“And what, pray tell, is your definition of soon?”
“The works. That’s all. Nothing left in. So slightly, ever
so off and on.”
“Expensive speak. Flying the true expletive nature of
rounded not-so-well.”
“True’s the new fake. Don’t get it, please.”
“Happening. The first gets dusted, ditched by last, and then
the backup generator kicks in. We’re all just new diseases waiting to spread.”
“Galloping towards Tripoli. Backs wretched. Heads low. There
are no good buys in the warehouse of farewells.”
“Sneaking defeat sinks out and makes the vinyl sing.”
“And it is never very terrible at all.”
“Of course. We capture frequency rather than modulation.
Or…so we think, maybe?”
“Maybe we don’t think. Maybe even the tides are
commercialized by capitalism’s stinky feet.”
“Too accostable, this guy. Always getting accosted wherever
he may chance to go.”
“People want to grab, to reach out and touch. Attention’s at
a premium, and it doesn’t last. Faired less better than well, in the brusque
stifling ornaments of paid hype, artificial accolades, and the re-purposed hope
of a censored generation. Feeble? Maybe that too.”
“The TV’s ruined my capacity for abstract thought. We need
better drugs. Something more precise, less opaque. Something that will catch
the puniest bits of experience and denude it down to a form rife with capabilities
and untapped energy. We need to be out of ourselves and completely of ourselves
at the same time. Nothing left to ruin the afternoon.”
“Giving quiet instead of keeping it. That’d do, right?”
“Not quite. Just a richer substitute for knock-off pride.
What we’re doomed to never forget.”
“A word not worth a thousand pictures.”
“Something pertaining to the illusion of opposites
contradicting each other. Plus, there is illicit understanding for you, too, if
you get too short with distance, if it comes to it, of course.”
“The glimmer’s what remains. Nothing that’ll stain though.
Nothing that’ll take up a permanent residence and hound you through cacophonous
mornings of little or no sleep. And if we are allowed, we have the privilege of
growing old.”
“Places!”
“Yes. Into the spotlight we go and hide. Run to rumbles and
tumble to shittier estimations of just where it is that you will stand and
sit.”
“The letdown is plenty. The bad liar is forced into
uncomfortable admittances. Truth beaches itself, irrationally, on the shores of
giving up. I wear dark sunglasses in stormy weather. Tell me what to see? Hell,
I’ll see what’s there and what’s not, and then we’ll see if the difference
evens matters.”
“Listen. The sound of automatic doors closing. A grizzled
swoosh. I’m going from hotel bar to hotel bar. I’m sensing a rampant departure
from reality, imminently—but who’s? Mine’s a flushed-out, reinforced barbwire
job slapped with impromptu casket-waiting. What else are we doing here except
holding out until we die?”
“A parked Chevelle, two walkers folded up in the backseat, a
couple long-stemmed roses lying above the the dash, handicap placard dangling
from the rear-view, upholstery fairing decent enough. We are stills of what we
wish we never were.”
“Shout that from a tall place and take a number. I’m walking
down the stalled escalator of my inheritance: the bulk of what’s been passed
down to me through the stink and bile of innumerable others, the hand-me-downs
of evolution, going with the bones, still.”
“Crabby confluences be damned. I’m playing the universe’s
smallest recorder.”
“I heard that.”
“A Peace Lily for your dearest memories. Some Florist’s
Chrysanthemum to clear the air. It is soon enough. Rise below. We’ll be had.
It’ll be later. And the curses say themselves.”
“My stomach growls like a police siren. The steps we used to
take. You know, we used to go to bars and sit in the corner and get drunk, and
then walk home singing and laughing. Such a shabby elegance we lost. Or it was
lost on others. The dark’s comfort fit. The mistakes turned eye-ward. Legs,
liquor, and love. The only holy trinity I’ve ever known.”
“Based on that, we’re all in for it, sooner…or soon enough.”
“I wish I had longer thoughts.”
“Like, ‘Who likes me enough to like me back, Slim?’?”
“Generosity of spirit gives me enough. Back’s faster than
forward ever was.”
“Another day not like this. That’s enough. And we all never
do get it.”
“As for me? I’m just the drunk at the end of the bar. Don’t
pay me no mind.
“Won’t do.”
“And then the big bastard upstairs turns up his radio and
drowns all of us out.”
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