Kittens

Kittens is my favorite cat. Wherever Kittens is I want to be. If Kittens is hiding, I am mad because I have to find her. I work myself up into a frenzy. I look for her everywhere. But when I do find her it is a joyful encounter. She meows at me and I kiss her and say, Kittens, you are a bad kitty for hiding from me. And she comes and sleeps on my bed. Other days, however, I really can’t find her. I look under every bed and behind every curtain. And I get really upset and start drinking from the liquor cabinet. We are told never to go to the liquor cabinet but in this house everyone drinks so much that no one notices. Eventually, Kittens comes out of her hiding spot. By then I am usually a little bit tipsy. I was not hiding from you, I imagine Kittens saying. You just have nothing to offer me at the moment and I like to be alone. You are codependent and your love for me is tiring. I am just a cat after all, naturally domesticated, which you confuse as gratified desire. And I watch Kittens sadly as she sniffs around in her bowl, yawns, and then climbs up on my bed and falls asleep. Kittens is right. I cannot expect her to love me. I should be grateful only that she is alive. And if I want to love something passionately that does not love me back in any way I can recognize I can go to church.

Ordinary

Mr. Teffs was an ordinary man. Once he learned that, he was devastated. It didn’t help that it was a beautiful woman who told him. She meant it as a simple rejection of his sexual advances. He had spent almost a year trying to get her attention, following the rules from popular books such as, How to Pick up Women, Sexual Control, Turning No into Yes. But he had failed in every strategy to get her close to him, to get her to sleep with him, to get her to love him. One night, he had a revelation. I don’t need these books, he thought. I love this woman and I am going to be brutally honest about who I am. I think I could make her happy and I think she is lovely and I want to be with her forever. I want to smell her in the mornings and cook her breakfast and take care of her parents. But it turned out to be a very ordinary revelation.

Beckett's trilogy

There is something behind the old man looking for his dead mother through a wasted land. (Molloy) There's the man who was hired to find that man, who made up the story of the original man and hired himself. (Moran) But there’s something behind that. There’s the man who is alone in a room in a mental institution who made up the idea of the hired man. (Malone) But there is something behind that. There's the man living in an urn without legs, without arms, who created the man alone in the room in the mental institution with his words. (Mahood) Still, there is something behind that. There is a quivering ear that hears movement and an eye that sees nothing but grayness. (Worm)

Piotr's Dream

Piotr had never been to America. He hadn’t even been to Moscow. But he had a plan in his head. One day, he would to leave Chita behind. He would rent a sled and go to Tankha, where there would be a pretty woman with dark hair and dark eyes. She would teach him how to fly a red little plane. The two of them would fly to Vancouver, BC, and refuel the plane. Then he would meet a pretty woman with dark hair and blue eyes. And he would leave the first woman for the second. They would fly to Washington, DC. There he would meet a pretty blonde woman with blue eyes, eyes as blue as his own. And he would leave the second woman for her. And she would lead him to the White House, where the President would be waiting for him. And he would leave the woman behind, and enter the White House, and meet the president’s wife, who would cover him with kisses. You are such a beautiful boy, she would say. And the president would open a wooden box lined with red velvet. And he would take out two silver pistols. Come Piotr, he would say. I have prepared a big, blood red plane. We are going to return to Chita and kill your brothers.

Death Star troopers

John Hanson, b. 1978, d. 2005, left behind a closet full of creative work after his early death to cancer. His sister created a blog for him, and put some of his stories up there. His sculptures and his pottery was put on display in the basement of the Episcopalean Church. What excited most people, however, was a retrospective of his masterpiece, an existential comic book on Death Star troopers. The prints were meticulously drawn in large format, then inked and colored with the help of his friend Karl. (Karl also curated the exhibit at the Art Gallery and then published the comics at his own expense.) The premise of the comic was this: that the Death Star troopers from the Star Wars series, when they weren’t protecting the empire, including Detention Block AA-23, were busy working hard in training camps, writing stories, and even trying to commit to relationships. Hanson wanted to show how Death Star troopers had no idea of their historical situation. Like everyone else, they were caught up in everyday minutiae. For example, one whole comic was dedicated to Number 47, who was so obsessed with his girlfriend that he would run over banal conversations he had had with her over and over in his mind to asses whether she was angry with him. Then he started acting weird, and blamed her for his unhappiness. They split up, and she was killed a year later by a random explosion. Another comic told the story of Number 5, who was afflicted with feelings of melancholia during his training. He felt he didn’t belong on the Death Star, but when he visited his parents back on his home planet he felt even worse. He returned, and, after a year of being a Death Star trooper, developed an immobilizing depression. He was demoted by Devin Cant soon after and he eventually turned his E-11 blaster rifle on himself.

Allegory on Fridge

Hey I ate all the pears. Sorry, they were really good and I was talking on the phone last night (I suppose I was a little drunk too) and lost track of how many I was eating. I’ll pick some more up after work today if I can. Though if you have a chance could you pick them up (get a whole bunch) because we have a meeting that may run until 8pm. I’ve left you $20. Love you –

Dead Letter

Dear Dad,
Another year has passed. It’s been five years now that you’ve been gone. Where are you? I keep your plot happy, but I know you’re far away. You’re somewhere up in space. Today that thought came to me as I was watching my baby Francis play with his friends in the backyard. (I know he is almost eight now, but he will always be my baby!) I thought of you floating around in space, like by Jupiter, or Pluto, and fly-fishing for will-of-the-wisps. You’d be proud of Casey. Your son got a job articling with a good criminal lawyer in Winnipeg. Finally after a tough year. He moved there six months ago. He misses Edmonton, but he’s going to start making good money. I’m still here, of course. And James still works at Ford. Canada never saw much of that financial crisis. There weren’t even any layoffs. I guess you don’t know what I’m talking about. You missed that too. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m just happy being a mom. I’ve also joined a choir. Oh, I hate these letters, but they make me feel closer to you. And I suppose if I am worried about one thing it’s Casey. He'll always be my baby brother. He broke up with his girlfriend. And he drinks still. He doesn’t think anyone notices but I can hear it in his voice over the phone. He acts so kind, so rational, he even says he misses me and Edmonton and our monthly excursions for cool second-hand clothes. But he’s an expert at hiding it. He knows that you used to get mean and it was written all over your face. And so I think that he tells himself as long as he can be nice and everything you’re not he can drink as much as he wants. Well. I don’t mean to offend you. I just don't know what to say to him. If I tell him ... you know. Please send him your prayers, dad. You learned what alcohol did to you and spend the last fifteen years of your life really happy and helping all those people. But James is really clever and young. He writes poetry. He knows how to outsmart and outtalk anyone, you remember. I see you casting your line out by the stars. Send him a prayer. I love you dad.
Your daughter
Sherry

The Housewife’s Epiphany Realizing that the Killer is her Husband

I am alone.

Puppets

Some puppets are immobile. Some puppets can be wound up. Some puppets have glass eyes. Some puppets are manufactured to have poopies. [I continue on like this, “Some puppets do X, while other puppets do Y,” playing on idea of puppets, the limits of what a puppet can be, and end with something like,] Some puppets are staring at you doing your taxes in their head [, or,] Some puppets are people and deserve to be exposed as puppets and die [, or,] Some puppets have clones who sodomize cats [, and I get to the end that way. Puppets look vaguely human so I consider them uncanny, or not alive, then, by an afterthought, not yet alive, and then, again, alive and I just don’t know it. But what about a toothpick that wakes up at night and plots my destruction? Why can’t a dent in a wall have sentience? A small theater company in St. John’s, Newfoundland, put on a staged version of Reservoir Dogs. They thought it was a really clever idea.]

Adding Value

Watching pornography is not as good as having sex. Having sex is not as good as watching pornography while having sex. Watching pornography while having sex is not as good as filming oneself having sex watching pornography and then also watching that while still having sex.

Lake Manitoba

My lover wants to go to the sea. – Which sea, I ask. – Don’t be so literal, she says. – Don’t be so quick to tell me what I shouldn't do, I say. – Oh, stop it, she says. I am tired and you are just looking for a fight. – Fine, let’s go to the fucking sea, I say. After an hour in the car we are laughing again, listening to Simon and Garfunkel. And we even stop somewhere along the way and eat Greek salads and then drive to a rest stop and have sex in the back seat. – I love you, I say. – Yes, she says. We get to a brown murky lake where there are a few trailer cabins and a closed down ice cream shop. – I thought she said there was a beach, she says. (The woman who charged us two dollars to drive through the park said that.) – Yes. Well, maybe it will be nice. But it is not nice. It is gross and dirty and we skip stones for a while and it is overcast and there is no one but us. – I’m going swimming, I say. – Oh Christ, she says. This annoys me. I don’t know why. I take off all my clothes. – Are you crazy? She asks. I shake my hips back and forth so that my penis slaps against each side of my leg. – Dinky, dinky, dinky, I say. I bet you wish you could do that. – I sure do, she says, lighting a cigarette. I run into the water, as though to make a point. It is freezing, and I run back out. I sit beside her. The wind picks up. I put on my shirt. I can’t get on my underwear. I’m covered in sand and dead bugs. – Fuck, I say, and wait for her to respond. She doesn’t. I open a beer and it explodes. – Did you shake it, I ask. She says nothing, smoking. She’s reading Harlan Coben. It’s my book. – We need chairs, I say, trying to get the sand out from my toes. The beer is warm. A few gulls go by. – How was your swim? She asks. – Ha ha, I say. She says nothing. – Well it was rotten, I say. The sun breaks through the clouds, just for a moment. - But I'm glad I came, I say. – Yes, she says.

The Infinite Sadness of the Planet of Venus, Second Planet from the Sun

(Written by Jared Monroe, June 12, 1996, at Camp Science and Nature, Clear Lake, Manitoba.)
Life on Venus is very hot. It is a planet of infinite sadness. I am very unhappy. I have no one to talk to and the mean temperature of Venus is 462 degrees Celsius. There is no oxygen in the air, which means that it is very hard to breathe. Sometimes I try to cry, but my tears become steam. And since the atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of earth, it is very uncomfortable just to sit and do nothing. It was not smart of you to send me here. Venus cannot be made habitable by mankind. Because of the greenhouse effect, the heat gets trapped in the atmosphere. The light also reflects off of the sulphuric gas in the atmosphere giving the planet a bright pink glow. Although Venus looks pretty to those on earth, the planet is always bright to us, and it stinks like sulphur, and I cannot sleep. It is a planet of infinite sadness. Many thought Venus was the planet of love, but it is not. For love to exist, there must be oxygen, a mean temperature of about 12 degrees Celsius, and other people who are nice, not dead people and dust and rocks and sulphuric gas. Venus is an uninhabitable planet, which means that I will probably die soon. It is a planet of infinite sadness. This is the last letter you will receive from me because I am going to have to run away or go to sickbay and die there.

Small Diary of Torture

(Calico) cat. Immolated (Zippo fluid). 30 seconds. / Rat (black). 45 seconds. / Parakeet (green and yellow). 11 seconds. / Parakeet (red), half-plucked. 3 minutes 58 seconds. / Toad (brown), leg cut off near groin. 45 seconds. / Goldfish (red), quarter filled teacup. 5 / seconds then it jumped out. / Again (same). 10 minutes 1 second. / 2 (brown) guppies, one-fifth. 2 minutes 48 seconds, / 4 minutes 4 seconds. / Kitten (orange and white). Boiling water. 15 seconds. / Oven at 200F. 29 seconds. / Rat in toilet. 1 hour 25 minutes. / Lye on canary. 35 minutes. / Dry lye. Almost 2 days (47 hours 13 minutes). / Cat (gray) suspended, 4 hooks in back. 2 hours / and 12 minutes. / Gerbil (brown). Microwave. 12 seconds on high. / (gray) 14 seconds on medium. / (gray) 25 seconds on low. / White mice: 11 seconds on high. / 9 seconds on medium. / 30 seconds on low. / (What’s with medium?) / Gerbil (gray). Front feet sliced off. 35 hours. / Mouse. Still alive (48 hours 35 minutes). / Gerbil (gray). Back feet. 20 hours. / Mouse. 30 hours. / Mouse still alive with front feet / sliced off. 5 hours 14 minutes (plus 48 hours 38 / minutes) / makes 52 hours 52 minutes. / 52:52? / Significant.

Microneedles

Her grandmother once told her the story about an old lady who was sewing late at night and lost track of a needle. It got stuck in the couch. She sat on it and the needle went right into her. It found its way into a vein and then slowly traveled towards her heart and punctured it. It is a strange story. It has a moral: always use a pincushion. But the story has more to do with the grandmother than the moral. Little girls don’t think like old ladies. Little girls have good blood running through their veins. When a needle pokes them, they feel it. It’s a grandmother's tale about a grandmother’s fear. A hard needle can’t travel through a vein like a missile launched at a city. But the idea is frightening. It’s like a sperm bringing death to the egg. Any one of us could have any number of needles in our veins, even our arteries. They could be magnetizing us as they circulate, collecting in places and building dams to destroy us. A wrench can be thrown into a machine. Honey into a fuel tank. In Crime And Punishment, Illuysha wraps a needle in a piece of bread and feeds it to a stray dog. The real moral of the story is this: there are showers of invisible needles in the air, microscopic needles, spring needles, needles made for little creatures who sew the broken wings of flies (Queen Mab’s needles), needles made to remove dirt from microchips (Jack Kilby’s needles), microneedles that enter the pores of our skin, filling us with metal, building a reserve and plotting our death like dust pneumonia.

Schizo Machine

She was bothered by a hair. It was in her eye last week. Then she felt it in the back of her throat. This week it's tickling her nose. No one knows where it is. Could it be in her head?

A Good Deal

She says she’ll be happy with me no matter who I am. She wants my children even if they come out dead. She will move with me to the farthest reaches of Northern Canada. This is a kind of paradise, I tell her. I can’t imagine a woman who will be happy no matter where I take her and who will raise my dead child. It’s not paradise, she tells me. It’s just a good deal.

A List

1. Sleep well
2. Sleep well
3. Sleep
4. Turn it down
5. Try to sleep
6. Rest
7. Rest
8. Rest a little
9. Wait
10. Wait until I’m asleep
11. Are you awake
12. You’ve ruined my life

Sea

upcoming in www.midwayjournal.com

A World

If you take a good long look at yourself in the mirror, you might wonder whether your face would look better pulled off and stretched over a round piece of Styrofoam.

Regret

I had a great idea, it was better than any other idea I’d ever had, but I could not carry it out, because I was an alcoholic, I had Down’s syndrome, and I was living in a period of history in which ideas were not respected and there was no funding for the arts.

3029

In 3029 very little will be different than today, except that relationships between people will have changed slightly. You might say hello to someone on the street, and if they like you, they will respond, and smile. And you will want to get to know them. You’ll take them out to dinner to a nice restaurant, which will cost about forty hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And after a few weeks you’ll make love. Sex will become a regular occurrence. It will get better and better. You’ll take drugs together, drugs that make you feel things that we have no names for today. And you’ll walk together in parks, and tell stories about the past together, and try to be conscious about how your words can hide your true feelings. You’ll vacation on the beaches of Croatia together or take a trip to Olympus Mons on Mars. Then one day, years later, you’ll be sitting alone in a room and suddenly have the urge to cause them physical harm. And you’ll call them over to you and ask them to have a look at this neat screen you’re reading or at this game you are playing and then slap them hard across the face. Tears will fill their eyes, then a look of horror and your heart will sink, and before you can apologize they’ll slap you back. Your face will sting and tears will fill your eyes. You’ll feel horribly wronged and angry, and slap them harder, maybe a few times. The world will seem to you a sickening place, and you’ll realize, slapping and punching and receiving slaps and punches, that this is 3029, that there is no going back to 3028, that no one in history has ever felt this, and that you alone have got to live with what you’ve done.

Heaven

When you run out of ideas and words, and feel no more stress, and stop checking your investment activity online, and no one cares where you are, and no one gets hurt or feels happy any longer by what you say, and you no longer feel tired, and you don’t feel good any more drinking a glass of scotch, you’ll be ready to die. A naked old woman will be there, and she will take your hand. You’ll walk with her into a field, into a kind of garden, in which there are lots of crickets. She’ll say, You made it, you’re finally here. And she’ll introduce you to a group of people with giant red eyes and a woman who doesn’t have legs. And you’ll start to get panicked like your first day at camp, or when your mother dropped you off each morning in kindergarten on her way to work. And you’ll ask the old woman, Where am I? And she’ll say, This is heaven. And, sensing your terror, she'll add, You’ll get used to it.

Rejection

Having come to terms with the fact that she would not marry him, he asked her to at least have the decency remain unhappy for the rest of her years, and then one day, take her own life.

A Certain Fact

In Italy, every woman is beautiful, but the most beautiful women of all act in pornographic films. In Italy, it is not considered a bad thing to act in pornographic films. The great myth about pornographic film actresses is that they are unhappy and live desperate lives, like prostitutes. That is true in most countries. In Italy, however, pornographic actresses are the most beautiful of all Italian women, and they are incredibly happy.

Kafka's Parables

An art student at the University of Winnipeg was once given a prize for his cartoon series. The first caption, drawn poorly, was of Jesus Christ with outstretched arms, giving light to his disciples. It read, “Jesus was a good man.” The next boxes were of Jesus performing all sorts of disgusting and immoral acts: sodomizing children, stealing from old ladies, killing dogs, farting in church, etc. The caption read, “But he was not all that good …” This bluntness was admired. One finds it in the parables in Kafka, but in this case the bluntness has been diluted by age and time.

I will not

be mean. I will not squash the frogs I’ve caught. I will not call Trent’s girlfriend a gook. I will ignore your acne. I will stop making anal sex jokes. I will respect German people. I will go to your recital. I will not
be cruel to her just because she doesn’t want to sleep with me. I will not let an appointment completely destroy my day. I will not use big words like poets, maybe slushpile poets, in Chicago Review do. I will not
plan to kill whoever criticizes me. I will not make anal sex the only true test of love. I will not drink more than five ounces of liquor a day. I will
look at you more often. I promise to love you. I will not say that aloud. I will drink up the bad liquor, but that doesn't count as part of the five ounces. I will finish your assignments. I will mourn the death of your stupid cat. I will not
say anything about black postal workers at 60637. I will no longer speak of angels and devils. No, it was your stupid dog. I will let it go.

A new house

After the death of his mother, a forty-four year old scholar, well known for his book, The Geography of Golf (1996), decided to use his inheritance to buy a beautiful old three-story house in the south side of Chicago. He moved all his things into a tiny bedroom on the second floor. It had originally been a kid’s room, squashed between a closet and a large open room. He pushed in his two orange tables and an old green chair. This was the only furniture he had brought from his previous apartment. The Murphy bed was already built in to the wall. He found an old pink comforter in a closet filled with junk and threw that on top. The shelves above the bed were filled with old dolls and romance novels. Someone had carved in a pornographic picture into the wall with a penknife. There was a rotary phone by the bed. He stacked his files up on and under the tables. He worked day and night from that room: pinning together his notes, creating bibliographies and reworking old publications that had received rejections. He went to sleep early. He drank Seagram’s gin and Schweppes tonic. The snow fell. He took his vitamins. He became thin, carving a path only to the tiny bathroom with a stand up shower and the kitchen on the first floor, where he ate mostly from tins delivered from a call in service. The dust settled in the other rooms. They were giant rooms. He was afraid to even look in them. He paid his taxes. In the evening, sometimes he would built a little fire in the backyard, surrounded by slums, and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes. And as the fire dwindled he would close his eyes and imagine that his mother was telling him that he would catch cold, and that he’d better come in.