Chinchilla's Friends

tigerbaxter

1:34PM

the donkey was to take me to the palace in the ether by way of undulating stairs.
1973

1974

1974

1975

1976

1982

tigerbaxter

9:16PM

i'm suffering from gastroenteritis and the creeps, though if i were well i'd be walking alongside kurt gödel, pushing the terminally ill and terminally mewling down the companionway; me and gödel, eating, finally, our shark teeth splintering the keel.

the icebox holds chocolate bars and sausages. inside, a beakless canary's cooling her heels, letting cold steam escape when she slits the door to empty her nest of nearly completed, shredded crossword puzzles.

i haven't made my way to other side of the room in two days. brian may's stayed in the en suite. how do you think i got sick? my broken somatoform leg is bleeding somatoformally into the kaleidoscopic bedding. legions of dowagers strike eurasia from the sky, descending on the chased with knitting needles, capturing grown men in webs knit of wool. god gracious, i'm lucky to be in bed, in california.

warm californian winters have convinced me to move west. the fin on my back was part of the deal.

tigerbaxter

10:20PM

tigerbaxter

6:41PM

my sternutation begot a conflagrant guest room. i stayed in bed, lying in the room's center, counting the tongues in the flame. my woolgathering allowed the dog's death. and i attended a lodge banquet, a roadhouse feast, in night, in privacy.

The Humanitarians were together, in the long mossy, ivory hall, some seated, many standing nervously. "is it jaundice?" whimperingly asked the fisher, to which the doctor replied, screaming sotto voce, "quiet, John! he's starting."

a cursory glance passing the mirror above the mantle i notice determination in my countenance, dogedness. it's odd. it doesn't accommodate me, or the spaces, or the missing memories. i looked into the eyes of a man prepared to say his full and true name. a monologist ready for biographical recital. i lied for safety, for cowardice, for fun. i lied to keep eating, to get drunk. i lied to take women to bed. and that, all that was worthy and wonderful, but looking into the eyes of a duck dressed as a bear, i had to grin; the grin of the jackal, the limp frown of the fraud.

under the first floor there was a bedroom. on its walls hung paintings and photographs of sailboats. a large window faced the street, though the view was interrupted by a large trunked, healthy brown tree. snow fell. i wore a necklace of imitation gold and crucifix. when standing, the cross swung down to rest above my navel. in this story, everything happens as it should. all characters are as happy as possible, provided their circumstances are permissive. all events rational, each scenario plausible, every situation domestic, familiar. universally, endlessly deciphered by itself, through its use, to serve the purposes of its users so that they might continue to unearth self-evident truths and write down shorter and shorter axioms, truer and truer aphorisms. a letter from the future reads "rape is wrong" and we, the people, declare the future a holiday. hurrah, we're going home, for the first time.

i can rest blame on lack of representation for my frustrations of the time. the telephone rang but hadn't. strangers called my name, then disappeared behind corners and had never been there. with a pair of thumb and forefinger sets i removed my teeth, eyelashes, toenails, fingernails, pubic hair, and eyeballs to find, with the arrival of morning, that i could see, clench and grind my show-bones, scratch the patch of fur above my penis, swat the flies from my chin with thousands of abbreviated, improvised ass-tails.

prognosis 0 the best i can offer is an approximation. i'd say twenty miles past those hills. follow the pylons. you should be fine.

the more sober i became the younger she seemed, the younger she became.

foraging for antonyms.

forever less a moment.

the aspirations of anthropoids.

i counted seven mismatched blankets, throws, afghans, in seven distinct yet similar shapes, not one long or wide enough to adequately cover an average sized man. it was as if she had gagged her own bed. i found her bizarre. she'd traded in her father for a husband but found that her husband, though similar in build and general appearance, was nothing like her dead father, so she left him and her daughter to the wolves, to each other.

a short woman, Julie, had the face of a porcelain peach stamped with a red velvet kiss, a weak chin, and eyes so big they met at the center and called you a rascal and asked you for a drink, begged you for attention, slapped your crotch with a gloved palm and laughed at your grimace.

wake up man! affusion and led zeppelin! she's standing there, right behind you – sir, to your back. she knows, she must know her boluses are vanished, and vanished into your crowded carousel carpentered of one and friendless wildness. realizing her voice again, differently. i'd planned to call her until it was far too late. it's very late. i won't wake until necessary.

her, and her as philadelphia, and her as a distant passenger, and her as a cold vestige of sobriety, a current of monatomic resilience, as my best friend; i called after her in the ending night, nearing the coming sun. i'd been lonelier, but was very lonely. i'd never been smarter, more sure, and all without innocence and distraction of wonder.

i envied myself, sobbing in my doctor's office. she had no idea what to do. she touched my shoulder and pulled away, speaking to me as i were a domesticated dog whining for food.

there was money and it was there. i wanted to be married. i longed for the cohabitation of marriage and nothingness. at each glance i noticed people and humanity. i had allergies.

we were in limbo, james and i, and a number of others, inconsequential cohabitants. during this stage, or phase, or trial, or lesson, or something, we were left guessing what would come next. after death i'd hoped for nothing, or a direction but received the same existence as life. only the physics had changed, and not greatly. no guides, all gods still missing, all truths still false. james and i assumed something came after the limbo, considering the limbo came after life, but we couldn't be sure, not of anything. the living couldn't see us, or maybe it was they couldn't sense us, or smell us. this was one of the criteria that led us to understand the stage. there was no reason for us to think we weren't also living, just differently, though our vision had changed. either that or the world was disguised, or revealed.

it's easier setting down to sleep with someone, forgetting that you haven't fretted and pulled your hair about all you haven't done in the day. neither of you have done anything. the diffusion of responsibility to one's self is eaten by the counterfeit concern one has for another.

"don't fuck with me, don't bother me, don't threaten me. i'm a lawyer-i'm your lawyer!" my throat crushed like a raw egg in his wrench-grip.

this, being your final chance, should impress upon you the gravity of your errors. i've received each of your letters. someone brings them to me in the night, as you've stamped URGENT numerous times across each tan envelope. the frantic brand, the lie, is smudged, crosses itself, appears desperate. please don't think you haven't been in my thoughts.

i've come to think of you as a child – strike that: i continue to think of you as a child; a rotten, sneering, spoiled thing, which won't let alone until it's been scrutinized, it's dress over it's head, yabbering because it's gotten what it's wanted and it realizes that means nothing. holding attention, like a mystery prize, keeping it hidden from you, that's entertained me, but i've grown tired and am no longer willing to play.

so here it is and how it shall be. you'll pester me once more and not again. the spell out one more midnight missive and i'll speak to an employee (who's a very good, reliable employee - exhaustive) elucidating my consternation in a candid way that will startle him. as i impose on his counsel he will attempt to calm me and after i seem appeased he will ask your name. i will give him your name. this valediction is irreconcilable, irreversible. i write to you in the name of better times, good memories, and favors among old friends. god be with you, and goodbye.

i imagine you singing her songs, or they're your songs (the sorceress has divined them, in her name), playing an electric guitar. i stand arms behind the crowd, the autist, as you're sometimes Robert Plant. i hope you're not listed. occasionally i'm found drunk. i've been caught making mistakes.

rumours, rumors. come, face me. i'll be portrayed by the cop in the spermwhale costume. come find me behind the curtain after the show. i'll be conquering the all-black tiger and the fern green dinosaur with its limp wrists.

the wine was redundant.

two skinny, biddable legs in corduroy britches jabbered along the boardwalk clamorously. the wake blinded your pouting, dogie ears. liquescent dander, commixed in the rectal chamber of a fat sultana, kept the segmented stumps stumbling onward. it's the same mixture of magic and jest, joy and hoax, that motored a three-digited jonquil hand to pen your obituary hours after the same hand had pecked your bottom and pushed you off the pier, lips taut agape in a mislaid scream, to be nipped and chawed by wayward waterfowl. beasts are uninterested in plastics. i touched down in your father's Antonov An-225, millions of tires slivered and shaved by the gravel of your parents' esatate's landing strip. i'd come to collect, but you were out, and i began waiting.

"You may find that you bruise more easily or bleed more freely."