CEREAL AFTER SEX

Have you heard of shutting your face?

I went to the local public library as an experiment in trying to get some peace and quiet so I could get some writing done. It failed miserably.

Instead, what I found was a den of inconsideration for the needs of others. I guess that’s no surprise these days. As the running around and wails of children rose higher and higher, I quickly began to question if this was a library or a fucking daycare.

Maybe I’m just a bitter post-middle-aged man who doesn’t care for the free-spirited and clamorous cries of high-octane toddlers in a quiet space intended for reading, writing, and study.

Do I have a stick up my ass? Is it seriously too much to expect a library to be void of noisy and obnoxious distractions?

My god! If your kids want to run around and scream, take them to the park – or a hockey game! Or at least temper their outbursts with some calming discipline or a Flintstones’ chewable valium.

But it’s not just the amped up children causing distractions – full-blown adults are to blame, too. I’m talking about the ones who think the library is the perfect place to carry on a cell phone conversation loud enough for everyone to be a part of. Really? I don’t need to hear about your cousin’s latest bout with explosive diarrhea.

Then there’s the folks who find it perfectly reasonable to yell to each across the entire room.

“Did you find that book yet!”

“No!”

“Then quit wasting time and come up over here and asks the person at the desk!”

SHHHHHHHHH!

It got to the point I wanted to scream myself. But instead, I shut down my work, packed up my laptop and walked out. I was left defeated and uninspired and unable to accomplish anything I set out to do. Frustration. It seems to haunt me everywhere I go.

Part of the problem is, I’m easily distracted. It’s difficult for me to focus sometimes and so I’m much better off in a quiet environment. I’m nothing like my wife. She could read a book at a death metal concert and comprehend it all with the clarity of an unmuddied lake.

But this isn’t the only incident of unwanted clamor when the situation dictates some level of quiet and respect that I have recently experienced. Just the other day, my wife, myself, and my father-in-law attended my stepson’s senior awards ceremony at his high school.

We were all disappointed to see a lack of attention and respect when speakers were at the podium presenting awards. Granted, some of the lists of award winners were long and tedious and maybe some parts of the program could have been better executed, but that still doesn’t excuse some of the behavior we sadly witnessed.

Many people, students mostly, were talking among themselves as if they were in the lunchroom swapping unwanted sandwiches and stories of weekend sexual conquests. There were several points in the program where we couldn’t even hear the presenter speaking – and they were using a microphone. Many of the students lacked any sort of interest in the accomplishments of their peers and made it quite apparent by meditative and deadpan stares into cell phone screens.

The sad part is, there was only one teacher/administrator who even vaguely addressed the problem – and even then, used only a brief, disgruntled glance toward the crowd. Someone should have stepped up to the microphone and politely demanded attention to the matters at hand. No one really did, and when it came time for my stepson’s awards presentation, we struggled to hear what was even being said.

I felt bad for my wife. This was a big deal for her. It was a proud moment for her that she wanted to treasure. But it was left somewhat tainted by the inconsideration of others. Even so, she was glad to be there and requested a transcript of what was said during her son’s presentation. The written word will always have value.

And I have to wonder if it is all a generational thing – this lack of respect and attention and any consequences for it. My father-in-law let it be known that such behavior back in his days would have never been tolerated – it would have been stopped – abruptly, and with vigor.

What can I say? Maybe I am just becoming a grumpy old man and my tolerance level just isn’t what it used to be. I’m not that old, though. I’m younger than Johnny Depp.

Now you kids get off my lawn!
Have you heard of 15 items or less?

I was wide awake and dreaming in the express lane at the food store.

“That’s 15 items or less mam, can’t you read the sign? It’s all lit up there in green and white in the grocery line.”

She had more like 15 times 15 items in her cart and damn coupons on top of that. I could tell the wild-haired hippie clerkie was getting all screwed up in his mojo by her lack of consideration for the rules and etiquette of grocery shopping.

I could tell the guy ahead of me, the guy with the black plastic basket with just a few things in it, wanted to punch her in the face. I could tell he was a bit peeved with all his heavy sighing and mumblings under his breath which soon became audible to the world over the loudspeaker:

“You dumb bitch!”

So, as I said, I was wide awake and dreaming in the express lane at the food store. My life clock was on hold. I looked around and all I saw was candy bars and flustered clerkies running here and there because they looked all short-handed and stuff and I guess that was because of the wildfire and everyone on fire and dying.

So, the world stopped inside of me whilst it spun like a swarm of horny hornets all around me. I thought about the universe while I looked at chocolate bars. We know the universe is there – but where exactly is THERE. Where IS the universe? Chocolate bars with almonds. Coupon-clipping clods taking up time and space. Why am I so worn out and disheveled?

The beep, beep, beep of the checkout lanes buzzed around in my head. I was there, but I was not there. I was thinking outside of the box, I always think outside of the box, way outside of the box, because I do not like the box. The box is full of narrow-minded doinks easily swayed by false flags and idiot box propaganda. 642 channels and there is nothing on.

I waited and waited, grasping my shopping cart like a baby carriage, gently rocking the carton of organic milk and bag of donuts into a restful sleep.

I noticed how her inflated flesh was packed tightly into her polyester, frantic pants. She seemed annoyed that the clerkie wasn’t doing his job properly when he slammed her hunk of watermelon down on the counter.

“Please be careful with my watermelon! I want to speak to your supervisor!”

Are you fucking kidding me?

If it wasn’t against the law, I would have pulled up a couch and coffee table and sparked one up right then and there. But then everything is against the law, isn’t it? Slamming someone’s watermelon is a violation of someone’s rights, right? Everything is a violation except for the ones who create the code of violations and place them in our heads and warn us that they are violations.

It’s 2:06 a.m. and I cannot sleep. It’s too hot to sleep. I have words tumbling around in my head that make no sense and I need to just tap them out for right now.

529 words, no make that 531 words, no … 538 words … of blah.

I am looking at the spine of a book on one of my bookshelves: The Day After Roswell.

Turn to page 137 and the seventh sentence will be your future:

“He told the New York Times in 1955 that the nations of the world will have to unite, for the next war will be an interplanetary war.”

Just what I need, interplanetary war.
At the Speed of Mary Jane’s Insomnia

I was once told by an electric psychic that I would die in a car crash in Montana on a sweet summer day in June in the year 2013. It didn’t happen. But the light bulbs we had for dinner last night were delicious. They illuminated my guts, and she could then see what I was feeling for real as we sat across from each other at the round table with the big candle in the middle. There was a lot of crunching going on and they say that eating glass isn’t good for you, that it can cut your guts to ribbons and then you will float away to the great ZOO in the sky and hang out with the gibbons, swinging from pearly gate to pearly gate with fury motivation and momentum.

“Pass the beans. Pass the barbecue sauce. Pass the don’t you have any manners?”

The next night our neighbor from across the hall had crock-potted some brisket but apparently, he didn’t cook it right and it came out all stringy and overly wet and he pounded on our door and said he had way more than he could eat himself and so he gave us some.

“I have potatoes too. Take some. Eat them. Enjoy them.”

We had only been married for 41 days and already she was getting on my nerves. She was making me climb the walls of our small pad across from the milkshake factory in a big city far, far away from wherever you are right now, so don’t try to go there, you won’t find it. We do not live on any map or globe. I read books when she bores the hell out of me. She has a strange fascination with cheese. Every time we go to the grocery store down and around, she quickly makes for the Department of Deli to peruse the plethora of cheeses they have there. So much cheese that I can’t believe, and they all have weird names and weird shapes and there are so many I do not remember, nor have I cataloged them. She has to look them over closely; she tries to smell them through the wrapping, she shakes them like an unopened Christmas present as if some pile of diamonds was just going to come falling out and then she wouldn’t need me anymore.

The crock-potter knocked on the door again to see if we would be interested in his lemon chicken and sausage feast. The stereo was blaring, and the chick was belly dancing, and I could not hear him knocking at first until he nearly bashed in the door.

“I crock-potted some lemon chicken and sausage, and, you know me, I made too much again.”

“Come in, you know my wife the belly dancer, right?”

“Absolutely. That’s one fine belly you got there.”

She stopped dancing, turned, and jumped out the window.

“Holy belly flop!” That’s what the crock-potter said.

“Don’t worry about her; she does that all the time.”

He went to the window and sure enough saw her rolling across the small patch of lawn and then she went running around in circles and down the street.

“Where is she going?”

“I don’t know, she’s insane and we barely communicate.”

“But you’re married. Surely you have some kind of convos?”

“Nope.”

“Then why did you marry her?”

“I don’t know. She told me about a mysterious island and that intrigued me. She said she would take me there, but now I’m thinking it was all a bunch of bullshit.”

“Your apartment is small.”

“Care for a cigar?”

“Got any Pink Floyd?”

I rummaged through the record collection throwing albums here and there trying to find a Pink Floyd record.

“Nope, sorry. I must have eaten it.”

“Well, I’m going to go home then and prepare my menu for tomorrow.”

“Any ideas?”

“Tuna casserole.”

*****

I sat on the couch reading a book about antique rocking horses when she came flying in the door all sweaty and out of breath.

I looked up at her.

“What the hell is going on?”

“The world is on fire!”

“What are you talking about?”

She pointed to the window.

“Look!”

I closed my book and went to the window. It seemed absurd and impossible, but she was right. The world WAS on fire. Everywhere I looked there was burning going on. Everywhere I looked there was black smoke rising from the Earth and spiraling up toward God’s red velvet footstool. It was all orange and maniacal. It was the bombs, the bombs, the bombs, they had come raining down like a lava thunderstorm of human parking lots of lost and twisted souls.

“I’m too tired for this shit,” and I closed the curtains, went into the bedroom and closed the door.

She came knocking.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m tired. I need to rest up. Tomorrow will most likely be a pretty rough day.”

“You dumb bastard! This is hardly the time to be sleeping.”

“What do you propose I do then, eh? As if anything would even matter my dear.”

“I want a divorce!”

“Good! So do I. Now leave me be so I can get some rest.”

I heard her stomp away and then the front door slammed. It was beginning to get very hot in the room and I turned on the fan. The breeze felt like winter in Bermuda and I was hungry for pineapple. I telephoned the crock-potter.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s your neighbor.”

“Oh, hi!”

“Listen, I know the world is burning to bits and pieces, but I was wondering if you had a good recipe for glazed ham, you know, the kind where you put the round slices of pineapple on top.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I could crock-pot a ham and throw some pineapple chunks in there. Would that be OK?”

I thought about it. Damn, the apartment was getting really hot.

“Yeah, that sounds pretty good.”

“I’m excited.”

“So am I. Just don’t screw it up like you did the brisket.”

The bedroom roof caved in.
The Lonely Arcade

Photo by Mikechie Esparagoza on Pexels.com

shattered windows cry like Sunday peacocks
warning of the impending doom of glass
falling like rain
on the slaves of the night
the weary soldiers
trudging through a thick fog of poorly scented gloom,
thick like bruised syrup,
thick like hot, metal mud
clogging the valves of another heart
gasping for love –

the wind blew through the lonely arcade
dead leaves danced
against the dirty brick of store fronts
the faded head of a plastic clown,
the old paint of his face peeling away,
wobbled without notice
his wide eyes
stared off into nothingness
and I could hear him laugh at me from the inside
as I walked on by
not a charming or entertaining laugh,
but a hollow, haunting one
and it perpetuated the chill in the air,
the loneliness,
the frozen desolation –

all the shops were closed for the season,
all the gamerooms shuttered up tight
and a couple ratty kids
raced through on their bikes
their shouts
and hate-filled laughter
echoed through the walkways,
bounced off the big panes of fragile glass
and pounded against my head …
I listened
as the sound of their whirling wheels faded away
as if they had suddenly taken flight
then crashed into a cloud –

and I stuck my cold hands in my pockets
looked down at the gurgling stream
from atop a small, stone bridge
searching for a glimpse of reality
in the icy waters below
as it flowed
like thick sex and lava
tumbling over the smooth stones
and the sound
of silent cold
beat against my head
and I drew my sword
and ran it through my imagination
causing me to fall over the edge
to vanish,
to drown in the void
of an angel’s troubled and guilty soul …
Anti-Architect

Photo by Longxiang Qian on Pexels.com

At 32 you’re not 24 anymore, and at 43 you’re not 31 anymore, so said the Jack-O-Lantern out on the porch, waiting to be bashed and smashed onto Cockleberry Street … and it was the invisible night all breathing out there with a chill, I can feel it through my open window even in November to let the air and the smokestack vibes in, vodka mathematics scrawled out on the wall with some leftover charcoal from art school days. I was going to be an artist, an artist with practical purpose, so they said. I was going to be an architect, I was going to be the next Mike Brady or Art Vandelay, but I took the way of the pen and heart and withdrew from school and moved to Denver to be hip and fresh and I got all beat up and raw in Mile High Land and needed something more and so sailed off to Los Angeles … and there it was, the City of Angels, where I finally felt alive and fine and free and fucked up for nothing but savage and good purposes … and time tilts forward.

I was in Moon River, that beacon place by the water, looking down at the carpet and watching the aliens taking long, romantic walks through the shag of it all. I was all numb form the dumb of it all, out there, on the other side of Peaceful Valley where they all stare off into dead blue space or stare off into their HD telephone screens, slow-motion rolling billiards balls doing tiny, tiny knock knocks inside their brains … baa, baa, baa the sheep strum the perilous strings of a world turned upside down while praying to the idiot gods.

I watched the road for danger but there was nothing but yellow peace up there in that atmosphere where I tried to dial her love in on the universal radio … static heartbreak, scars of distance, the lake waves lapping at the shore … the watery, rhythmic shewoo, shewoo, shewoo of chilled water against sand, rock, time, darkness, bright lights … Manitowoc, Whitefish Bay, the one way, way up and the chant, rant of the green and trees and ivy and smell and mysteries that swell all along my bones and soul … lonely carpenter ant man outside wood lodge sitting in a plastic chair smoking Marlboro killers and nodding “hello” to the night guests, that swirling mouth of the desk clerk coming out in the chill just to rub my way and talk about addiction and talk about dreams and talk about life everlasting. But at the way we wage war, love doll, there will be nothing left, for we gladly fund killing and the raping of life without a tick, but ignore the wide, starving eyes of the battered and the innocent … and we sit here, and try to call ourselves, humanity???
Pink Shirts in Cuckoo Land

… it’s laughing about a pink shirt that matters

Pink shirt hanging on a rack in hot land Nashland

the mannequins greet with greater smiles than the real ones

corporate propaganda BS blurbs hanging, dangling all around the world

to coax the penniless to remain penniless, enslaved, inflamed, amazed by the threads sewn by the dead in third-world jungle towns of lumber and dirty sandwiches

tussled jungle juice at the straw hut bar

afro shot glasses watching scrambled CNN

machine gun toddies burning flags, slathering the bed bugs with flames

the world all-around a crooked mess

the hate, the slain, the empty and ignorant souls making godless claims of god

it’s all the same

from end to end of Amorika

this global force for greed

brown sewing fingertips

pin-pricked like diabetic blood

so the PR smiles drip on

the glossy lives of commercialized bliss drip on

my wife’s beautiful Sonic Ocean Water eyes drip on

and she is my sanctuary

love is thy sanctuary

family is thy sanctuary

for the world has offered so little

but yet into the world she fell like an angel

all the rest is glittery ash

it’s this bond of love that matters

it’s laughing about a pink shirt that matters

it’s collapsing all the doubts and false dreams like a circus tent, kick out the poles, let the world blow

to give of myself is all I have left

to wrap myself in and all around her

to furiously love like fire

despite the chill of the Earth

By
Aaron Echoes August
I’ll show you my cereal if you show me yours (With Poll)

I’m someone who eats cereal at night. I’ve never much enjoyed cereal as it was intended – a breakfast food to kickstart one’s day. Not for me. I’m not really into kickstarting my day. For me, cereal is much more of a snack food, a bowl of deliciousness cradled in my lap while watching House Hunters or My 600-Pound Life in bed with my wife.

I have to admit that I’m a sweets guy. I like sugary cereal. That’s unfortunate for me because not unlike the late, great Wilford Brimley, I have DIE-A-BEETUS. The Lucky Charms leprechaun is literally killing me, or rather, I’m letting him kill me. But what a way to go. Maybe more on that struggle later. But it’s the weekend and I thought I would just do something short and simple and fun today.

So, choosing what my favorite cereal is not an easy task for me because there are so many I like. But I’ll narrow it down to my Top 10 – in no particular order:

Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries

Lucky Charms

Corn Pops

Honey-Comb

Sugar Bear’s Golden Crisp

Post Raisin Bran (Has to be Post because IMO it is the best)

Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes

Grape-Nuts

Apple Jacks

Cocoa Pebbles

And there you have it. Now that I have confessed my cereal desires, what about you? What’s your favorite cereal? Check out the poll below and vote for your favorite.

But before that, I guess it’s only fair that I share my worst cereal experience – and that would have to be: Cracklin’ Oat Bran. I’d rather eat avocado smeared atop a piece of tree bark.
A Carnal Knowledge of Cereal

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Cereal. It’s the perfect companion to the afterglow of a carnal embrace. First, there’s the reaching into the refrigerator for the milk with an elevated heart rate. Then there’s the gathering of the bowl and spoon with a shaky hand. Next is the gallant tumble of the cereal itself from its slightly upturned box while one bead of love sweat runs down your skin beneath a rumpled shirt. And after that, there’s that reckless cascade of white liquid from the carton or jug as you try to catch your breath. And at last, there is that thrust of the silver tool that will eagerly deliver your very first bite.
I like to sit in a comfortable armchair situated near a big picture window that overlooks the square as I cradle the bowl and eat. I bask in lascivious thoughts as the cold milk and crunch repeatedly crosses the threshold of my mouth. I can hear the chewing in my own head, rhythmically tapping like the silver balls of a desktop Newton’s cradle.
As the dying sun collides with the birth of a new night of stars, the square below glows a faded purple. Car after car after car reverses from its diagonal space and goes off into the void, the people inside trying to find their places in the brutal world. A woman with tousled hair and an ass packed tight in zodiac leggings crosses before me and takes refuge in the other chair. She stares into the glow of her phone, beautiful and sticky and smelling of love.
“What kind of cereal are you having?” she asks without looking at me.
“Corn Pops.”
“Oh. Fancy.” She pauses. “That was hot.”
“What’s that?”
“Earlier. Baby.” She looks over at me and mimics a kiss.
“Yes, it was… Did you know that they used to call them Sugar Corn Pops.”
“What?”
“Corn Pops. They used to be called Sugar Corn Pops.”
“Your mind drifts to strange places. How do you go from sex to cereal and back again?” she wonders aloud.
“I suppose they figured the word ‘sugar’ had a negative connotation,” I say. “I suppose some marketing dildo who makes $200,000 a year came up with that one.”
“Why do you worry about that?”
“Worry about what?”
“Money, and what other people do and have.”
I think about it, then tilt my cereal bowl to drain the last of the milk and set it aside. “I guess I’m just hung up on perfection. Like a wet winter coat on a mudroom peg.”
“Baby. Perfection isn’t found in things or money. Perfection is found in the simple, meaningful moments.”
I look over at her there in the chair before the big window framing nightglow. “Like our love?”
“Like our beyond beyond love,” she says.
After a brief fissure of silence I ask her what time it is.
“11:02,” she answers with a yawn. “Are you ready for bed?”
“I’ll be there in a little bit.”
She rises from the chair, leans down and kisses me with purpose. Her lips are wet and scented from the grape-flavored water she always drinks.
“I love you,” she affirms. “Believe in that.”
“I love you, too. I really do.”
She looks down at me, smiles and presses her warm lips against my forehead. “I know you do,” she whispers.
I turn to watch her walk away, through the low glow of a long, narrow kitchen and into the darkness of the back bedroom that swallows her up.
I get up out of the chair and take my emptied bowl to the kitchen sink and rinse it out. I walk back over to the big window and look down upon the vacant square. The gray, cold stone of a courthouse reflects fear and loneliness. The empty and silent street reminds me of a dark corner in Heaven. And even with all that, I know if I am careful with her heart, I will never be alone again.
Pressing The Launch Button

Image by / Aaron Echoes August

The idea for Cereal After Sex ignited in March of 2022 during a lovesome stay at a fanciful loft in a small, ruggedly charming town in the middle of Tennessee. The spark had been incubating in my mind for a long time, but those few days in the wilderness of comfort and joy spit gasoline on it.

I’ve always struggled with not knowing what to do with my life, but at the same time I always knew what I wanted to do – write. My dream career just clashed with the reality of daily living for what seemed like forever. I spent year after year working for someone else and lining someone else’s pockets with the means to a greater lifestyle than my own while I was always two paychecks away from being on the streets.

My warmhearted and ever-patient later-in-life wife continually reminds me that it’s not the material things in life that are important. And she’s right. Deep down I know it’s much more than that. It’s about love and family and being kind and selfless in a world that doesn’t always value those things. I suppose my frustration back in those dark days was more about the seemingly pointless struggle one faces when you don’t love what you do with the added bonus of barely affording to survive while doing it. I’m sure I’m not alone on that.

I launched Cereal After Sex because I wanted to have a place to display my love for the written word. I wanted to have a place to share my stories and thoughts and at the same time hopefully entertain and engage an audience. I wanted a digital balcony to lend my view of the world from. A view that oftentimes is a bit eccentric, a bit harsh, a bit romantic, a bit weird, a bit sentimental. In other words – human.

So here I am, wandering around with my fingertips at a keyboard and a Tesla coil sparking purple in my head.

By
Aaron Echoes August

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