Weren't Sure If You Were Aware of This...

I don't know, it just seemed important to me that we get the word out.

Kind of Nice, For a Change!

This morning I was lounging in the lounge when fate decreed that I should glance across the room and see an area with a staircase, a window, a view of bushes and buildings, and and above all a fluroescent light and suddenly it came to me like a waft of waffles on an updraft from downstairs at breakfast time: I liked what I was seeing. No, really. I did.

Postponing "Hi"

                                        In theory, approaching a friend on the sidewalk should be a good experience. In reality, though, few sightings elicit such unbearable awkwardness. The further away you are when you recognize each other, the tougher the dilemma: Do you smile like idiots for a mile and a half, wearing out your lips as well as your ability to maintain genuine excitement long enough to still be civil when you finally cross paths; or do you stare blankly past one another for a mile and a half, thereby running the risk of coming off as cold, indifferent, or unobservant?

Answer: the moment you can make out the features of your pal, avert either uncomfortable scenario by suddenly receiving an imaginary text message. This will give you permission to put off the inevitable moment of eye contact and the mandatory grinning to follow. Depending on the distance to be crossed, alter the time it takes to fumble your phone out of your pocket, read the message, make a face. If you need more precious seconds, you can even begin to type up a detailed reply... and once you perceive via your peripheral vision that your favorite person in the world* is now a good smile-length few paces away from your position, look up, act surprised, squeal, "Hey, what's up?" And then keep walking.

*Note: If the approachee should happen to be something less than your favorite person in the world, just keep texting. Even if you don't have a phone with you that day, keep texting.
 

The House

The house was full of youth, and the exuberance thereof. Such exuberance! Never had I seen their match for sheer, splendiferous liveliness. The moment I crossed the threshold I knew something was wrong by the way the dead one leaned her emaciated head around the corner at the end of the hallway. After that I heard the squeals, like someone was butchering a pig. A high note of orgasmic suspense gargled in the air. Pretending not to smell what I most definitely did smell, I sauntered casually down the aisle, running at the top of my lungs.

Someone wasn’t there. She was wearing a saggy white blouse with a block of black nuts in the middle of her soft chest. When I hugged her I felt the unintended knuckles in my collar bone. “Hi,” she smiled balmily. There was Mama D. in the dress. I knew her immediately by the sound of her humongous heart. Everyone sat around her with thoughts in their eyes and tears in their minds. My old friend, who had passed away two or three years ago, stayed dead. Then I saw the man with the blood in his fingernails. I didn’t expect the beard. There was that familiar concave region below the brows, but nothing to fill the sockets aside from a bit of organic matter with a glossy finish and ocular functions. Even when she picked up his hand, there was no one under his forehead responding to her touch. There was nothing at all.

My sisters danced up. The kids are here. “Oh?” I asked. Yes. Down the hall. “Great,” I coughed up a pill. “Let’s go.” I was scared. The dead head was down there. And the pigs. Who were the pigs?

But when I peeked around the corner I saw only a beautiful witch child and her older brother.

“Hello,” said the brother.

He was holding a bird skeleton.

“Oh, hello,” I nambied gamely.

The bird skeleton got up and sashayed across the room. The brother smiled a square smile inside a square head. His questions, although polite, seemed somewhat sincere. I felt sorry for him, because his head was so cubic, his thoughts couldn’t form a proper orbit. I also felt bad about those few times he had called my name back when his head was still round, and his smile still beautiful. It was all I could do not to cry, just thinking about it. His voice was thick and raw. He was still alive in there somewhere; a burning coal deep in the furnace. No one should have to die like this, I realized. Buried alive. No one!

Then came a fatty, hammy screech and the pigs stampeded through the hall, butchering each other. I turned to address the brother, but he was gone. And then I saw a pig with a square smile.

Yellow Corridors

The yellow corridors are cruel. 

Hide me in the dark. 

Happy voices sing to me in the empty church. 

Tall people with open skies for eyes and rays of sun for smiles  
should never go away. 

I don’t want to die in a massacre. 

I want to rest in peace.