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| "I'm a motherfuckin' headliner, bitch, you don't even know it. Why is it white girls don't ever have any ideas? And they don't even know what's on my channel. But that's true for almost everyone..." – Kevin Barnes
So I wrote this story for creative writing. It went over pretty well. Enjoy:
These Lifeless Things
-or-
The Dentist Makes a House Call
by Joshua Brorby
Louis, Mr. Lou P. Garou, Louie, Dr. Garou, LG, “Hawkeye,” or simply Lou Garou, and the other things, the rest, heads down to his car from the attic to the garage, taking a shortcut through the den to avoid a face-to-face with his wife. He shouts “Honey I’m running out for a bit, meeting those professors I told you about at a restaurant,” and quickly closes the door, his wife shouting back “Ok hun, have fun, tell me all about the Mathematics gang when you get back,” the door slamming harshly in the middle of the word “Mathematics.” He starts his car and drives downtown, the Lower End of the City, it doesn’t matter which one, so long as the image of a concrete canopy sticks out, like steel erections trying to pierce the billowy clouds above, trying to reach through to the warm night sky, there to shudder, if metal could. Or maybe like fangs, protruding out some vast maw to one day be covered in earth and discovered by some adventurer who would count the floors as rings and determine our years. Lou speeds into all this, hurtling down off-ramps until he’s on the main vein, the big road taking him from point A to point B – the simplest geometry, really.
He stops a few blocks from her apartment and parks in an alleyway. No meeting with the fellow profs tonight, no sir, this is an evening for fun and games. Lou steps out of the car all cool, black driving gloves still on, longshoreman’s jacket, collar lifted to the ears, and begins the jaunt to her place, checking his reflection in the windows of the other parked cars he passes by, getting momentary glances at himself. Dark hair parted and thick like Harry Houdini, next window, 2 o’clock shadow hardly anything there, next window, Greek nose free of any hangers-on, next window. At this one he stops, turns and faces. He primps himself, natch, then just stares for a moment at his mirror-self. The light won’t reach his eyes – they’re set too deep – so in his double the eyes are missing, hollow points of darkness. Two “Welcome” banners hang behind him from a streetlight, and in the window they appear to come out of his shoulders like rectangular wings. Lou grins like an idiot.
Partway down the street, now, and Lou sees doorways filled with whores, the other side of the proverbial tracks, actual ruby light-bulbs lighting the thresholds, a boner-fide red-light district if ever there was one. Some of the prossies call to him the old stand-by lines: Looking for a good time, hey sugar how about something sweet, want some company? They wave and push their breasts together, some of them pulling up their skirts or hissing like harpies, all of them crimson-lit and, to Lou at least, completely off-putting. He averts his eyes and instead looks up at the full moon – it signifies something, it always does, and Lou feels feral blood twisting through his body, double-helixes of animal cruelty. He imagines himself Were-Jack the Ripper, tearing apart the hookers and eating their shriveled hearts. They cry out for somebody to save them, but who would hunt in these grey cities, those green moors? Ehhh fuck it, it’s just a bit of imaginary fun.
Lou arrives at her apartment building and scans the buzzer, leaning in close to find the name: Pygian, C. There it is, apartment something-or-other, and he presses the chiclet-candy button, holding it for an annoyingly long amount of time. An irritated young woman screams “What” into the squawk-box, and Lou responds with a just-chalant-enough voice: “It’s Lou.” The door shakes and vibrates open.
Upstairs, outside her room, knock knock, wait, check breath.
“Just a minute,” he hears her say, muffled, from somewhere inside the flat. Heavy thuds follow, probably the sound of her tripping over her own pants as she tries to put them on. The door flies open, then slams shut just as quickly. She forgot to unlock that little chain thingy that acts as a weak second defense against would-be intruders. Slide, click, the door opens, quite a bit slower this time, and Calli looks out at Lou, casual, offering a gentle smirk. “Hello, Lou.”
“Hello, yourself, let me inside.” He gives her a side-hug and waltzes her back into the apartment, closing the door with his free hand. Calli Pygian is a girl of pretty parts, thin and unreal, a handsome tan blonde woman who dyes her hair black to disguise herself as a vaguely exotic beauty. She is Lou’s Penelope, if Lou is an Odysseus, but he isn’t, so she cannot be. Besides, her fidelity is of zero importance. She asks him about his wife.
“I told her I was going to meet with some of the other math professors.”
“Wow, that’s a creative lie,” she rolls her eyes, and Lou briefly wonders how it would feel to slap her face. “How much time do you think that buys us?”
“It doesn’t matter, I can always lie some more.” They’re both still in the entryway, so Lou makes a move toward the living room. Calli puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back, warning him not to get comfortable. “Why not? I think I’d like to collect my thoughts before we do anything.” She tells him to wait outside like they agreed. “I’d really rather sit down and maybe have some coffee first.” Calli won’t budge, so Lou sighs and agrees to come back in ten or fifteen minutes, then goes back outside the flat, hears her slide the chain into place, and heads down the stairwell.
Back outside the building, a few blocks down from the door he propped open with a rock, Lou can still make out the sounds of inverted cat-calls, women shouting at men, a regular flip. The red light still spills out of inset doorways, the moon is still up, meaning what? Probably nothing, or maybe, who cares, Lou thinks between drags on a cigarette. He moseys over to a pay-phone across the street.
Punch punch, he dials the number for his house. His wife answers hello, her voice sounding sweet and welcoming. Lou just listens, quiet. She says hello again, pauses, a gap of noiselessness before she hangs up the phone. Lou will do that every once in a while, make phantom telephone calls to his loved ones to remind them of his existence, even if they can’t tell who the shade on the other line is. He considers dialing again but instead finishes his fag and flicks it toward the gutter.
Goddamn, it has only been five minutes since Calli kicked him out and already Lou has exhausted his list of things to do. Call home: check. Smoke a cigarette: check. Pace ceaselessly: check. He reaches into each of his coat pockets to make sure he has everything (he does), his fingers lingering on his wife’s black pantyhose. Lou considers howling at the moon, but doesn’t.
From his vantage point on the ground, Lou can just barely spot Calli’s window, it’s so high up. The building she lives in isn’t even remarkably tall compared to the others surrounding it, but he still has to limbo-lean way back just to see the uppermost floors. Lou shivers amidst all this seeming permanence; he can’t shake the image of a youthful specter, died young, waving back at the whores before toppling one of the skyscrapers – “Look on my works, ye mighty, and et cetera etc...” Something about the anthropic principle, something about Every Mother’s Son, the specter rages on and Lou loses interest because a) he can’t really hear the thing over the din of the crumbling building, and b) it is a figment of his imagination. He checks a clock tower; it has been ten minutes. Something about King Solomon, how even the smile faded from King Solomon’s face when he read on the ring, “This, too, shall pass.”
Back inside the building on his way to the pied-á-terre, waiting in the elevator, pushing the button for her floor several times. He looks at the reflective doors and picks gunk out from between his teeth, such a metro. Ding, he arrives and steps out of the elevator, turning back to face it when the doors close. Again, he gazes at a reflection, taking shallow breaths, a fat lump in his throat. He pulls out his wife’s stocking and has some trouble finding the opening, muttering a few g-damns. He slides it over his dark hair, the locks pushing into his eyes, the fabric tight and full of transformative power, squeezing lightly around his neck when it is all the way on, a slight choke, the pantyhose pulling his entire face down into an otherworldly grimace. He smiles and can’t help but giggle at the awful potato-face, and for a moment he is cackling Beelzebub.
To her door, then. He takes a deep breath and knocks lightly, shaaave-and-a-haircut, then waits. From inside, muffled, amongst some music: “For shit’s sake, Lou, you’re not supposed to knock.” Whoops, he cringes, then turns the doorknob slowly. Unlocked, but when he applies pressure he realizes the chain-lock thingy is still in place. He moves a step back and takes another breath, balling his hands, and kicks at the handle-side of the apartment door. The door bounces and slams, dammit, a slight yelp from inside, hopefully the neighbors are occupied. One more time, a bit harder, his limbs flying akimbo save for the right leg hurtling straight at the lock. Blam, success, half the chain rattles against the door frame and the other half is sent flying somewhere into the room, clattering against the linoleum. Lou rushes in, sure to reach back with his foot and re-close the door. Calli yelped again when the door flew open; Lou knows she is “hiding” in the bedroom.
He strides from the entryway, trying to feel badass (and succeeding a bit – kicking in the door filled him with a gleeful rush), passing the dining room/kitchen and entering the living room – Calli’s bedroom door is kitty corner to Lou’s current position. The radio blares Big Band, probably to drown out the sound of what’s to follow, Lou thinks. Clever girl. He preps to kick in the next door, only to find that it is unlocked, practically hanging open. That’s no fun. He shin-kicks at the door anyway, just for the effect, but stubs his toe in the process. Added, the door hardly budges. Fuck it, he just opens the door (but very quickly, for effect).
Calli shrieks when she sees him, but it’s all a lie; he can tell by the way she almost smiles mid-shriek at the sight of him, then covers her mouth. She mutters some horror-movie please-don’t-hurt-mes while Lou just eyes her, my god she’s a terrible actress, and takes the first step toward her bed. She scrambles up the headboard, sitting on the pillows now, shaking her head and speaking in tongues or something, just a bunch of Nos and Stops. Lou reaches for the shoulder-strap of her tank-top, the only thing she’s wearing above some plain white panties, then pulls her close to his face. He wants to remove the stocking from his head and kiss her, but boy would that be a breach of character. Instead he yanks on the cloth, ripping it, Calli’s bare upper body showing through, and again she stifles a smile before sliding back into character with another Please Don’t.
Calli cowers, leaning back into the throw pillows, hiding in them. Lou takes off his jacket, woof he’s getting hot, and kicks off his shoes. They fly in Calli’s general direction and smack against the wall, some tubas pick up the beat in the living room. She starts to peek out of her foxhole and meekly (yet defiantly) whispers, “What are you going to do to me,” narrowing her eyes.
Lou doesn’t know what to say. He was never, after all, good at talking dirty; behavior was more his strong point, so he just says “Shush” like a goof and starts to undo his belt. Calli shushes, breathing heavily and staring at Lou’s crotch. Eventually he stops fumbling and his thing flops out, at which Calli gasps. He proceeds toward her, imagining himself to appear menacing, but he knows it’s difficult when you’ve got a half-chub swinging around out in the open downstairs. He climbs on top of the bed, hands and knees, and orders, “Slide over here.” Calli wriggles out from the pillow pile, a bit too slow for Lou, so he grabs her ankles and yanks her toward him. He grabs her panties and rips them down to her knees, actually doing a good job of playing the villain, finally. He waits for a moment, admiring her delicate body, to use a cliché. She has beautiful ligaments, bird bones that hint at existing just beneath the surface of her skin, a pretty little skull, and just beneath her dyed hair, two thin hazel eyes that are always out of character – alluring, not frightened.
Enough of that, he lets her anticipation build a moment longer then reaches to her four-letter-word, easing in two fingers. No need to thrust them in; this may be a simulated crime but Lou wants it to be pleasurable. He lifts the pantyhose up to his nose and falls forward, biting at her inner thighs just hard enough to let her know the game isn’t over yet. It was all her idea anyway – something about pleasure and pain and la petite mort. He gnashes at her leg, she squirms above him, he pulls out his fingers and sits upright on his knees.
“Take off your clothes, Lou,” she says, still kind of wearing the ripped tank top that hangs from one of her shoulders. They have broken character, but it doesn’t matter now because it is isn’t about theatre, it is about the violence in the act, the inherent violence in the act of a man penetrating a woman. Lou obliges, removing his trousers, lifting his shirt over his head. The pantyhose now rests above his brow, more of a headband than a mask. His pointed acromia bulge out the tops of his shoulders and, now shirtless, his skin appears to bear the remnants of a sharp lapel or Dracula collar. She lets her head rest on the pillows and opens her legs just a bit. He lays on top of her, and in the traditional sense they proceed to go at it.
It is familiar, even comforting for a while, nothing to be said about it that hasn’t been said about sex a thousand times before. The trumpets blare from the other room, the drums oom-pa-pa-ing and the low brass warbling, and without the music all would appear to be almost ordinary. Tonight isn’t about ordinary, though, and they both know it. If she wanted ordinary she wouldn’t have visited him in his office to set this up. If he wanted comforting he could have stayed at home, with his wife, and just waited until after dinner. It isn’t about how they met, or what pleases them, or “trying new things.” It is about feeling. Not emotions, hardly sensory stimulation, but the embossing of a memory – something that might last.
She is on top of him, things are getting exciting, and he decides to kick-start the scene again. He reaches up to bare-breasted Calli and pushes her onto her back, getting on his knees and taking control. They are both sweating, both heaving, and Calli is squeezing her eyes closed. Lou puts a hand over her mouth and applies pressure. Her eyes widen, anxious, the two of them grinding against each other, the friction becoming more acute. The force of the friction, Lou recalls, is less than or equal to the coefficient of friction (taking into account the amount of lubrication, of course) multiplied by the normal force exerted between the two surfaces, the surfaces being their genitalia. Lou is aware that measuring the friction between their legs is nearly impossible, especially with the natural variables of their separate forces putting in the energy and the unknown amount of lubricant below. Regardless, he imagines that the formula must be approaching equality.
Calli, probably becoming aware of Lou’s wandering mind, removes his hand from her mouth and slaps him across the jaw. He remembers her comment about focused pain and slaps her back, hard. She gasps, and he slaps her again across the other cheek, her head lolling back and forth across the bed. They are both nearing climax and they both know what she made him promise to do next. He scoops Calli up in his arms and rolls over onto his side, groping around the floor, elbow hooking the edge of the bed. He digs into the inside breast pocket of his coat, finding it.
Lou rolls back so they’re entirely on the bed, keeping Calli wrapped in his one arm, holding the other behind his back. She murmurs something into his neck and he leans, bringing them both to an upright position. She opens her mouth, barely but as if expecting something. Lou reveals his trump card, swinging his surprise arm to the foreground and brandishing the breaker-grozier pliers above their heads.
Calli shudders, her breath shortening. They agreed to follow through on this, and Lou plans to, knowing that she wants the focus, the extreme sense of pleasure enhanced by the pain in her mouth. She leans back and he reaches the pliers up into the air, hovering above her face. For the first time all night he sees fear, real fear, in her eyes. This is no longer an act. What to take, though, the canine sharp, a pretty little incisor, maybe a deep-set molar, something close to the bone? He clamps the pliers onto one of her incisors, she stifles a moan. He adjusts his grip, the mocking hand waiting to inflict. He is aware of everything now, an altered state no drug could ever induce, aware of the dust settling in the streets below and the humanity basking beneath the red lights. He squeezes tight and yanks.
Something fills him. He is creator; he is destroyer. These are mere bone and enamel, mere measurements of time. Blood trickles from her mouth, pooling on the ridge at the top of her chin. He bends to lick it, to drink it up, to taste life, sneering and frowning, wrinkling his lip. Something fills him and he is alone. He slithers from his skin, becomes stone, and leans against the sand blowing from the desert before him. A great wind threatens to topple him, dust grinds into his teeth, eroding, the sun sets directly behind, silhouetting his crouched body, his neck craned, looking to the darkening sky. Nothing beside remains.
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| So I was cleaning out my computer today, organizing stuff by which class I wrote what for, etc. when I stumbled upon a great assignment from Intro to Creative Writing. The assignment: alphabet story. Write the first sentence beginning with A, the next with B, and so on and so forth until the last sentence of the story (begins with Z). This is the story Isaac Halvorson and I wrote. It is about Bob Dylan.
Zimmerman, Robert A.
“All along the watchtower,”Jimi screamed into the microphone. Bob stared from the audience, watching in disgust. Crowds thronged around the stage as Jimi performed, but Bob remained unmoved.
“Damn,” Bob muttered, “that was my song.” Everyone in his vicinity glanced in his direction.
“Fuckin’ a dude, that’s not your song.”
Gathering his wits, Bob turned to the hippie who dared question him.
“How many roads must a man walk down,” Bob snarled as he punched the flower child right in his drug-induced face. Ironically, this hippie was actually Kenny Loggins of the super-duo Loggins & Messina, and this event would inspire him to form the band.
Jimi removed his acid-soaked headband and threw it into the audience as he walked off stage. Kool cigarette in hand, Bob made his way through the crowd. Leather-clad security guards approached Bob as he moved backstage.
“Move it or lose it buddy; who do you think you are?”
“Name’s Dylan,” a drag from the cigarette, “Bob Dylan.”
“Oh...” the two guards stumbled over their words and their feet as they backed away.
“People got barely enough skin to cover their bones.” Quick as a whip, Bob was inside Jimi’s dressing room.
“Realize just what I did hear; didn’t realize how young you were,” Bob said.
Smiling, Jimi looked up, blowing smoke from his mouth and coughing out, “the clouds are really low, and they overflow.”
“They say that you’re planning to put me down.”
“Ugh, I won’t do you no harm.” Very faintly, Bob heard the crowd chanting Jimi’s name.
“Wind’s beginning to howl Bob, all along the watchtower.”
“ ‘Xactly what I was thinking.” Yanking out his harmonica, Bob shoved it down Jimi’s throat, and Jimi choked on his own vomit as he fell to the floor.
Zimmerman, Robert A.: don’t forget that name.
Great job! | | |
| I forgot that I was going to post this. Well it is the second story I wrote for creative writing class, and it goes a little something like this:
Ephemeron
by Joshua Brorby
Well it had taken a few hours – most of the evening, actually – but she had finally done it, she had finally torn down his wall of defense mechanisms and shoddy excuses and bedded him, right there in the foyer of the Museum of Early Eastern Horticulture. Ophelie Masset had taken the relatively young Professor Balfour Shalev out to dinner, worked her seductive magic, and now straddled him next to a blossoming sakura display. When he ran across the street minutes ago to purchase a condom from a gas station bathroom – he had to borrow three quarters from her – she nabbed the manuscript from his courier bag. She let the professor buy her dinner and put up with his inane Baudrillard-and-the-simulacra conversation all for that one opportunity to take the manuscript and slip it into her just-empty-enough purse. Now he ran his shaking fingers up and down the curve of her naked back, squawking odd phrases and non sequiturs, attempts at pillow talk.
“Ophelie, my dear,” he began in his Israeli Christopher Walken voice, “you are aware that the lenses of my spectacles are becoming quite rich with condensation amidst all this heat and plant life, are you not?”
Ophelie mumbled a nothing reply into his neck, her warm breath causing him to shudder, breathing life into his academic bones. She removed his glasses for him. They made love, then, like actors made love in black-and-white films. Close shots of his back as he rested on his side, a valley forming at his waist where the angles of his muscles bent inward. Medium-long shot from above, him still on his side, her on her back. A ceiling fan placed above the camera, in front of the lights, so beams of darkness rotate upon their naked bodies. Cut to the couple kissing, close-up, the soft jazz score building to a crescendo as the camera pans up to the fan, keeping the sex out of sight, keeping everything tasteful and neat.
Of course, none of this is important. All that is important here is Ophelie obtaining the manuscript. These details – the professor’s non sequiturs, Ophelie’s commanding sexual presence, their brown eyes meeting at climax – none of it is important, really. Similarly, the fact that they did it in the foyer of the Museum of Early Eastern Horticulture isn’t important, either. For all intents and purposes, they could have had intercourse in a ball pit at a Chuck E. Cheese and it wouldn’t make one lick of a difference, but, for posterity’s sake, the location deserves mention.
“Excuse me for a moment, my Balfour,” Ophelie said. She grabbed one of the poles that kept the velvet ropes in sentinel position, pulling herself up off of the carpeted museum floor. “The ladies’ room. Just going to freshen up.”
“Very well, my dear.” She started toward the restroom, still naked, but turned back to grab her purse and the manuscript contained within.
“Almost forgot my purse and powderpuff,” she winked. Professor Shalev smiled and leaned back, his hands behind his head, staring up at the flowering sakura. The cherry blossoms opened up beautifully, blood red centers surrounded by pure white petals.
In the ladies’ washroom, Ophelie reached into her purse and pulled out the manuscript, its tattered yellow pages rustling against the purse’s cloth. She ran her fingers over the title emblazoned on the plain brown cover. Crying Wolf in the Tranquil Pasture: A Play in Five Acts. No author’s name graced the cover, it was probably somewhere inside. Ophelie placed the manuscript aside on a sink and pulled a tightly-packed wad of simple clothes out from inside her cloth purse. She dressed quickly, threw the play back into her purse, and looked into the mirror. She fluffed her long brown curls, trying to get the “just-had-sex” look out of them. The next step in her plan: walk out of the museum briskly, hail a cab, get on the monorail and go home as fast as possible – try to avoid all further contact with the naïve history professor lying nude on the floor outside the bathroom – arrive home safely, turn on the greyscale film channel, and read the manuscript.
Midnight now. Ophelie was sandwiched between a lavender armrest and an overweight bald man wearing a vest two sizes too small on the crosstown monorail – the one that started at ground level, went two stories up like a roller coaster, then weaved its way between skyscrapers on its journey to the downtown multiplex. She imagined Balfour Shalev back at the museum, gathering his belongings, getting dressed, discovering that the manuscript he was safekeeping had disappeared from his courier bag. He would walk back to the sakura display, disheartened, knocking over the velvet rope, the golden poles clanging against the ground, him picking one of the cherry blossoms, smelling it. Cut to a long shot, from across the museum, we see a rather small professor standing before a large tree. The dark beams from the fan rotate over the scene. A white-and-red petal falls out of his hand, drifting into view, ever-so-small against the beige museum walls. Ophelie smiled and reached into her purse, feeling the rough-hewn cover of the manuscript against her lotion-softened fingertips. She couldn’t help herself; one little peek couldn’t hurt. She sat up straight, manuscript now in hand, and read the title again. Crying Wolf in the Tranquil Pasture. She flipped the text open and scanned the first page. Empty. She flipped three more pages forward.
ACT I
Scene 1
A magistrate sits at a wooden table, reading a book of law
and drinking from a teacup. The library in which he sits is
filled with old tomes of brown and burgundy, and the light-
ing is feeble at best. One candle sits upon the table at
which the magi–
The obese, vest-clad man bumped Ophelie’s elbow. She fumbled the book, but it fell back into her purse, so she simply gave the plump man a disdainful look and crossed her arms, waiting for the monorail to come to a complete stop. When it did, she grabbed her sack of a purse and walked the short distance to her fourth-floor apartment.
She lit a candle. Light flickered throughout her bedroom. Otherwise short objects casted long, thin shadows. The coffee cup on the floor was trailed by a tall, dark ellipse. Behind the laundry hamper lurked a monstrous profile. Ophelie leaned over onto her elbow, bringing the manuscript into the candlelight coming from atop the nightstand, her legs beneath the maroon down comforter on her bed. She read the table of contents on the third page. The manuscript contained not only the original work, but dozens of critical essays about the historical context of the play, symbolism found within, and the development of specific characters. Ophelie grabbed the grey remote lying on her nightstand and turned on the television sitting a few feet from the foot of her bed. The Classic Cinema Channel, CCC, blinked to life on the screen. It was playing one of those segments where a visionary director is being interviewed in the short time between his film and the commercial breaks. A woman in a red pantsuit sat across from the director, holding a microphone to his bespectacled face, waiting patiently for his answer to whatever her question had been.
The director, a middle-aged man with a bushy, black beard and slicked-back hair, scratched the tip of his nose, thinking for a moment. “Well, Shelly, I think that, as far as modern film has progressed, we have reached a crossroad of sorts.”
The camera cut to Shelly nodding for a second.
“On one side, you have these very nicely put together movies – big budgets, big names – made for massive audiences that demand a film confined to some sort of genre. They make a lot of money, they’re usually intellectually dull, but a few of them manage to be intriguing.” The director took off his glasses, his other hand reaching for a handkerchief in his breast pocket. He wiped the lenses clean. “On the other hand, you have directors, directors much like myself, who have moved beyond the formula, beyond the ordinary. We, well, I guess we like taking all the pieces of a puzzle and putting them in the wrong order, then adding a few pieces that don’t belong.”
Shelly nodded again. Ophelie dropped her head back onto her stack of pillows. This guy, what is he going on about? Does he think he’s some sort of new, original director with fresh ideas? Ludicrous.
“And Shelly, I really believe that in the end it doesn’t matter what I put on screen. It doesn’t matter what I put up there, as long as someone watches it and is comforted by it. I mean, they might be discomforted by it, but on some deeper level, they are comforted by the fact that they’re fortunate enough to be watching a film at all. Does that make sense? I think it does, like, I’m just trying to create something that will keep at least one person in their seat for two hours.”
“Well you’ve certainly done a good job at that, Mr. Glasby. We’ll have more of Transience and more with the film’s director when we return after this commercial break.” An advertisement for whitening toothpaste came on, so Ophelie turned down the volume and focused her attention back on the manuscript.
She speed-read the first act, very convoluted stuff. Dense, like a Joyce novel, but it had some sort of je ne sais quoi, too. The play actually managed to give her this dull, droning headache. Ophelie decided to bring it to an English professor friend of hers the next afternoon. She set the manuscript in her nightstand drawer, blew out the candle, and pulled the covers up to her neck, eventually falling asleep with the sounds of Transience still emanating from the television set.
******************
“This is... Interesting, to say the least. I’ve never seen it before. In fact, I have honestly never even heard of this piece. In my entire career, spent researching historical works of fiction and long-thought-lost texts, I’ve never run across something quite like this.”
Ophelie broke the eye contact she had been maintaining with the Professor, Allyn Jaepes, looking down at the tiny obsidian globe that ornamented his desk. “Not once in your career at all? Not once?”
“I’m sorry, Ophelie. I don’t know what else to tell you. This is one of two things: either it’s the most important piece of fiction either you or I have obtained in our lifetimes, or it’s worthless – a hoax put on by God-knows-who.”
“As for the literary criticism?”
“Again, I’ve never heard of any of these people, none of their credentials are listed, but frankly, everything they’ve written – from what I’ve read so far – is quite astute. The manuscript, though, it just contains their names and that’s it,” he flipped a few pages, “Most curious of all, not even the name of the author appears – the author of the actual play itself.” He straightened his horn-rimmed glasses and pushed the manuscript back across the desk to Ophelie. She turned it around so it was facing her and opened it up. The first page: blank. The second simply restated the title, mentioned it was a play (in five acts), and had a small date at the very bottom of the page: 1X36 – the hundreds-place digit was smudged out, throwing the play into a time-warp that spanned a millennium. The third page was a long list of essay titles, followed by a row of ellipses, and then page numbers ranging from 185 (the end of the play) to 422 (the start of the final essay). “About this smudged-out date,” Ophelie said, “What could that mean?”
“From what I’ve read – and what I’ve read, I had to read fast, considering you gave this to me nary two hours ago – the setting of the play is England in the early eighteenth century. So I guess that puts the possible date of original publication at either 1836 or 1936. Then again, there is the possibility that it was published in 1736 and was a play of the times, who knows.”
“That’s what I thought when I read over it. I wonder why, though – as you said yourself – this play is considered significant.”
“Well it is highly allegorical, and most of the themes found throughout are reminiscent of early existentialism, if not all out nihilism toward the end. Not to mention it is probably the most violent thing written in that time period – hell, since God smote fifteen-thousand-odd men for disagreeing with him in Numbers. I mean, this thing details the disembowelment of a young magistrate by a dozen shepherds.”
Ophelie smiled, although she didn’t know why something like that should make her smile at all. “So what did these guys use to disembowel? Don’t tell me that they used their shepherd’s crooks...”
“I don’t want to spoil the third act for you.”
“Does anything jump out at you that gives some clues to when this piece was first published?”
“Sure. Almost all of the dialogue is in iambic pentameter, which, as you know, was used by many many poets and playwrights throughout most of the major literary periods, but I would say that rules out 1936 as a possibility.”
Ophelie nodded for a second.
“All of the essays, unfortunately, are also left without dates, and none of these names return any relevant results in an internet search. I’m guessing this edition came out sometime in the 20th century, but as far as the original play goes, the essays haven’t told me anything so far. Again, I’ve been in a rush today, so I haven’t had the chance to dig into these criticisms.”
“Is it not possible that formal crit–” The phone rang.
Allyn lifted the black receiver and put it to his ear, then cupped the mouthpiece, “Sorry, Ophelie, this will just be a moment.”
Allyn talked to a student for a while, a student who desperately needed to know the importance of a speech given in a Tennyson poem, so Ophelie stared out the window at the quad for a while, admiring the green grass. It was surprisingly empty, then again it was about halfway between periods, so many of the students were in their department buildings. One person ran across the lawn in the distance, very far off, toward the English department building in which Ophelie and Allyn sat. As he neared the building, Ophelie could discern that he was a lanky Israeli man with short, dark hair, glasses, and a tie.
“Oh my...”
Allyn cupped the phone’s mouthpiece again, “What is it, Ophelie?”
She turned to the professor, eyes wide, “It’s Professor Shalev.”
Allyn spoke into the telephone, “Jared, google it,” and slammed the phone down. “Grab the manuscript, let’s move.” Allyn pushed his chair in and picked up his sport-jacket while Ophelie made for the door, manuscript shoved under her armpit. They ran down the only set of stairs, the one leading to the exit, hitting each individual step staccato-style rather than skipping down two at a time. They rounded the banister, Ophelie at the head, just as Professor Shalev pushed open the double-doors, blocking their path.
Heavy breathing by everybody for a moment.
“You know,” Professor Jaepes began, “You run pretty fast for a History teacher.”
“Shut it, Allyn.” More heavy breathing. “Ophelie,” again with the accent-laden Walken voice, “you took advantage of me, you left me without saying a thing, and you stole my manuscript – the play I spent months of my time tracking down.”
“Balfour, you knew that’s what I was after. The entire time, I just wanted the text.”
“Honestly, I did not know that.”
“Look, Shalev,” Allyn butted in, “This manuscript is property of the English deparment, okay? It falls under literature.”
“No, no, no, you are wrong, Jaepes. This is an historical work that rightfully belongs to the History department.”
“Oh and I suppose you should have all of Shakespeare’s plays, as well. Why don’t you go take everything the Philosophy department owns, too?”
“Allyn, my friend, this needs to be studied in an historical context, not a literary one, you know that.”
“We can handle it, Shalev. It’s the English department’s now.”
“Again, no, I’m sorry, but it is the History department’s property.”
“Well I believe you’re incorrect in that assumption.”
“It’s no assumption, it’s fact.”
“You’re fact.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Shut up.
“Bite me.”
Ophelie whispered, “Both of you, quiet.” Surprisingly, over their devolving argument, they heard her, and both stopped. “This belongs to me.”
The two professors looked at each other, then back at Ophelie, mouths open, before each began their own separate argument, their own separate attempt to persuade Ophelie to hand over the text.
“Now listen, dear – you can’t just take – the English department – at the sakura display – on the phone with – and then left, just like that and – ours to study – of course, it started to rain – hand it over – the History department – ours now – Jaepes doesn’t know – hand it – just let me take it.” The cacophony of petty reasoning blended into incoherence, pushing Ophelie to clench her eyelids shut, squeezing the manuscript tight in her arms against her chest, imagining the professors as a two-headed beast reaching out with four hands until they both exclaimed simultaneously and with great gusto, “Just hand it over!”
Ophelie opened her eyes. The men stood on either side of her – they had closed in on their target. The path to the door was now open, clear of any bodies that would stop her from running to the quad. So she did. She leaned back and kicked open the doors, to the professors’ proclamations of surprise, then ran outside, blouse billowing in the wind.
Ophelie sprinted across the green grass, her brown curls bouncing against her shoulders, and she imagined it all in slow motion, the two men behind her giving chase, failing to catch up to the woman in her adrenaline-fueled escape. She hit the end of the lawn and turned right at the intimidatingly tall Religion building, now running down the paved sidewalk, still no students in sight. She imagined the fast-paced jazz percussion playing in 6/8 time as her feet pounded out the beat against the concrete. The men behind her wouldn’t stand a chance of catching Ophelie, not in this story, not even in the sequel or the novelization. She turned left this time, at the Theatre, heading toward the single cherry blossom tree on campus. Torches surrounded the tree at this time of year, the only time the sakura blossoms all season. Ophelie kicked down and gave it her all, sprinting toward the tree, outrunning her pursuers, leaving them no chance at all to overtake her.
As she approached the tree, Ophelie slowed her pace and turned around, accidentally knocking over one of the torches with her shoulder. No one was chasing her. She dropped the manuscript. She was all alone at the tree, no one had been chasing her, and the imagined jazz score slowed until the music in Ophelie’s mind stopped altogether, leaving only the sound of the wind.
Ophelie fell to her knees, confused, exasperated. She smelled smoke and turned her head to the right, watching the torch burn, watching the manuscript burn.
“Oh shit, oh no, oh god, what have I done?” She smacked the manuscript away from the torch with her hand, but the immolation continued. She hit it again, but the flames engulfed the text; it was already too late. Ophelie began to cry, quietly, staring at the manuscript as it collapsed in on itself, as the ashes blew away in the wind, scattering what had once been something beautiful, apparently. She reached into the flames and pulled out a scrap of one of the pages, reading the half-burned text, “Then wxxt is holy in thxxx trying times – do poets, heroes, hexx the silent xxxxx? Alack and t–” the rest was burned off, drifting in the air above Ophelie, ashes. She put the scrap into her pocket. The sound of the wind stopped and the camera circled up, zooming out, silence, Ophelie still on her knees staring at the burning pages.
*********
Thanks for reading. My apologies for some of the formatting – xanga is stupid. | | |
| So this very nice girl in my creative writing class wrote this in one of her stories, and I copied it down for one reason: Every time I read it, I think of The Coug, John Mellencamp.
Her paragraph:
When I studied French my first year of college, I discovered my favorite French phrase: "la douleur exquise." It was so tragic, but in a way, beautiful, because it was an oxymoron. It means, "the exquisite pain." In essence, "la douleur exquise" is what you feel when the person (or thing) you are deeply in love with does not return the favor, but you don't give a damn. You just continue loving the person (or thing), even if it makes you miserable, even if it ruins the other things in your life. You keep chasing. I always pictured some outlandish French woman, wearing a bodice, crying her eyes out at the top of the Eiffel Tower. She would exclaim, "Ehh, la douleur exquise!" before she throws herself off the tower, to land directly at her beloved's feet. Even today, when I try to straighten my knotted ankle, I think about LA DOULEUR EXQUISE.
The above work is hers. I wrote my own, substituting in places, from the point of view of a teenage lover-of-classic-rock who is kind of a loser/dimwit:
When I studied buttrock in junior high, I learned my favorite buttrock phrase: "hurts so good." It was so weird, but in a way, awesome, because it was, like, opposites. It means "it hurts, but it feels good at the same time." Basically "hurts so good" is what you feel when this chick you really love doesn't love you back, but you don't give a fuck. You just continue wanting to be with her, even if it makes you feel like shit, even if it ruins the other things in your life. You keep chasing. I always pictured some funky rock'n'roller, wearing a leather vest, crying manly tears at the top of the Capitol Records building. He would yell out, "Oh, it hurts so good. Come on, baby, make it hurt so good! Sometimes love don't feel like it should!" before he throws himself off the building, to land directly at the feet of that one chick he loves, or some hobo watching him. Even today when I try to masturbate after a week where I've masturbated a lot and started to chafe, I think about HURTS SO GOOD.
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Thank you.
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| This here is a rough draft of my short story for creative writing (ENGL 306). Now I turned this in the other day for the class to critique, and I have a feeling it will receive mixed reviews. I tried to experiment with my writing style in this one, plus I dabbled with Absurdism, I got outside my comfort zone (in voice, at least), and I tried a different type of story (no clear conflict, desire, etc).
I hope importing this to Xanga doesn't fuck up the physical structure of the text.
Fever Dream
-or-
King Ludd’s Empty Throne
by Joshua Brorby
Three-thirty-three in the Ante Meridiem: Fidel Erasmus ate toasted bread crumbs and flipped through his leather-bound Oxford English Dictionary, searching for the next word with which to wow Ophelie, the beautiful female barista at the trendy coffee shop down the avenue. Plenitude: noun; an abundance. In a sentence: “There is a plenitude of fair-trade, organic black coffee in your shop, would you like to share a cup?” Fidel scooped a handful of the crumbs between his unbrushed teeth, turning a thin, bible-style page. Prelapsarian: adjective; characteristic of the time before the Fall of Man; innocent and unspoiled. Usage: “In your beauty and innocence you remind me of a prelapsarian Eve.” He wiped his nose and snuffled, wondering to himself if “prelapsarian” was a bit too lofty, wondering if it would make him seem less like a possible mate and more like an overeducated douche bag. Pusillanimous: adjective; showing a lack of courage or determination; timid. As in “I know I’ve been pusillanimous in the weeks prior, but I’d like to take you out for dinner.” Fidel raised a glass of milk that had been sitting nearby to his lips, tilting his head back. Pungent: adjective; the sour milk filled his mouth, half-liquid and half-chunks. Fidel coughed the spoiled milk out onto his dictionary and bread crumb bowl, wiping his tongue with the sleeve of his shirt. He wiped his tongue furiously, reaching back perhaps a bit too far and gagging, flashing back to his childhood, choking on a piece of butterscotch hard candy. Fidel thought to himself, I need milk, and I need it now.
Fidel left his apartment and walked down the sidewalk en route to the 24-hour convenience store not four blocks away, flipping through the “Evils of Technology” pamphlet his friend Edward had given him, a black, bird-like mask sticking out of his back pocket. It is necessary here to expound upon Fidel Erasmus’s present mindset, his philosophy of the week, to learn why his milk went sour and furthermore, why he carries with him a black, bird-like mask. Fidel Erasmus, freelance journalist by trade, bum in all actuality, had recently discovered Luddism and begun to practice it, cutting necessary corners of course. He abstained from using computers, television, cell phones – anything with a screen, really – but still held on to indoor plumbing and heating, along with light-bulbs –never fluorescent, though. He utilized an icebox, but did not own a refrigerator – here it should be clear why Fidel’s milk has gone bad in his time of need. When it comes to the real Luddite stuff, the heart and soul of the movement – destroying technology – Fidel participated only when he felt he would suffer no consequence. He did not partake in the raid of the computer processor plant in Silicon Valley, whereat thirteen of his comrades were arrested and charged with breaking and entering, destruction of private property, and “masked vigilantism” (a charge the judge created upon hearing the defendants’ pleas and seeing the footage of the raid – all perpetrators wore hand-fashioned masks). He did, however, aid in destroying a sewing machine he found out by the First Baptist Church. Put simply, Fidel Erasmus was a weekend Luddite who desperately needed a real job (and a carton of milk).
Fidel turned the noticeably-thick, recycled-paper pages of the pamphlet, landing on an article entitled “To the Oppressed Collective.” He walked along the avenue, reading by streetlight, crossing perpendicular roads without glancing up to see the cars whirring by, missing him sometimes by only a few feet.
TO THE OPPRESSED COLLECTIVE
by Millicent Silverson
Brothers, let us not fall victim to the tyranny of modern comfort. Let us not, as our fellow man is wont to do, forget that we were born individuals, born not from a state or from a corporation, but from a fleshy womb. Do not meander through shopping malls as the ancient Wandering Jew through nature, but rather look to your heart and ask yourself what you are seeking. What are you seeking? Surely the seamstress seeks to make clothing, but why should she when factories in China make clothes for many more than she ever could? Certainly the blacksmith wants to forge goods, but robotic arms in Detroit and Japan supersede him! Cannot the musicians still do as they please? Forget it, friends, not in this world – a world dominated by mighty infrastructures and the almighty dollar. O Brothers! We are crushed by the boot of technology, but as sure as Poseidon calms the seas, we will rise up. We will twist the foot holding us in place and stand atop the lifeless body attached! O Brothers, we will don our false visages and overtake those in control! And finally, when we are standing atop our enemies, we will tear off our masks and reveal not supermen, but men who stood up and fought, men who said “we will not stand for this injustice!”
Nose-deep in the pamphlet, trying to make out each word in the passing light above him, Fidel didn’t notice the screeching tire of the limousine hurtling toward him; he did, however, feel the grill as it slammed into his hip, launching him forward roughly fifteen meters.
“My God, friend, are you okay? I’m sorry, my driver was honking like a Canadian goose but you just kept walking. God knows the roads are icy this time of year, if only a bit slick, at least. Are you okay?” Fidel opened his eyes to see a beautiful bony male face looking down on him, a halo of light surrounding his head, making his features soft. The man spoke again, “Hello, son, your eyes are open, good, and what spectacular green eyes. Has anyone ever told you you should be in pictures? Not that people go around saying that, I mean my God it’s the new millennium not the 1950s. Are you okay?”
Fidel nodded, seeing now that the man didn’t really have a halo but instead was standing beneath a streetlight on the sidewalk. As Fidel sat up, wiping away a small swath of mucus that had been shaken loose from his nostrils, the man without the halo smiled, his face gaunt and his cheekbones sharp. A John Waters pencil moustache curved with his lips, and his dark, slicked-back hair reflected the light shining upon it from the streetlight. “Your hair is quite oily,” Fidel muttered, not even sure of why he was saying that specific phrase.
The man smiled, “I think you bumped your head on the pavement a bit, pal. Do you need to go somewhere? I can take you wherever you need to go; see that over there? That’s mine,” he pointed to the black limousine looming behind him, its engine still running, the tinted windows hiding any light that may be inside.
Fidel thought, that limousine looks like something out of a horror novel or a children’s movie, I can’t decide which, but ended up saying, “Sure, thank-you. I don’t think we need to get the authorities involved here anyway.”
“Of course not, chief. Let’s just get you up off that dirty concrete here,” the man put his arm around Fidel and lifted him off his feet, “I’ll walk you to the limousine. Easy now, my God, you’re making a speedy recovery. You’re like a professional athlete with rehabilitation like that!”
They walked to the back door, driver’s side, Fidel limping and the man with the moustache helping him along. “My name is Fidel, by the way. Fidel Erasmus.”
“Nice to meet you, son, that’s a hell of a name. I’m Rufus Codswallow, and it is a pleasure to meet a such a fine gentleman as yourself.” He opened the door and an array of light poured out, flashing from green and orange to yellow and blue, with a hint of red always in the mix somewhere. Fidel wondered how the windows of the vehicle could manage to hide such extravagant lighting, but shook the question from his head when Rufus ushered him in and asked him to have a seat.
“So where can I take you, Fidel? I could drive you to a guy I know, used to be a doctor, real good at fixing up bum legs. Maybe we could go out for a drink or something?”
“I was actually on my way to get a carton of milk from the convenience store.”
“Carton of milk, sure thing. How about we head over to a grocer I know a few blocks from here? He keeps his store open twenty-four-hours-a-day, except on Shabbos – you know how those religious types are. You a member of a synagogue around here?”
Fidel shook his head.
“Of course not, what with all the politics going on these days, it’s no wonder you’re not in a church or anything of that nature. I mean, my God, have you seen Africa in recent years?”
Fidel shrugged, opening his mouth without saying anything.
“Lorenzo,” Rufus shouted to the driver, “head to Sal’s place on the corner of East 42nd and Dan Quayle Drive.” The car’s movement was nearly imperceptible to the occupants of the spacious backseat, and as the colored lights continued to flicker from green and orange to yellow and blue with a hint of red always in the mix somewhere, Lorenzo turned the radio on to a soft jazz station. For the next ten minutes Fidel and Rufus made small talk about such subjects as the Zulu War and the benefits of waxing one’s chest. During the short drive to the grocery store, Rufus learned that Fidel was basically unemployed, and Fidel gleaned that Rufus Codswallow was in fact the pornographer that owned and shot film for Codswallowers Studio. Codswallowers Studio was notorious for working with any and all comers (pun). They accepted any director who would front the cash necessary for film, and any actor or actress Rufus deemed “good-looking enough.” In short order they arrived at Sal’s Grocery and headed for the dairy section while Lorenzo waited in the car, listening to soft jazz.
The two men paced through the white aisles of white milk under white fluorescent lights on seafoam-green tile floors. Fidel stopped upon reaching the cardboard cartons and reached for the pink one that denoted skim.
“Now hold on just a second, there, friend,” Rufus grabbed Fidel’s forearm, “Are you sure you want to get skim milk? Jesus, there is so much variety out there when it comes to milk. You could get two-percent, or one-percent, whole, half-and-half, cream, soy, chocolate, strawberry, you name it.”
“I’ll stick with the skim. No cholesterol, you know.”
“Cholesterol shmolesterol. My god, you’re just a kid, get out there and live your life, eat fried food, shoot pornography, ride a motorcycle.”
“Just because I’m unemployed doesn’t mean I don’t have a life, you know. I’ve been known to rabble-rouse in my time.” Fidel put the skim milk he had picked up again under his arm, pulled out his black, feather-clad mask, and slid it over his head, laughing. “Check it out, I’m big bird.”
Rufus Codswallow narrowed his eyes and faked a smile, remembering a snippet of conversation from the limousine wherein Fidel mentioned “the tyranny of technological advances.” Again, it is necessary to explicate a bit. Rufus Codswallow shoots pornography, and in his haste to get out of the studio one night, he told his assistants to put the lighting equipment not in the usual locked basement, but against the wall so they could start right away in the morning. A band of roving radicals broke into the studio and destroyed said lighting equipment that night, but Codswallow, being a crafty fellow, had left his camera on, capturing all the footage. None of the vandals could be identified, of course, but he distinctly remembered each one wearing a mask, and several of them were of the avian variety. Naturally, this resulted in the narrowing of eyes and the faking of smiles at the grocery store upon Fidel’s exhibition of the mask extricated from his own pocket.
“Maybe you’re right, Fidel, just grab the skim.” Two awkward, quiet minutes followed, Fidel purchasing the carton of skim milk and Rufus walking out to the limousine buy himself. When Fidel walked outside, Rufus was already standing next to the vehicle, holding the door open like a true blue gentlemen.
“Where to, now, friend?” Fidel asked.
“Wherever the wind may take us, by God,” Rufus closed the door, “unless of course you’re in a hurry to get back to your apartment, which is reasonable for a man like you, or any man for that matter.”
“No, by all means, let’s go for a drive.” They drove to the outskirts of town, to a highway that bordered green fields and gray buildings on either side, fields and buildings that ended up looking like black-and-white film stock at nighttime. “You know, Rufus, can I call you Rufus, Mr. Codswallow?”
Rufus put on his fake smile, “I don’t see why not.”
“I’d just like to thank you for being so hospitable. I mean, you hit me with your car and I could’ve gone off in a rage to the police and you might have ended up hating me, but instead you offered me a ride to the grocery store to get a carton of milk.” Lorenzo pulled the car over to the side of the blacktop highway while Fidel drank his skim milk straight from the container.
“Fidel, why don’t you step outside for a minute, I’d like to talk to you.”
“Okay. What about?” They got out of the limousine and stood on the dimly lit highway pavement.
“The mask. Let me see it.” Fidel handed it to him without question, taking another swig of milk, unaware of the gravity of the situation. “Interesting design. Did you make it yourself?”
“Yeah, I did. A few of my friends have similarly styled masks.”
Rufus half-smiled in the pale light provided by the limousine’s open door to the interior. “Fidel, I thought we could get along. My God, I thought we could be friends; I saw your eyes and thought to myself, this is a guy who could be in films, who could wear glasses in the advertisements on the backs of magazines.”
Fidel swallowed a mouthful of milk, raising an eyebrow, “You really thought all of that?”
“It doesn’t matter, son. You and your friends went out that night and, well...” he looked to the sky for a moment, “you and your friends did something wrong, and you fucked everything up for yourselves big time,” he pulled a shining silver revolver out of the back of his pants, clicking the hammer into place, “You and your friends need to grow up.”
Fidel thought, I’ve never destroyed anything this man could have ever owned in my life, I have no idea what he could be talking about, unless he sews all his own clothes in the alley behind the First Baptist Church, in which case I should apologize, but all Fidel said was “What?”
Rufus Codswallow slowed down time, then, for a moment, firing a shot into the air – the reverberations from the gunshot echoing across the grayscale field – screaming out an obscenity heard so often in his films, and swinging madly at Fidel. The barrel of the pistol caught Fidel in the face, opening up a fresh cut out of which Vitamin-D-fortified blood ran warm. Fidel dropped to the ground like a defeated prizefighter, still not entirely sure how Rufus had managed to alter the pace at which earthly things were moving. He thought, I’ve never been hit so hard in my life, and groaned.
“My God, you young people these days need to learn some respect. Haven’t you ever heard of private property? Haven’t you ever heard of the concept of ownership? I swear, there’s a plenitude of you out there who haven’t even the slightest clue how to behave in public.”
Fidel rolled over onto his side, “What did you just say? A plenitude?”
“Yes, boy, I did. A plenitude. And if I ever see you or any of your idiotic friends near my studio again, I’ll use this pistol to put a hole in your head.” And with that he was back in the pulsating light of the limousine, ordering Lorenzo to drive him away.
Fidel laid there for a while on the pavement, his spilt milk spreading all along the road, creating shapes and patterns of fever-dreams. Things went dark for a while, but when they got light again he realized he was at the edge of the city. He got up, wiping the blood and milk off of his face, looking up and down the bare road running along the buildings on one side and the green field on the other, and at that moment he wished he had an automobile of his own.
Thanks for reading. | | |
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