Imagine my surprise, when I opened that text, and saw the same picture of Björk made out of polyester wicker, a flame coming out of her mouth, encased in steel wire deer antlers, for the thousandth time! Her portrait was mounted on a white wall somewhere, wicker and wires cast an intricate weave of shadows through the holes in her design across stucco. It was six months of the same photograph, multiple times a day, from a million different numbers, and my phone had already run out of space again. It wasn't so difficult to understand motive as it was to ascribe meaninglessness to such vague and repetitive efforts, like some rote being cast across the same flattened lawn of existence, not of their own styling or tastes, but insisting it was for my eventual tastes. I would have liked to make my own lawn for my own tastes suitable towards something entirely reciprocal, but by the time my phone was singing with alerts it seemed everyone had already made up their minds about each other in some oblique and sleight, coded way. What was a person supposed to do about that? I wouldn't go through life arguing I thought, fighting strangers and the whole town who every day told me This is what you are. What could one possibly have to prove to such a useless, one-sided dialogue, that couldn't even face me? Scrolling through the list of texts, Björk's lifeless portrait, mouth open in flames, staring off to the left in frozen awe copied itself up and down in hundreds of thumbnails that drowned out any texts from people I knew. Eventually I threw the phone down a stairwell and gave up altogether on being identified by something that I couldn't even assume the identity of itself. There was just nothing there, outside of someone else's thoughts, feelings, opinions, that demanded to be opened like a puzzle box, by my own hands. There was nothing less relatable.
I spent some time walking down a different road, to see if there was anything different about this place. There had to be more to life than the loop. On my left appeared a gravel lot I had never noticed before, which was backed steeply by a ravine gorge crawling with ivy and poison oak. There were various cars parked in the lot and a 2007 beige-gold Toyota Sienna had its windows half-down with the doors unlocked. I peered inside the car and it was used as a kind of smoking spot with all kinds of graffiti tags inside. One caught my eye that read ROYALTY in black paint marker. There wasn't much around here besides a lot on the side of the road, but when I walked over to the ravine I saw a formation of boulders creating a kind of room with a door facing me. I walked in and the sunlight streamed in from the open top and natural windows from gaps between the boulders. There was a small walkway down to the right of the room where a natural spring formed a pool to rest within. I took my clothes off and rested in the water for awhile. It was the most tepid, almost nonexistent water I had ever felt in my life, perfectly matched to the temperature of the air and barely even a sensation upon the skin. There wasn't any comfort in the water here, except for the comfort in hiding curled up beside a cleft in a natural formation, beyond the reach of anyone or anything.
After some time I emerged from the cave and a young boy was waiting for me outside the pool. He immediately started insulting me and questioning everything about me like he was possessed by some kind of robotic presence that wasn't his own. I didn't even answer his questions but only heard the sharp outline of his accusing tone, so familiar to pain it seemed, begging for attention in its timbre that resisted resolution. Not willing to insult back a child I softened my gaze upon him and dilated my eyes so his individual hairs melted into a fuzzy mess that sat on top of his now brown blob of a face. His arms and legs almost seemed to vanish from my inability to perceive his percussive accusative form, and suddenly everything about this boy left my mind. Seeing he could not be seen he stormed off outside and opened the trunk of the Sienna and I looked up above him at the gold-green tree line of early spring oak, coated in pollen and sunlight. There was something artificial to his temper that every inch of me rejected, that every bird flew away from, and every tree stood out from. His older sister came out to apologize on his behalf, that he hadn't been the same since his head injury. I nodded and surprisingly she gave me a big warm hug, crying into my neck and letting me know that things were going to be okay. She wanted to go see a shark feeding movie she told me, and we traded phone numbers.
The directions she gave me to reach the theater were confusing and I ended up going in through the back of the building, where I had to walk through three other theaters first to reach the one she sat in. In each theater the same thing was happening, and I recognized most of the people in there as people from my own town that I knew. Hundreds, if not thousands of seats were filled by people in various costumes. From fairy princesses to pirate detectives it looked as if the audience should have been on the stage instead. I wandered across theaters observing all the ridiculous costumes everyone wore, yet still feeling out of place without a T shirt on. An obese man recognized me and started psychoanalyzing me out loud in front of anyone within earshot, telling me what he thought about my stories I wrote and why I needed to be more like him, but I turned away and climbed a ladder to the balcony seats overlooking the stage. I took a seat and complained to my neighbor how fans always try to guilt trip artists for having boundaries, and he slowly looked at me with the most deadpan, uninterested look possible, and then turned his head back to the empty stage. Looking ahead each of the massive empty stages were dressed in thick, black curtains that absorbed the bright flood lights on the ceiling. On the floor shone brightly polished wooden boards, so illuminated you could see the individual cracks between each glossy black board.
I wasn't sure what to expect, or if to even expect anything, but everyone around me in their costumes seemed to be enjoying watching absolutely nothing happen on stage. I focused straight ahead and began to imagine what I would do if I were down there, and I saw myself dancing a duet with the ballerina next to me, then having a sword battle with the pirate I saw earlier. Everything and anything I could do emerged in my mind upon that stage, and I began to be pulled into a trance with the rest of the costumed crowd, but then a man down beneath the end of the stage lit a firework and it exploded in the middle of the theater. Everyone roared in applause and stood up with generally indirect congratulations and celebrations, hugging, kissing and screaming each other as if they had just overcome a revolution. My row filed down the ladder to go thank the man who set off the firework but I couldn't think of anything to say, so I walked outside without seeing the girl. An odd assortment of individuals hanging outside invited me to drink with them at the bar across the street, so I obliged. We all hopped on the outside of a car and stood clinging desperately to its hood so we didn't fall off into the road. When we got outside of the club two giant twins put a titanium spike dog collar on me and tugged on the leash. You get to be our doggy, one of them said behind a pound of cheap makeup and bolted-on tits with Xs taped over the nipples. Their skin was remarkably soft and doughy looking, pliable and retaining some quality of light like a tadpoles body.
No thanks, this collar sucks and titanium isn't my style. Also, I am not a dog.
Well when you are with me you be what I tell you, capiche? We went our separate ways misunderstanding each other and I found a store where an Indian man had all kinds of secondhand clothing for sale. I found a white bomber jacket and used three seven dollar bills to purchase it. He vouched to me that the previous owner was very happy with it, but wanted someone else to be happy with it instead. Well consider me happy since I finally have a shirt. I walked back outside where a tall apartment complex stood with people partying on the roof top. I could have sworn I saw the girl up there and I walked to the top of the building, where I saw the Björk wicker wire antler portrait hanging on the wall above a pool. I was warned not to go in the pool because it had 37 types of hepatitis from all the parties in there and there was a single lone man at the bottom of the pool using a laptop to do some kind of internet work. I still didn't see the girl but told Zach I felt like none of this was real, or that none of it was even worth happening in the first place. Why had I even come here, through all of this, without believing any of it?
It's a mythology, he told me, from a very long time ago. If you asked someone today about Atlantis, they would probably tell you that it is a mythology, but back when we were in Atlantis, we used the word mythology very differently. You see, there used to be giant women with beautiful long brown hair that shone natural beauty every day. These mothers were so prideful of their beauty that they traveled great distances and committed great acts to ensure their offspring would resemble them in outward strength and beauty. Eventually they had to wound the outside of the earth and open portals of dross to reach in and extract animal forms to imbue their outwardness with capabilities of beauty, since their insides were by then the complete opposite of beauty. If you spent too much time around them you would feel the stampede of their thoughts and horned affections mowing down the beauty of gentleness, so we called these giant mothers boars, because of their greed. The mythology of form extends far beyond our current dilemma of 21st century theatrics, he told me and then ripped his cigarette. Here, I got something better for you than parties and diseases, and we looked towards a bridge that connected the town with the countryside.
We scrammed towards the bridge and threw off our shirts, climbing its base with no ropes and harness. There were three other people climbing the same bridge, much higher up, but they were suspended with flat grey ropes and flailed in the winds. We reached to the top of the beams that protruded skyward, decked with giant iron bolts and painted red over rust. Looking down my hands and feet filled with dull aching as sweat greased forth on my palms. With every muscle in my hands I gripped the beam as hard as I could against the prevailing winds and saw the vast landscape fill with the immensity of the sky. Giant spanish estates floundered in the heat and were encircled with trimmed hedge bushes, punctuated with skinny conifers. Generations of elders looked in scorn on their offspring as they abused another and the great wealth that was now being handed over. Who could have thought betrayal would ever end like this? I waved to one of the elders on a balcony and she smiled through the heat to me. The wind started blowing heavily towards us on the bridge, and the curvature of the landscape distorted heavily, wavering between convex and concave until finally stretching far towards us like some kind of stretching bubble. Everything went pitch black, I could not see a thing. The entire world heaved over and flipped upside down so I held on to the bridge with all my might. After a few seconds it reversed back to normal and we saw the other climbers beside us, dangling from their flattened ropes, taut with their unconscious swaying forms.
A snow began to fall on the earth, and we hurried down the bridge to the base, where the dirt and birds were darkened by the cold wet weather. A rushing river streamed beside the concrete pillar of the bridge carrying bits of melting snow down into the country side, and we sat on the shore with sticks poking at pebbles. Mythologies could be anywhere, he told me, running people back and forth, like some never-ending dream. Believing them was so much easier than living next to them. Reality always felt out of place, jumbled and focused badly like some poor film. Maybe it has nothing to do with you.
I spent some time walking down a different road, to see if there was anything different about this place. There had to be more to life than the loop. On my left appeared a gravel lot I had never noticed before, which was backed steeply by a ravine gorge crawling with ivy and poison oak. There were various cars parked in the lot and a 2007 beige-gold Toyota Sienna had its windows half-down with the doors unlocked. I peered inside the car and it was used as a kind of smoking spot with all kinds of graffiti tags inside. One caught my eye that read ROYALTY in black paint marker. There wasn't much around here besides a lot on the side of the road, but when I walked over to the ravine I saw a formation of boulders creating a kind of room with a door facing me. I walked in and the sunlight streamed in from the open top and natural windows from gaps between the boulders. There was a small walkway down to the right of the room where a natural spring formed a pool to rest within. I took my clothes off and rested in the water for awhile. It was the most tepid, almost nonexistent water I had ever felt in my life, perfectly matched to the temperature of the air and barely even a sensation upon the skin. There wasn't any comfort in the water here, except for the comfort in hiding curled up beside a cleft in a natural formation, beyond the reach of anyone or anything.
After some time I emerged from the cave and a young boy was waiting for me outside the pool. He immediately started insulting me and questioning everything about me like he was possessed by some kind of robotic presence that wasn't his own. I didn't even answer his questions but only heard the sharp outline of his accusing tone, so familiar to pain it seemed, begging for attention in its timbre that resisted resolution. Not willing to insult back a child I softened my gaze upon him and dilated my eyes so his individual hairs melted into a fuzzy mess that sat on top of his now brown blob of a face. His arms and legs almost seemed to vanish from my inability to perceive his percussive accusative form, and suddenly everything about this boy left my mind. Seeing he could not be seen he stormed off outside and opened the trunk of the Sienna and I looked up above him at the gold-green tree line of early spring oak, coated in pollen and sunlight. There was something artificial to his temper that every inch of me rejected, that every bird flew away from, and every tree stood out from. His older sister came out to apologize on his behalf, that he hadn't been the same since his head injury. I nodded and surprisingly she gave me a big warm hug, crying into my neck and letting me know that things were going to be okay. She wanted to go see a shark feeding movie she told me, and we traded phone numbers.
The directions she gave me to reach the theater were confusing and I ended up going in through the back of the building, where I had to walk through three other theaters first to reach the one she sat in. In each theater the same thing was happening, and I recognized most of the people in there as people from my own town that I knew. Hundreds, if not thousands of seats were filled by people in various costumes. From fairy princesses to pirate detectives it looked as if the audience should have been on the stage instead. I wandered across theaters observing all the ridiculous costumes everyone wore, yet still feeling out of place without a T shirt on. An obese man recognized me and started psychoanalyzing me out loud in front of anyone within earshot, telling me what he thought about my stories I wrote and why I needed to be more like him, but I turned away and climbed a ladder to the balcony seats overlooking the stage. I took a seat and complained to my neighbor how fans always try to guilt trip artists for having boundaries, and he slowly looked at me with the most deadpan, uninterested look possible, and then turned his head back to the empty stage. Looking ahead each of the massive empty stages were dressed in thick, black curtains that absorbed the bright flood lights on the ceiling. On the floor shone brightly polished wooden boards, so illuminated you could see the individual cracks between each glossy black board.
I wasn't sure what to expect, or if to even expect anything, but everyone around me in their costumes seemed to be enjoying watching absolutely nothing happen on stage. I focused straight ahead and began to imagine what I would do if I were down there, and I saw myself dancing a duet with the ballerina next to me, then having a sword battle with the pirate I saw earlier. Everything and anything I could do emerged in my mind upon that stage, and I began to be pulled into a trance with the rest of the costumed crowd, but then a man down beneath the end of the stage lit a firework and it exploded in the middle of the theater. Everyone roared in applause and stood up with generally indirect congratulations and celebrations, hugging, kissing and screaming each other as if they had just overcome a revolution. My row filed down the ladder to go thank the man who set off the firework but I couldn't think of anything to say, so I walked outside without seeing the girl. An odd assortment of individuals hanging outside invited me to drink with them at the bar across the street, so I obliged. We all hopped on the outside of a car and stood clinging desperately to its hood so we didn't fall off into the road. When we got outside of the club two giant twins put a titanium spike dog collar on me and tugged on the leash. You get to be our doggy, one of them said behind a pound of cheap makeup and bolted-on tits with Xs taped over the nipples. Their skin was remarkably soft and doughy looking, pliable and retaining some quality of light like a tadpoles body.
No thanks, this collar sucks and titanium isn't my style. Also, I am not a dog.
Well when you are with me you be what I tell you, capiche? We went our separate ways misunderstanding each other and I found a store where an Indian man had all kinds of secondhand clothing for sale. I found a white bomber jacket and used three seven dollar bills to purchase it. He vouched to me that the previous owner was very happy with it, but wanted someone else to be happy with it instead. Well consider me happy since I finally have a shirt. I walked back outside where a tall apartment complex stood with people partying on the roof top. I could have sworn I saw the girl up there and I walked to the top of the building, where I saw the Björk wicker wire antler portrait hanging on the wall above a pool. I was warned not to go in the pool because it had 37 types of hepatitis from all the parties in there and there was a single lone man at the bottom of the pool using a laptop to do some kind of internet work. I still didn't see the girl but told Zach I felt like none of this was real, or that none of it was even worth happening in the first place. Why had I even come here, through all of this, without believing any of it?
It's a mythology, he told me, from a very long time ago. If you asked someone today about Atlantis, they would probably tell you that it is a mythology, but back when we were in Atlantis, we used the word mythology very differently. You see, there used to be giant women with beautiful long brown hair that shone natural beauty every day. These mothers were so prideful of their beauty that they traveled great distances and committed great acts to ensure their offspring would resemble them in outward strength and beauty. Eventually they had to wound the outside of the earth and open portals of dross to reach in and extract animal forms to imbue their outwardness with capabilities of beauty, since their insides were by then the complete opposite of beauty. If you spent too much time around them you would feel the stampede of their thoughts and horned affections mowing down the beauty of gentleness, so we called these giant mothers boars, because of their greed. The mythology of form extends far beyond our current dilemma of 21st century theatrics, he told me and then ripped his cigarette. Here, I got something better for you than parties and diseases, and we looked towards a bridge that connected the town with the countryside.
We scrammed towards the bridge and threw off our shirts, climbing its base with no ropes and harness. There were three other people climbing the same bridge, much higher up, but they were suspended with flat grey ropes and flailed in the winds. We reached to the top of the beams that protruded skyward, decked with giant iron bolts and painted red over rust. Looking down my hands and feet filled with dull aching as sweat greased forth on my palms. With every muscle in my hands I gripped the beam as hard as I could against the prevailing winds and saw the vast landscape fill with the immensity of the sky. Giant spanish estates floundered in the heat and were encircled with trimmed hedge bushes, punctuated with skinny conifers. Generations of elders looked in scorn on their offspring as they abused another and the great wealth that was now being handed over. Who could have thought betrayal would ever end like this? I waved to one of the elders on a balcony and she smiled through the heat to me. The wind started blowing heavily towards us on the bridge, and the curvature of the landscape distorted heavily, wavering between convex and concave until finally stretching far towards us like some kind of stretching bubble. Everything went pitch black, I could not see a thing. The entire world heaved over and flipped upside down so I held on to the bridge with all my might. After a few seconds it reversed back to normal and we saw the other climbers beside us, dangling from their flattened ropes, taut with their unconscious swaying forms.
A snow began to fall on the earth, and we hurried down the bridge to the base, where the dirt and birds were darkened by the cold wet weather. A rushing river streamed beside the concrete pillar of the bridge carrying bits of melting snow down into the country side, and we sat on the shore with sticks poking at pebbles. Mythologies could be anywhere, he told me, running people back and forth, like some never-ending dream. Believing them was so much easier than living next to them. Reality always felt out of place, jumbled and focused badly like some poor film. Maybe it has nothing to do with you.
