Friday, April 9, 2021
Fresh box
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Within The Crack
Lloyd... It seems like the only time when you are not verbal is during sexual activity, in which case I wouldn't actually mind.
Mrs. Jansdaad farts.
When they wake up, they are going through The Crack.
When Jan's daughter Jan looks up, she can see Lloyd's foot only. But that foot, shod and pant cuffed, is all that she can see anywhere besides herself.
Both Lloyd and Jan feel the peristaltic waves, inside themselves and all around them; they can watch the undulations against their clothing and feel it on their faces and the backs of their legs.
Jan hears a voice.
Oh really? Well you didn't even go to high school-- it was more like low school.
Lloyd?
Oh my god Jan can you hear me
Yes. Very funny.
I think we're going through The Crack now.
Uh-huh, baby. You're the brilliant one.
The Crack is home to a billion holes
They say The Crack is home to a billion holes. Pilgrims, daredevils, and lost hikers alike will never be able to predict when and where they will come out.
The Community College of Cement's entire Chang K. Chang Chank campus is dark except for a few pools of security lighting-- and the strong yellow bug lamp which illuminates the Crack Door Event area. Jan's mom Jan Jansdaad's steaming underwing fat flap is all that's keeping Jan and Lloyd from falling hundreds of feet into the parking lot below.
Jan lands as close as she can to the bug light, which is there for the air conditioning unit attached to the bookstore next to temporary mobile classrooms B-D. Most campus employees, students and visitors walk around the air conditioning unit instead of trying to duck under it, which could cause them to end up in sudden Crack-related peristaltic shock (SCRPS), and besides now being invisible, their associates quickly begin to forget they ever existed. In this respect, SCRPS can affect an entire community from one instance only.
Lloyd is trying to keep up with Jan and her mom. As the odd group rushes across the moonlit baseball fields, plumes of white chalk dust spray from below Mrs. Jansdaad's three-clawed feet. And then they have crossed a short span of black top, and then they have reached The Crack.
They might sound a little like disco when they're running, but when they stop there's nothing but funk, says Lloyd.
Sunday, April 4, 2021
Downward motility
Dire Cricket
Lloyd has been awake for a just few moments without moving from the tangle of sleeping bags a Scouts of Mthyuh brigade had donated to the clothing drive bin that the beast had lifted from its cement moorings and dumped here in its cliff nest.
He fears that if he moves he will lose the beautiful light scent of jasmine? Monster poinsettia? It's very early in spring yet, and how would flowers grow this high up against a rock? He even imagines he can follow light, pensive plucking on a mandolin.
Then young Jan, sweet Jan, is walking toward him in gentle rays of light, with the massive and hideous silhouette of her mother resting behind her against the moon and clouds. The beast's subsiding breaths after flight create the lilting music as her lungs contract with a melodic metal popping perhaps more similar to a steel guitar.
In this new place, with his confidence dashed for once, Lloyd sees Jan's daughter Jan anew. He is prostrate and broken; she represents a future, a woman who can change his life for once, powerful in a sleeveless chintz chrysanthemum-print frock, even while barefoot and picking her way toward him through the soft debris.
He waits until she has climbed up beside him in the heap of torn, shiny viscose lining, fluffy polyfill and plastic zippers, her red-dark face only inches from his own.
How
Shush. [She places a finger across his lips.] Just listen. And breathe.
He draws in another chestful of her cologne, which is Dire Cricket, by Pharmsupply.
I'm here to take you away. It's... you know that's my mother, right?
Lloyd nods, slack-mouthed.
Well she never wanted to hurt you. Only that you'd understand. To stop being such a shit.
Lloyd stares up into Jan's shadowed eyes, at the impossible sparkling there.
She wants... and it's not really up for discussion, you know? She wants to take us through The Crack.
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Back at APSNIPE
As the sun begins to lower behind the peak of Chang K. Chang Chank, Jan senses an awakening in the Injured Entity bay next door. They are separated on that side by several feet of ancient volcanic rock, through which a ceremonial glory hole had been drilled and through which they now whisper with the backs of their tongues, as only female K's can do.
If we speak with our minds they can track it.
I know.
Are you ok?
I will be. Flekke attack. Asshole.
You are an inspiration not to kill.
What do you mean.
I mean you could have killed the flekke.
Well he may become my son-in-law, so...
Ah right. I have kids too.
Wait are you
Yes, tiny baby. I am that old. You can call me
Peg. You are litterly painted in shiv temples. They sing a song about you. She
Had three kids when she went with the winds. I know.
I don't know what to say.
We live forever I guess.
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
How are you sleeping?
Thursday, March 25, 2021
The argument for bioaerosol surveillance
K farts are so voluminous and dense that they can leave streaks in the sky that are barely distinguishable from wispy purplish clouds in a sunset. They are potent enough and in a way that can make mammals lose consciousness momentarily or even slip into a light coma.
It is through the implementation of one such bioaerosol release that Jan is able to resecure her cliff nest by disabling Lloyd Bentbridge long enough to confiscate his weaponry, hurl it into the void, and get him locked into a leafy, teepee-like structure before he wakes.
As she folds her wings across her feet to rest, Jan feels as though she is being watched. It's not long before Lloyd's mother, Lady Brentridge, appears with a fizzling shower of sparks and stands before a gaping, fogged-up hole in the cliff face.
Their speech is echoey and through the mind only.
Lady Brentridge: He's my son. How dare you?
Jan: He was trying to own my family.
Lady Brentridge [after a pause]: He was always trouble. Thank you for not eating him.
Jan: Now you're making me sick.
Lady Brentridge: You're sick? Twenty-one years. Think of that!
Jan: I swallow rocks to help me digest meat.
Lady Brentridge: Let's focus. What is it that you want?
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
drip trail down to the river
Defeated
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Lloyd and lady
Feeling tired, Lloyd lays his head down in a gaggle of bras and closes his eyes.
Lloyd: Now I could be anywhere, in bed. I wish I could wake up. I can't look anymore. God it's a gorgeous view, but far too terrifying. Some perspectives are meant to be set aside only for those who choose them. I could understand if I were a mouse, but come on it's a different level of consciousness.
Lloyd's mother, Lady Brentridge de Modena Chank, appears in an impressive burst of optics.
Lady Brentridge: Son why did you take my name.
Lloyd: Because you have a title, and dad was a... where are you?
Lady Brentridge: I've been waiting all this time for you to reach a certain altitude else I cannot get through the Filter of Loathing.
Lloyd: So the dead can... Mother?
Lady Brentridge: Yes, love.
Lloyd: Can you save me?
Lady Brentridge: No, darling.
Lloyd: I
Lady Brentridge: Don't speak. You've got to act fast. As soon as you wake up from this nap, fashion a weapon from the wood in the nest. Look for maybe some scrap metal for a blade. You'll have the element of surprise when she gets back. Good luck, my little lord.
Oh, and uh, by the way I just wanted you to know that while my intention always was to guide and protect, and to do that with my heart full of love, at the same time, however, I was paying so much attention to my role that, well, I recognize that during some moments I neglected to respond to the nitty-gritty contents of your life in a lucid or humane manner.
Now when you're ready, go for the eyes first.
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Police Station
A gothic doorway beneath crossed brass spears. The keystone is chiseled with a curving notice: POLICE STATION.
Jan had left the top to her sweater set on the back of her office chair, so she now has a mylar blanket as a shawl. Jan's dad is trying his best to get his voice heard through the ancient glory hole in the stone door of the precinct.
Mr. Jansdaad: We'd like to report an abduction!
Suddenly, a speaker crackles to life. You don't have to yell, sir we are fully miked now. From what you say, this sounds like a K event, and I'm sure you know we can't and don't investigate or prosecute K events. But we'll send out a hooptie. Mr. Brentridge's estate will be reimbursed for any damage to the cave structure if indeed a K event is confirmed.
Both Jan and her dad sigh deeply and walk quickly in each other's arms across the stone pavement and out of the armored courtyard, back to the bustling lunchtime street. They turn and stand back together against a wall.
Jan: I don't think she'd kill him.
Jan's dad: I hope not, sweetheart. But that's her choice now, isn't it?
All up in the nest
Lloyd is violently shaken awake in time to see the cause of the shaking: the taloned feet, the size of small automobiles, having pushed free from the nest, pointing backward and curling majestically. The feet have all but disappeared into the distant hazy clouds above the cliff when a tiny K shape comes into focus, soaring purposefully through the mists.
Lloyd: God, no.
Mrs. Jansdaad has done a brilliant job with her first construction. She has carefully chose the trunks and major branches of young smooth-barked laurel trees, still pale yellow and gummy to the core. There must have been an entire grove of them nearby to create a structure with roughly the same footage, yet more depth, than a large built-in backyard pool. As for the downy padding, she has obviously raided a child's party and emptied the colorful contents of a plastic ball pit into the bottom layer. On top of that were perhaps the contents of several Mthyuh Preservation Society clothing drive dumpsters. Then packing peanuts, shredded bamboo fencing.
Monday, March 15, 2021
Law Offices
Door trimmed with a rose trellis. Brass plaque on door: LAW OFFICES
Lloyd Brentridge, Esquire, was always dressed in at least one part of a suit and often had the shirt open to a dark, furry chaos.
Lloyd doesn't actually work for Pharmsupply, and Mr. Jansdaad has already gathered that it is all bullshit when he nevertheless shows up at Law Offices as promised, trembling.
Mr. Jansdaad: Jan!
Jan Jansdaad: Daddy!
After a silent moment, Jan explains that she's working for Lloyd now as the receptionist. Also a fact that her dad has already gathered. It is the way she said it that is chilling and familiar. As if under a spell, and not in a good way.
Jan: He will see you now.
Jan's Dad: Thank you honey.
Open the deeper, inner door. Where Lord and Lloyd will either blend or clash.
Lloyd: Shut the door behind you.
Jan: I've brought in the records you requested.
Lloyd: You see your daughter is now under my auspices.
Jan: Yes.
Lloyd: You probably know I'm not Pharmsupply, that it's all bullshit.
Jan: Yes.
Lloyd: Yet you came anyway. You haven't even taken a seat because I haven't offered you one.
Jan: I
Lloyd: Don't speak. Your wife is turning into a K, isn't she? You don't have to say a word. She missed the second shingles vaccine and she seroconverted. She has to have had a disposition, and I think you know some history on that. Mrs. Jan Jansdaad is not just any old Jan Jansdaad. She had a history before she met you and she has one now. And that history has been as repressed as it is mysteriously irrepressible, like ecriture feminine. A code only a genetic member could translate or inscribe.
Lloyd starts abruptly, as if he has just heard a hilarious noise behind him.
Lloyd: What is that. What is that Jan. Do you
Jan: It's disco.
Lloyd: Don't you think I know what it is? Why? Why, Jan?
The thumping and whirring become louder: Mrs. Jansdaad's now gigantic foot pads and breath become louder: the dreaded disco-like sound of a K on the ground.
The glass in the window crashes impressively, but all Mrs. Jansdaad can fit through it is the very tips of her beak bones, which she can barely get open wide enough. But she is hungry.
Because Lloyd Brentridge has his fingers in his ears, Jan's tongue is able to restrain his arms and squeeze around his neck at the same time.
Mr. Jansdaad [arms outstretched]: Oh, Lord!
Jan and her dad Jan Jansdaad then stand very still as they watch their mother and wife suck Lloyd, their sadistic lover and bully crush, by the neck through the window and then high up into the air in a single, otherworldly burst of power. Father and daughter alone began to look around them there in the breezy office, medical records still floating leaf like to the floor.
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Back at Jan's
Jan: You didn't even ask if you could come in.
Lloyd: We just ate with your parents. I don't have to ask you anymore.
Jan [letting go of his tie]: Lloyd you know I feel very strongly for you but sometimes you scare me a little.
Lloyd is feeling tired and sits on the sofa. Jan comes back with two beers and joins him.
Jan: I think it hits me in a primeval place when you try and order me around or raise your voice to my dad, but it might be just genes or hormones and not good decisionmaking.
Lloyd [to the ceiling, as he rests his neck]: What if you didn't have to make any decisions.
Jan [in a fetal position next to him without touching]: I don't think I would like it at all. [She scoots over and rests her head in Lloyd Brentridge's lap.] But then, that's your choice, isn't it?
Saturday, March 13, 2021
Guests
Jan and her complicated date Lloyd Brentridge join Jan's parents for stonecakes and vine at the dining room table. Jan sits next to her mother helping to poke through clumps caught in her swollen and keratinous gum line. Mrs. Jansdaad swallows infrequently but with large gulps that are visible in her neck as they go down her throat.
Lloyd: Mrs. Jansdaad it's lovely to see you recovering. Your husband has done an admirable job at the griddle in your place.
Mrs. Jansdaad lowers her face in Lloyd's direction, exposing a small parietal eye in her scalp. She stares, unblinking.
Lloyd: May I help you clear the table, Jan?
Mr. Jansdaad, jumping up: Why yes, why... please grab that syrup.
Lloyd and Mr. Jansdaad find themselves alone in the kitchen. Jan turns around and finds Mr. Brentridge standing there, very close to him. There are just a few inches between them and not much room to maneuver there between the countertop and the fridge.
Jan: Oh. Sorry Lloyd. Just let me
Lloyd does not move. He is staring into Mr. Jansdaad's eyes. Jan Jansdaad looks back at him without letting out a breath.
Jan: Is there
Lloyd: Shh. I just want one thing. And that's the truth.
Jan can hear his daughter setting out dessert dishes from the glass cabinet as well as his wife's pebbly cough from the other room.
Lloyd's voice is hushed and stern, and his breath is hot.
Lloyd: That's quite a case of shingles you have going on in there.
Jan: Yes, it's just-- Pharmsupply wouldn't cover the
Lloyd: Don't say Pharmsupply to me. I work for Pharmsupply. I am their agent in Dubbahberah Chank.
Jan: I'll get you the records. She had a preexisting inclination. But you're dating my
Lloyd takes Jan's wrist and squeezes it tight. Jan loses control of his fingers and drops a vine glass on the floor.
Lloyd: Don't you ever say your daughter's name to me again. Unless you are ready to take her place.
Jan: She doesn't know anything. Don't worry. She
Lloyd [squeezing Jan's wrist harder, and twisting]: I need samples of her Mrs. Jansdaad's pyncofibers. By tomorrow morning. In my law office.
Jan [straining]: Yes. I'll get the pyncos. Whatever you want. My daughter is a good person. I won't... I won't say her name.
Lloyd, tucking in his shirt and stepping back into the dining room: Jan, get in there and help your father would you. With the cleanup. And then we'll go.
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Fireside chat
Jan: The edges of your thoughts are so sharp I just want to grab a file and sand them off. Maybe by our being together
Lord Bentbridge: No, it's not like that-- isn't it more of a woman's function to
Jan: Look the man-woman dichotomy can really be an albatross when you
Lord Bentbridge: I know but you seem to think that this is about you and me, but
Jan: Well this, here, at the moment-- I only see you and me here.
Lord Bentbridge: Overall I would be going through this in a vacuum I think
Jan: You know better than to think that
Lord Bentbridge: There was a couple with their two babies on the sidewalk this afternoon when it was so gloomy right before sunset. Wind was howling. Twigs were flying. One of the babies started a weird hooting cry and then the other an identical cry. It created a sort of audio hellscape.
Jan: This is what I mean; you see you
[ENTER MRS. JANSDAAD]
Mrs. Jansdaad: Why Mr. Jansdaad curled up on the rug before the fire.
Mr. Jansdaad: How you got in here without making the floors creak
Mrs. Jansdaad: Engrossed entertaining another imaginary friend I see.
Mr. Jansdaad: Ha! I thought I might entice you for
Mrs. Jansdaad: If I can get over there without rearranging the furniture
Mr. Jansdaad: How's your tooth.
Mrs. Jansdaad: It's coming out but that's good because I never had a tooth that size before, did I. And the crown is coming down, do you see? Feel here.
Jan took Jan's hand and pressed it against her forehead, which was slowly regaining it's previous shape.
Mr. Jansdaad: They say you'll be stronger afterward. Because you went through it.
Jan Jansdaad looked into her husband's eyes blankly, like a reptile.
Saturday, March 6, 2021
Daughter of La Chama
Jan arrives home with scales covering 98% of her body, unable to even get the key out of her purse much less use it in the lock. Her fingers were claws.
We should never have mingled with their species.
She kicks the door by way of knocking, gouging it with her toe claws. For Jan, as he opens the door, the sight of his wife at first presents as deja vous. Then horror, then caring.
Oh baby look at you please come in... [looks at door] What...?
I should have paid cash for Hopinaskipina. It's not as painful as they say.
God you look like the Daughter of La Chama. Let me hide my shiny coins!
Heh that's cute Jan. How am I going to make dinner.
You're so old fashioned. Let me do it for once.
[Jan sighs and shakes her head, which causes the sounds of knuckles popping.]
The hell
tonight a crust forms around me, a
fluttering, gummy placenta
the muscles are locked from
pleasure.
last night i was trying to drive a
car on a building ledge
i was steering pretty well
until.
they say never go to sleep afraid
or stay awake either
the body will win you over
the hell.
by Jan