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Abnormally, every once in a while, Valene would cast a glance his way. And then she would come to her senses. Everything would be all right again. When she caught herself doing that it was like the house adhered to her lungs and it contracted and expanded with her breathing. Space once more.
Valene: The inner and the outer are separated. Where they belong. You feel the gap. You know what is meant by that. Don't even try to pretend you don't understand. Each time the system slips just a little, there will be less tolerance. Mind your gestures. Mind your thoughts. The more room that is made for the gap the less room there will be for oversight and the less than perfect indifference. Erasing the clumsy and wasteful. Soon to be forever replaced by perpetual silence in a digitally controlled environment. No more contact with the structure. It will remain in the back of your head. That empty head of yours. You'll never be like them. Your far removed relatives of nature. Possessors of perfect instinct. You lost it thousands and thousands of years ago. Now you must go to the very end of the line. Time will never tell. Let them be your example. Role models. Ideal specimens. The genuine article. Come here to your love.
Valene sticks a long serving fork into a steak and places it carefully onto the dog's plate. She then generously scoops tuna onto the cat's plate. Both animals rush to their plates and begin fighting.
Valene: Your place settings are still too close together. Huh? Apologies.
She manages to separate the animals and moves their place settings further apart.
Valene: It's all your fault. How could you be so careless and let your attitude affect them? How many times does it need to be beaten into you that they are sensitive to the disorganized nervous systems of non-animals? When will you learn? It's like speaking to the wall. It's like speaking to every wall in every room that makes up every corner in this this house and getting the same lack of response. Lack of response. Leaves one exasperated and at one's wits end. Running out of questions to ask. Seem to be asking the same questions over and over. Getting old. They're getting old. The two of them. They get more bitter every day. Hard to miss. Before you know it, they'll drift apart. The space will grow. The gap will become obese and unfillable. You wouldn't even be capable of knowing what to do with that. You can't even be expected to comprehend things at this disintegrated stage. Just wait until the fragments start disappearing. They'll ride off on the lint in the sunlight. Then it'll be overcast more often than not. You'll be begging for their growling at your sorry ass. You'll regret your ignorance and insensitivity. You'll regret your vacillations. All that pathetic rolling over and giving in. All that bending of your back. Your condition. You did it to yourself. If you bend your back, they'll climb over it and keep you down. They'll keep you in a lower position. A smaller position. An obsequious position. A more compromising position. They'll hold you down in a lower position until your bent back breaks from the strain. You'll lay in some dark and neglected corner somewhere. The memory of standing up straight will be outside you. Outside you in a condemned and wrecked fence of torn vertebrae. Nothing for it, but to be chewed on by the dog. Your condition. Your condition. Pah! Likely story. Just as unbelievable as all the excuses and stories you've given for years. Glad they can't be recalled. Good for whatever is left of posterity that they will vanish never to be retold. The forgetting of them feels as invigorating as the sensation one has in one's hands from slapping your caved in face. The appropriate abode for you to retreat within your fallen frame of what no longer can be described. Or named. Or for that matter. No matter.
- Max Stoltenberg
Red had writer's block. He had been staring at his laptop screen for the past however long he had been staring at it.
Red: I will sit here for however long it takes to get an idea I can use.
His wife Kat stands in the hallway examining the thermostat.
Kat: It says it's 86 degrees in here. I don't think this thing is working.
Red: Maybe you're right. Maybe I should just nix this thing.
Kat: Now it's 87. We should turn this off and call someone to get it fixed.
Red: Nonsense. I think it is hopeless.
Kat: Well, that's my point, isn't it? That when it's hopeless that is when you should take action and seek help. You know, get on the phone. Start punching in numbers. Look up names in the white pages or the yellow pages. I've seen blue ones as well and I also recall patches or edges of grey. Something like that. Right? Or open up email and type in an address. That would exercise those atrophying fingers of yours. Get the writing blood flowing again. Demand some assistance with your writing. Help with this stuck situation that isn't going anywhere but burning up creative fuel. Demand it with every last drop of rage in those fingerprints that says, "I'm here and my call is going unanswered. My text is being ignored and misappropriated by networks above me. In my ceilings. In my walls. These wretched walls melting with your greed in these burning houses. Flaming suburbs. Painted in soot."
Kat pauses for quite a while. She is breathing heavy and listening for Red to respond. She is about to walk over to the other part of the house where he sits at his laptop. She takes a step and hesitates. She walks back to the hallway and examines the thermostat again. Kat squints at it for quite sometime.
Kat: Thermostat display shows that the temperature has broken 90. Can you imagine? Do we have any health problems that could be exacerbated by this heat? Do I have any issues that you might possibly know of, Red? Red? Are you listening to me? Have you been listening to me at all during all this time that I have been talking for however long? Red? Will you answer me?
Kat walks to the living room and discovers that Red is not there.
Kat: You're not in the living room. No wonder you haven't heard a word I said. Normally we can hear each other from in here unless I'm in the bathroom because it is all the way in the back corner of our bedroom back there. Or if one of us happens to be in the garage checking for snakes. I wonder if this summer will break our record of last year. We had 7. 17, I believe. Believe me when I say that nothing gives me more pleasure than destroying a serpent. It's like some vain attempt to unwrite false history that can't help coiling up in dehydrated minds. Some vain attempt. All right. I give up. Where are you, Red?
Kat walks down another hallway. A dark hallway that has a Dali painting with a watch dripping over a tree branch.
Kat: Much prefer that to an O'Keefe. Pussy willows melt while you are sought so that you can be sought and know just how much someone is thinking of you. When every last drop of desire is vaporized on this crust of violence, there will be ice to capture my breath in the glass mausoleum on display for the next age. For however long that lasts. You cry. Cryogenic sorrow. Where value meets quality. Never mind.
Kat opens the 4th door on the left and she is in the kitchen. Red is sitting on the floor wearing headphones plugged into his laptop listening to music with the refrigerator and freezer doors open. He is sitting motionless and staring into the refrigerator. Kat moves right in front. He does not blink.
Kat: Technology not only deafens you. It blinds you. The more you learn the less you hear, the less you see. Where am I? I reside somewhere behind the afterthought of whatever theory you entertain this week until it is replaced by something more airtight. Devoid of oxygen. Without atmosphere. You belong up in there in orbit. That's the distance you view me and all of this from. Fuck you and your fucking fucking.
Red notices Kat and takes off his headphones.
Red: Sibelius. 7th Symphony. I thought some Scandinavian classical music might help. Some icy strings over deep arctic waters. Let the freezer cold out. It helps a little. Cool me off, I mean. Not the ideas. Not a one.
Kat: Time long subsequent.
Red: What?
Kat: Time long subsequent. I read it somewhere. I don't know where. Somewhere.
Red: Time long subsequent. I don't think the cold is doing anything now. Maybe it's hot flashes from frustration.
Kat: Maybe it's just me. Glass mausoleum.
Red: Glass what now?
Kat: See through. The more transparent you become the less I see of you. The more mysterious you are.
Red: Apparently.
Kat: Maybe you could write about a man who finds himself orbiting the Earth. He is quite disoriented and at a loss of how he got there. Is it a dream? Transporter beam? Satellite TV or whatever. And so he floats and then realizes that he could get use to something like that. The view. The distance.
Red: I think the heat must be getting to you. I've got to stay in this for however long it takes me. I've got to remain immersed in this crap even though I feel like I've reached the rusted bottom and all I hear in my skull is one dead echo.
- Max Stoltenberg
An elderly woman sits in her recliner watching TV. There is no light in the room except what emanates from the TV screen. What sunlight remains of the day is disappearing into the sunset. The elderly woman stares at the screen. Its light is spread across her face like various colored transparencies.
TV: The next slide. The next slide tells your audience what you will be speaking about. Then the next slide tells your audience what you are speaking about. Then the next slide tells your audience what you have just been speaking about.
The elderly woman says, "Next slide please." She changes the channel with the remote she is holding in her left hand.
TV: At the touch of a button, you have all the information you need at your fingertips.
Elderly Woman: All the information you need at your fingertips.
TV: Categorize, label, date, time, reference, link, break links, kill links, dead links.
Elderly Woman: Dead links. So many of those.
She turns off the TV. The room is quite dark now.
Elderly Woman: So many dead links. Lost connections. Tabs. Add tabs. Too many tabs. Deleted tabs. Shut the whole fucking thing down. Stones. Headstones. Born. Died. The dash. Dash it all. Close eyes. Go to sleep. Stay in this chair. For this one last night.
As the elderly woman nods off, she slumps and her fingers on the remote turn the TV back on. She startles awake to the light and sound.
TV: The dog somehow dialed for emergency services and was able to obtain the help her master needed. Her master suffered from -
Elderly Woman: Suffered from arthritis. Suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Suffered from stones. Gallstones. Kidney stones. Headstones. So many dead links. The wind. Light. Sound. Is blowing her web away. Strands are fraying. Fraying strands pulling and clinging to leaves. Twigs. Bones. Make all the bones about it that you want to. You make all the bones. In a pile. Stack them until they obscure the headstone. More headstones. Stretching for blocks of houses and garages and parks. Parks colored green with grass and pink with children. Blue sky. Sunset. Close your eyes. Close them. Open. Shut them. Open. No good. Still in the same place. The dust. The pits. Shortness of breath. Shortness. Shrinking body. Less here. Less here. Still here.
TV: Her master received medical attention just in the nick of time.
Elderly Woman: Nick of time. Nick. Where was that? When was that? Too many headstones. Stretching on and on along the alley where they pick up the trash so we can dump it there again. Trash. The dust. The pits. Apples. Oranges. They didn't have oranges all last week. And the bananas. Not a single bunch. Her master. Master. Him. They. Always watching. Always watching TV. Them. Always watching. Every squinting moment. Every breath that desperately tries to extend to the next. Next channel. More information at your fingertips. Fingertips pressing. Keeping it on. Watching. Always watching. More information. All that paper. Rooms of paper. Boxes and boxes. Boxes of shoes. Boxes of cups. Broken cups. Broken links. Dead links. Too many headstones. Stretching on from house to house, garage to garage. Garages stacked with stacked boxes. To the ceiling. The ceiling. As far as one gets. As far as one gets.
- Max Stoltenberg
Back up. Out of the corner. Give yourself some room. Back up and smell the coffee. Let it help you hear what you just said. Are you sure? Are you certain? 100%? Absolute? Back up. Under that light. Seeing as well as hearing your discrepancy. Doesn't match with what you said a paragraph ago. Three or four sentences or so. About a paragraph ago. Back up. Out of the corner. Give yourself some room. Come over here. Let us see. Let us hear. It'll all come out in the end. In the end. The end. End. Trimming the embellishments. Weed whacking the decorative intertwinings like tangled lawns. Tangled and confabulating runs at it for yet another attempt at making the cut. Cut all right. Snipped.
Back up. Just a blinking blooming minute. Back up. Off the petal. Away from the pedal. We'll have none of that anymore. Back up. Leave. Back to the bottom of the stem. The ground for you to dig and start again. Back up. Back up. Hold on. A paragraph or so ago. Smell the coffee and see as well as hear yourself say those words. Those words that give you away. Strip you away to your deformities. Try again and remember to start over. Get going. Hurry up. Back up. From the very beginning. In fact, from before the beginning. You've got to prepare for the beginning. Back up. Commence from before even that. Ensure enough room for yourself to even begin to think of gathering your preparation for the beginning. Back up. Come out from where you've been cornered. Come out from where you painted yourself into a corner. Back up. Back way the hell up. Way the hell up. The hell up. Hell up. Hell. Back up and come away from that corner you painted yourself into. Back up. Come away. Stripped away. Down to your deformities. For all to see. Your deformities. Can't do a damn thing with that, can you? Back up. Come out from that corner. Start again.
- Max Stoltenberg
Photo
Photos
Names
Relations
Diseases
Disorders
Orders and directives
Procedures
Depth of exploration
Discovering darker mud
Thicker layers
Disposing of human remains
Diseases and disorders
Orders and directives
Lights artificially circuited
To bends in the surface
Around the world we return
Normalcy for whom?
Normalcy for whom?
Only now it is broken
And can never be put
Back together
Together again
Harder and more difficult
To climb steeper memories
Not as funny
Not as sad
Not sad enough
To connect with something
That uttered
Nonsense
And to be continued
Before death
When we have the time
She wrapped her arms more tightly around her body as she entered another dead end. Not that it made any difference. They were in the rain. It was getter heavier. Tati had been told that this alley was secluded enough. Barb brought a styrofoam container as they sat down in the back corner.
"What is that?" Tati asked.
"Styrofoam," answered Barb.
"And what's inside it?"
"A structure of closed cells. Cells closed to the outside. Very unlike us. We squat down in our exposure to the elements. Density. That's what they have. Density. I wonder if we should change our names to Poly 1 and Poly 2. Short for polystyrene. Easy to work with. See how flexible we are. In this situation. See how flexible you are. How flexible I am. Flexible. Like a process of flexibly made of flecks being tossed against the not so tender surface of the reality of mess."
"Are you going to open the container or keep inundating me as if I haven't been already inundated enough?"
"Inundated? What would make you say a thing like that? Why on this flooded and voracious Earth would you speak in that manner?"
"I don't know. Like it was meant to come out that way. In that manner as you said."
"Meant. Meant. Meaning dies every time another year spills by that the world was supposed to end and it doesn't. The offer to fill out your subscription to join this mass project called meaning expires. Sorry. That expired centuries - millennia ago."
"OK. Incorruptible orator. Answer me this. What's the meaning of this story I was told? A woman and a camel are in the desert. No, not the desert. The camel was lost and ended up in a traffic circle."
"A traffic circle?"
"Not a traffic circle. Some kind of circle."
"Was it a whirlpool?"
"Yes! A whirlpool. Actually, no. A cul de sac. That was it. A woman and a very lost camel were selling Ramen noodles."
"Not plausible."
"My apologies. Caviar."
"More appropriate. Continue."
"The woman and the camel had been doing quite well since picking that specific cul de sac. Primo coordinates."
"Undoubtedly."
"They were finally making some revenue in the neighborhood (not the neighborhood they were currently located in), but vicinity of the upper single digits already."
"Extraordinary."
"Then they were confronted with a police car parking along the curb. An officer opened his door and stepped out. He walked toward them. The camel - "
"He left the car door open?"
"What?"
"Did he actually walk over to them without closing the door?"
"The one in the back?"
"The back of what?"
"That burnt out complex uptown?"
"What complex?"
"The one where we used to stay?"
"That was downtown."
"Really? Downtown?"
"It was either downtown or uptown. Either the complex you used to have or the one you still have."
"My complex, you mean?"
"I don't mean anything. Remember?"
"Vaguely."
"Why would the police officer walk toward them without shutting the door to his vehicle?"
"Of course he did. It goes without saying."
"Obviously."
"I continue. Where was I? The police officer approached them and the camel began reviewing its inventory of poetry to both distract and impress. When the camel would get around to it eventually. It might provide some aesthetic quality. Realistically, it wasn't a police officer after all. Now that I think about it. A little girl about 6 years old stopped in front of their enterprise. She dragged behind her a sleeping bag that was stuffed with objects of some sort. The woman asked the little girl what she had in her sleeping bag and the girl said that it was full of her stuffed animals. They were all sick like her. Even though her parents told her to be well. They still got sick."
Barb opened the styrofoam container and revealed yet another unfinished collection of Chinese food.
Barb stated, "I believe there is enough for both of us."
Tati responded, "We'll have to use our fingers again. Unless you were able to find a utensil of some kind, Barb."
"Barb? I'm Poly 1 and you're Poly 2. Recall when I renamed us?"
"And why am I Poly 2?"
"I've led us."
"Into a dead end."
"Of course, dead ends from dead means. Like your story. Now, I have a story for you. Once there was a woman who had sacrificed so much throughout her life. Her life consisted of being served."
"Oh, privileged? Royalty, even?"
"Uh, no. Neither. You cut me off before I was about to say that her life consisted of being served. Served nothing but wounds."
"Terribly sorry. Proceed to the end."
"She was served nothing but wounds well into her 30s. Her late 30s. She had nothing left, but her clothes on her emaciated body. A body emaciated by messages. Letters, deeds, quit claims, memos, emails, texts, cut and paste, deletions, replacements, duplications, paper jams, breakdowns, reboots, boots to the face, the belly, the vanishing belly, emptying below sea level. Below sea level. Below the ground. Underground. Living under the ground. The voices still followed her there. They seemed to echo more under the ground. As if the voices were better suited for that abode. The only thing that worked her out of this residence was the passerby who offered her no assistance but the promise of getting clean again. That did sound all well and good. Meet him at the church he said. Her last confessional she thought he said. Was the number 3476 or 3746? She entered the building. Maybe the church was within. In the basement he said. Back under the ground. Where the voices banged around inside her skull. She opened the booth. A booth down there in the dimly lit corridor with the small poster that advertised a way out or was it an artist who was way out? There was no image of a man or priest or whatever he was that offered her no assistance but a way out and being clean again. Was he a religious representative or agent? The woman whose image appeared on the poster must be the artist that he represented. An agent of art? Are you going to eventually bring that chop suey up to your mouth?"
"My fingers are tangled in the noodles."
The rainfall got heavier.
Barb went on, "The poster was hard to read in the small amount of light she had. Something about the woman and her words of power. Power and light. Words of power that wrapped around its listeners."
Tati replied, "Light. When was the last time we saw some light?"
Barb echoed the words, "The last time. They go in and they don't come out. Following directions. Instincts. Intuitions. Insights. Always the voices. And always the tangents. Most of all the repetitions. The same dead ends. The same dead people that seemed so alive at first. Her back reached the dark wall. The door to the booth had shut. She reached for the handle to test if it had locked from the outside. Locked from the outside. That's when the remaining light went out. When the last remaining power went out."
"It's surprisingly comforting having one's fingers tangled in a discarded meal."
"Really?"
"No, not really. Trying to find a handle, I guess."
"What handle?"
"Something to hold on to. Before the light went out. She reached to find the handle to see if it was locked from the outside."
"Locked from the outside. It probably was. She. She was probably finally locked from the outside. To resign herself to fall back against the wall that held her. No more exposure to the elements. Just words to wrap around her and embrace her density. Density of closed cells. So easy to work with."
- Max Stoltenberg
