Category: The Brain… It Bleeds!

(No one ever picks the blue one.)

The aardvark snored on the settee.

It was pretty cute. Which was unexpected.

The axolotl rested fitfully in the spittoon. Poor thing.

The tarsier closed (thankfully!) its intense eyes and leaned casually against the pianoforte.

Sleep (or a close approximation) was the word of the hour.

It was naptime.

(Hey! Why not make a shake out of it? It’s savory and delicious!)

“I ain’t gonna lie: that’s the best sock I’ve ever seen.” That’s what Yuri “Twist-a-Fist” Jamison said, anyhow.

“This one?” I said, holding out my right foot, Hokey Pokey-style.

“Twist-a-Fist” snorted. “Nah, that one blows.”

“This?” Holding out my left foot. “But… but they’re the same sock.” I stared down at my pink  with orange-polka-dotted socks. “They are pretty great.”

“They nothing! That one rocks”–pointing at the left sock–“and that one, argh! Makes me wanna claw my eyeballs out.” Yuri scowled.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “They look the same to me.”

“Yancey,” Yuri shook his head, “you’ve got a lot to learn. A lot to learn.”

I stared at my socks.

Yuri kept shaking his head.

“Socks,” I said.

“Shiiiiiit,” Yuri said. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, man.”

(No, the OTHER quagmire.)

Irina Yglesias Rigby Consuela Beauregarde (Iggy to her friends) eyed the ancient, marble courtyard closely. Nope, it was still there. She turned to the constable.

“Looks like it’s still here. I can’t fathom why you’re here?” said Iggy.

“Aye,” said the constable, that constable being Constable Grigori “Jackhammer” Pickens, renowned the county over for his mulberry and boysenberry hams, I mean, jams. But also hams. Maybe?

“Wait? You can’t fathom why you’re here either.” Iggy pulled an earlobe.

The constable pulled his beard, his own earlobe being lost in a cloud of hair. “Aye.”

They stood for a time, staring at the ancient blocks of stone. A bird sang.

Iggy sighed.

The constable hummed.

There was nothing to see there.

“Ayup. There’s nothing to see here,” the constable said.

Neither of them could remember where they needed to be.

(No, not a literal wire.)

Quick, quick! Type something funny or clever or at least not unsettlingly tedious before the kids start yelling again!

Nope, I got nothing.

And really it’s not so much a wire–I’m imagining a lit dynamite wire–as a sword just dangling over the head. How strong is that rope anyway? Who does the sword-rope maintenance? Who dusts the sword when it gets dusty? Is there a special sword dusting ladder? What do you dust a sword with, anyway? Or is it more of a special cloth rubbing thing?

OK, now I’m rethinking this sword thing.

It’s not so much a dangling sword as a fox/henhouse setup. Because, assuming it’s a decent rope, that swords gonna be up there for quite a while. Whereas once you set that fox in the henhouse, some certain inevitabilities are gonna play out. I mean, maybe the blood and feathers are worth the price of a few stolen moments? Maybe not? Also, you’d probably be wrong if you guess who was the fox and who was the henhouse…

Whoops! Time’s up!

(Where to start? Where to start?)

1. I have no cake.

2. If I did have cake, I would now have no cake.

3. If I did have cake, and still had cake, I would soon have no cake.

4. If I was gazing long-lastingly at cake, but couldn’t decide to get it.

5. If I was gazing long-lastingly at cake, but decided not to get it.

6. If I was gazing long-lastingly at cake, but decided to get it.

7. If I was gazing long-lastingly at cake, but decided to get it, only to find I had left my wallet at home.

8. If I was gazing long-lastingly at cake, but someone else was eating the last piece.

9. If I was gazing long-lastingly at cake, but it was only a picture.

10. I decide to bake a cake, but have no ingredients.

11. I decide to bake a cake, but am missing eggs.

12. I decide to bake a cake, but mix up baking powder and baking soda in my mind.

13. I decide to bake a cake, but accidentally burn it.

14. I eat some cake, but the frosting is terrible (with those sweet/bitter frosting flowers).

15. I eat some cake, and it’s the best cake I’ve ever eaten, and I know that I will never have cake that good ever again in my entire life.

16. I eat some cake, and it’s the best cake I’ve ever eaten, and I know that I will search my whole life long for cake to equal or better it.

17. I watch someone eating cake, and it’s the best cake they’ve ever eaten, and they tell me so.

18. I eat some cake: it is neither excellent nor terrible: a middling cake.

19. A monkey eats the cake.

20. A monkey throws the cake.

21. A small child eats all of the cake when no one is looking.

22. The small child’s parents look on approvingly as it eats all of the cake.

23. There are a lot of children eating cake.

24. Just recently, a lot of children ate cake, and now they are insufferable.

24b. But I am suffering them.

25. There is only One True Cake.

26. There is no One True Cake.

27. The cake is only a mirage in a desert of desserts.

28. The cake is made from spam/tuna/meat paste/anchovies/cardboard.

29. The cake is a prop.

30. The cake is a CGI cake.

31. The cake got rained out.

32. The cake is really a sandwich.

33. Only Members of the Club get to eat this cake.

33b. I am not a Member of the Club.

34. The cake is all Greek to me, whatever that means.

35. I was too sad to eat cake.

36. I was so happy I forgot to eat cake, and then felt sad.

37. The cake was actually a hat.

38. The cake was actually a hat, as described in the novel Madame Bovary.

It was one of those head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton night-cap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile’s face. Oval, stiffened with whalebone, it began with three round knobs; then came in succession lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin separated by a red band; after that a sort of bag that ended in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated braiding, from which hung, at the end of a long thin cord, small twisted gold threads in the manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its peak shone.

38a. I don’t know why Madame Bovary‘s hat reminded me of cake.

38b. It’s actually Charles Bovary’s hat; Madame Bovary doesn’t figure in, hatwise.

39. The cake tastes good, but there’s something indescribable missing from it.

40. The cake tastes good, but I know exactly what’s missing from it.

41. I’m still thinking about that not-a-cake hat.

42. The cake is actually a giant chair.

43. The cake is a hamburger and fries. I mean to say, it’s a cake made to look like a hamburger and fries.

44. I only have 33 items in my list of cake sadnesses.

(Which is, to say, silently.)

I thought there was something in my face, but it was only a spot of light, reflected off the mirror in the sky. Some satellites stir the sky green. Others comb the clouds for yellow. This one, the fiendish sky clown, has its sights set on me.

I can only wonder, as a bracing ennui sets in, and then I stop. Wondering that is. What’s the point? We’re all of us gazing tearfully at the sky, wondering when the moon will pickle or the birds come climbing down again.

I have no need for a bird ladder. And yet.

And yet.

No one I know, that’s who!

“There’s something to be said for impenetrability or, what’s the word, something to do with… you know? The thing.”

There was a time when I’d’ve happily gone on my way, just whistled on by, smiling in a daft kind of way, pretending that nothing was the matter. This time, though, this time! Oh, boy. You should’ve seen me not smiling at all, nope, I was almost just this side of scowling. Why, if I hadn’t had my sunglasses on, they would’ve seen me looking at them! Looking so that they knew that I might have seen them that one time doing the thing. You know, that thing?

“The one you mentioned the other day? When the, whatzit?, thingum cracked into the side of the”–AHCHOO–“What was I saying?”

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Exactly. EGG-ZACKLY. Like, ok, there’s the moon right? It’s up there in the sky. Sometimes it’s round, sometimes it’s like some mad smile, sometimes it’s just… what would you call that shape, anyway? Where it’s partly there and partly not? Something. It’s like that, you know?

“Now you’re talkin’ my language! You and I, like peas in a…”

You said it! Boy, no one gets me like you do.

“I know! It’s almost like we could finish each others–”

Scones!

The two high-fived, but it went off kind of awkwardly. On the third try, it was almost respectable.

Reginald Scarebrackets moaned thoughtfully upon receiving the belated Christmas card. “But it’s just now June,” he exclaimed, slicing the card open with his preternaturally lengthy thumbnail. “Gads!” A simply dreadful green panda bear clung whimsically to a cart and horse.

Reginald Scarebrackets placed the card carefully on his lime-green linoleum floor. He scampered off to the next room, only to return, breathing heavily, with tongs and a machete tucked into his cummerbund. Breathing through his nose (it whistled) he slow leaned forward, tongs outstretched, and attempted to grab the card with the unyielding metal fingers. Upon his 17th attempt: success!

Reginald Scarebrackets used the tongs to shove the card deeply into the roaring fireplace and then hacked the fire to bits with his startlingly sharp machete. He made himself some tea and had a quiet sob in his luxurious grey-green Winchester armchair.

“Christmas,” he said, then sat in silence for some time.

Sometimes there’s a sense that something’s not right.

A certain futility parked inside a growling sofa or recliner.

I’m not talking bedbugs.

Or am I?

Returning to the previous point, yes.

Inspired by a paving over of whatnot. All the whatnots really.

Can’t say there’s a point to it. Or can I?

Feel that sun just gambol in the brain. Raindrops tambour on the roof. The windows. All the cars in heaven.

There’s so much frustration in the world, sometimes, it’s hard to read a word.

There’s so much in the world, sometimes, it’s hard to think of writing.

Pishposh, the yeti’s in the marmalada. Can it be? Where else would this dancing monsoon come from? Who else would find the time?

Yes. Yeti yeti yeti.

“Bigfoot.”

(How is it doing that, anyway?)

Imagine that guy’s chagrin–Sisyphus, yeah, that’s it!–when the boulder just rolls up by itself, like he wandered inside some Mystery Spot. What’s he gonna do then, when his purpose goes rolling away? Does he even have any friends anymore? I imagine they got tired watching him roll that thing up the hill all the time, and then running after it, pell-mell, Jack-and-Jill-style. I mean, it’s tough getting a latte with someone who’s doing that all the time, you know? And would he even have time to drink it if it was to go’d? Imagine Sisyphus’ friend standing there, two cups of coffee in hand, just a little too hot, sipping one of them. And hell, after a while, just drinking the other one too. “See ya later, Sisy,” that friend would say. (Not the best nickname, sure, but what’re you gonna do?)

What I’m wondering, if that boulder just up and rolled up the hill, would Sisyphus run to the top of the hill and try to push it down the hill again? Or would he run off and get himself entangled in some other perpetual task, like emptying a river with a teacup, say, or stopping up the wind. Was it the task itself (i.e., boulder-rolling) or the quality of the task that engrossed him so (i.e., perpetual)?

Maybe he’d go sit and stare at some shadows on a wall or something. Or maybe he’d go try to win arguments on the internet, just saying.