Punk Spirit

Smiles and Nods

It’s twelve fifteen and a woman is waiting in a busy coffee shop for a man she doesn’t know named Scot. He was supposed to meet her at the door but when she arrived she found no one, understandable considering the rain. She looked for Scot inside, but since she didn’t know him she was only looking for a man that seemed to be looking for a woman— that is to say a man who has an appointment to meet a woman for a job interview. This will be her third in-person interview for this position, a receptionist at a small software firm, and she was hoping it would be her last.

She’d never met Scot before but she did have his phone number. She tried it but it went straight to voicemail. She tried the woman in human resources also, since she was her contact at the company and since it was her that had arranged the hiring process up till this point, but that also went straight to voicemail. This wasn’t surprising. It’d been this way with everything, not just the interviews. Her applications had disappeared twice and following up on them had shown her right from the start that the people at this company were allergic to phones. She had to take her resume in and physically hand it over to the woman in HR to get anywhere, and then it was a phone interview that she was told was on Tuesday but which was supposed to be on Thursday, and another phone interview that just straight slipped the interviewer’s mind, an on-site interview with a man who had a thousand more important things on his mind, and another at eight o’clock in the evening. That last one took place in the parking lot— the man she was interviewing with only remembered the interview when he saw her in the parking lot as he was leaving for home. They chatted at length about many things beside his car, interminable small talk having nothing to do with her ability to be a receptionist at their company, and if he noticed her teeth chattering from the cold he didn’t mind. Some people wouldn’t have put up with it. People who don’t need a job, for instance.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, her phone rings, a text from Scot asking where she is. There’s a man standing outside, holding an umbrella and looking at his phone. She crosses the coffee shop to let him in.

“You must be Scot”, she says from inside the door she’s holding open for him.

“--— —.—--—— —--— —”, he replies, as if speaking, but instead of words, hissing and buzzing and popping like an arc of electricity rippling through the air. She looks at him uncomprehending.

“…What?”

“--—------, —?”

She smiles and nods like the hard of hearing do and tells the man she’s gotten them a table. The man smiles and follows. “Do you want to order anything before we get started?”, she asks as they pass the line for the register.

“— —”, the man replies, breaking off from her. “--—— —--—— —?—--—----— —.”

“…I’ll be over at that table, over there”, she tells him, pointing to the spot where she’d been waiting. She looks around the room, watches people in conversation, and she listens. There’s a lot of noise in the coffee shop, but she can pick out their words. Then it isn’t her hearing. But she looks at the man in line, watches him order his coffee. From across the room she can hear the buzzing and crackling coming from him, but the cashier rings him up without trouble. Then it isn’t his speach….

After ordering, he waits by the counter, and his order must’ve been simple as it’s handed to him quickly. He joins her at the table, setting down the coffee cup and his phone, which is running an audio recorder.

“--—------—--------——--—--,—----—--— —.”

Again she smiles and nods. She figures he must’ve said something about the recorder. Glancing at his coffee, she sees the lid has “Scott” written on it— two t’s, but close enough. At least she knows she’s talking to the right person. Or, something like talking.

“--—----—--—----—----— —,—------,—--—--— —--—--—--—--—--—----. —--,—--—--——--—------, (— —--—--),—--—------.—--— —--—— —…—--—--— —--—--?”

She smiles and nods once more, hoping that what he’d just said wasn’t a question she was expected to answer, but he keeps looking to her like he expects more of a response than a smile and a nod.

“I’m just looking for a fast-paced team that I can grow with”, she tosses out limply, figuring that whatever he may have asked, that’s a pretty all-right interviewey thing to say, but as the words topple out of her their stupidity rings in her ears and the sad humor of the situation—that here she is, a miracle of life, and this is how she spends her time, and these are the things she uses what may be the rarest phenomenon in the universe, language, to say—makes her chortle, but she catches herself and fakes a little cough to cover it.

He smiles at her pleasantly and says, “--.—— —. —----—----—— —— —--—------—--—--—--—--—--”, and extends his hand to her. She shakes it and smiles. “--—--—— —--—----.—--—--—------?—--….”

He had shaken her hand and stood up, so the interview must be done. Short, but that could be good or bad. Probably bad, she thinks. Either way she’s glad to be done with it.

“Thank you”, she says, but the cafe is crowded and noisy and he mishears her and thinks she said “No thank you.” It doesn’t make much difference. He smiles again, she smiles back. On the way out he gives her a little departing wave. She eyes a chocolate croissants in the pastry case but decides not to waste the money on it, what with her unemployment almost gone, (not that two dollars seventy-five cents is going to save her anyway). Later on that afternoon she’ll get an email from the woman in HR, and to her surprise, it’ll be a job offer. She’ll then return to the coffee shop and buy one of those chocolate croissants, to celebrate. At last! she got a job.

Language may be the rarest phenomenon in the universe, but the job market wants smiles and nods.

A Perfectly Lovely Ride

It’s a perfectly lovely night to go for a drive. The air is cool outside, which is a relief after such a hot day. Back home is still full of the air from the late afternoon heat; the cool night air won’t seep in until three, four in the morning. In my car, speeding down the freeway, the air gushes in and I’m soaking it up. Right now it’s wonderful, but I have work in the morning, so I’ll need to be home before three or four in the morning, and the cool I’m enjoying now will make the stifling heat of my bedroom that much worse when I return. More importantly though—at least for right now—right now, it’s wonderful.

But hold on a tick— I don’t remember starting the car. I was in my underwear, sitting on the couch beneath the ceiling fan, just sweating and hating life. I stepped outside and it was nice, so I sat on the porch, still in my underwear—it was late so no one would see anything—and life was great. Then the mosquitos started eating me. That’s when I decided to go for a ride. But I don’t remember going back inside and getting my keys, or getting dressed, (I’m in shorts and a t-shirt now), and I don’t remember starting the car….

It’s quiet outside— it’s quite inside too. It doesn’t sound like the engine’s running. I can’t even hear the tires turning over the pavement. The only sound is the wind whistling by, like I’m falling. The ride is smooth, too— too smooth. The speedometer, tachometer, engine temperature gauge, and fuel gauge all read zero, and the dash isn’t lit up. I feel for the key in the ignition, but there’s nothing there.

Now I see everything with fresh eyes. The road is dark out ahead of me. It’s because my headlights aren’t on, but it’s not only that. The streetlights aren’t lit, and there are no headlights from the oncoming traffic, no headlights in my mirrors, no taillights from the traffic ahead of me. I ease up on the gas, but nothing happens. I take my foot off the gas completely, but I don’t slow down a bit. I touch the brakes and nothing— I press a little harder, but still nothing— I stomp on the pedal, putting it all the way to the floor, but nothing happens. I turn the steering wheel this way and that, but it makes no difference. I pull the parking break. None of it makes a difference. Nothing I do makes a difference. I’m not in control.

The Thousand Year Echo

Meryl was weeding in her garden when she heard the first voice. It spoke clearly, like it was the neighbor calling over the fence to her, but she didn’t understand the words. She looked around after the voice, but saw no one.

“Hello?”, she said, rising hesitantly to her feet. The voice was still speaking— had been speaking, uninterrupted since she first heard it. Meryl peeked over the fence. Maybe the neighbor had turned on the TV, or a radio. But when she got up on her tiptoes to see over the fence, she noticed the voice was gone. She made a sour face, then brushed it off and went back to weeding. No sooner had she knelt down to take up her trowel again than did the voice come back, along with several others, laughing.

“Who’s there?”, she demanded, stamping her foot as she stood up again and holding the trowel like a knife. No answer, just more of the same talking she couldn’t understand. She checked the other fence, and the other other, both with the same result. She returned to the spot she was weeding and listened. What language was that? Russian? Chinese? No, not quite. Was it just a bunch of babble? Was she having a stroke, or a seizure, and this was a symptom? She took out her phone and looked up “symptoms of a stroke”, and “symptoms of a seizure.” Neither seemed likely. Just making the search and reading the results was a strong indication, in and of itself, that she wasn’t having a stroke or a seizure. Then what was she hearing?

She stood there in her garden, completely baffled, listening to the voice carry on. Could somebody be playing a trick on her? How? Could the metal plate in her head be receiving radio signals? (She had no metal plate in her head, as far as she was aware.) Maybe it was time for a cup of tea, Meryl thought. She dropped her trowel where she stood, took off her work gloves and left them with the trowel, and walked to the back deck. When she stepped up to the deck, the voice cut out, like a radio losing reception. She stepped back down. The voice came back. She flossed the step, up and down: Up, no voice; down, voice.

Meryl skipped the tea. She went to the hardware store and bought a hundred orange marker flags. She systematically combed over each square foot of her back yard, row by row, like she was mowing the lawn. She’d take a step, listen for the voices, and, if she heard them, mark the spot with a flag. When she had covered the whole of her back yard there now appeared a swirl of markers, a spiral galaxy of orange flags with Meryl’s gloves situated in the center.

Over the next two weeks Meryl made a few more trips to the hardware store. She dug up her garden, digging along the contours she’d mapped out with the flags, then filled the area in with poured concrete, making herself a nice, if not oddly shaped and bizzarely placed, new patio. She put a wrought iron bench in the middle of it, and on either side of that, a flower box. It became her habit to spend much of her free time out on that bench, listening to the voices.

It had been a man’s voice the first time, but it wasn’t always. She’d hear, now a gang of children at play, now a young man and woman talking, and a baby crying. A whispering woman—and she could’ve been whispering right in Meryl’s ear—frantically muttering what sounded like a prayer was a recurring one. Always the voices came in that uninteligible, unplaceable language— apart from the baby’s.

Meryl looked for that language, scouring the internet for samples of any she’d never heard before. None of them were right. The more she listened to the voices on the patio, the more unlike anything else their language seemed. It was heavy, and solid like blocks of carved, polished stone. Every other language she could find was a twittering of birds by comparison.

One afternoon Meryl had friends over for dinner. She took the table from the back deck and set it up on her new patio, where they all dined that night. She was nearly as shocked as her friends were when they heard the voices. She’d been operating under the assumption this whole time that she’d gone discreetly and pleasantly insane, or something like it.

Jason—she’d had the biggest crush on him in high school, which no one ever knew about, and when he ended up marrying her sort-of friend, Dawn, Meryl drew closer to her out of some masochistic impulse—was particularly excited by the phenomenon and, after a few beers, announced to the dinner party that he was resolved to solve the riddle. Everyone laughed at this, except Jason. Conversation moved on. No one thought much of the announcement.

Meryl herself wasn’t very curious about the voices. Or, she was, just in the way that she wanted to listen to them, rather than in the way that she needed to have an explanation for them. It was troubling enough to know other people could even hear them. Finding out what the were, where they came from, what cuased them— to Meryl that would just be making matters worse. Jason started emailing her frequently, asking questions about the voices. She answered his questions. He was no trouble to her.

Until one day he showed up with a small crew of—were they scientists?—all duded up in hazmat suits like she had E.T. stowed away in her back yard. He promised her that it would only be two hours, tops, and then it’d be like they were never even there. They just needed to collect some data, he told her, that’s all. He pleaded with her, and flirted, like he always used to do in high school. He was old and ugly now, and the display was farsical, but in fairness she was old and ugly too, and anyway it worked. Meryl relented.

They were in and out in two hours, and they had left no trace, just like Jason said. Then, years passed, and Meryl never heard what came of it. Dawn and Jason had divorced not long after, (but unrelated to), the data collection episode, and their divorce had let the air out of her friendship with either of them. She fell out of contact with a lot of people, as it happened, and drew closer to the voices. She had, over the years, developed an understanding of their language, but she couldn’t articulate their meaning. To listen to a language for years, but never speak it… you get a sense of it, in your guts, like a dog must have for the way its human relatives speak. But a dog doesn’t have the equipment to talk back, and neither did Meryl.

In the same time, she had also developed lung cancer, which she fought and “won.” The sad truth is that one does not win against cancer. Meryl was down half a lung. Her life would be shorter than it otherwise would have been, because of that. And still, not a day would go by, from the first day she was diagnosed until her last, that wouldn’t be in the shadow of her cancer, or its returning. She didn’t think of herself as having won a battle.

Oh, and money. Not much of that was left, meaning the voices that had kept her company for so long now would be repossessed by the bank, along with everything else. This would happen, she was certain, save for a miracle. Then, a miracle.

Jason called her, out of the blue, to tell her that they’d found what the voices were. They were an echo. An echo from a long, long time ago. Using a lot of sciencey words that meant nothing to Meryl and that, truth be told, meant nothing to him either, Jason explained to her that any sound waves propagating through the space enclosing that little patch in what used to be her garden would be repropagated exactly, through that same space, some one thousand years later, by a process distinct from the one which causes familiar echos, but roughly analogous. Jason was very excited about all this. Meryl wasn’t. But along with this news, Jason had also called with a proposal: To make that special little patch of hers a destination. People would pay good money just to sit on her bench and listen to the idle chitchat of our distant ancestors, and even better—he said even better, but to Meryl it seemed even worse—they could leave a message of their own, to be heard by who knows who in a thousand years’ time. “Can you imagine it?”, he asked breathlessly.

Meryl hated the idea, but she did believe it would pay. Again, she relented to Jason. She kept the house, and raked in money besides. She even got to hear the voices still, on Sunday’s, when the house—not her house anymore, the house—was closed to the public.

She thought it was kind of sad, watching all these people come to leave their own personal messages for the next millennium. She understood, like she understood the voices, in her gut, not her head, that there simply wouldn’t be anyone to recieve them.

The Dangers of Sugar

The 911 Transcript

Dispatch: 911 emergency

Caller: Uh, hi, this is Mrs. Robert Cole calling on behalf of my husband. We’re at 1612 South Antoine Street.

Dispatch: What’s the emergency, Mrs. Cole?

Mrs. Cole: So… I don’t know— my husband thinks he got his head stuck in the dryer. He’s always doing this sort of thing though. We go to a lot of trouble and it turns out to be nothing. But we’ve tried about everything we can think of and— I don’t know.

Dispatch: You said his head is caught in a dryer?

Mrs. Cole: A clothes dryer, yes. It looks like the door slammed shut on his neck, uh, while he was pulling something out. Maybe? I didn’t see what happened; I just got back from the market. He’s standing in front of the dryer, kind of bent over, his head’s inside of it, and the door’s shut. i just— Robert, how did you even manage it?

Dispatch: He’s conscious then?

Mrs. Cole: Let me check. (passage of approx. eight words, indistinct)

Mrs. Cole: I can’t tell. I don’t think so.

Dispatch: Can you open the door?

Mrs. Cole: Let me check….

(Mrs. Cole can be heard putting down the phone. Approx. three seconds later she can be heard struggling to open the dryer door.)

Mrs. Cole: Oh God! (several words, indistinct)

Mrs. Cole (panting): There’s a lot of blood— He’s bleeding, from his neck.

Dispatch: Okay, an ambulance is on the way. You need to apply preassure to the wound, Mrs. Cole, and don’t disconnect. I’ll stay on the line.

The Coroner’s Report

IN THE MATTER RE THE DEATH OF:

I, HERMAN SYLVESTER, Sheriff-Coroner of the County of Washoe, State of Nevada, certify an inquiry and investigation was held in the death of ROBERT NICHOLAS COLE, a 42 years old male, born in New Mexico. The inquiry and investigation revealed that the decedent died on the 19th day of June, 1955 at 1612 South Antoine Street in Reno as follows:

MANNER OF DEATH: NATURAL CAUSES CAUSE OF DEATH: BLOOD LOSS due to PUNCTURE WOUNDS to the neck.

Sustained following INJURIES FROM EXCESS DIETARY SUGAR. The incident occurred at 1612 South Antoine Street in Reno at an unknown hour on June 19, 1955. I certify that death occurred from the cause and in the manner stated above in accordance with the written findings contained herein.

Signed this 15th day of March, 1955 HERMAN SYLVESTER, SHERIFF-CORONER

Recollection of Maurice Sinclair

When Bob died it wasn’t so much a shock, really. He was always getting into tight spots, something of a daredevil. He got himself out of ’em too, but, well, we all sort of knew, you know, that one day he wouldn’t. It was that daring that we loved about him. So when we finally learned what got him, that he died from eating too much sugar, I thought, you must be joking! Look at him, his head’s nearly ripped clean off. But now, looking back, you know he did have a sweet tooth? He must’ve drunk a half-dozen colas a day for as long as I knew him. My doctor— later on I asked my doctor about it, because I drank my share of cola too, and he explained how the sugar eats away at the lining of the throat, and if this goes on long enough your head’ll just come right off and all your juices’ll spill all over the floor, just like Bob’s did. Well, I hardly have to tell you I haven’t touched a soft drink since 1963. Not even once.

On the Surface of the Sky

A damp, soggy, gray and sunless afternoon, typical for November. And on this typical day we find three friends, middle schoolers, killing time in their typical way, meandering down the train tracks and staying out of sight while they do things they’re afraid to be caught doing. In this case they’re smoking cigarettes. Joseph—everyone but his friends call him Joe—had snuck four cigarettes from his dad’s pack. Once he and the others were far enough down the tracks, Joseph would take one out of his pocket, light it, take a puff, and pass it to one of the others, like it was a joint. It would make its rounds while the three complained about school, teachers, parents, younger siblings— except for Virginia, who did have a younger brother but didn’t see him, and who didn’t live with her parents, but with an aunt and uncle. When the first cigarette was gone, they’d light the next and do the same with it. After two cigarettes, none of them would really want to smoke a third, but they’d all pressure each other into it. The fourth cigarette would be lit, but never would anyone take a drag off it; they’d take turns holding it for as long as they could stomach being so close to the smoke.

Things had been getting awkward between the three of them. Joseph could sense that something had changed, but couldn’t put his finger on it and didn’t want to bring it up. What he was noticing was that Virginia and Josh—the third one—had become boyfriend and girlfriend, but for the time being were keeping it secret. They talked on the phone for hours each night, sent each other pictures back and forth, exchanged meaningful looks around their friends, and sometimes they even went down the tracks, just the two of them.

They walked for a while and were far out of sight from anyone, but Joseph wasn’t yet comfortable. Josh grew impatient, but he didn’t say anything. But then, a miracle. It was Virginia who spotted it, a six-pack of beer, unopened and unsullied, lying in the gravel by the track. It was a great and wondrous find, but it also meant they’d have to go further still down the tracks. This six-pack could be a trap, Joseph argued, left by the cops to catch underage drinkers, or it could belong to a bum who was off in the brush taking a watery shit, or who knows what. Everyone agreed to go further down the tracks. Josh took up the responsibility of carrying the beer, which he wrapped in his coat to hide, and the three of them pressed on, abuzz with excitement.

They walked further down the tracks then they had ever before, and as they went the railway grew more and more poorly maintained, with broken and misaligned tracks, and trees encroaching on either side. The woods got thicker and darker and the path they followed, with the trees walling them in, got to feeling more like a cave. Virginia and Josh were getting afraid, and they were saying things like, “We have just as far to go back as we’ve come”, but Joseph was excited, and he wanted to go further and to see what was at the end of the line. It got to the point that they had to duck and weave to get through brambles laced across the tracks, and now Josh was even direct enough to shout—at Joseph, but plausibly at the thorns—“This is stupid!” But they all went through, and together they emerged into a clearing.

Here was a second, dreadful miracle. In the clearing was a Boeing 747, stood on its nose. Maybe it was touching the ground, or maybe it hovered an inch above it. Maybe it was resting on the tip of a blade of grass. In any event, there it stood, pointing straight up and down, motionless and without a sound. Josh and Virginia immediately ran away, Josh dropping his jacket as he fled, and the cans he was concealing in it burst open, spraying jets of beer. He and Virginia dashed through the brambles and got cuts all over, but they didn’t care. As they ran, they didn’t question if Joseph was running with them. They ran without stopping until they reached the place they’d found the beer. They stopped to catch their breath, and it was only then that they noticed Joseph was gone. “He must’ve run through the woods”, Josh said.

But unlike Josh and Virginia, Joseph didn’t run. He was transfixed by the sight, and couldn’t tear himself away. There were people inside the plane, and they didn’t all tumble down to the nose. They sat in their seats, and walked down the isle, just as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Their down was a different down than Joseph’s. He watched them through the windows, watched them killing time on their computers, or watching movies, or reading books. He watched them getting little drinks, making little trips to the bathroom, adjusting their light and their air. Joseph wondered where they were flying to, and he wondered what they saw through the windows, looking out instead of in. Then they all seemed startled, like there’d been a bump, and then another one. Turbulence, though, from the outside the plane was standing as still as ever. The turbulence got bad. The people got scared. Then all at once they shifted, like when a cook tosses some hash into the air from a skillet and catches it. But still, on the outside, the plane remained absolutely motionless. Joseph could see that their bodies had flown ten or twelve feet in a fraction of a second, and he could see them slam into the walls, ceiling, and floor of the cabin, and he knew that it was all terribly violent, but from outside it was so quiet and so still, so that it didn’t feel violent.

The wing nearest Joseph came off in a ball of fire and streaked upward, disappearing into the clouds. People came flying out with it, and followed. Some were on fire. Then, suddenly, the plane… the people… it was all rubble, bits and scraps and flaming chunks scattering and flying— or falling— or trailing into the sky. Then, nothing. Not a trace of the plane remained. It was strewn about up there somewhere.

Joseph took out one of his dad’s cigarettes, smoked it by himself, and threw up.

The Whole Point of the Cult

The whole point of the cult was to scratch together a little money, enough to stay afloat and give me the time to write, and then, hopefully, make a name for myself as a writer and, if I were lucky, get to a place where I could do it for a living. After that I’d tell my disciples that they’ve made it, that they didn’t need me anymore, that the faith was in their hands now. But almost from the start it took over my life, pushing everything else out. Now, even if I could find the time, I could never be a writer. The only people that would read anything I wrote would be my disciples, and to them it would be the infallible word of god. If anyone else even chanced upon my writing, the first thing they’d know about it is that it was written by that crazy cult leader they sort of recall hearing about once before. In either case, who wrote it overshadows what’s written.

You know, I never wanted a job. I never wanted to be employed, to be someone’s instrument, to be someone’s object. All I wanted was to carve out just a little space, a little time, where I could do what I pleased. Where I could write. That’s why I started the cult.

Pet

Mr. Paper had been running out of money for a few weeks. He tried to get more money, and he tried to stretch what he had, but now all the money was gone. The first morning Mr. Paper had no food for his pet cat, Marvin, he felt so badly about it he tried to share the toast and coffee that was his own breakfast. Cats don’t care for toast though, and they don’t drink coffee. That night Marvin ran away. Mr. Paper was sad about it—he liked having Marvin around—but he was also glad for the cat. He imagined Marvin being taken in by a kind, rich old lady that would love him and spoil him and feed him gizzards and fish heads.

Mr. Paper could get bread from the bread line, and he could swipe a bag of coffee from the grocery store every so often, and between the two he could get through the day, but he couldn’t pay rent like that. He came home from a long day looking for money and found his apartment key wouldn’t open the door. His landlord had kicked him out and sold all his things to cover a little of the rent Mr. Paper owed him. Mr. Paper could still get bread from the bread line, but without a pot he couldn’t make coffee, and now when he was stuck out in the cold and could use it most.

One night, the smell of bacon wafted into Mr. Paper’s dreams as he slept uncomfortably on a park bench, and the smell stimulated in him visions of Christmas mornings like when he was a little boy. A sharp sound startled him awake, and the dreams fled, leaving behind them no memories. Mr. Paper shot up, expecting to find a cop or someone trying to rob him. Instead there was a cat, a couple yards away, sitting under a streetlamp. The cat sat placidly for a few beats as Mr. Paper met his gaze. Then the cat meowed, an urgent meow, and Mr. Paper recognized the voice— it was Marvin! He got up and approached the cat excitedly. They met in the middle and exchanged affections, Mr. Paper stroking Marvin and Marvin snaking around his feet, but then Marvin suddenly broke off and trotted back to his spot under the streetlamp. Mr. Paper followed.

He found a dinner plate sitting under the streetlamp holding two slices of toast, one buttered and one with raspberry jam; two fried eggs; and five pieces of pepper bacon, thickly sliced. Next to the plate was a mug of hot coffee with sugar and cream, steam billowing from it into the cold night air in great curls. He pounced on the food— more food than he’d seen at one time in weeks. He offered the bacon fat to Marvin, but Marvin wasn’t interested.

Once the plate had been cleaned, and the mug had been emptied, Mr. Paper sat cross-legged under the streetlamp a while, with Marvin curled up in his lap, purring happily. But again, after a while of that, Marvin darted off, trotting a few feet away and looking back at Mr. Paper, beckoning him. Again, Mr. Paper followed. They walked a long time. Eventually Marvin led him to a nice looking apartment building in a nice looking part of town. The doorman let Marvin in— Mr. Paper blew in with the wind. They took the elevator to the eleventh floor, and Marvin let Mr. Paper into a nice looking two bedroom apartment, with central heating and air, and HBO, and good internet service— Mr. Paper’s new home.

From then on Mr. Paper had it easy. He’d wake up Marvin in the morning when he was ready for breakfast. Marvin would feed him before going to work. Mr. Paper would hang out at the apartment during the day, napping and watching TV and internetting. Then, in the evening, Marvin would get home from work and make him dinner and chill on the couch, curled up in Mr. Paper’s lap and purring happily until finally turning in for the night. Then Mr. Paper would sneak out of the house to roam the streets, fool around with women, get into fights with men… but he’d always come back in the morning, hungry for his breakfast.

The It

If you see it, you’ll always see it. You’ll try to ignore it, knowing as you do how much easier it is to get along if you don’t see it, but ignoring is seeing, and it will be so much harder to get along.

My Shoes

My shoes have holes in them, one in each, where the calluses on the balls of my feet wear on my soles. They still look pretty nice though, and they’re comfortable, as long as it isn’t wet outside. I plan on keeping them. I hate shopping for shoes. I hate that someone can pry money out of me just because I have feet. It’s like my feet don’t belong to me, like I’m just renting them from Vans. And it takes forever to pick a pair, and they never feel as good as my old pair, and they always look too crisp—not till after a few weeks do new shoes start to look normal—and the whole time I’m picking them, I’m thinking, “What’s wrong with the ones I’ve got on now?”, and it’s a good question.

So I’ve decided not to buy shoes anymore. I’m going to wear these ones out. I’m going to beat the ever-loving shit out of them. I’ll patch the holes in their soles, and the next ones, and the ones after those. If they rip, or if they pop a seam, I’ll mend them. By the time I’m through with my shoes, there won’t be a single original stitch of canvas or scrap of rubber left in them, all that’ll have been turned over forty, fifty times. I’m going to put a half billion steps on these shoes. They’ll be nothing when I’m done with them, unrecognizable. I’m going to exhaust my shoes completely. I have to. They’re the only shoes I’m ever going to have.

Novice Wizard

Harry Potter’s a lie. Magic doesn’t require wands, and there aren’t different sorts of magic, and it doesn’t have any rules. Magic is simply commanding reality, saying the sky is red, and then it’s red, or that the river is ice, and then it’s ice, or that the young woman manning the tacky little hat shop is an old woman, and then she’s an old woman. It’s as simple as that, if you have magic, and impossible of you don’t.

Here we have a novice wizard. “Don’t lock the door”, his dad had said, because his dad didn’t have the key to get back in. But our novice wizard saw in this an opportunity to develop his magic, so he locked the door and shut it. If his magic was strong enough he would just tell the door to open, and the door would be open.

His magic wasn’t strong enough. Now his dad was angry with him. It was hot outside, and boring, and they were already late for lunch before they got locked out of the house. But these are small things. If our wizard is ever to develop his magic, then he has to lock doors that he has no key to, over and over again, until he finds his magic. And if he never does, then he’s found that he lacks magic, which is almost as good, for it’s a much better thing to find by trying that you have no magic than it is to never find—by never trying—that you do.