I was standing in the grocery store looking at bread. My mind was kind of numb. I was thinking about a dream I had the night before where I placed an unwrapped Baby Ruth candy bar on the floor of a stall in a public bathroom and just left it there. Then I started laughing about it in the bread aisle. Uncontrollably. I just couldn’t help myself from laughing. I had to choke it down with tears because I didn’t want to make a scene about it. Then I thought about how very weird I was for even dreaming something so bizarre and gross. Do I have a gross mind inside this big head? I felt embarrassed and thought everyone in the store was looking at me. But I guess they weren’t. Maybe it was all those eyes bursting forth from behind the grocery store walls colored milk-white and wearing a badge of yellowed time. Like that book, The Yellow Wall-Paper. Those wide, crazy eyes from within. I was being observed.
After the fat crowd moved away, I finally grabbed a loaf of bread and placed it in my red plastic basket. I don’t usually use a shopping trolley because I am one being, and I don’t buy that much for myself. At least not in public. I often sit at home in front of my universal computer, materialistic doom scrolling through Amazon and other sites of commercial worship. I guess I’m a Capitalism whore. But I don’t want to be. I think Capitalism is a horrible way to live. It puts material wealth and corporate profit over everything. Everything — people, planet, pets, purpose, ghostly porpoises. And most of us suffer because of it. But not the million- and billion- and trillion-aires, though. They are the slave masters. They are the reapers of our toil. They derail our dreams with the dollar and don’t even care about us even when they say they do. It’s all lies and corruption, man.
But even so, I buy things, and it gives me a little joy in this gruesome world. I know it shouldn’t. Better things should give me joy. Real things should give me joy, not products. Things like climbing a mountain or being high and gazing at a fjord. Or simply sitting around a campfire looking up at a gigantic smear of stars whilst the wood crackles and turns orange then frozen-tundra white. But then again, I suppose we are all chained to it. Relentless consumerism is consuming the globe. Why do we let this happen to ourselves? Are we all, perhaps, nothing but factory-made machines? Maybe my skin really is made of metal and my eyes are made of colorful stones and all my thoughts and memories are merely someone else’s carefully wired-in dreams.
Lately, I’ve been intrigued by Marxism and the Baha’i faith. I’m also big on ancient alien theory, the Mayans, Aztecs, Star People, Native American history and philosophies. So why am I on Amazon looking at socks with a smile for a mile? I feel like I should be doing so much more. Something real and valuable. But instead, I am comparing prices of socks online, because I don’t like to go out in public unless I absolutely must. I don’t care about the bright lights and chaos. I don’t care about the screaming and the stupidity. It’s not my scene, man, especially now. I don’t care for all the signs that sway a baby’s cradle skyward toward a brand-new way. Plastic dolls with crazed glass eyes and broken teeth land in angels’ arms and then are dropped and forced to make their own way. In a field surrounded by corn stalk erections and rolling green hills and dust bowl dust and blue skies full of cotton-candy clouds the colors of well-lived tattooed saints. Swirling inky Jesus dripping down white light arms. And so…
On most evenings, I like to pull up a chair to my large living room window and look out with binoculars set against my face. The neighbors often leave their curtains open at night, and with all the lights on inside I can just watch their lives play out. It’s research.
I live in a Rambler-style house built in 1969 B.C. That’s the same year that I was lastly built. Out of cookie dough and bones and magic dust from the sea. I think that was what I was told by a nurse who was also a witch. I recall the yellow eyes she tried to hide. Yes, I was cognizant of everything right out of the womb. I was bloody and smart. I was blue and bombastic. I guess you could say there has always been something a little different about me. I’m still no sorcerer, though. But maybe I would like to be one. I’d make magic work for me, for once, instead of against me.
But I am here just trying to live this very, very long life. I’ve been sentenced to serve my time on Earth. The hell of the universe. Endless life. No parole.
The street was wet with rain and warped neon. I stepped into a bar and lounge called Cucumber. That’s it. Just Cucumber. It was just me and my raincoat. The place was loud, and I worked my way through the nightlife haze until I found a small table. I looked around and realized that everyone was an alligator. But the thing is, they were just like people. They stood upright or sat in chairs. They wore clothes and talked and laughed and drank cocktails. They danced and played pool. A couple of them were making out. No one seemed to notice that I wasn’t an alligator at first. But then I started to panic and wonder when they began looking at me and talking behind my back. Was I, or wasn’t I?
I had to find out right away. I made my way back to the men’s room and looked into the smudgy mirror above the sinks and wet counter. Nothing. I was still just me, according to my own eyes. A couple of alligator people came in, unzipped their pants, and started talking at the urinals. One of them turned to look at me. He laughed, drunk.
“Nice costume,” he said.
Then the other one looked at me. “Did you not get the memo? Halloween is already over.”
They both laughed some more, zipped up their pants and came over to the sinks. One on either side of me. They washed their…hands?
The first alligator person dried himself and then turned to look at me. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re pretty outnumbered around here.”
Then the other one said, leaning close. “Yeah. Outnumbered.”
I had to wonder if they were gangsters. They wore black suits and acted tough and threatening.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to my table,” and I walked out.
I woke up on a bench in a quiet and dimly lit park.
“I must have been dreaming. That could never be my real life.”
I sat up straight and yawned.
I was sad because I was alone now.
Most have been taken away and locked up in cages and camps.
I just don’t get it anymore. The breaking down just goes on and on. They cheer for hate and the hurting of others. Will we ever learn? I listened to a calm yet frightening world around me. Sirens in the distance. My chest has been hurting lately. My nerves are burnt toast. I just want to be able to smile and laugh again. I felt drained of hope.
I stopped in a run-down and sketchy convenience store. A disenchanted clerk leaned on the counter and scrolled through his phone. The place was dirty. Nobody cared anymore. Horrible music played overhead. I went to the coolers and got myself two bottles of Yoo-hoo. It’s amazing when it’s cold. I went to the counter and paid with the few scraps of money I had. A person could just find it on the streets now and again.
I went down to the harbor and looked up at the stars. It felt like they were backing further away. I couldn’t blame them. It was getting colder outside. I drank one of the Yoo-hoos and that made me even colder. It was time for me to go to my shelter.
I walked to a darkened place of town. They call it the outskirts. The lonely black pitch of branches and bones for the lost ones of the world. I made my way into the woods. I had to use my little pocket flashlight. I finally came to my hidden cove. My place was made with a few sheets of plywood, some blankets, some tarps, some leaves and boughs. Some dirt. I got my fire started and sat down. I warmed my hands, listened to the crackling of the wood, and watched orange embers drift to the evening sky.
I’ve been living here since the seventh grade. I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I couldn’t take the endless suffering of being picked on. I just wanted to hide away and be left alone. I gave up on society and all its poisons. I don’t know if anyone ever came searching for me. I suppose all those people from back then are gone. A lot of people are gone. I wonder when I’ll be gone. It’s a weird thing to think about not being part of the everyday world. It’s kind of sad when you think about not waking up anymore.
All I know is, I hope to the everlasting universe it’s a better place to breathe and live how a person wants to live. Stop standing on everyone’s necks.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 