s really not easy being an earthworm.
It was on this cusp of despair that the earthworm felt something like hard peas digging into its ribs. (Do earthworms have ribs? Gah. Anyway.) The earthworm could have sworn it was feeling a letter ‘A’. Of course, every earthworm knows Braille. It’s the first thing wormlets are taught in school. So, yeah, this was definitely feeling like the first letter of the alphabet…
The earthworm fidgeted a bit, edging its body over to the right. Yeah, an ‘A’. Driven by curiosity, it started to move along the trail of fossil bird shit, not knowing that it was fossil bird shit. You see, earthworms are not only blind and deaf, they also can’t smell for shit. Still, it was old, dried up shit, so the shit no longer retained its shitty smell, thus the earthworm couldn’t have smelled it even had it possessed a nose—which it clearly didn’t. (We can’t believe how often we were able to squeeze the word ‘shit’ into this paragraph!)
It took nearly two hours, but the earthworm was patient. It painstakingly moved its clammy, naked body over every shitty bump at the top of that billboard. It got turned on a few times during this process, but earthworms don’t have penises to get boners with, so the arousal was strictly cerebral. We suppose this means earthworms have minds after all, and that the mind is the most powerful sex organ.
But, again, we must omit this fact for now because of its quantifiable littleness. That very same day, the old billboard on the corner of Big Lasher and 20th was scrapped and sent off to be melted down. It was turned into a dozen new shiny shovels that every day since have cut many earthworms into halves, giving them all a new life that has been twice as good.
unbolt me 