roachboy

ltknow posted a link to the National Write a Novel in a Month Challenge:
What is NaNoWriMo? | National Novel Writing Month

It's 18 November and that's not enough time for a single person to write a 75, 000 word novel—but maybe lots of people working collectively could do it. Baraka Guru and I were talking about this, and decided to make a collaborative writing challenge.

The idea is that between now and the end of the month we make a 200 page novel, and do it in the Literature forum.


We should make a town.
Let's make this town:



Any town is lots of different things happening simultaneously.
So pick a location and make characters and the space they're in.
You can describe the location, the building or part of the building that your character or characters occupy. You can tell situations, tell stories. You can do multiple characters and/or places by doing several posts—but each individual post should be consistent: one post, one location. You can do multiple posts about the same location—you can make an apartment building for example. But please cross-reference them (see below)

You can tell stories about the past, describe interactions, describe spaces or objects within spaces: you can daydream or nightdream or whatever you like. It's the complexity of simultaneous stories that'd make this doable and maybe cool to wander around in.

If you want to put up a piece of genre writing—fantasy, sci-fi, horror—you have to work it into the town constraint—so for example if you want to do a gothic thing, you could have your character read the story and us read along with your character reading it, or you could have your character watch a film, etc. Similarly, you can do stories about the past present or future so long as you keep building the town in "real time" as well. You can refer to other places via communications infrastructure, patterns of trade or exchange. You can talk about electricity and telephone if you like—a town is all these things, but it is also still a town, so you have to remember: everything that happens is building this town.

Characters and scenes should be self-contained in terms of action. If you want to have an interaction with a character or characters from another story, you have to collaborate before posting. The is no omniscient narrator in this town, no god. You can write things involving characters or spaces that other people have made directly by collaborating with them. This is a rule---if you make a situation in which there is interaction, you should pm the writer who made the characters you're interacting with. Think of it like this: you wouldn't just show up. You call ahead.

It'd be good if a cross-references system developed--so if in a post I were to mention, say, The Acme Penile Implant Corporation (i don't know why i thought of that), another post later could take you into an office of the APIC or walk you around the production facility. To cross reference, please start with the number of the post that you're picking up on. What we'd like to do is link them together so you could go down any number of pathways through the same town. The idea is that this town already in a sense exists, so you can talk about it as if it does. If this works, we can populate it with places, spaces and stories that hang together through the cross-referencing.

I think the movement of the reader through the town is enough of an organizing idea that way, particularly if the link possibility can happen.

To keep things interestings, we're going to move through cycles of days. So there will be DAY and NIGHT. There may also be WEATHER to consider. Baraka Guru or I will post in yellow when day becomes night and if there's weather (rain, snow, hurricane,etc). At first, maybe Day—if this goes as we'd like and lots of people are working on it to do this town-raising, we'll start to break it up (morning, afternoon, evening). Please stay consistent with the time of day. You don't have to refer to it, but if you do, be in the same timezone as the stories around you.

To complete this, we need lots of text, so write and steal freely.
The objective is to submit it as a novel to the website above at the end of the month.
Hopefully, we get a prize.
So the thread will stop at the end of the month.

So let's make a town comrades. The only way this is possible in 12 or 13 days is if all of us help with it.

Have fun. I look forward to visiting this place
-----Added 19/11/2008 at 11 : 45 : 01-----
DAY ONE


It is morning.

Without stories, there's only a map.

A town is a geographical region and a collection of states of mind, some connected, others discrete. A town is a collection of networks, of spaces where folk work, where they interact with each other, where they buy things, where they live.

A reader enters this town by reading about these states of mind, how they're connected to each other, to the wider world, to the past, to the future, to each other, to the place.

We should populate the town, make it more than a network of lines and street names.

When you decide on a street on which to put something, please note that and what it is that you're putting there—a single-family house, an apartment building, a store, a factory or warehouse, etc. Once we're underway, if you want to add something to the same space (another apartment in the same building), please cross-reference with the post number and location so that we can keep things kinda straight.

The date is more or less the present, but feel free to invoke the past or the future so long as you do it in a way that keeps your story consistent with the town---as you see in the opening, you can have a character talk about the past, or you can do it as narrator, but frame it as someone in the present talking about the past, or reading something or watching something about the past.

Characters can have relationships of various kinds with each other. If you're going to set up a character as a friend of another and want the characters to interact directly, please pm the poster who made that character and make the interaction as a collaborative story—it can be done as a sequence of posts or in the same post.

Remember that it's morning. When night falls, remember that it's dark outside. If you can see and you're outside, you have to account for why that is.

Have fun---write freely, steal liberally.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

RetroGunslinger

Carpe diem.

The sound of taxis and enraged pedestrians filled Parker's ears. Hot dog vendors yelling at cats, cats yelling at dogs, and dogs chasing screeching cars. The outside breeze flowing through the planted trees that lined the trees, and small leaves crackling against his third story window. The smooth friction of sheets moving against sheets moving against Parker's smooth skin.

Sunlight was shedding itself over her bare face and back from the open window. Her eyes still closed, Parker imagined how wonderful it must be as the dust and the light playfully danced with each other, accenting their own appearances. Their reflection in the mirror opposite her bed would be her little gift of the day, followed by her always pleasing body lifting itself up from the lofty queen size mattress. It wasn't a crime to love yourself, and the feeling she felt whenever she saw her perfectly maintained physique was always something worth waiting to wake up to.

The sunlight was very hot now. That was different. Perhaps it was just her overzealous love of the day, but as Parker's skin went from delightfully warm to sizzling, the realization quickly dawned.

Parker opened her eyes. Her apartment was on fire.

Jumping up, Parker dashed across the room without batting an eye lash at the blazing fragments of the dresser's mirror, or the newly timbered work desk, or the once $2000 rug now turned to ashes. She reached the door almost immediately, and gave two seconds to read the note taped to the door:

Hey baby,
Thanks for the good time last night. Good to know you can still put out. Revenge sure does feel great, you narcissistic bitch.
--Robbie

"Asshole." Parker muttered, opening the door and running down the hall, to the elevator. Mrs. Crabshaw from the end of the hall had already left her room at the smell of the smoke, apparently the only aging druggie in the building with a sense of smell.

"Is that smoke?" She asked Parker as she zoomed past.

"Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am, it's fire ma'am, gotta go ma'am!" Parker started downstairs just as she finished the garbled sentence. The concrete steps cut at her feet, but the pain went unnoticed in her enraged, adrenaline-fueled state.

The Calle Paraiso Apartment Building was on fire. That sucked. Parker Frost was running away from the blaze naked. That sucked. She had been stood up and nearly murdered. That also really sucked. The day had not started to her liking, but that was OK. At least she was alive. And naked. Shit.

First stop: Belk. No, no wallet. First stop: Pawn shop. Please let there be a guy behind the counter, some ugly, disgusting, fat, strangely generous guy!

The day light was nasty, filtered by exhaust smoke and various ominous rain clouds. There was a dead cat in the street, mangled and run over, and the medical waste plant across the street appeared to be having a strike. A crowd of equally bored and enraged workers stood with picket signs outside the plant's gates, continuing their anti-establishment cheers despite the running by of a perfectly shaped young woman, de-clothed.

Parker ignored the insulting feeling and just ran past, scolding herself for even noticing such a thing at a time like this. There was a pawn shop on the street corner, right past an old fashioned toy store. Old fashioned toy store...

Oh well. Parker continued, past another apartment building--this one not on fire--and past the toy store. A twelve-year-old and his mother came out carrying three huge bags of toys and candy, only stopping to stare at the stark naked woman running past, cutting open her feet on the cold sidewalk. The boy cooed something about babies and milk, but Parker didn't stay to take joy in the filth of the moment. Time was not her friend.

Parker practically jumped into the pawn shop, scaring the old black man behind the counter.

"Oh thank GOD!" Park gasped, breathing heavily and taking in her surroundings. "Do... do you.... do you have any overalls?"

The old black man just stood there, mouth agape. He looked to have only three jutting teeth. An odd characteristic, for sure.

"In the back. Second row from the right."

Parker nodded her thanks, gave a curtsy, and ran to the back. Rows of clothes greeted her, with the second row to the right dedicated entirely to work clothes. She selected a pair of blue overalls, slipped them on, and walked back to the counter up front. The old black man was still there, bewildered.

"Um, sorry sir, but would you mind if I borrowed these for a day? I kind of have to come back by here, because my apartment is on fire, and I'll have to talk to the police about the rat bastard sociopathic ex-boyfriend who did it. I'll only be gone for a little while, just enough time to find him before he skips town or puts on a fake mustache or whatever it is rat bastard sociopathic ex-boyfriend do. You understand, yeah?"

He stood there for a moment, staring. Finally: "Sure. Go ahead."

"Thanks. I'll come buy a new mirror when I come back."

Parker ran out like she'd robbed the place, flying like a bat out of hell down the street to find her man. Her ex-man. Her... whatever.

__________________
It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay.

M.B. Keene

roachboy

C. Tenerife
Popcorn Boy's Diary

I decided to start a journal this is my journal hello journal. I have started other journals before. Who am I talking to when I write in one of these? I do not talk to anyone except about popcorn. I work at the popcorn stand near the Biosphere, the building shaped like a cup of popcorn in the middle of the parking lot that's the one. Every day I discover new things about people. Some people like butter. Others do not. Every day a new adventure.

In a little while, I will walk up my street, turn left, walk past some building and the big white sign with the number 30 in the middle of it. Every day a new adventure.

The street I live on is named for a canary. I think that's stupid. If you are reading this you already know where I live because you had to be in my crappy little apartment to find this I am not showing it to anyone. Well, the street you walked up, the last one, is named for a canary. That's stupid isn't it? Yes it is.

If you are reading this, you must have come looking for me. Maybe I did something that made me famous on tv. Maybe I won a contest and then had a heart attack and died. Where did he go? you asked and then you came up the street named for a canary and said "that's stupid" see you're just like me. So you found me because I was famous and you wondered where I went.

Once when I was a kid in school they gave us a test that asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said I wanted to check tin cans for dents. I thought that would be like walking around in a store reading labels. Things are all different from other things and you can only tell by reading the labels that is why I like doing it. Like this box of mac and cheese. On the side, it says ENRICHED MACARONI PRODUCT (DURUM WHEAT FLOUR, WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, FERROUS SULFATE, THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), CHEESE SAUCE MIX (WHEY, MILKFAT, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SALT, CALCIUM CARBONATE, SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF CITRC ACID, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, LACTIC ACID, MILK, YELLOW 5, YELLOW 6, ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE). Mac and cheese is all these things. Every day a new adventure.

And there's this stuff too: Pork Stock, Pork, Pork Skins, Corn Meal, Pork Livers, Wheat Flour, Pork Fat, Pork Hearts, Salt, Spices. I do not eat these things. I buy a package on pay day and keep it on my table next to this notebook and sometimes I stop writing or doing other things and poke it. All these things jiggle when you poke them they are fun. After a while, these things start to get hard and green and then they are not so much fun any more then I throw them out in their plastic house and next payday I get another one and put it on the table next to my notebook so sometimes I can stop writing and poke it. But I do not always write in my notebook sometimes I do other things and sometimes I stop doing those other things to poke that stuff. There are many things inside of other things and some of them are fun to poke the way your finger goes in a little and it jiggles when you take your finger out is funny it makes me laugh. If you are reading this there is some next to you. Poke it. Unless it is green and kind of hard. Then throw that one out and next payday come back and you can bring another one and try it then. See? You're just like me. Then the guidance counselor called me to his office and asked me why I wanted to check tin cans for dents and I told him what I just told you and then he asked me why I did not want to work in an office and I said that working in a office was just sitting in a chair and so everything was the same all the time all the time and that was B.O.R.I.N.G. He looked at me for a few minutes I didn't have anything more to say so I looked back at him and we looked at each other for a few minutes I remember.

Then the guidance counselor called my parents and then my parents started yelling at each other and then they took me to a doctor who gave me these pills. I do not know how to say this word so I will spell it. M.E.T.H.Y.L.P.H.E.N.I.D.A.T.E.

They make me feel funny.

Then the doctor stopped paying attention to me my mom and dad kept yelling at each other and then my dad left and then my mom stopped paying attention to me, and then the guidance counselor stopped paying attention to me, and then people at school stopped paying attention to me. I was just there. I like to drink all these things at the same time water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, red 40, blue 1 every can is many things inside and I thought that looking at them would be good to do and then I said that and then everything changed.

I have to go to the popcorn stand in the parking lot now maybe later I will write down more things.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

RetroGunslinger

As night came down over the city, Parker made her way down Calle Bejamar, toward Playa Chica--the beach. Every so often a police car or fire engine would pass, giving her the sense that maybe the fire had gotten more out of control than she had thought.

She thought back to the night before, when she had met up with Ronnie at the club. It didn't seem all that likely at the time that he would set Parker's apartment on fire, but then again it wasn't exactly the litmus test for all of Parker's partners in crime. At first she didn't even recognize him, however even when the realization did dawn, it gave her no qualms about hooking back up with him. After all, he was hot. Lightly tanned physique, shaggy jet black hair, and the lightest blue eyes she had ever seen... who could resist?

Stupid, stupid decision. The sex was great; aggressive, but great. Aggressive. Key word. She should have taken note of that change in performance, and maybe she would have gotten him out of her place before he could light it up. But why? Why would she have any reason to be scared of such a seemingly nice guy? Parker could barely remember the man, it had been so long ago. Two years, easily, and now suddenly he returned to completely ruin her life.

Good thing Mr. Whiskers was at the kennel.

The apartment and everything inside was insured up the ying yang and Parker didn't carry cash, so everything would be fine. She just wanted to find the prick who did it. Seriously, who burns down a girl's apartment because they had a one night stand? That's crazy. That's some serious Fatal Attraction type bullshit, from a guy! Gender confusion, hon.

Parker turned the corner onto Avenido del Varadero, passing an elderly couple who seemed to sneer at her as she walked by. "The night brings out all the freaks in this city" Parker could hear one say. Probably the woman. Old people all sound the same, like Mexicans. Weird.

Avenido del Varadero. What was with all of the Spanish? Really? If the town is within the USA, it deserves to have English street names. What about Main Street, or Washington Street? Stupid question. Really stupid question. If they're going to take over the country, they might as well give us their street names.

Shit, Parker thought, my mind is wandering. All of this walking and single-minded revenge was getting to her. If Ronnie wasn't at Playa Chica, she was going to be pissed.

On the way down Calle Bejamar, Parker had stopped by the club where she had picked up Ronnie: The Dark Room. It was basically a warehouse with strobe lights, a stage, and pictures of naked women highlighted by red lights posted everywhere. It was the full bar and lack of attention to normal drinking laws there that brought most of the riff raff, but Parker came because she was cheap and The Dark Room was the only free club she knew of. Free was always good.

Parker found the man she was looking for almost immediately: Ted Shepherd. He was big and burly son of a bitch with a bald head that made him look like Mr. Clean. Two girls had draped themselves across his rippling forearms, both looked to be about seventeen and painted up like hookers. Parker tugged on the hem of his black tank top from behind and he spun around like a dradle.

"What the hell happened to you Parker?" Straight to the point, that's why she liked him.

"I need to find Robbie."

"Robbie...?"

"Robbie... uh..." Shit. She had forgotten his last name. Robbie Robinson? Robbie Charles? Anderson? Smith? Asshole? "Carter. Robbie Carter, that's it."

"Robbie Carter?" He crooned. "Gosh, I'm sorry Parker, I don't know where he'd be. I never talk to the guy. You fuck him?"

"Yeah... and then he burnt down my apartment."

One of the underage little wonder girls piped up: "Robbie did what?"

"Burnt down my apartment. As in pyro-fucked me out of a home. Do you know him?" Parker was being blunt tonight. This wasn't a laughing matter.

"He should be at the beach. What's tonight..." She put her ring finger to her lips and stared off into space. "Yeah, he should be at the beach."

"What beach?" Parker demanded. "This town is surrounded by it."

"Over at Playa Chica. He likes it 'cause he likes to play with chicas. He tells that lame ass joke to everybody, even though the beach there sucks."

"Thanks."

So, Parker made her way to the beach, in hopes that maybe she was right and he was a complete and total idiot. It seemed logical enough to assume.

Parker started onto a wooden plank path at the edge of the road that led to the beach. It was lined with little showerheads and nozzles. Every so often she'd pass an old pair of swimming trunks or an abandoned flipflop. The wet sand felt good against her abused feet. She should've gotten shoes at the pawnshop while she still had her own special element of surprise.

It was dark now, the only light emanating from the seaside shops and Playa Chica. The place was a haven for local partiers looking for a good place to get along with any interference from the outside world. Playa Chica was a cove with high ridges that blocked out most surveillance, but created an interesting bowl of light, like a sports stadium. That being said, the beach was mostly either rocky or grassy, and the water was filled with trash and empty beer cans. Still, a good party spot was a good party spot.

Upon reaching the overlooking hill, it became obvious this would be a challenge. There were at least seventy people, all partying hardy. The pulsations from the music only barely reached the hill, but they were already a little overbearing. If it weren’t for the whole burnt down apartment and pissed off lay, Parker would probably go ahead and have some fun.

She descended.

__________________
It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay.

M.B. Keene

roachboy

second floor of a warehouse by the docks, near the word harbor

Humberto the Midget turns off the tiny black and white television on his desk. As he does every time, Humberto plays with the tin foil on the rabbit ears. I do not understand why Humberto adjusts the antenna when the television is off. I think he sees it as a sculpture.

There are many things I do not understand about Humberto the Midget. He likes detective programs. In Humberto's mind, I imagine a black-and-white world in which the rain that always falls and the static of the bad television reception blur into each other.

I see Humberto at his tiny desk in his tiny cluttered office through the doorway. Next to me is a bank of twelve video monitors that glow blue with images of the empty warehouse downstairs.

Humberto is dressed as he always is, like a police man. Every hour, he turns off the television, plays with the tinfoil balled up on the rabbit ears, moves out from behind his desk, picks up his cell phone and his billy club and goes out to make his rounds downstairs.
I watch him move through the various quadrants of the empty warehouse on my monitors.

The owners of the warehouse are obsessed with security. Many people are these days. I sometimes think that they imagine an adequate security system will conjure things that are stored in the warehouse, rent that is paid to them, activity: trucks coming in, forklifts moving about. But that has not happened. Week after week, that has not happened. Month after month.

Sometimes I think my job is to watch Humberto and his job is to watch me. When he does his rounds, I watch him watching the warehouse.

We don't have much to say to each other, Humberto and I. There is little difference between watching him on my monitors move around downstairs and watching him watch his detective shows on television through the doorway.

I watch the top of Humberto's head move across quadrant 2 of the warehouse. I look up at the bank of recording devices to make sure that they are recording. I wonder who watches the films.


The top of Humberto's head tracks diagonally across sector 7. His bald spot looks like the top of a little white ball. Sometimes I sing along, following the bouncing white ball.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

Claire sat alone in the dining room, with the lights off. Digging her fingertip and thumb into her dampening eyes, quietly dabbing her nostrils was preferable to letting him hear she was weeping. It probably didn’t matter; he was likely already asleep upstairs.

He had respected her on one count: he had kept his voice to a harsh whisper so as not to wake Tyler. That was all. It was for Tyler, but it had been her wish. She would have taken anything at that point—anything to hold together the ends as they frayed night after night.

The day hid much of this, even on the lightest surfaces—those surfaces most out in the open, where nothing seemed easily hidden as they lie there bare to the careening glances of passersby. The darkness intensified the unconcealed malevolence: the weighted looks, the yearning for prescribed responses that will never come. Even here on Calle Belanguaire, amongst the coveted sidesplits.

*

Where she had stopped being Claire Donahue, she had become Mrs. Foreman. She hadn’t lost it; perhaps she merely had put it on hold, had hidden it away.

The widower next door, Mr. Threadbare, had been kind enough to lend her some coffee grinds that morning.

“There you are, Mrs. Foreman.”

She received the freezer-burnt Folgers graciously. Mrs. Foreman, he had called her. It never landed safely upon her ears.

It was her last bastion of dignity, the brief moment each morning between her husband’s leaving for work and Tyler's waking. It was only enough time for something of a ritual, something done with automatic efficiency, with no thought of the actions, for it was her mind that had been preserved in those moments.

It was sometimes fifteen consecutive stirs, but it was usually more like three series of five—she would take a breath at each interval, marking out the absent-minded pattern of the day. But it was always fifteen—always. It didn’t matter what was made of it, what came out of her conduct with this dark bitter drink. No one was there to be displeased, or to disapprove. It was hers, for no one else even knew about it.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

RetroGunslinger

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go
Downtown where all the lights are bright,
Downtown, waiting for you tonight,
Downtown, you're gonna be alright now

Downtown. That's where she had to go. Despite the throbbing headache, the cut and bruised feet, and the nausea that was systematically attacking her innards, she had to go Downtown. Things would be great when she got downtown. That's where he was, that rat bastard.

What happened last night? Parker couldn't remember. Everything was completely blank, but that word pervaded above all else: Downtown. That's where she had to go to find Robbie... but where Downtown? She'd know when she got there. All that mattered was getting to her destination.

Parker was lying in a pool of water and grass. Her left eye hurt as she opened it, but the throbbing sensation would have to be ignored for now. Seeing the now abandoned cove, covered in leftover remnants of tents and piles of beer cans, she knew she had not only overstayed her welcome, but she had also overstayed everyone. She had to get out of here.

As a used joint floated toward her, Parker lifted herself up and out of the shallow pool. Her bones creaked and muscles ached, but it was fine for now. As long as she could get back up the hill to town, all would be fine. She would go to a pharmacy and lift some bandages and ointments, and then make her way to Robbie. Wherever he might be.

It would take her a while to get back to town. Her legs felt shattered, and trying to step over broken glass proved much more difficult than expected. The pulsating sounds of rock 'n roll still attacked her eardrums long after the fact.

Making her way up the hill toward town, Parker took notice of the bright blue skies. Not a single cloud littered the heavens. If it weren't for the whole apartment burning down thing and the stuff involving waking up bruised and generally fucked up, maybe this would be a good day for a picnic on the beach. Far, far away from Playa Chica, but a picnic on the beach nonetheless.

Parker made it to the boardwalk and finally to the sidewalk. The streets were busy with people and cars: mothers playing with their children, businessmen rushing to appointments, street vendors selling hotdogs....

And her clothes were gone. Again.

__________________
It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay.

M.B. Keene

roachboy

Calle Reine Sofia, upper left corner of the map

He turned off the television in the kitchen. He could hear murmuring and snatches of music, the film continuing on other monitors in other rooms.

He walked across the white and black tile floor to the granite counter-top, to the space-age coffee machine and poured himself another coffee. He watched coffee cover the picture of a grouse on he bottom of the cup.

The house is enormous and tastefully appointed thanks to the interior designer he had hired after seeing her work on one of the hundreds of versions of the same reality show. She had been America's Second-or-Third-to-the Top Interior Designer. He felt badly for her, thought the judging unfair. He complained loudly at the television when the verdict came. Plus he thought she was attractive. So he hired her to redo his house, hoping to spark a relationship. It didn't work out. It didn't really matter. Mostly he wanted someone to talk to. He talked to himself instead. Sometimes this worried him.




He stood by the counter for several minutes.




"Petula Clark," he concluded.


Thin sheets of dust descended from somewhere. He could see them in the sunlight.



"I feel like such a degenerate when I watch tv in the morning I don't know why I do it."


He was wealthy now. Sensing the collapse of the old world, the world from which he came, now he wanted to put distance between this new self and the life he had lived previously, between this new self and others. He understood that wealthy people relied upon servants trusted underlings who were of course less than their master, but who were devoted to their master. With this image in mind, from a thousand miles away he located a house, arranged inspections and purchase without having ever set foot in the town.

To do this, he gathered maps. He prevailed upon real estate agents repeatedly to photograph the house. He insisted that all the polaroids be mailed to him. These same agents provided him with a floor-plan on which was noted the dimensions of the rooms. He would take the mound of paper he accumulated with him on bird watching excursions, stuffed into a knapsack along with binoculars and his notebook full of lists. When he found a suitable field, he would he walk off the dimensions of various rooms while holding up photographs. He would locate the spot in the living room where his chair would be positioned and sit. He would carefully study the abstract maps, filling in details.

His imaginary house was in a field at the edge of town, set off from the others, an idyllic spot, private, away from neighbors and their networks of gossip, a theater of his eccentricities. The imaginary house was a series of projections based on photographs made sculptural by his walking, gaps filled in by memories of telephone conversations with his real estate proxies. It was vast and low and smelled like grass; it was open and airy and close to the birds.

After a while, his imaginary house would begin to flicker and break up. Then, still sitting in his imaginary chair, he would fumble around in his knapsack, pull out his binoculars and notebook and begin watching birds.


The actual house was in a development. The actual house had neighbors whom he could see, who could see him. In a moment of pique he had ordered telescopes from a catalogue. He set them up in the windows facing his neighbors. He never looked through them: he didn't care what they did. He wanted them to imagine that he watched them. He wanted them to shy away from his side of their homes. He wanted them to avoid him. He wanted them to not be there. "Communites should be elective" he said.

In his office, he tacked to the wall the lists of birds that he had seen from his imaginary chair.

What drew him to this town of all possible towns were the grouse. What drew him to these grouse of all possible grouse was the Grouse People, an organization devoted to the grouse in ways that he did not yet fully understand.

Tonight will be his first meeting with the Grouse People. He must set to work.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

PLAYA CHICA COVE = Lower Right Corner of map

**ADULT CONTENT SEXUALLY EXPLICIT WITH HEAVY DRUG REFERENCES AND USAGES**


The bluish smoke from the cigarette she had just lit and put into the ashtray wafted freely towards the cathedral ceiling. She was anxious, worried but most of all she was living for the adrenaline pumping through her system.

"It won't be long," she thought to herself, laughing at what she was doing and thinking.

She grabbed the cigarette and walked over to the window overlooking Playa Chica Cove. She remembered her first taste down there. A 35 year old former model meeting a strange man at the bar she frequented nightly to drown the fears of age and resentments for ending a career that was about to skyrocket into films. She drank to forget,the old man had money and told her she could go back to her career once they married. But the bastard lied. By the time she popped out 2 safety heirs, she was forgotten by the industry. Sure she did a few B movies but nothing like the 2 blockbusters she had co starring roles in.

Ah, but to that first night and the man at the bar off Varadero on the beach. It was the first night she had decided to dress sexily and be noticed, before that she would sneak out, in frumpy clothes go to the very back, dimly lit area of the bar and drink alone until she was perfectly numb, then find her way home and sneak into her bedroom across from the monster's master bedroom. Many nights, as she would pass she would hear the 20 something housekeeper sucking his dick or screaming a fake orgasm as he would come inside her. She figured it was ok, that meant one less night he would try to get her to have sex. As for Linda, the housekeeper, well, she'd be paid well but she'd never get the true money, no that was her's.

The thought of sex with that hideous man, no matter how rich made her sick. It made her sick now, just thinking about it.

But back to that glorious night, when she tried many things for the first time. She couldn't remember the man's name as it wasn't the man that turned her on so much. It was the other things he taught her that night, after they left the bar, drunk and hot for each other.... or to at least get laid.

The sex was ok, at first. But then he introduced her to the cocaine. She had never done drugs, Hell, she was 30 before she ever drank. She remembered that high... how great the sex became, how full of energy she was. Never did she think sex would be that great. Ah.... the coke.

She smiled as she remembered that first high and night.

The coke was so great, then came the down.... he pulled out a brownish powder and told her to snort it like the coke. It didn't take long for the warm fuzzy feeling to hit her. The feeling of sheer ecstasy, she was feeling orgasmic all over her body. The sex and highs were unbelievable the rest of that night. She remembered that having a strong coked up cock inside her as she was speeding then nodding all at once made her feel so damned good. The coke and heroin, she did that first night was so much better.

The memories made her slide her hands down her slender body, the memory making her body scream in pleasure.... her touching her clit as she came looking at the window, and seeing where it all started.

She looked at her watch.... "Where the fuck is he?" She took a drag off her cigarette, sucking it deeply in... pretending the tobacco was something else.

She heard the lock to the penthouse door turn and the door open. She ran to the man standing there. He smiled in admiration of her perfect body. She smiled knowing that ecstasy was just a minute away.

"Did you get it?" she asked nervously, anxiously.

"Yeah, I got it. I made a deal with the man." He pulled out the silver cases, one labeled H the other C.

She grabbed them and poured the powders out onto the glass table, carefully razorblading a line of each out and mixing it into a joint. She lit it and toked heavily. Losing all sense of the man she walked away from.

He started taking off his sweatshirt and pants as he walked towards her. He saw her exhale the first toke and suck in another deeply. As she exhaled the second, he saw she was stoned.

She reached out the joint to him and he took a deep hit. His naked cock hardened as the drug mixture hit him.

She grabbed for the joint, but he teased her by taking it away. She laughed, as she kicked him in his hardness and grabbed the joint. Sucking all she could from it.

"Bastard." She screamed at him, laughing as she took another deep hit. Her body was now feeling the ecstasy she waited desperately for.

"Fuck you, whore." He yelled back as best he could, the pain knocking the air out of him. His hardness shrinking and hurting.

She handed him the joint and laid out on the couch. "Why don't you put that sore little guy in something warm?"

He took a toke and the hardness returned. He took another hit and entered his hardness into her still very tight pussy. Kissing her he exhaled the smoke into her lungs.

****To be continued.... look for the edits****

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

roachboy

Lobos
A.

Everything is all fucked up. End of story. Rewind the tape. Listen again.

Click. The faint sucking sound of rewind. Click.

Everything is all fucked up. They’re coming. I know it. B is dead. C and E are too. It’s a matter of time. I should run. Nowhere to go. I bought a gun yesterday. I have never used a gun before. A few hours ago, I blew a hole in the living room wall. I pretended they were here. What I said. The gun went off. There’s a hole in the wall. Where the bullet went. It doesn’t matter. Can’t go outside. Can’t stay here. I put some fabric over the hole. The wind makes it move. I should tack down the bottom. It makes me nervous. Everything makes me nervous. Stay fucked up. What happens when we run out? Can’t go outside. Nowhere to go. Nothing stays in place. Tell the story. It’ll calm me down. Record it: I can listen to the tape, make sure the words stay in place.

A B C D E where to start. When this started. We made a plan. It was B’s idea. He wasn’t B then. We put letters into a hat. Change ourselves into the people who could do this. One job and out. No problem. Be those people. I drew fourth. D drew first. It was an accident that I am A. They probably think A is the start. A just went along. So did D. It was B’s idea. They got him first. Maybe they know the order. Maybe they are moving down the line. A just went along. They should leave me alone. Maybe they know. Maybe they aren’t coming.

There was this guy in the city. He was big. A real asshole. A connection. We were looking to make money. With B, we had been building our business. Quarter pound, half pound: big money. Something for the head for free. Something to take the edge off. Endorse the Product. This shit is better than last time. Always better than before. Always. But we stomp on it in the kitchen in the same way every time: a little crank, a little baking soda. Life in a movie.

We were getting a little bigger every time. We’re getting too big for you, B. Hook us up with your man. My man’s an asshole. That’s why he did it. That was B.

This guy didn’t know the rest of us. But he knew B. We knew what that meant. Would have been a loose end. In the movies, it’s the loose ends that fuck you. But this, he wouldn’t see it coming. It would be easy. Candy from a baby. B said that movies are made by cops. That's why the jobs never worked. But we had seen the movies. So we were smarter than that. We had a plan. We just stick to the plan.

A B C D E, we drove to the city. Met the guy in front of a warehouse. He took the bag out of his truck. B shot him in the face. It was a mess. We left him on the street and took off. Candy from a baby. Better than the movies. We had a pound of cocaine. One deal. Get out after this. Retire. Go somewhere. Get it together. We’d all had enough. I shot a hole in the wall. I put some fabric over it. The wind makes the fabric move. I should tack it down. It makes me nervous.

When B shot that guy, I just stood there. I couldn’t move. I should have stayed in the car. I looked and looked at the mess that was his face.

Is this story right?
Rewind the tape.
Start again from here.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ring

...over on Calle Los Infantes,
Greta creakily uncurled herself from a long, fetal-positioned slumber.
Her left arm and part of her face were still completely numb.

She reached for her smokes.
She lit one and rolled onto her back,
waiting for the pain that would let her know,
blood was flowing back into the right places.

The dog woke long enough to reposition himself on top of the covers.
Greta realized the small basement apartment was cold.

She lifted up one corner of the blanket.
The dog was grateful.
He curled up against her stomach.

They both sighed.

ring

....Greta finished her second cigarrette.
(actually they were filtered mini-cigars,
same size, same amount in a pack, yet only a buck thirty nine,
and if you don't puff on them, they go out.)

The dog had hopeful eyes.

Greta got out of bed.
She rolled up the sleeping bags and blankets, storing them behind the bookshelf that served as a room divider.

The foam pieces were re-arranged against the wall, into chair fashion.
Dog was beginning to nip at her ankles,
as she finished tucking the edges of the chinese silk coverlet under the corners of her 'chair.'

All was, "ship shape," she thought.

"Oh my lands!," she cried out loud,remembering...
"I was supposed to be at pier seven an hour ago."

Greta gently unfastened the two bunjie cords that held her ancient small fridge
door closed.
She quickly swallowed several raw oysters and some milk.
Before shutting and re-fastening the door, she remembered to add some oysters to Dog's
dry kibble.

She was dressed and out the door in two minutes.
Fumbling for the note in her bag and another smoke,
she chanted..."Pier 7, pier 7, pier 7....and the name of the boat is,is,is
ah, here's the note!"

The wry grin she wore,
tasted of salt,
but eh, oh hey,
everything 'round this part of town,
was brine tinged.

After awhile, it was hard to tell the difference between tears,
blood,
sweat,
and fish.

roachboy

MID-MORNING


-----Added 23/11/2008 at 10 : 58 : 20-----
Callie Tiede

She throws her shoulder bag toward the bed. Earlier the horizon was foreshortened a white smudge between the ocean and sky in which a small dirigible hovered and 3 tall blurry figures stood wavering on the surface of the water arranged in a triangular formation one point of which faces her then she is walking somewhere, past a cemetery in which a Gemenii capsule the size it was on TV is laying on it's side.

Then she moves along a Z-shaped street there is a warehouse then it's side then a door red mottled with blue green then a sticker then written on it

I AM A FISH
TOWN I AM
THE FORT

and the ringing produced by the waveforms of multiple compressors and the slight haze which resulted.

The shoulder bag continues its trajectory toward the mattress and in a different sector of the warehouse district in the saturated sunlight of a super-8 morning an assemblage of 4 electric green cylinders and a white metal scaffolding connecting them near the top and each says THE ICE COMPANY and from before there is a barn and she is standing on the water and on the side facing are enormous ice tongs calipers phrenology and someone says "It is the profile of the hull of a boat." And then the salt water is frozen and gulls sit on the surface and she pulls her scarf tighter and thinks that the wind thousands of balls rolling on a plastic surface will soon send them bouncing end over end bouncing end.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ring

Navigating the numerous switch-backs down the steep hill above Calle Salinas,
Corey Feldspar's patience had run out.

The only audience for his demanding arrogance this mid-day,
were the five burros.

Two days before his boat the 'Platonica', was to sail,
the last of his loyal minions had fled in fear and disgust,
except one perhaps,
and he was fully prepared for her to not show as well.

The burros were well taken care of.
In this regard, his business sense was mistaken for compassion.

roachboy

dock area, directly below the letter r in Harbor

Along the edges of the dry dock long spindly metal ladders sway in the slight breeze. To the right, an aerial fishing boat hangs in a huge metal cube frame. The assemblage of antennae, white. The blue of the hull against the electric blue of the sky.

To the side boat propellers are arranged in a long thin rack. Maybe 20. Counting. 1 2... 18 flowers.

F moves toward the dock. He casts no shadow.

The tide is low, the garden of pylons dark brown. The streaks of green run vertically; shiny, viscous. The environment of tiny squeaks and groans from the ladders' swaying.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ring

Two hundred yards up the hill from Calle Salinas:

Corey had emptied five sacks of supplies before finding the one he needed.

Salvia, the oldest burro, stumbled and fell to his knees,
as they were crossing an area strewn with many broken bottles.

Two of the wounds needed immediate attention.

Corey knelt on his flannel lined denim jacket.
The large area of colored glass shards sparkled in the sun,
Amber and green mostly,
flashes of red, blue and purple, scattered throughout.

The traffic sounds from the bottom of the hill,
seemed only a few feet away.

ring

Bayside above the letter H

Pier 7 - slip 9,
The Platonica sat very still in the water,
looking much worse for wear than the last time Greta had seen her,
five years ago.

The late morning bright clear sunshine could not find one surface on this boat,
for reflection.

The busy harbour with many voices shouting, could not penetrate
the stagnant air that surrounded Platonica.

Greta sat down on the dock,
and finished the rest of her coffee, straight from the thermos.

Gazing at the surface of the oily iridescent black water,
she sank into deep reflection.

roachboy

Lobos

30 seconds of silence.

All we had to do was not go back.

B had a network. Hands clean he said. Let others take the fall he said. Better you don't know he said.

There was alot of cocaine. B kept a book. When I would go there, he would show me the book. Everything square. Cash and product. I liked the cash. I liked the product.

After a while I bought a motorcycle. It never ran right. I tried to fix it. It never ran right. One night, all fucked up, I brought it into the living room and started taking it apart. I kept taking it apart. I cleaned the parts. It was a mess. Do another stem, wait for the rush to pass, get back to work. Wheels on the porch. I kept taking it apart, taking it apart. I arranged the parts on the floor by shape and size. Parts covered the living room floor. They worked their way into the hallway, into the kitchen. Pieces and gears in columns getting smaller. Pipes behind the couch. There are alot of parts. Bolts I put in a bucket. Clean them, arrange them in rows by size around the edge of the room. Two long rows like a spiral. Exploded view. Neatly arranged, everything in order. Another stem. I looked at it all. Neatly arranged metal parts everywhere. How long had this taken? I had no idea.

Sometime after that, D came over. He stood in a space in the living room looking around. "What the fuck did you do?" I explained it to him. "Man, you are fucked up." He kept looking around.

He was looking at the rows of screws along the baseboard when he said "We have a problem."
Then he told me about B.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

Varadero

He is sitting in a small corner cafe one wall of which is glass except for the door and the space over it in the middle of which there is an ornate gold frame in the middle of which there is a crucifix.

He reads:

A class will be called "normal" if, and only if, it does not contain itself as a member; otherwise, it will be called "non-normal." An example of a normal class is the class of mathematicians, for patently the class itself is not a mathematician and therefore is not a member of itself. An example of a non-normal class is the class of all thinkable things, for the class of all thinkable things is itself a thinkable thing and is therefore a member of itself. Let 'N' by definition stand for the class of all normal classes. We ask whether N itself is a normal class. If N is normal, it is a member of itself (for by definition N contains all normal classes); but in that case, N is non-normal, because by definition a class that contains itself as a member is non-normal. On the other hand, if N is non-normal, it is a member of itself (by definition of "non-normal"); but in that case, N is normal, because by definition

There's a saying in Sicilian she is saying. "An old chicken makes good soup. So stick with your chicken."

Then "you get bored always with the same chicken" from a lad wearing a hat who is apparently named Mario.

Now they are laughing and saying "Mario" over and over. There are six other people in the cafe. They have been talking the whole time, mostly about sports.


On the other hand, if N is non-normal, it is a member of itself (by definition of non-normal"); but in that case, N is normal, because by definition the members of N are normal classes. In short, N is normal if, and only if, N is non-normal. It follows that the statement "N is normal" is both true and false.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

Lobos

D said that I had disappeared for nearly a month.

I was working on my motorcycle. I've gone outside alot: for food, for cigarettes. Being disappeared would feel different. I don't feel like I disappeared. "Your phone's been turned off." he said. I hadn't really thought about that. I go through periods of not talking. "You should pay your phone bill." I was distracted.

D said it didn't matter. That was not the problem. The problem was that B had disappeared.

I hadn't seen him for a couple weeks.

D said that B had been found in the city. In a basement. He was tied to a chair with wire. He had been tortured. His throat had been cut and his tongue pulled out through it. It was in a newspaper.

"I don't read newspapers," I said. "You don't either."
"Word travels somehow." he said.

All we had to do is not go back to the city.

"I couldn't locate C or E." he said.

I looked at the neat rows of metal parts on the floor.

All we had to do is not go back.

That was the plan.

"Yesterday, they found C tied to a chair with wire in a basement outside of town. He had been tortured, they say. His throat was cut and his tongue was pulled out through it."

My head went quiet.

"He had been there a few days."

A ringing sound started in my ears.

What about E? I thought. "I don't know where E is" D talking like he is inside my brain.

"They're coming" he said. "They're coming and they want us to know they're coming."

The ringing was getting louder. It was hard to think over it.

"What did B do?"

"He went back."

"Why? The plan was..."

"I know what the fucking plan was. He didn't stick to it. They found C, so B must have talked about him at least. Maybe they get one point, find the next point from him, get that one, do it again, find another."

The sound of something metal falling over, hitting the floor.
A series of clicks.
Twenty seconds of silence.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ring

Forty yards above Calle Salinas,
Corey had finished bandaging the burro Salvia's legs.

The burro was weak and still laying on its side.
Corey stretched his arms above his head.
He felt the already dried burros blood, tugging at the hairs on his forearms.

He stared at the crackle-glaze pattern of the blood, for a long time.

He heard the muffled soft purring sound of the moped,
only moments before he saw it.

"Oh my god...it's Greta," he sighed.

roachboy

Lobos




Everything is all fucked up. They’re coming. I know it.
It’s a matter of time. I should run.



Click.





I have no idea how to put this fucking bike back together.







No idea.










No idea.





I feel like crying.
Click.



CALLER: (Spoken.) Let's all square dance. Places all. Cartoons will help.
CALLER: Bow to your corner, bow to your own.
(Singing.) Three hands up and 'round you go,
Break it up with a dosey-do.
Chicken in the bread pan kickin' out dough,
Skip to ma Lou my darling.

I can't call anyone. you pretty little thing,
Promenade I'm afraid to leave
I'm afraid to stay. foot down,
Make that big foot jar the ground.
Lady step back There's nowhere to go.
Back you go and forward again.
Step right up with an elbow swing,
Skip to ma Lou my darling.

Click.

CALLER: Allemande left with the old left hand
Follow through the right an' left grand.

Click.

BUGS: (Singing.) Grab a fence post, hold it tight,
Womp your partner with all your might.
Hit him in the shin, hit him in the head,
Hit him again, the critter ain't dead.
Wop him low and wop him high,
Stick your finger in his eye.
Pretty little rhythm, pretty little sound,
Bang your head against the ground.

Click.




I'm loosing my mind.





Click.




The killer looks at the cheap Radio Shack cassette player, listens until the tape runs out.




Then he removes the cassette and puts it in his pocket. Hand in a surgical glove, he picks up the large black plastic bag. As he straightens up, he looks across the livingroom at A, who is tied with wire to a chair, whose face is away. The killer turns in the opposite direction and, stepping carefully over arrangements of motorcycle parts, makes his way across the living room. Very soon, he will disappear through the rear door.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

1 PM


-----Added 23/11/2008 at 10 : 58 : 20-----

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

Varadero

He is sitting in a small corner cafe one wall of which is glass except for the door and the space over it in the middle of which there is an ornate gold frame in the middle of which there is a crucifix.

He reads:

Every culture begins with the introduction of distinctions: inside/outside, sacred/profane, intelligible speech/barbarian gibberish, signal/noise. The fact that they are able to generate a world is the reason why we experience the culture in which we live as the "natural" order of things. Yet these distinctions are processed by media in the broadest sense of the term. Doors, for instance, process the inside/outside distinction, yet they belong to neither side of the distinction and instead always assume the position of the third.

Beyond the window stream people in costume. Across the street, on the sidewalk opposite, in front of the bookstore, eighteenth century French aristocratic ladies pass a giant praying mantis. It looks like summer outside. Engrossed in conversation, two clowns pass directly in front of the window. Their hand movements prompt him to think of Aristotle.

Overhead, above the buildings opposite, a section of sky.

He closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose.

Opening them. A stream of detail passes on the street: aviator glasses; sweatshirts with advertisements emblazoned on the chest; a camera. Behind this narrow flux, a sequence of immobile automobile sections. The street. On the opposite side, a sequence of windows.

Above the buildings, a section of sky, across which clouds track.

clouds of clouds

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ring

Forty yards above Calle Salinas

Corey positioned himself a tad sideways, pretending oblivious,
hoping the pulsing artery in his neck would not give him away.

He could hear the crunching scrabbly sound of Greta's boots approaching.

Her bootsteps sounded fast and purposeful, almost angry.

She saw the blood first.

"What the Sam Hey is goin' on!", she hoarsly tried to shout.

"I'm thirsty, you look a mess, are you okay?, shit, Corey...shit, tell me what I can do."

Corey was weary and tired of pretense.
He handed Greta his canteen and told her to sit.

roachboy

calle roque

He looks up at the large clock on the wall. “Is that the time?” he may or may not be saying out loud.

He returns to copying the following from a book:

When the mind regards its own self and its power of activity, it feels pleasure, and the more so the more distinctly it imagines itself and its power of activity.

Copying things helps one remember. Now he looks around. White cube white walls white ceiling white light. White carpet, white doorway, white corridor leading to another white corridor. Walk it and soon you're Kelvin in a Mosfilm space station. The corridor elongates, spiraling into the small back vanishing that hovers in the center of the image.





■







The association with "Solaris" probably turns on the possibility of a midget. Sometimes there is one. He wears a Kangol hat backward and stops as you approach to stare as you pass.






He looks up at the large clock on the wall. “Is that the time?” he may or may not be saying out loud.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

When the sun is directly overhead, shadows are foreshortened. Stories are shadows. The thickness of time when shadows are foreshortened. Through the window, an assemblage of buildings, triangular roofs, white blue yellow. The stillness in the air. The man in the room, relative of a relative. The tiny wooden violins he makes. The way the strings lay slack on the neck. The tiny bow. "A Christmas ornament" he is saying. The cup of coffee on the table. Through the window, an assemblage of buildings, triangular roofs, white blue yellow. The thickness of time when shadows are foreshortened.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

Calle Tiede

She sleeps jet lag sleep. It is perhaps in a dream that she gets out of bed and walks a figure 8 pattern on the floor of the bedroom. The sunlight refracted through the prisms of window, leaking into the room around the edges of drawn shades. The curious loping rhythm of time. When clouds of cicada sound come: that way.

She sleeps jet lag sleep. Seen from overhead, her body would be arranged on the mattress beneath the blankets in the shape of the letter "h." The green walls of the bedroom seem to glow. Closing her eyes, permutations of that green unspool like images on a filmstrip: garden, courtyard, paint swatch. The figure of a man wearing a derby appears in the foreground. He points behind him at the wall on which the film strip images are projected. Beneath his beard, his mouth is moving. She cannot hear what he says.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

Calle Reine Sofia, upper left corner of the map

He shuffles between rooms. Every room has a television monitor and on every monitor flicker images of rocket attacks on Gaza. In some rooms, these images occupy a thirteen inch square: in others they occupy a significant area of wall.

If he measures his cadence correctly, he can follow images of the dead as if the path along which they are being moved tracks from his bedroom to his office.

Everywhere the sound is off.

This is a decorative carnage.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

Claire leaned her head against the window, feeling the heat slowly seep into her hair. She gazed out over the hill, where she could see the Biosfera on the horizon. She could only imagine how unbearable it must feel in there today, but she then thought about how it currently felt within the confines of her own dome. The drone of the bus engine kept her pensive, as her seat rocked gently as the driver navigated route 19 along Calle Salnias.

She had seen Tyler off safely to school, and now she only had a few hours to run her errands. She tried not to think about the other night, but it seemed too much like a turning point. She feared it was a point of no return.

Claire lurched forward as the bus came to a stop.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Baraka_Guru

As she was making her way through the fruit stands, Claire only heard her cellphone by the third ring. By the time she answered it, the voicemail had already picked it up. The display showed that it was the school board that had called.

The message left was brief and worrisome: "...Mrs. Foreman, we request that you come to the school immediately; we have already called your home number, and your husband's office informed us that he's unavailable to take our call...."

Claire immediately set down onto the sidewalk the few things she intended to buy and made her way back to the bus stop.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

pan6467

She still had the warmth and was somewhat fuzzy headed when the phone rang. Looking down she saw it was the old man.

"What do you want?" she asked as she opened the black LG clamshell phone.

"Have a rough night dearest, Kate? I think we need to talk, why don't you meet me at the office around 12." He said in that self righteous tone he always had before he pulled some powerplay and threatened to take away the kids and the money. Usually, he did these when Linda and him were fighting.

The powerplays were always just empty threats with no teeth but they got her to behave for a month or 2 and she would have sex with him a few nights. Afterward, the 2 of them would go back to what they did before.

"Phil, let's do one more then I have to go meet the old bastard." She said waking the naked man laying next to her up.

She licked her lips and stared as he cut the lines and sprinkled the mixture onto a joint. Her nipples hardened and her pussy throbbed as her body waited in anticipation of that ecstasy she was soon about to have.

"You know, if you weren't so needle phobic..." he said as he passed her the joint and lit it for her.

She inhaled deeply and almost immediately felt that intense high.

"But I am, and as long as I do it this way, I can control it." She said as she exhaled.

She watched as he took a hit and hardened. Her mind more on the next hit than the throbbing member that was growing.

She took another deep hit and held it in as she felt him enter her.

=========================================================

"Good morning Mrs. Donovan." said the old man's personal secretary with the fake smile.

"Hmmm wonder how much of my money he pays to get into your pants." she thought, her body still feeling the effects of the joint she smoked in the cab on the way there. "Must not act stoned," she thought. Smiling to herself over how wonderful she felt.

"Good morning, Gina, and for the last time, my name is Kate." She said as nicely as she could fake.

The office door opened, before Gina could reply. Out stepped the old man.

"He was handsome before she married him.... well... the money was handsome." She thought trying not to focus on her high.

"Kate," he said smiling as he walked over to hug her. "Come in, I have some things to show you." He said grabbing her hand and leading her into the office.

"Gina, hold all my calls except for my attorney please, put him through as soon as he calls." He said closing the door behind them.

"What do you want, Andrew?"

"Kate, I have been missing you at home. So much so recently, I hired a bodyguard to follow you around and make sure you were safe. He in turn took some photos to show me you were ok. I want you to see them." He said throwing her a brown inter office envelope.

She opened it and saw pictures of her naked fucking Phil and smoking. She focused on the joint in the picture her body throbbing in desire for that glorious feeling the joints gave her.

"Now, I know I'm not the greatest or most faithful husband Kate, so your cheating I can't say much about because I do it. Hell, I'm surprised it took you so long to fuck around. I had guys hit on you during every film and they all said you would just go to your trailer alone and pass out. But drugs Kate?"

She put the pictures back in the envelope. "A little weed big fucking deal. Let's not forget in the 70's and 80's you were building this company by selling coke and weed to the stars." She venomously said somewhat scared, because this time he truly had something on her.

"Kate, I don't fucking care what you do. You can have playmates all you want, but drugs? NOT IN MY FUCKING HOME!!!!! NOT AROUND MY KIDS!!!!!" He yelled a yell she had never heard from him before.

"I'm filing for divorce Kate and total custody. I don't even want you to have visitation."

"You can't prove it's anything but marijuana, old man and I'm not doing it around the kids they are at boarding school."

"See, that's the thing. If you look at the white paper in there, the bodyguard I hired decided to check out the man you were fucking and what was in the joint..... for your own safety. Turns out, the man's name is Phil Jackson and he's a heroin dealer."

"He's a man I met at a bar, I don't care what he does, he fucks good." She said trying to hold onto the buzz that was fleeting.

"Well, here's the thing. I had the bodyguard check out one of your "joints" and the chemical analysis shows a high amount of heroin and coke mixed in. Now, he could be drugging you but I have a film showing YOU cutting the lines and putting the powder in the joint."

This talk was making her crave the drugs. Her mind racing to figure out how she could get out soon so she could get her buzz back.

"Fuck you old man. You'll never get the kids."

"Kate, I'm willing to make a deal. All you have to do is sign over custody and visitation rights and the divorce will go very easily. I'll pay you off quite nicely and you can go back to that Hollywood career." He smiled as he pulled out a contract and a pen and slid them in front of her.

"I won't do it. I'll fight you old man. I can prove you had affairs and I know where the bodies are buried."

"Well, Kate, that's up to you. But, I wouldn't advise it. My lawyer at this very moment is getting a court order for your blood and urine to be tested for drugs. I'll just say anything you have is a drugged up paranoid delusion and you want the kids only for my money. How will that look when the info is released by an insider to the supermarket rags? What will your fans say when they read how you have shacked up with a drug dealer abandoning your children while you go out and get stoned and fucked by drug dealers? What studio head is going to hire a drugged out 35 year old that has some issues as well as some serious adult footage out there."

"Fuck you."

"You did and it wasn't all that great. That's why I have found other women."

Kate was craving the drug mixture more and more and was finding it harder and harder to concentrate on what was going on.

"I'll give you 24 hours, Kate. I can tell by your eyes and the tone in your voice you need to go ummmm.... sleep? on all this."

=========================================================

Linda looked at her watch, 12 Noon, where was he.

Just as she pulled out her cell phone she saw his car pull up and stop in front of her.

"I was worried you wouldn't make it," she said as she entered Phil's car.

"Well, the bitch is getting so strung out she needed to smoke some before leaving, then I had to call her a taxi and get her on her way."

"He's telling her now about filing for divorce and taking custody. The plan is going better and faster than we had hoped for." Linda laughed. "The kids are very comfortable and trusting of me and he is already talking marriage as soon as the divorce is finalized."

"So he doesn't suspect anything?"

"Nope. I don't think he cares anyway. I have been taking good care of him."

They laughed as she grabbed his cock and he pulled back into traffic.
=========================================================

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

roachboy

Time Change

3 PM


-----Added 23/11/2008 at 10 : 58 : 20-----

the sun is closer to the horizon.
if stories are shadows, both lengthen together.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

Kate left her husband's office practically running to find the janitor's closet. She stepped in hid behind the shelving and reached into her purse pulling out her magic joint.

"Fuck him." She cried as she lit and drew heavily on the concoction she knew would make her feel better.

It took 2 drags for her to get that feeling she longed for. Leaning against the wall as it hit she smoked what remained, fighting herself the whole time, worried she would get caught, but part of her found that exciting and adding to her high.

After it was gone, she splashed some bleach about to hide the smell, straightened herself up and walked out. The hallway was empty as she exited and walked hoping not to be noticed to the elevator.

Pushing the key she laughed to herself, "I made it and no one knows."

The elevator emptied her into the crowded lobby and she zig zagged to the street exit unnoticed. Calling for a taxi, she could almost feel an emotion of loss, but the drugs coursing through her wouldn't allow her to truly feel anything but that rush she so loved.

=========================================================

"Mr. Donovan, Mr Sommers is online 3." Gina's voice came through the intercom.

Andrew put the phone on speaker and stood up looking down onto the street, watching the woman he loved once stumble into a taxi.

"Jack, how are you my friend?" Andrew asked as he poured himself a glass of Diet Pepsi from his bar office.

"I'm doing okay, Andrew. I got Judge Lawrence's order for the drug testing. Once he saw the pictures and the analysis, he was more than willing to make the order."

"Good. Don't deliver them yet, I gave her 24 hours to sign. I still love her enough to not want to truly know and to give her the chance to maybe ask for help, before we go further."

"Does she know that Phil is the one who gave us the information?"

"No, I told her I hired someone to follow her around. I don't think she really caught on that the only one who could have gotten all this info to me was the man she was fucking and getting stoned with."

"Andrew, I also have changed your will like you asked, but I don't agree with what you are doing. I think we should investigate this housekeeper more thoroughly."

"Jack, we investigated the Hell out of Kate and look what happened. She was too perfect. I know Linda is rough around the edges and may have a checkered past but the kids really like her and she is the best damned fuck I've had in years."

"I'll send it right over to you to sign then. What do you think Kate will do when she finds out you have named Linda guardian of the kids' trust funds and she can't touch them, even as gifts from the kids."

"Jack, I think she'll be ok. She'll find herself a rich playmate, I'm sure. She's still a very beautiful woman."

========================================================

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

ring

Pier 7 slip 9 is where D discovered Greta.

Her loopy buzzed out flight patterns of speech,
and her habit of confronting the tops of the Ace pile,
as a mere fledgling,

earned her the reputation as an endearing harmless untouchable
fearless wacko.

D knocked on the cabin door,
after he had been listening for a few whiles.
Impatience kindled his legs and curiosity.

He opened the cabin door as a friend would.

"Hey G rat, watcha ya up to?"

Greta glanced toward the direction of D's voice.
A hissing gutteral growl preceded her announcement.

" The favorite pen, thee only pen, I must find find find find."

Before D sat down,
He knew exactly which pocket,
Greta's and his relief,
resided in.

He tossed the 'Earth to Greta', tablets, onto the orange formica table.

Three out of the ten, twelve or so, red tablets,
spun twirling
across the orange formica.

Greta decided those looked tastiest.

D waited.

Greta waited.

pan6467

Bump.... as I plan to add to this later today 9/17 and don't want to have to dig to find it.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"