CEREAL AFTER SEX

Awkward Llamas

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She is fireworks over a city that sits like candles torchlit and like flames.

She is a walk on a quiet street in the dark with murals of Dylan in her head.

She is quiet glances out a window, sleep drifts, warm against me in the rain of our devotion.

She is life as I never saw it, see it, predict it. She is my future from 50 years ago.

She is a summer lawn, a winter bay, an autumn sway in another way, another time and place.

She is a magnet for my heart, and everything broken in it, my focus, my angel, my precious attribute.

She is the most beautiful gliding reflection in a shop window, hands clutched, hearts forever touched.

I need to unbreak my soul and always turn to the wave. I remember Myrtle Beach and the way the ocean called.

She is wet in the rain and dry in the sun, when I always come undone. She is tonic when I am nerves.

The voodoo vibes laid out at her feet; she lifts me up to forest canopies and says: Here is the sun.

And pushes me through.

We walk on broken sidewalks, the world is loud, then the world is quiet. We cling to each other like frustrating wrap. There’s blue elephants and precious wood. There are pictures of mushrooms and phallic Mexican holy ghosts colored like an acid trip. Beyond a movie-screen window there is a circle of ceremonial people playing out a nervous drama. Fidelio.

And when I walked into the dimly lit kitchen of dawn today, I knew I never wanted to be alone. I knew I needed her forever, again and a million times again. From the edge of the ocean to the edge of never-ending space. She is the one.

Outside the old windows of the house, the world is new white, the houses are white or red brick or yellow boards. There’s a peacefulness in the asphalt. There’s the temperature gauge that is the rain against the window. A weeping willow prays invisible. A city awakes and people break, and people save, and my heart plus more quietly sleeps as I rake through the leaves of my mind. Maybe my name should be Tumble. Maybe my game should be Clue. Sometimes I don’t have one. I forget and forget and forget. I fear fading. I fear leaving her behind. I fear the bad trail I leave at times that she must walk and tether to. Then she shows me steak rub in a fudge shop. She smells like candy and love and warm kisses. That smell that binds us, passionately blinds us. She reaches out for my hand and takes me along. This life together.

We sit across a table from each other seeing March Madness and human madness. Our future, our past, our forever more reflected in all those pizza souls. She is my shelter in all those storms. Just breathe. Just love and let love. We walk up that quiet dark street. Her and I are the only ones in the entire world at that infinitesimal second. The funeral home turret looks like a haunted elf cap as its tip points to a streetlight moon. A hand moves aside a white curtain in a high window. I’m afraid, but I’m not. She thinks I’m being silly. I am. Because I can, and I don’t feel uncomfortable. That’s one of the greatest gifts one can give, receive. I don’t want to be awkward like llamas in the highlands of New Mexico.

By
Aaron Echoes August
Deities of Decision

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A black building with windows of orange light played sentinel over a dark blue river at dusk in a city I did not know. It may have been Riga, Latvia or Baku, Azerbaijan or maybe even Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There were other buildings, old buildings of red and sand-colored brick defaced by time and the scourge of man. There were long, straight streets and bridges and rows of perfectly manicured trees, rows of imperfectly born maniacs. There was smoke rising from the vessels of the wrinkled people that sat in the carnival-lit squares. I got lost in the lights and the noise as the night pressed down. I came out of a machine.

The very next morning I woke up in a silent yet humming hotel room overlooking the guts of a different world. I ate a quiet breakfast in a warm lobby. A pale woman from another time watched from the shadows between the back and the front. She spoke mystery through the dust in the sun like a rain of whispers. I went out to take a walk and I was wearing a long western gunslinger coat and it was somewhat cold. I didn’t understand what anybody was saying. I couldn’t read the signs. But I had other things on my mind. I was thinking about murdering God.

When I walked into the old dusty church with the golden strands of morning light filtering through the stained-glass hands of Jesus, he was waiting there for me at the end of the velvet thoroughfare. His back was turned, and he was looking into a complicated machine that looked like a technological pipe organ. He seemed to be studying the world, many worlds, the entire universe perhaps in his sight. The multitude of multi-colored planets floated like marbles in an ocean of amniotic fluid. He tapped at various points on the large screen before him. He laughed deeply as an explosion materialized somewhere, a clear vision of man and war and other untidy things of those particular worlds — Earth and Earth 2.

He then spoke deep without turning, as if he were a mighty mountain gazing off onto a distant land with a different set of eyes. He was hairless, large, and pale, draped in a single covering of universal brown flecked with gold. “If you plan on killing me, you’ll have to do better than a dull machete. I’m incredibly powerful.” He shook his hands as if he had just finished washing them. The screen he had been working on dimmed like dark mode and he finally turned to face me like the preface of an Old West duel. His face was contoured and cruel. He looked broken. “What is your complaint?”

A crow descended from somewhere and sat on an ancient stone.

“The world is on fire with hatred. You let people die. You let people suffer. You let me suffer nearly every day.”

“And you blame me?”

“Yes.”

“But I have nothing to do with any of that.” He turned back to his machine and tapped on some keys. He was searching for something. He groaned like he was exhausted. “I have no control over the faulty wiring of your world or any other world. There are no guarantees for any living being.”

“I thought you had control of everything. Everything! You supposedly created it all, yet you just leave it to derail and burn.”

I looked up at the looming statues at either side of his cybernetic altar — one a wooden caballero wearing a full-metal bandolier and cast in a wandering, far-off stare; the other an Asian egg man dressed in the colorful armor of a misplaced childhood. His wide eyes moved side-to-side and ticked like a clock.

The lord of the universe stepped down from his elevated space and walked upon the velvet path of forest green toward me. He must have been eight feet tall, the bottom fringes of his cloak swayed against the carpeting as he moved. He raised his arms in the air and lifted his chin of white granite flesh and bone and he spoke to the sky even though his words were intended for me. “So, then your intention is to reprimand me for the whole of my creations? Infinitely impossible. You are wasting your time here. Go off and leave this place.” He lowered his head and scowled at me as he waited for my reaction. His eyes were an unnatural green.

“What planet are you from?”

Just his eyes glided upward. “I am a member of every single one. There is a propagating drop of me in each spinning stone I placed. But it’s gotten away from me. I can no longer control it.” He turned and gestured with an outstretched arm. “Even with my device… I cannot stop the exponential madness of men and all the other beasts out there.”

He suddenly had a fragility I did not expect. He read my thoughts. “I am, even as you are,” he replied. “Imperfect.”

“Then we are all doomed? Every ounce of this universe… Doomed?”

He repented. “That was never my intention.”

“But rather your conviction it seems.” I threw the machete to the floor. It made a muffled thud upon the carpet. “Then it would serve no purpose to do away with you, would it?”

“None… There are a trillion and infinite more just like me.”

“What do I do now?”

He motioned to the doors at the vestibule. “Go back out into the city. Walk. Breathe. Eat and drink life until the end. Love everything without flinching.” He turned away from me and returned to his apocalyptic chancel. He made motions with his hands and the entire universe ignited once more before him and he resumed his endless work.

END

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Baker

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The murals of human clouds. Bakers in bakeries thinking of what it would be like to not have to wake up so early. What would it be like not to have to press out into the day when the sun has barely begun to breathe, and the world is painted a worrying, cold blue.

He moves along the sidewalks on Huron Street. Those gray linear sidewalks, pathways to the chores of life, pathways to work, pathways back home. Some of the cement squares are buckled by tree roots pushing up from below. For they want life, too. They do not want to be merely trampled upon by the egregious notions of men, woman, children, politics, war…

His hands are stuffed deep in coat pockets. His breath shoots out, lingers with the cold, and creates his own brand of human fog. He stops a block from the bakery. He looks up and down the street… Michigan Avenue. A few cars sputter by in the growing icicle dawn. The entire world feels encased in cold. Instead of turning right to go the bakery, he turns left and walks toward the lake. The big lake. The lake that bred life here. The lake that made this town so many years ago.

He stops at a 24-hour diner. He decides to have coffee and a sweet roll. A sweet roll most likely made by someone he knows. The place is mostly quiet. There is the periodical clanging of cups of plates in the back. There is some soft talking. Someone is rustling a newspaper and clearing their throat. A new day of life. But why? He wonders. He sips. He takes a bite. He places his hand to his heart, and it is still somehow beating. Why?

He puts money on the table and bundles up. He pulls his knit winter hat from a pocket and straps it to his head. He makes sure he covers his ears, so they won’t freeze to death and just fall off. He needs to hear things. He needs to hear the lull of the lake waves as they drift across its own body on its way to touch the shore. He pulls on gloves. He brings the zipper of his coat to the very top, turns up the protective collar. He smiles at someone, nods his head. “Thanks,” he says, and he walks out the door. His nostrils fill with cold air. He walks east.

He stands on the frozen sand of the shore and looks out at the water. It looks incredibly cold. He is beginning to feel incredibly old. He ticks off his lifelong accomplishments in his head and is unimpressed. But still. What are accomplishments if they cannot be shared with the absolute perfect love of your life? he thinks. His eyes reach out across the dark gray waters as far as they can go. There is no other side. It is like looking at an ocean except it isn’t an ocean.

The funeral will be in two or three days. He isn’t sure he can take it. She is everything to him. He never figured he would ever have to utter the words, to explain to anyone why there was no one by his side… But she is suddenly gone. Like a lightning strike. He misses her terribly. He suspects the terminal ache will never pass. How will he ever be able to go on in this sort of a world without her. Where will he live? He can’t. It will all be too much.

Then someone touches him on the shoulder. He turns and there she is. His love beyond love. She is slightly opaque but glowing. She is beautiful. She is alive on the other side. But which side? She smiles as she looks at him through the plastic barrier. He can see the love in her crystal ocean eyes. Her lips move. “I’ll never leave you. Even now. I love you.”

END

By
Aaron Echoes August
This Obtrusive Dimension

An ice-cold sugar cookie sun glosses over the lonely bones

Of a world derived from godly madness and space dust

A sepia depression dawn shimmer of light

The people of the world are shapeless and seemingly gone

Lost within the confines of selfishly habitual minds

The curvature of humanity has snapped like a summer-weathered animal spine

The wasp workers clear snow from parking lots to make way for all the religious-like gatherings

Where the people of the world fall to wounded knees and worship products and prices

Reach up with quaking bones to fondle molded mannequins void of heart and blood

Curdled music dangles from the fluorescent heavens like silver ribbons

The Karen and Brad monsters snarl and curse the uniformed sad angels

As they move robotically, tethered to the social mechanics of immoral survival

Lost deep within the electric neon guts of blocky cathedrals nested upon historic rubble

Uninspired architecture that devours the once green and golden landscapes of the world

In long chaotic visages beneath purple and eggnog-colored skies

Loneliness rattles along the alabaster boulevards like an abused and abandoned shopping cart

Exploratory burglary everywhere in the burnt brickwork

Vicious viaducts are concrete cradles for the unfortunate dreamers

This obtrusive dimension merely a labyrinth for a lab man

This planet does not suit the skin of everyone after all

These cold, autonomous days; spirits exalted, spirits snuffed

Like embers and emperors in Iceland upside down.

By
Aaron Echoes August
Misguided Missiles and Paper Turkeys

“Hello,” she says so politely. “My name is Hannah and I just ran away from God and his sheep.”

Welcome the pilgrims with a pellet gun and a lava lamp kiss
See Hannah cut her finger with a pair of scissors whilst she creates a paper turkey from a paper plate and construction paper the colors of autumn dust
See the missiles rain from the sky
each tattooed with a patriotic emblem stating “Goodbye… Have a nice day.”
See Hannah paste her paper turkey on her bedroom mirror
animated and alive
it wiggles its plastic bubble eyes, the pupils tremble
See Hannah crawl beneath the covers on the eve of holiday glee
see her dream of firestorms and bullets and starving on TV
See the maestro carve the cooked bird
the steam from the flesh rises above the well-adorned table
leaves a mist on the golden goblets of blood wine
See Hannah stare out the picture window
as the chaos of family voices clutter her mind
See the soldiers all falling down in a line
gassed by children coughing up the poisons
as they simply attempt to make paper turkeys with scissors and glue and not a clue from their forefathers how to breathe with peace.

Hannah stares at the church people marching in one by one
pale and whiskered faces flushed with trouble
crowns of cowboy hats and blindness pouring from their souls
and as Hannah passes the begging plate, she spits in it
futility running from her mouth
the scent of heaven polished in her hair
she looks up at Tik Tok Christ
and wonders if they’ll nail her up there too
Hannah crouches down low and slips out the row
whispers to her mum
“I have to go to the bathroom …”
She breaks out the doors
to greet the steely blue sky
the wind whipping bone finger treetops
curled leaves choking the streets and dancing
the semi-truck scatters them like a hurricane as it rumbles right on by
and Hannah walked on down the road
To the school where they teach the blind children
such a huge enormous house of sooty brick and brawl
long luscious hills of now dormant grass rolling and rolling on down
paths of gray serpentine their way
across the landscape and the clouds
Hannah climbs over the black iron fence
rips her dress on a spike
tumbles to a patch of moss and rock
She lifts herself up
wipes herself off
and comes face to face with a blind boy staring at nothing but dark empty space.
“Hello,” she says so politely. “My name is Hannah and I just ran away from God and his sheep.”
The little blind boy smiles at the sound of her voice
Reaches out his hands to touch her
Feels the fringes of her dress
The softness of her arm right where it comes out of her sleeve.
“I’m blind, but I can see you,” he says to her
“I’m blind but I can feel you,” he mentions to her
And he kisses her on her cold, wind-chapped cheek.

The little blind boy took her down to the boiler room
He led the way by touch
It was dark and cold and smelled so old
Hannah crinkled her nose and coughed
“What are we doing here?” she asked
“Nothing… Everything is a mystery to me because I’m blind. Just stay close to me.”
Hannah found a book tucked beneath a red blanket in the corner.
“What is this?” she asked as she stuck the stuff out in front of her.
“I don’t know, I can’t see… see… ” and he felt around like a blind boy imitating a blind man lost in the confines of his own darkened theater.
“I’ll read to you,” Hannah said. And she led him close to the wall, beneath a slit of window against the ground.
And they sat side by side, their backs pressed against the stone of the wall. Hannah flipped pages and read the words aloud.
And with a final breath upon the final page, she read: THE END –
AND THE MISSILES CAME STREAKING ACROSS THE SKY
MAKING THE END A SARCASTIC REALITY.

Hannah stared at the paper turkey pressed against her mirror
The dust was falling from her hair
The dried blood flaked from her mouth
Her once pretty dress torn worse and soiled now
She walked out into the hallway
Dimly lit and smoky
She turned the corner
Entered the dining room
Saw the pillars of stone bones propped in their chairs
Bony fingers clutching the golden goblets of blood
A hole in the window
Operating a view to the burning scene
The head of the blind boy spun like a record amongst the claws of the mangrove cathedrals floating through the world
She touched her mouth to feel her breath
The eye of the needle had been fed
She was alive
but the world was dead.

Aaron Echoes August

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