BRIDGE OUT

There is a tap on the shoulder a tap the tap on into the shoulder this or that this shoulder that shoulder under a sky terse and cryptic a sky thick pressing heavily to mow down or rip away from the earth and gash a part of the solar system to dislocate this or that shoulder the tap a tap.  Nub was it a nub of another head on the body rambling on and on this is the way it goes with another wanting to be heard more than words running down chins turning away from a precipice where it came in this is the way it goes another wanting to be heard more than words running down chins getting burst like engorged ticks in frowns turning away from a precipice where it came in this is the way it came in this way the way it goes with the tapping a tap the tap.


"Tap tap."


"What am I supposed to say next?"


"Don't treat this like it's some sort of prefabricated dialogue."


"No, I was wondering if we were transitioning to a joke or something."


"This is not funny - just strange."


"Strange can be funny."


"Perhaps."


"That's funny, that's strange, are interchangeable."


"Perhaps."


"Now go back."


"We can't."


"Why not?" inquiring of the man flattening against what was or wasn't behind them.


"I'm telling you we can't go back."


Joining another in turning around what a project what a collaborative endeavor that resulted in not only only not seeing or discovering anything outside of bugs not bugs not in this instance that halted with them as they halted or stacked up as dust between the space bar and the letter V. Who knew?  Who knew?  It was between them and others and you know what reference is being used here or stop pretending like you know go on with you go on pretending.  


Perhaps.


Pretending a collaborative endeavor in turning around joining another what a project.  Who knew?  Who knew?  It was between them that resulted in not only only not seeing or discovering anything outside of bugs not bugs not in this instance that halted with them as they halted or stacked up dust between the space bar and the letter V.  Who knew?  Who knew?  It was between them and others and off the record off the deep end for this will be 


perhaps


outside of the mind one's mind no others return to that when will need to figure that out later outside of this mind putting the others aside return to that when will need to figure that out later when it is later and those that say things will be resolved will either urge those besides the others outside the others inside these walls as those outside the others inside these walls to join together closer together in turning around what a project stacked up with the others not the other others the other things stacked up in a stack of projects piled between shelves with hardly any room left hardly able to get back to back there.


"How would you describe what we're up against?"


"You could say we're up against something that seems to go down a long way," indicated the son of an alcoholic a gaunt old coot who passed his time peeling off labels from bottled water and read about kangaroos while being endlessly distracted by a sequence of thoughts that ran in the following manner as he tore another label, "What the hell is that?  A stench from the lowest of the low.  My feet and nothing else."


Who knew?  Who knew?  Just between us it was between them what a project for joining another in turning around what a waste and it was between them between the toes and it had stacked up and led to this what a stench from the lowest of the low to send up nothing but a stench while their voices and it was between them that their voices muted by the gulf up against it up against them a long way down the gulf muting their voices.


"I thought perhaps they would echo."


"To what end?"


"To bounce around in there and reach somewhere else."


"It's dead quiet and nothing is being brought up."


"Can you see anything down there?"


"Are you kidding?  Even if I continue to glare into it I don't even get any little shapes under my lids if I close them tightly or notice any patterns at all."


"I just cause myself to see things and make up patterns."


"Making up patterns is like laying a picnic blanket far beyond its usefulness over a barren field."


"Perhaps."


"You are stuck on perhaps."


"Perhaps we're stuck in more ways than can be imagined."


"What do you make yourself see?"


"For a brief moment I thought I saw a tremendous mountain of salt."


"Really?  Down there?"


"No.  It was up here in my mind.  I don't know if I dreamt about it once or where I imagined it.  All I know is that I get this mountain of salt where all of us were trying to bring all this salt and we brought our waste with it as well thinking we could make it better because of the salt or turn it into something else and all it did was make us forget about what was back there."


"Back where?"


"What used to be back there behind the mountain of salt and our waste."


"What was back there?


"I don't know.  It was obscured and it was too big to get back there anymore."


"I wonder what used to be back here."


"A bridge perhaps?"


"How would it have been possible?  It seems to go on and on."


"I knew a man who was an engineer.  I'm trying to think of his name.  This drives me crazy when I start to do this because then I get all mixed up in a whole rearrangement of rearranging the oddest sounding names I cannot pull free from the tip of my tongue.  It was one of those names I think he disliked his first name so he replaced it with his middle name.  Actually, he had two middle names and he settled on the second middle one or he just kept the first middle one and dropped the second.  Something about using an initial as the beginning.  Damned if I can even differentiate if it was a vowel or a consonant.  Like other people I knew and he knew he just made up a beginning for himself.  Then he found out he was adopted and they had no information on his real father.  He became so morose he got rid of his last name.  The closest I have ever come to thinking I know what it was was that it sounded like one of those weird parts of a car mixed with a lesser known type of vegetable.  You're shaking your head."


"I was thinking about her and while we were still together so to speak how much I urged to her to get things things that we needed or thought we needed just because I didn't want to bother getting anything had gotten accustomed to it before and after not bothering and she would get them because she thought it pleased me when all it was was a preventive measure.  That's how things are measured in preventive measures."



Who knew?  Who knew?  Just between us it was between them what a project for joining another in turning around what a waste and it was between them between the toes and it had stacked up and led to this what a stench from the lowest of the low to send up nothing but a stench while their voices and it was between them that their voices muted by the gulf up against it up against them a long way down the gulf muting their voices.




- Max Stoltenberg