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The breeze blowing her hair back rustles leaves across the lake, like tiny sail boats skimming. We possess the other. She in agony for release, tears running, her voice a ripple, in sobs the wind moans the words, “Come Home…home…. home..” Her fruit frozen on the branches, taken in wait, in need of ripening. Like magnets, so near, the pull is irresistible. I will return home finally, I will answer the call. The tunnel, swirling, opens to take me, I am near, almost… almost there…

Please God take me, take me now, please! Now!

My name is Jason. I am ‘it’. My Eirthday, the day I return to the Earth’s womb, was two days ago. I am long overdue. Hesitate any longer and I will not only kill myself, but my Mother Earth will die in labor as well. Now.. the nocturnal clock is ticking. I am running out of time. The hardest part is before me, I can not let them win. Nothing here exists.

I sigh in relief. Almost there. At last! My graduation is at hand! I will be returning home and soon the Happy Eirthday celebration will begin!

In my limited field of vision the shades, shape shifters, my shadows, circle closer. I do not need to see them to know they are there, I can feel their presence. Each wears a face of my own. The sterile one, face gleaming in lotion, his antiseptic smell surrounds the room. His mouth blooms in a cabbage hole, stretching out his cheeks in a smile, “Happy Eirthday!” he moans grinning, the smell of hospital comes out his holes.

However (time to boogie-woogie? No!!) soon I will be free of this prison of flesh, to oblivion and beyond, no doubt.

I forget my physical location. I have not been really paying attention to the outside. They turn me back on. I remember the strapping of me to this table. I suppose the surgery will begin soon. How much longer are they going to have me wait, I want to be born!

Just then, on cue, they send in a visitor, a man who wears his scratchy looking wool brown sweater like it was his hair grown from out his chest. He, very “hopeful” look, he asks me, like he is trying to bait a mouse with cheese, a very deep question. The trap is set.

“Do you know what level you are on?”

I open my eyes and sigh. Why won’t they just shut up and transplant me? These stupid questions, what are they out of their tree? A lesson in patience, I look at the caveman, remembering, play along; don’t kill the messenger.

He is wearing a brown wool mammoth sweater overtop his necktie. His face is pink and puffy with a balding spot on his head and, bearing a hesitant smile, he cradles the clipboard and pen a little too lovingly.

What level am I on? It must end soon! My turn as the broken joke must end soon! Am I even on the first level? Oh, this game of life is killing me!

The man snaps his pen back into his clipboard and turns to go.

“Zero” I say, my voice cracking from dehydration, “Level Zero”. The man stops and turns facing me.

“Oh? You’re talking now, good! Very good!” He says smugly, “What floor level are you on? The ground floor, the first floor, the second?” He spreads his hands out as if searching the air for an answer.

“The tree of Life is growing, On my family tree I was the highest, standing on the shoulders of my Father, but now my son is on my back. It is his turn to grow now.”

For a moment the tree sways and I feel the passing of the wind. I breathe it in and exhale it out, filling all, savoring each breath.

“What is your name?” the balding man asks, pushing his advance, taking the charade a step further. With his prime directive, he attacks my subconscious. I mustn’t let him break me.

He exposes his teeth with a smile that does not touch his eyes.

The Jason. The name they give to the one who is it. One of the magic spells, a power word, casting outside the laws of Nature. To pronounce it conjures up the image of the sun in my mind, the giant ball of energy that turns the power on, trapping me in this body, my illusion. They use my own mind’s energy to imprison my tree spirit in this vile bag of skin. Every time they utter the spell I enclose my true form in flesh.

I must change my label. I will no longer answer to ‘it’. Feeling shadows and darkness of night, I turn off the power switch and with a sly smile I announce to the man, speaker for the trees, I announce, “My Name is Fuck!”

“No, that is not your name.” The man says. I see sweat on his forehead as he forces a smile, now really solar beaming. He looks jittery and his face is turning red. I wonder if he is about to blow. He is rushing through his dialogue. What a second rate actor! Where did they dig him up? “Your real name is Jason.” He pauses for a cue, I sigh and give him the nod he seeks, and he continues, “Well Jason you are at the Hospital. Would you like us to remove a restraint? We can, you know, if you promise to behave.”

If I have to wait much longer I will go crazy. I sigh crying, before telling myself once more, be patient, play along. They must think my movie has great potential, with all of this time they are devoting in me. I will put up a good show for the audience. Before they dissect me I will scream a little, good, and squirm some too. Man what a relief to see home plate after so long. It feels good. I am coming home.

While being chopped up I will whistle the ‘bridge’ war song, I decide. That will give me a higher rating.

The man begins undoing a strap. He is preparing to sever my arm. Here we go, time to put up a good show. I cry silently. I am in fear of crossing over. I want to run and hide, but the more pain the better the show. It is only the body that will die, soon I will be free of these anchors, this tomb. I am a tree. Last stretch, I will go out in style. “Need a hand?” I ask breaking a grin. Where is his saw?

The man stops and looks at me shaking his head, “You had us all scared,” he says. I make a Godzilla face.

His clipboard, I can not get a good angle to see his script. I guess I will have to wait (oh hum a lum a hum). Wait until they chop me up and plant me in dozens of Eirthday graves, my seed to fertilize the soil. I catch a faint whisper of a wink from the brown sweater man, I nod. I will go along with it.

“Redrum! REDRUM!” I say in my most agonized voice.

Scrap me, it does not matter. The last leg of the journey is here. Relief washes over me. I am returning to my mother the Earth. Almost to myself I say, “Happy Eirthday.”

The man stops and turns, his brows deepening, “Yes it was Earthday just a few days ago. Let me call in the staff and see about letting you out of the Time Out (Was I in a Football game) room.”

“You got it coach!” Eirthday. The day you return to your Mother the Earth. The day you take root. I am long overdue.

Chapter 2 My Mind Is Executed

Oh sweet Einstein! This is it, soon a crowd of them will charge in with swords and axes and chop me to pieces. Maybe they will do a hungry Zombie scene? They are giving me some time to increase my nervous anticipation. I do not concentrate on that, I am free to wonder and think. But who will the next player be?

I have to pick someone. Faces float up to the well of my thoughts. Who? I juggle them; I can not pick! I will not wish this Hell on anyone. Pick someone, pick someone!

Each time we play we add more rules, harder it is to escape. Faces, voices, pleading for me not to pick them, in agony as I touch their wounds. Their crying pleads welling in pain. I feel their sadness and misery.

I am a Pine, the weed of trees. My Ol’ good friend Ol’ George Washington made the mistake of choosing power over humility. He chopped down his own Cherry tree. Ol’ Georgy was made 1^st President, player of the game! Divvying him up they trapped his soul in each coin, he’s been drawn and quartered, like heads stuck on a totem pole, he is a constant reminder of the severe consequences of this diversion, this entertainment for the trees. That will not be me!

Pick Someone? It will be the last face I think of. The one for us all to feed on. It is up to me.

Jingle- Jingle

The sound of keys clinking and the door unlocking saturates the lumpy painted green on green (spray of vegetarian vomit?) room.

A black man with an easy stride and an all too casual smile steps in front of me. His attire is more comfortable then the other. It must have taken so much detail into completing him.

“Do you know where you are?” he asks in a kind voice.

“Hell?”

Yes! And you made it all yourself! Each of us creates our own personal hell and it is of our own making!

“No, You are at the Hospital. How do you feel?”

I look at him, what a dumb question, is he using a confusion tactic? “With my hands.” I say.

The game show host in my mind tells me to spin the wheel.

Another voice, the black man’s, is this the message I am waiting for?, says, “We are going to give you a sedative. Just a little stick (What? Now they want me to fetch?) …. There!” sharp itch of pain. “You’ll feel drowsy but if you behave yourself you can come out. We will prepare a tray of food for you (My God! I can just imagine who’s intestine they are pulling out for my stuffed burrito. I feel nauseous).

Dizzy, spinning, the shot makes the train pull out, just out of reach. I need to board it, to return home, almost there when WHAM! Shot Down, down. I can not fight, I fall back. I am ‘it’ for another turn, I am their meat puppet. The Shades crawl back down from the shadows, mouths widening and smiling out their holes.

“Want mama to tuck you in, poor, poor baby?”

“Go back to sleep.” Giggling.

“This is just a dream, its not really happening.”

“But gee…. we will have to prostitute you again.. for our hospitality. .. yes go lay down right there, we’ll start calling them in.”

“… his face looks like rotting siroccos of the liver. Put the mask back on!”

“Tell McRonald its gone down to a .50 cent admission.”

“Don’t worry when you wake up, you won’t remember a thing!”

“Sweet Dreams!”

“You are still the Jason! You’re still IT!”

The whooly Mammoth sweater guy pops in and begins sketching on his clipboard nodding every so often, “Good! Good!” he says, as time stretches and dements, unraveling.

Flash of light. All is dark.

Across an open threshold, she lay just out of reach. Her presence, my missing Ms. Scarlet, the last clue in the game. It is me, in the woods, with the empty flower pot. She, my lighthouse, casts the shadows to guide me home. As I draw closer, her lips move in silence, starving. They cannot keep me from her. The maze turns its gaze inward as she unlaces the last silk tie. Craving, softly trembling for her touch, needing to surrender to what is lost, I, so close now, it is maddening. I cannot look at her, cannot turn to a pillar of salt.

Inside the small pocket of sweet and sappy nectar, beneath the garden gate it sounds- the call. In answer, around her nest of flowers, upon the bedding of pine straw, I reach for her. Only her shadow stretches out to me. I caress the darkness, the shade of her face, as it falls through my fingers.

Crack opens. Time leaves. “Are you Hungry?” Unfolding. Raising.

I hear the cloudy question, awakening to a man leering over me. I nod and whisper, “I’ll take my organ medium rare.”

Is he frowning? Do I upset (stomach) him? Never matter. I better let it drop, do not want to be in bad taste.

I frown again at him, our little code, to let him know I understand. He continues frowning at me as he unlocks the door behind and we step out the rubber (latex for protection?) room. Walking out the Egyptian slaves haul more giant stone blocks up the pyramid in my head. They pull on the ropes hard, pulling my lips up, and as they stretch it tight and taunt, I smile.

Chapter 3 Rays of Hope

Arriving in the wee hours of the night, the bellboy of the mentally insane leads me to my pad. There, my eyes check the invisible stagmatics of the room, warding off vampires, the pre-primordial ooze I must crawl into, casting doubt in the shadow where the ninjas play, the bellboy bids me go to the Day room and grab some grub. I acknowledge with a frown.

“The Day Room?” I repeat.

“Yes.”

“Where’s the Sun?”

The little drummer boy shrugs his shoulders and says, “It’s night time.”

I frown.

“It is early morning menu. Would you like some eggs?”

“Fertilized or Unfertilized?” I inquire.

The bell boy frowns then retreating says, “I’ll just bring you a tray.”

I sigh. I need Wonder Woman’s Magic Lasso, all the people ‘lying’ in their ‘bed’, once I acquire her Magic Lasso the truth will come out. I have certain questions I will ask them. Speaking of eggs, miracles of life containing the doorway to the Universe, am I a Sperm? If so, please aim be true, the Sun is my Egg. I must somehow figure a way to puncture it,

The galaxies play on and on going and going in never-ending circles. The sun, beaming down, has been slowly cooking me my whole life. I wonder if I am done.

They lead me to a bright colorful display of yellow walls and blue carpet, of shelves of nooks and books. The room contains three couches with blue and red chairs set in a circle and a round table inside. King Arthur’s Round Table?! I must be in Camelot! Am I a knight then? A Knight who can not fight?

Here, the lights are on but no one is home (artificial sun will you send me some rays of hope?)

Chapter 4 Everything in Life I learned from Eating Gobstoppers

My body is my Temple, but its worshipers have no faith.

What will become of me when they make me President? Just Who will I represent? Who’s gene pool am I dipping my roots into now? Know No Peace. No rest. I do not want to balance the budget! I can not be host to their parasitical hold.

The beautiful black man, fingers delicate, features in much detail, motions me to sit and smiling he says, “Now your going to taste some real food.”

I figure one of the exits to the “real” world is my mouth. The inside of my body is located outside of the Universe. But, how do you eat yourself?

Expecting to see a slippery organ, I nod. He places a covered tray in front of me and then lifts the lid. A small milk carton (Milk! Were they milking people in the back room?) an omelet (Oh Eggs-istentialism!) and two thick pancakes. What the Hell is this?

The red milk carton resembles a house. The omelet looks up at me, hello little embryo! I cry, my eggs! The more I stay the more they will force down my throat. Those Bastards! Pick Somebody, Pick Somebody! Nooooo! I will not!

The pancakes are round and stick well on a slippery mind.

I slowly open up the house and pour a little milk, crying, on the buttery pancakes, making a pool for the farmer and his children to play in; to dip their feet in or to go fishing. I have forgotten how to play with my food.

The black man, Thomas, comes over, “Not too hungry now are you? Yes, You’ll see the other’s in the morning.” then whistling he removes the tray and says, “Maybe then you’ll have more appetite.”

I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I hesitantly bring the milk carton to my lips and fake a sip, “Mmmm, you have good breasts!”

He looks at me for a moment, then as if seeing something familiar, he smiles and takes my tray away.

I remember, in my bag of clothes is a whole box of gobstoppers! Everything in life I had learnt from eating gobstoppers. They taste good, like forbidden foreign sugar, with their shell made of colorful layers on top of more layers. But you have to suck. I wonder how many more coatings I will have to go through to get to the end. How much longer must I suck?

I pray, let me feel the tenderness of the wood, let me rejoin and rejoice with my timber and twigs, let me transplant my roots and grow in the light of truth! My illusion as a mystery masked man is about up.

The bellhop leads me away downstream to my encampment of earth, the hole, my grave, the bed. Peering out the bared window into the perilous night I can see the tree line in the distance. My mirror then, the sky parting above, stars erupting in bright burning points, blinking in futile. I don’t understand their message. I do not know Morse Code.

I hear voices hiding beneath their source, the dripping faucet. It’s drum beat, mercilessly keeps me rowing. I am a stranger in my head. The voices keep rising louder and louder, I loose myself in them. I can not find which one is mine. Just too many, I can not escape, submerging into a crowd of drunken conversations, in a last gasp of oblivion I drown. The way home is lost, I lay buried in the graveyard. Don’t dig me up, I’m not dead.

Chapter 5 Disposable Slippers

Suddenly a ring(engaging?). A feel of friction of bodies rubbing closer, thick and thin against warm skin. In a dazy haze I awake. Slowly the Minotaur’s Maze is again inlaid on my brain, hesitantly the game show host goes back into the closet. I awake. A sleeping giant. I awake, vainly clutching to my dreams. No short goodbyes, voice’s imprints fading, body splitting, mind’s eye squinting, as my dreams recede back into my head.

Dream, a Tree growing in the middle of the interstate; I am on the road home!

Struggling out of bed I awake.

“Use the Force Luke!”

“My name is not Luke.”

“Just go with it kid, don’t ruin the show.”

I close my eyes, my eyesight lies, and walk to where I feel drawn, by tricking myself I will escape! Thud! I open my eyes instinctively, I hit the mirror mounted on the outside of the door. Flinching I recoil. Mirrors! They Lie! Mirrors! Organic Damage! Don’t look!

Too Late! My reflection traps itself in this same body. I am so weak! Why can’t I just keep my eyes closed?

They come for me, the mourning vampires, with their shots, their laughing eyes and hungry lips; will I be in their shoes before this is over?

They lead me to the Day Room once more. The staff of chipper illusions, a circle of chairs now. I look around the room. So these are the Finalists, the final players, the challengers I am pitted against. It has gone from a countless population of contestants to barely under half a dozen, this weeding out process. Now I know that these other projections are faces of the adjacent trees next to me, rooted in the same soil.

I now realize, just to end my turn here is not enough, not now, no its all or nothing, now I want to end the game- The world! If I can just blow up the planet, the game will end! I will push the button! Launch off all the ‘nukes’ and end this charade once and for all! A button. Where can I find the button? The group leader comes and sits down next to me. I smile. All I need is the phone, they have plenty of buttons there.

“Hi, my name is Kaly (Kaly what? Kaly-Flower?), why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves; Give your name and tell why we’re here. Let’s start with you George.”

“I am George. That’s all I have to say right now.” George, the red nosed person (Santa’s helper? Help himself to your beer), and with a short receding hairline and a face that floats to the top of the meatball tomato sauce, he blows his nose with his yellow short-sleeve shirt collar.

Two chairs down, in red’s hot seat, long blonde hair, sits a very attractive woman. She wears a crocked smile, a mischievous smirk that let you know that she knows the punch line already. She speaks, “Hi, my name is Sue, (Sue Who? Sue you for not knowing who!) and I am a nymphomaniac among other things,” looking dead puppy eyed right at me she lets me inside her warm smile. I know she is after my body’s water, looking to drain me. Mentally, I throw her a bone and rest my empty beer coaster in her lap, the oasis is wet with thirst. Let her chew on that.

There is Maggy, who has depression and eating disorders. Sarah with substance abuse she says as she keeps easing out of her chair like it’s on fire and she is bare bottomed. She’s fidgeting with her legs, crossing them and uncrossing them, (my thoughts return to the sun as I stare intently at her. The sun is being very sneaky, disguising itself in her body, I see through her fake mustache, but will I see the light?) while her eyes light up the darker side of death and she twirls her hair, playing with a curl.

Chak is from somewhere in South America, but for all intensive purposes really from Outer Space (out of sight out of mind- space for rent). Jack(in), seems like he has a lot to say, exercising his freedom of speech; a freedom that sticks, like fly paper and as creepy as he looks I know he must eat the flies, one leg at a time; his words spitter spattering against my windshield. He, himself, gorging on the fly’s bodies, juicy heads squishing as he bites into them, figuratively speaking of course. He rambles on until Califlower, having her fill and full, begins picking at the bones of her stuffed Moose head and then looks straight at me.

“What’s your name Jason?” she asks.

My mouth splits into a grin, nibbling at the cheesy bait, “Rennis,” I say, “Call me Rennis like Venice or two for Tennis, but with a Rrrrolling ‘r’”

Her smile rolls down her chin and into her lap. She frowns, “No, your name is Jason.”

“Happy Eirthday” I say.

“Jason, Earthday is over.”

“Then why am I here?” I ask.

“I hope we can help you find that out!” She says, recovering her beam, in a helpful determined hopeful way, “Now, who wants to be our group board writer?”

They pick me to feed the fish, and I am so happy, until I find out they are not piranhas. The one common bound bond(age) we all share now is what our feet wear; the pale green disposable slippers with the smiley face over our toes, for easy access and cheap soles. Strangely comfortable. When it comes time for me to pick a goal, I say, “Use the phone.”

I quit smoking a while back, yet now I know that if I am to stay here, I need to be chained to something. I do not wish to float away, and physical addiction is gravity for the soul. The fallen angels, a crowd of us, dark cloud hanging above, trudge outside.

The smoker’s lounge is a little screened off porch a short screaming lung away. By the entrance is an electric lighter that you stick your cigarette on. You push a button and inhale. It is like a car lighter. The smoker’s lounge is the sanitary inner sanctum’s golf course of the business world. As I push the button the first nuke flies out my pants and into the arms of America.

Chapter 6 Infinity = 1

The ritual. A very familiar kiss, the tongue mitt, a mold we suckle, a crevice to lick, a need we fulfill by blowing out our fairytails with golden filters and inhaling our charcoal soul. Yet with lips of liquid motion, a feminine feline mix of strong lip spokesmen that kiss their hideousness, the diplomats, with something much like the borrowed breasts on Frankenstein’s bride’s chest, dip their candles in. Dripping with wax to light her wick, they press tight against the shower door, clean but feeling even more dirty. To love the way her hips dip, as the weapons of temptation sings, so sweet, the taste of her, between, a place we reserve in many ways for objects of affection.

Yet, here I am again, sucking in smoke signals within an alien jungle, smoking my cigarettes. Now, once more chained, an injun brave to the tribe that enslaves itself to my new sanctuary, the outside porch, where I mesh and entwine in time with the screened patio. With friendly intercourse, the words spoke here stick like honey to the bees. Here is where the world’s rulers joust. Here I make love to the world. Here the diplomats come to haggle. Here any mental aliment can be thought, bought, refined, and sold. Here in the smoker’s lounge, the chairs all wear white plastic with low backs.

I sit in one next to the silver cylinder ashtray and as I take a drag-on my smoke, I let my eyes roll over the billiard table to where Sue, legs crossed, and cheeks blush, sucks on her cigarette. “Rennis” she says, almost in a purr; a slow grin spreading across her face as she satisfies her wide eyes and draws her lips slowly apart.

I have forgotten my new name and at first do not acknowledge her smile but I can see her question blooming in the wishing well and so I say, “I fear I am losing.”

“Your mind?” she asks, really smiling now. She brings her feet out of her happy green slippers and with her pamper shade of toenail polish her toes flirt with the floor.

“I fear my mind is ruled by imaginary madmen,” I acknowledge.

Humorless gravitation pull at the corners of her mouth before centering. She blows her smoke in a spiral upwards, “My goal is…” she draws in a breath “to make my bed,” her lips wrinkle with her smile deepening, “but I need some..” she winks, “….help.”

“Goal!” I suddenly remember, “is it too hard to obtain? Will I score a point?”

She laughs, “Sometimes hard is good, but … I’m easy.” she says with a mischievous wink.

I cup my cigarette into the ashtray retainer and get up. “Then to the phone I go!” I announce.

I wallow like a chicken in a pond of noodle soup and enter the day room. The pillows grow mutating out of the mismatch color clashing couches. I pass the Ping-Pong table next to the drink and candy machines. With super reflexes I cross the eye weaving ways of the industrial carpet, without getting lost in the pattern, when I suddenly stop, “Maybe I can make a call to the dead, just to hear their thoughts on death before I nuke the planet?” But then a life changing thought occurs to me. I think, Why stop there? I am in desperate need of salvation. I will call up God!

In the short hall I hit my first road block. Sarah is teary eyed, on the phone. I stand a little ways off and wait.

Sarah, I figure, catching the tail end of her conversation, Sarah must moonlight as a 900 Phone Sex Operator. She is moaning in a very literal fashion. Her mouth surrounds the bottom half of the receiver. She is crying on the phone and taking way too long for any normal phone call.

I feel like a warden in jail as I tap her on the shoulder and say, “Sarah, You’re needed elsewhere and I have to make a very important call,” she looks puzzled and upset so I add, “Tell him your sheep costume is too tight.”

“What?”

“I’ll make it up,” I promise.

Her red eyes screw in the pressure points to her temple as she unravels at the seams, but grudgingly says “Hold on a minute,” and then sniffling casts out her goodbye and hangs up the phone.

The phone is back in its black and silver hold. I pull the receiver off its handle and stare at the buttons. Which should I press? I need help. I need something. I push the 0 for Operator. “If you would like to make a collect call,” a woman’s voice answers “Yes” I say jittery, but I fear the price, “and you know the number enter it now otherwise please wait,” I wait.

“Hello How may I help you?” A cheery female voice rings out.

“Put me through to God” I say.
For awhile there is only silence, “God as in a church? Or God as a name? Do you have a number sir?”

“The number is infinity,” I say, “Never ending like the Universe, yet (click) if the Universe is infinite then infinity = 1 for it is still one Universe.” I push the one. “God,” I say, “I need your help.”

“If you would like to make a complete call please enter 25 cents” says the voice of God. I puzzle over that. Good ol’ Georgy is on the Quarter. Quickly I remember my Mythology. Perhaps I need to take the Mythological Gay Ferry ride across the River of Death, Styx. The fairyman’s fee is a coin to cross over to the Underworld. He is all dark robes and bone (Please watch where your pointing that, someone could lose an eye). The Delaware River is close, the one George Washington crossed in his own battle with the whole collect call to God thing. A wandering thought comes from nowhere, you know with a wig and a face job I can look just like George! What a freaky coincidence that I just ‘happen’ to have a copy of Ol’ George’s face within reach! How convenient I can use a quarter or one dollar bill as model to look just like him!

I talk into the phone, aware that with great power comes great responsibility. I have control over their blank, fresh minds. How to let them know, our pilgrimage to the stoned hedge is coming to an end. Aware of my words and the rebound effect, I blurt into the phone, “I love You!” I can say no more.

I feel uneasy and need something to calm my nerves. I am aware of the Dead Enforcement Agency (DEA) holding their hearing in my bathroom, trying to get clean. I need a drink from one of the soap bars. They have my goat, caught on the wire. I can never let my guard down. Sometimes to say too much can be dangerous. Some common rules of play are:

never let on to how much you know

what? I don’t know

Knowing they are listening to my prayers though, I again plead into the phone receiver, “Nuke ME!” then hang up.

I look around one last time and kiss the sky (goodbye) when I notice Sarah is staring at me intensely. “Are all of your ‘important calls’ so quick and lame?” she asks coldly.

“Physically perhaps, but spiritually infinite.” I say then “Infinity = 1”.

She comes over. I stand my ground

“What? Asswipe, better move!” She aims her boot at me.

“I am calling 911 telepathically!” I warn, but give up control of the phone anyway.

I begin my quest for the Quarter. Maybe I will become President again. Anyway, might as well!

Sifting through the waste basket in Camelot, I find two perfectly good glad sandwich bags (I’m so glad!) some idiot disposed of. The fool discarded them along with the crusty remains of a sandwich, mayonnaise and leafy vegetables. I quickly pocket them. Their loss my gain!

I can use one to suffocate myself, and perhaps the other one for my lunch or something.

A thought strikes me, Should I suffocate myself with a transparent bag or one I couldn’t see out of? Would I be running around my afterlife with a dark bag over my head, or perhaps, maybe I am already wearing a black trash bag and do not know it. What did life really look like? If all was an illusion, how could I see the truth? Is there a whole another sense I’ve never experienced?

I decide not to kill myself yet until I get a better handle on the whole death thing. It is just too confusing. Here in Limbo, (how low could I go?) Between bodies, I feel the floating net of stars come to catch me.

But… am I meddling with forces I can never control? SuperForces? Of SuperHeros? Is there order in the Universe? Out of Order comes Chaos? Out of Order comes Truth and Love? Or is my Life just Out of Order?

Chapter 7 Cheer Up Sarah and Do the Wash

Kaliflower finds me in an Indian reservoir. I am in the bathroom and after my morning Tea-Pee (really coffee) urgency subsides I step out. She pulls me aside and draws her arms to her hips with a crayon. “Arts and Crafts at 1 o’clock Jason,” she says, “why don’t you do a wash and join us?”

Arts and crafts? Does that mean… “Witch Craft?” I ask.

Frowning, “No Jason, well.. little hobbies, fun meditation and building skills. Arts, like drawing or painting and..”

“Nevermind that,” I say with a corny wink, “When using your Magic, What spells work?”

Her mouth twitches.

“Give up? W-O-R-K! Get it?”

Good, good, tell them what they want to hear, occupy their mind, divert their attention, that will leave me time to root. I will save the Knock-Knock joke as a last resort.

“Ahh.. Yes Jason. Ok now follow me.”

“What did the Lesbian Witch eat at the Beach?” I ask.

She frowns. “I do not know Jason.”

“A SandWitch! Get it? When’s lunch? wait… I have reservations - in an Indian restaurant uptown!”

With a tilt of her head she looks at me again, frown deepening, as her shapely body lowers the gangplank and lets off the dessert heat. Friction of turtle neck hips and rosy lips mouthing her Custard’s Last Stand, her body stretches like she is a snake squeezing out an egg-sack.

“The washer and dryer are down the hall, here get your clothes and follow me.”

Is this my chance to clean slate? I go in my room and gather all of my beaver skins (pelt me?).

“Jason, do you know where you are?” Kali asks, making conversation I suppose. Her eyes float up the walls as her long silky spider legs open and spray the ceiling vents with her web fluid. I grin self-consciously, “Why I am right here. I did pass Kindergarten you know.”

She spins a piercing look, stabbing me with her green eyes before her lip’s puppet strings are tugged up and she grins, “I know Jason” she says, unburdened. I assume she needed to get that off her chest.

“Tell me about your Mother.” I ask. (good good! sidestep ahead one move, dodge duck goose!) I use my hypnotic eye on her, picturing in my mind a swirling hurricane. Her beat, her beaten eggs for the Eirthday Cake. She sways to the beat.

“I think you will enjoy the Art Room. It can be very relaxing, here this leads to the washer’s closet. Come here with staff anytime.”

“A date?” I ask.

Eyes straining the noodles, an uncomfortable silence envelop us. Her steps, long strides, reach out and gobble up the carpet. She leads me further. We walk pass the watering (fountain) hole and through the door I can not pass until I earn the jingle-jingle of my key. Opening the door, I am greeted by the washer and dryer, an oasis of clean in an Earth that is so full of dirt.

“Want a Hand?” she asks.

I shudder, feeling sick. “Your… hand? Please, don’t.. I don’t think I am ready for that yet.”

Silence. Her face drains of color.

“Oh!” I grasp onto, “You meant my hand in marriage?” momentarily off guard and feeling flush in my cheeks, “but we barely know each other… but… but…. Yes! I will! I do!”

Silence.

“Well, speechless aye? It’s a dirty job you know, but somebody’s got to do it.”

“What?” her pasty face bull burst in the (wedding)ring.

“The Laundry that is! Get it? Dirty Job? Laundry?” HAH! Let her anal eyes look at that.

She sighs and frowns again. With an explanation of how to work the washer, she leaves me alone “It’s all yours!” (ALL MINE!) she says. She steps out for a second, helping one of the staff who needs her attention.

I work the washer’s dials eagerly yet with great respect. I have figured out my whole problem. My life, the answer to everything is right HERE in front of ME!

I need to wash my brain! Eagerly I set the washer to the setting of normal, There!

Then I see it. There up on the shelf. A blue box with a splash of Color. There on the shelf is a whole box of Cheer.

It is the powder kind, the good stuff. I carefully open the box and dip my pinky into it. Sniffing, smells very cheerful, alluring, and inviting.

The white with blue specs sift through my hands. Must be 5 kilos of it. Clothes forgotten I cradle the box as I would a newborn child.

I walk back to my room, sprinkling Cheer along the way. I feel like Saint Nick spreading Cheer wherever I go.

Being a tree I pick the room with the most stimuli but less space. I am in the John, my throne room. With the plastic scoop I measure out a share for the house, dropping it in the toilet, then down to business, TCB baby, Taking Care of Business!

I take out one of the glad (how much more happiness can I handle?) bags and measure out a few grams of Cheer filling it half full. I go back out to my room. Sure no one is looking, I push the cheer box under my bed.

I know who to give my baggie to, sweetly suffering Sarah.

I find her sitting at the Round Table, like a tree stump, she sniffles as I approach. I smile then, nonchalantly, drop the baggie in front of her, “Here Sarah, this ought to Cheer you Up.” I say with a nod.

“What? What the hell is this!?” Her eyelids blow back the curtains opening up to the flames of Hell. She looks murderous. She looks ravenous.

Acting cool, I say, “Don’t worry, there is plenty more where that came from!” I wink and walk away.

She follows me to the fish tank.

The fish, is one me in the underwater sea - perhaps on another level? Are they aware that they’re fish? Perhaps a movie camera is behind their eyes, filming me, to play back my most embarrassing moments for my movie when I die. Eirthday, the voices cry and I remember why I came. Staring at the fish swimming, it becomes clear; once I find out which fish is me, I will have to eat it.

I think I am the small purple one, it keeps bobbing up as if to escape, but then it goes by the treasure chest. Sell out! Next to the fish tank sits the Coffee Maker. They only have decaf (faced level decaf). I pour myself a Styrofoam mug of the witches’ brew.

“Hey jerk off! I don’t need your fucking soap suds!” Sarah spits out venomously.

“Wanna do some clothes lines?” I ask.

She shakes with emotion. I frown. Then like a storm passing, she smiles and says “That was so lame, dumb ass,” and gives me an unexpected hug. I feel the warmth of her rosy body and her embrace. Her bark is smooth and soft to the touch.

“We could do a wash together,” I offer. I feel somehow awkward, sudden realization, I a man, she a woman, it is only natural. I want to acknowledge in a caring way, she a woman, and I a man, I feel obligated to not give her a complete complex and traumatize the poor girl. “Maybe, uh…. Our scents will mix?”

“Not on your life, ass face!”, she says and hands me back the bag of cheer, then looking distracted but in a curt cute way she turns and strolls. Looking at the fish again, tranquility absorbs me. The fish look depressed, I sprinkle some Cheer into the tank.

As the day wears (trousers?) on the staff (and rod) goes through various rotations evolving and changing until perched on the edge of the blue carpet near Hell’s smoked sausage hut we all sit with Dr. Sunny.

Dr. Sunny looks like he understands insanity. Glasses resting above his thick, overgrown beard with curly gray and black hair resembling a bird’s nest. He has all the look of a mad street lunatic. Probing deep he ignites the fire burning in my blood, yet it is from the shadows of their ashes that peace is born. A phoenix, born from flame, no wait… that just sounds crazy. What am I thinking? Maybe I should lay off the decaf.

“My inner child needs to be pacified or is it purified?” I ask again and in the small circle of chairs, my collective mind plays tag with Sarah, Maggy, Chak, Sue, and Jack. I steer in the dark, lost in a playground at the Nuclear plant, lost in the petting zoo at the Big and Beefy Queen Burger joint. I can feel myself afloat among a virtual ocean of hearty sea and love with the challenge of delicate perils at every turn. Mad ravenous, scurvy to ever sail the seven c’s. (Compassion? Courtesy? Contempt?).

“I am not wearing a bra today.” Says Sue her verdict on the case open to the court.

“How does that make you feel?”

“Wanna find out?” she smiles.

I say, “I always wanted to sail a pirate ship.”

“Oh? That’s nice.” Says Dr. Sunny.

The sea spans in all directions, my compass goes haywire; I latch on to the coarse ship’s armrest. Sue laughs, “How well do you sail? Captain can I come in your ship,” a naughty smirk, “or visa versa?

“Well Slu” I say, she frowns before her dimples pop, “It’s a space ship.”

“Can I have some aspirin or some Drugs?” asks Sarah, fidgeting two chairs over.

“We eat yes?” announces Chak, “Big fork fulls, Yes?”

Jack talks awhile about how he hates his job until Dr. Sunny, interrupting him, announces, “It’s time for lunch.”

Chak pats Maggy on the back, “You eat yes? Then vomit?”

“Who will we be eating today?” I inquire.

“Jason,” says Dr. Sunny, “I do not think you are ready for the cafeteria just yet, we will bring you back a tray. Group, let’s go.”

They give me forms to fill out, a true or false questionnaire, and I set to my task before remembering anything could be true, and throw it away. Illusions become real once thought and seen. Reality? There is no such thing. Nurse Shrub(ery?) pushes a cart into the room and hands me a tiny cup with two pills in it, “Bottom’s Up” she says pouring a cocktail.

“Cheers”, I swallow the drugs and when she asks, stick my tongue at her.

I drink my misery away, with water, the most pallet pleasing screaming-ly good liquid life ever found. I switch up to fruit juices as Nurse Shrub bends over my tray and lifts up the cover, Spaghetti!

Chapter 8 She complied

Soul drifting, I equip myself with a six pack of cheap imaginary beer on exploration for intelligent life, and those penguins make such cruel masters. An igloo for rent, an Eskimo bending over the South Pole, my Shades quietly creep down the walls. The hairy one, primate, jumps shaking his waist “Pickle!” His long lips rattling and flapping, “Your in their Jar!”

I nod and watch the wheels turn on the medicine cart as it goes creeping. Such is my escape.

Most everyone is still at lunch or else invisible. I light a camel (hump my back?) up and enter the smoker’s lounge, studying the empty chairs and ashtrays full of butts. I go to work on deciphering some meaning from the randomness feelings and pangs close to home.

Sue slips in the screen door right behind me. “I’m not really that hungry,” she says, “But I do have quite an unquenchable appetite of desire,” she slides her hands down her sides, “How about you?”

“I am thirsty,” I admit.

“Can I help quench your thirst?”

“Um yeah…. Hmmmmmm… You’re a Girl.”

“Yeah,” she purs.

“and Girl’s can make milk?” I state, “Right?”

“What, You want to milk me or something?” Her dagger teeth open and mouth wide grinning.

“Can you make me a milk shake?” I ask curiously, making small talk.

She makes half a grin and frown as if unsure of the outcome but then she brightens up and squints as if the sun is in her eyes, “Well… wanna find out? Come here. You, wanna have dessert with that spaghetti?”

“I already had an oatmeal raisin cookie.” I say, then I take a deep drag and practice my breath control. Waiting for Sue to judge and gauge my lung power, to give me a primeval measuring stick and evaluate my technique and the performance of my long inhale.

“What do you give me?” I asked, “An 8?”

“What? An ate? Eat what? me?” she asks fornicating confusion.

“Strong lungs, huh Slu?” I throw the bone at her in spite of her wrongful entry and poor judgment, I rate her facial expression and lack of synchronized cigarette smoking a 5.

“What?” she asks.

“You don’t mind if I close my eyes and talk do you? If it’s all the same I would rather just sit this one out.”

“Like a blindfold?” her voice plunges off the roof of her tongue.

“Right now I picture you in pink bunny pajamies” I remark with my eyes close, “Hiding your eggs” I have to add.

Her giggle grows horns and attacks.

“Sue,” I ask, “when you first arrived here were you a man?”

Giggles die of dehydration just short of the well.

“What?!” she exclaims, fiercely with force(be with You?)full coercions and fraternizations on unequal fishing wells, I crack an eye and look at her. What has changed? Does she have more body hair? Now that my perception has exposed her reality as an exponent, a figment of my own mind; has my precise perceptions of her changed her physically? With great power comes great responsibility, I decide to choose my words more carefully.

She wears the chains of her addiction shackled to her neck, ankles and wrist.

“We can not rest until we fill the well,” I state then, “Now this is why my eyes are closed. Who else occupies these ‘empty’ chairs?”

“Look Rennis, I do not understand you. Really, I would love to help.”

“Then give me your butt,” I say.

She giggles closer, her smoking breath all about me, parting around my face. Her heated hearth of perfume and endorphins surround me in a moment of Spring. “What right here? Right now?”

“Your cigarette butt! Give it to me!” I open my eyes.

Gasping, “Here,” she complies, “But why?” pur(oh no not the)ring.

I put her cigarette butt in my mouth, she gasps, and swallow it.

“Because my butt doesn’t do the job. It doesn’t work so it must be defective,” I say and get up.

“Strange, different, but maybe…. Good… maybe” She says as sparkles pour out her eyes and her smile cements firmly.

“Besides,” I say, “my butt is cracked in half, it’s broke,” Then I get up and go out the door.

Chapter 9 Tune in (Car Tune?) and Turn on (Oh Baby!)

The TV is on in the dayroom, cartoons. Bugs Bunny in the Loony Toons is eating a carrot. Even though I have seen this one a dozen times I sit down to watch, “closer” say the voices, I squinch closer.

“What’s Up Doc?” Says Bugs.

Dr. Sunny is releasing caged laughter in a deep discussion with Kaliflower. I have to wonder what Drugs they must give the Doctors, the thought junkies, feeding on other’s mental emotions and delusions. They are the parasites of the mindless.

“Closer” say the voices. I scooch up more.

Suddenly I know the exit is near. Nurse Shrub, a few hysterically drug induced limited laughs away, is giggling with (at) Sue. I am caught in a spider web, searching desperately for an escape, I scramble forward, the TV just inches away.

“Bugs!” I shout.

“What?”

“What Bugs?”

A commercial for choosy moms comes on and I, searching my feelings, I know it true, Bugs has abandoned me a for peanut butter jar. I can not blame him. I want to let him know, I understand sandwich limitations. I cry out in a moment of self realization, “I Love You Bugs!”

Then I realize, I found it! Suddenly it all makes sense. The Why. Why I was never allowed to sit too close to the Television Set? Because I will fall in? Because I might escape? The TV exit has a thin membrane covering the TV screen that if I can puncture through it I can journey to the real world. It is a portal, an opening, a mouth I have but to push through to enter the salivating lips of salvation, the vagina I must pop out of. At long last here is my time to escape!

The chances of commercials are so random, but there is a pattern. Which pathway to take me through the holey strainer, which star (is born) to shoot myself with. Which show do I want to enter? Perhaps I should start my Hollywood Star career with a commercial till I learn the ropes? I need to practice. Afterall, my main squeeze is Charming Toilet Paper. It is so soft and squeezably clean and also so refreshing, but so many of my kind butchered for it, if we could just recycle it we’d save some trees.

As consumers, we attack our belief’s with razor sharp teeth. We Barbecue our own bones till the nerve of some people’s disturbing fantasies gets under our dry, itchy, and irritable skin. To see the human spirit selling almost butter and heartburn relief, to see yourself in it is to see the raven fly out the eye. I must Tune in (Car Tune) and Turn on (Oh Baby!) the power of the boob tube.

The staff knows I am on to them as I shoot a helping of defiant looks around. I stand up, backing away. They are still playing their roles, in make believe fantasyland. They are on the safari of the cockroach with “I don’t see any bugs here. How about you?” and they are closing in, “Bugs!” I yell again. As he appears. He is waiting on me.

They tighten my noose closer, I rise to ram, and charge the TV head on. The exit!

Small flight and dive then, “BAM!” shot of pain, I knew there would be, pain is a sign of growth. On the floor, I topple over the TV. Rising I look around my new cartoon world.

Seems the same, “Yabba Dabba?” I question. They all applaud and cheer me on. People in the crowd are calling my name, almost commercial time. Can I sponsor a woman’s feminine product? I am ready, just like the always thick and delicious Ragu Spaghetti Sauce. Spaghetti is just plain noodles without it!

The TV has shot off the table, Dr. Sunny is now yelling, dropping bombs all around. I, adjusting to my new cartoon body, trip and topple over the couch. The orderlies rush in to take me away for my screening.

“Take 5!” I say, it’s commercial time. I decide to sponsor Aussi Hair Shampoo and Conditioner. My head could use a good conditioning.

Blinded by fame, I turn to the camera, the fish smile at me. I pose by the fish tank, camera rolling, and say, “Frankly Scarlet, I don’t give a damn!” I have finally broken into showbiz! The orderlies come to take me back to my dressing room but not before my duet, “Twinkle, twinkle and tinkle, little… star,” I sing with shimmering hand movements and my own take on the old classic. They grab and escort me to the operating table for my screening. I feel a little like Frankenstein. If I am already dead, when will I be planted?

In the darkness, my shades, my acute reflections of affliction, drift down from the edge of my sight. One, a face full of veins pumping, moves. Its purple blotches begin to inflate and pop, it talks through a filter of pudding, “Wanna be a star so bad baby face?” its liquid voice sputters. I begin to cry. Why am I so wrong? “Star? We’ll make you a star!” says the shade with the fake green felt touch, flaky-sandpaper skin used for miniature train sets, I never liked the feel of it. Now it tortures with hands of cotton swabs. Why is the exit so hard to find? “Be a star? Yes.. We’ll puncture you full of holes and ram a light-bulb up your ass to hang in the night.” I think, therefore I am, I thought for you, what? Don’t think about me. Who am I? “I want to eat you” we say.

I don’t know who you are.

“Lick my candy ass!” the voice from the other (dark) side, the bottom of the cushioned operating table says.

“Death?” I asked cautiously.

Then I remember. The bondsman bailed me out of jail. I’m bound to whoever bought my contract. Strapped down on the operating table I realize I am not alone. I can feel someone below me on the dark side of the table. I can feel my bride. She bought me with a wedding bond, the dark hideous ghoul beneath the table is attaching itself to me, to feed. Now I realize why men get married, they are coerced under torture, they are beat down and trapped, just bags of sloppy joes. She makes suckling sounds underneath me.

I won’t be silent any longer, I won’t hide in fear, yet how we fall in our roles, comfort holes.

“Do I look fat?” she asks.

I tremble, I now realize what I’m up against and what sacrifices I may have to make to survive. I know now what she is after, she wants to own a penis, and she picked mine. I will have to play the ritual, to buy enough time, I mustn’t let her know I am on to her, just say typical husband remarks. I clear my throat and reply, “You enormous butt is so fat it’s on a freight train, you cottage cheese smeared thighs!”

“Look who’s talking, fish fart, head barnacled up your ass, mouth sucking on oyster hemorrhoids- eat that!”

“Shut up and suck those lips around a toilet, flytrap!”

A suit comes to the door.

“Uh.. what’s up Doc?” I say.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

I feet like the worm being impaled on the hook but a little left clear off, to wiggle, to attract death.

‘Uh… what’s up Doc?” I say again.

“How are you feeling?” he repeats.

What was with these 2 cent performers, they are not giving up an inch, its so hard! Maybe they are just dumb as rocks. I sigh and decide to play along, “with my hands.” My wife is stripping(God Help us!) out my guts and making them into musical instruments. I hear her digging, squishing, Help me! Till death do us part!

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