Table of contents:

The Graduation Concert

The Road of Fear

The Shattered Womb

The Mayfish

The Subterranean Invertebrate Pool

Squid-Birds and Moon-Traveler Matches

The Plastic Cephalopod Sex Goddess

The Androgyne

The Folded Womb

 

 

The Graduation Concert

(1989)

 

This night was supposedly ours. My classmates and I, in our tuxedos, mingled throughout the semi-formal ballroom with nameless and faceless mysterious guests, even though I hardly spoke with anyone. Instead, I studied the room in which we were meeting: this ballroom had a high ceiling, possibly ornate, with modest walls dimmed to a dull cream because of the low light, and a red, lavish carpet splotched with other shades of crimson and black. I suppose there were a few of those cheap, collapsible school tables here and there against the walls, but I know there were many green and white chairs. I suppose also that this was a celebration I was participating in, but my heart was not in it. Suddenly it appeared that most of the people were beginning to sit down in the neatly ordered rows of alternating green and white plastic chairs. Why didn’t I start to sit down with them? I felt tension squeezing in on my heart from all sides and I would never have panicked, but I felt so ill at ease, anyway. Then one of the graduates, a classmate of mine with sharp, dark-framed glasses approached me. His eyes probed mine as he asked me, “Are you going to play the piano?” For a second I thought: he is a musician himself, but I am not...Why is he even asking me, one who is never seen playing an instrument at school? So I told him that I really didn’t know how. He seemed to fade away and my answer just went through him.

I looked around again to see that most of these mysterious people had already taken their seats and had been sitting there patiently for some time. The confusion was still there, though, and it was to my relief because some of the students still mingled with each other; they came and went incessantly. Then I noticed the big, black piano sulking in the corner. No one was playing it.

But by looking at the piano, the purpose of my presence there (while I stood in front of the unknown people) became clear to me: I was to play the guitar for them. There were five other “musicians” who to my knowledge had no ability to play the guitar. Not that I could play either, though, and this knowledge worried me. How could I perform when I didn’t know how?

A conductor came in through a door at the corner of the room. He was as flat as a board, black and had no eyes. He was seemingly made of wood or cardboard. His creator cut out his eyes so that anyone could see right through him. He came in and passed us shoddy guitars made of paper of all shapes and sizes. The funny thing was that I can hardly remember what the instruments were like, except that they were two-dimensional, like paper, like our two-dimensional friend. We were pressed for time and he had just finished distributing our plain-and-simple guitars. We sat in a semi-circle but the strange part was that we were not facing the audience but the wall, instead. Now I understood why the walls were thought to have ears! All of a sudden I started thinking of outside — maybe of how the tropical green light was playing on the smooth stones on some dried-up creek bed. I cannot specifically remember the details, but only that vague image. I don’t even know why I even thought of that last image.

Then the conductor called me out of my trance. I don’t know how because he didn’t say a word, although his gaze emanated from empty eyes cut into his black paper head. In fact, it was possible to see the wall behind his eyes. After he had gotten our attention, he vanished quickly, and then we now had the audience’s eager attention. With our backs to all of those people, maybe two hundred or so, we started to play a song — everyone except myself, that is. First of all, I didn’t even know what they were playing. The more important fact was that I didn’t have the skill to play the instrument, so I sat there for a few moments, pretending to concentrate on the song. I also glanced over at the big piano sitting quietly in the corner to my left and then at the exit to my right. I had to do something; I couldn’t just sit there. I could feel the penetrating stares of the people behind me piercing my back, causing me to crouch in my seat a little bit. This was it, I thought, while timidly plucking a few chords on my medium-sized guitar. And did those notes sound horrible! I can’t remember the melody of the piece but I do remember the harsh discord and how the silent projectile gasps of the people landed sullenly in my lap. I kept picking until I eventually found something that sounded musically plausible. I was embarrassed, and couldn’t help looking at the sleeping piano in the corner. The thing just sat there as if waiting for death.

I guess that after this magnificent performance there was some sort of reception, because I found myself in a hallway, one which housed the offices of teachers and professors. So obviously we all were in some sort of school. It was not the school I had been attending, but probably some kind of college or university. I think that this reception was only for the musicians and a small, select group of the many who had plastered their eyes to our backs only minutes before. There were tables set up against both sides of the hallway whose surfaces were littered with cups of drink, but not food.

After walking down the hallway saying hello to people I didn’t know, I came to see a man who reposed on a table that was set back into a large niche containing a dark stairwell. This wizened man was dreadfully laid out on the table. He seemed too weak to the point that keeping the eyes open in his grey, bald head was an excruciatingly difficult task. He wore a dark blue body suit made of satin, and I was startled to see tiny incoming and outgoing plastic fluid tubes running from somewhere under the bed to a slit in the side of his uniform. I peeked further into this deliberate slicing of the suit to find a palm-sized bag of clear liquid that was slowly but steadily draining while connected up with some of the flexible little transparent pipes. This man was dying from cancer which originated from a melanoma in his left eye. Supposedly he would soon no longer be alive. But how did I know that? That medical information seemed to have been imposed on my mind by unknown forces. And somehow I felt a strange affinity with this wheezing, agonized soul. Just lying there he seemed to resemble someone I know or maybe even me, myself. I think that it might have been his eyes; he had them closed the whole time. At one time he must have been a mighty and formidable person. But now he was just the decomposing and cracking shell of a person that used to be. I wanted so much to ask him about his condition but the most I could summon was “How are you today?” He responded “fine.” So that was that.

I decided that maybe it would be better to leave that poor man alone in his probably final hours. I went around his makeshift bed and entered the stairwell. The lights were extremely dim, as if they were made to be that way on purpose. As I descended the stairs, my hand knocked against the metal railings on the stairway, causing a metallic clang to reverberate through the warm, tense air. I now deliberately rapped my knuckles on the metal and hummed slightly to the released sound. I saw myself again sitting in that semicircle of guitarists that faced away from the audience. Wondering how badly the performance sounded, I bounced off the last step and pushed through a heavy, crypt-like door to enter upon a vast, cold, black room, at which point there were barely visible several rows of seats. So that must have been the school theater or auditorium. I shouted “Hey” only to hear my muffled echo reflect off of one of the far, unseen walls. In the air hung the musty odd smell of old upholstered chairs with a faint trace of dust. Desiring to avoid the mistake of falling downstairs or into an orchestral pit, I made sure the door behind me was shut so that my eyes could adjust to this thirsty darkness.

The next part really threw me; I didn’t realize what had happened until much later: as my eyes reached out into the darkness, the room or theater became only faintly illuminated as if the walls of a nuclear vault began to glow. However, after turning around, I saw that the light came from the flipping picture of a television set filled with static. In the same way a taxicab screeches around a corner to pick up a passenger to drive off, the TV pulled me inside and engulfed me, so that I left that reality behind me forever. That is, if a car enters a one-way street, it must go completely through and cannot go back, so analogously I came into that world of the graduation concert and the dying man only to be forced out of it. Why? I questioned the point at which I really left that world, too: why wasn’t I allowed to continue with whatever was about to happen in the auditorium? The only thing I could think of was that if I had stayed, the lights would have popped on and I would have been again caught in some lousy performance. And one of those things was enough to “satiate” me for a long time.

But I will say that when I “came to” everything was stranger than before. I “awoke” on some grassy hill surrounded by average, lush green trees. In these first folds of consciousness in this new climate I noticed that my classmates were all frolicking like fools around the hills and trees with each other. However, a drastic change had occurred throughout their young, tender flesh. To explain it to you, well, consider how a sculptor molds his, human figures: just suppose that the artist is immortalizing his or her lover out of clay to be later cast in bronze. The supple clay bends and yields to the forceful carving, smoothing and probing fingers. And somehow that crude block of moldable earth begins to resemble his love. How difficult it is to capture and record not only the face and form but also that undeniable glint of her personality. Think of all of those nights in the dim studio, with firm attention pouring through pink watery eyes onto grey clay into which he is feeding life and soul. And think of the frustrations! What about all of those times he has had to redo an ear or nose after spending a whole day on one of those intricate facial parts? It is also not unheard of to go crazy over an eye or how the dear curve of a cheek flows down to the chin. But if all goes well, the transfer of love and energy into the lifeless clay will not be all for naught, for something will have been created that has a life and a message all its own.

But then again, how can anyone know this? Maybe the work is still attached to this overworked sculptor by more than the greasy stains on his tired, sleepy fingers. Who knows, but in the rarest fits of “madness,” the seeds of pain and upheaval are sown and the poet is not satisfied with what he has done — maybe by some freak, accidental chance, the image of his love is not at all what it should be; it could be just a little twitch in her mouth, or a seemingly winking eye that irritates him to the point where he lashes out at the image, and in effect, himself. How? Possibly an old mechanical sprocket or an old hammer will serve as the object with which he will strike the new arrival. The most likely place will probably be the brain, in order to rob her of her already non-existent physio-chemical powers of emotion (as if she were made of flesh). Alas, the work is ruined with the metal object impaled in her head. Or is it?

But this the only way to explain the people on that hill: some of them had golf clubs embedded into their legs. Others had hammers speared into their heads or cheeks. Still others had nails impaled through their fingers while attached to hanging pieces of string. I can remember someone else who had a porcelain water pitcher merged with the right side of his face, and his eye was just behind the spout. As they all ran around, full of glee, they looked like uncanny players in some bizarre video game. Or possibly the game was going on separately in each and every one of their heads. They did not seem to be aware of each other; they just danced and stumbled like drunken butterflies hovering around illuminated yellow flowers. I even remember one girl who had a small typewriter through her neck and shoulder. The young lady just pranced around as if the machinery wasn’t even there.

Imagine: to carry on with something, like a metal pipe sticking through your body, without a care in the world. I still cannot really decide if these people I once knew were really free, or just part of another plan of mass-enslavement. I was certainly glad not to find my house keys sticking through my lips or maybe a clamp or glasscutter merged with my genitals. I walked in and out among the trees watching those seemingly happy people skip all around while remaining withdrawn from each other.

But the chaos did not stop there: as soon as I had begun to adjust to their strange tastes in cosmetic adornments, a high intensity beam of light came down upon the hill as I watched by the side of a tree. At that point it was as if everyone got ants in their pants. They all howled and cried in anguish as they stopped their dancing but also continued to stumble, now blindly. That piercing light was coming down now everywhere, and when it hit me it made my skin itch as if it were a mild heat rash. And that wasn’t such a big deal when compared to what was happening to everyone else; as if their bodies had turned to soft cheese, they could not carry their suspended metal implements, such as spoons, saws and typewriters. For instance, I saw one beautiful girl who had some iron chisels merged with her arms. These objects had managed to fall from her arms to the ground. As I stood close by, I saw her madly pick up the chisels, which were covered with pink, crystalline residues of flesh which resembled cubic snippets of gelatinous, boiled ham. There was no sign of amusement on her face when she replaced the tools into her arms only to observe them fall out again. And that guy with the pitcher in his face had the same problem. When his face fell out you could see his sagging brain at the back of the gaping hole in his head. He picked up the container and attempted to smear it back into his skull. The sound of it was not aesthetically pleasing, either, especially when the object fell right back out with a sucking/smacking sound.

I couldn’t tell you of the things that happened next, for my subsequent memories are as foggy as the identity of the conductor of black paper, or the true purpose of the flimsy guitars, or the reasons for why I knew that dying old man on the table. I suppose that I was yanked out of that mindscape in order to be placed into the isolation of the world in which we impulsively call real and which is really addicted to the rationalist mind-set. Or possibly I have drifted out of the “real” and into the “fantasy:” maybe those experiences of which I spoke are more tangible than the people I see around me now. There is nothing else to say except that by chance I had entered upon several new realms which had been previously “forbidden,” or less paranoically, invisible.

 

return to table of contents

 

 

The Road of Fear

(1989)

 

I do not remember how long ago I saw him. Julia and I started a walk through high green grass in maybe what was called a green prairie land. The part of the country or world in which I was is unimportant — it will never be found again by anyone, anyway. The day was bright on the tall, lime green trees as we hiked for a little while. It was almost a fairy tale; we were almost hobbits.

When we broke through a set of especially thick, illuminated bushes onto a dirt road, my companion, she, turned around and ran away in fear. It was not so scary, was it? The road had been used by motorcycles and possibly small trucks. The sandy dirt occasionally exposed on old cigarette butt or a crushed beer can. I hiked for less than an hour feeling somewhat vaguely disturbed over my friend’s flight and my current solitude.

Do you ever get the terrible feeling that you are in the wrong place at the wrong time yet you cannot decide what is exactly amiss? It was a very bright, cool summer’s day and everything was peaceful. Maybe that was it; it was too quiet — I felt as if hiding out there, not far away from me, was a five foot nightmare waiting for me, as if it were something black, hiding behind the green. And it seemed that I only had to keep walking on a few minutes more to find it. There was also a smell in the air which made me almost want to turn back. But I walked on down the road anyway, among the beautiful swaying trees. In some instances the road wound and curved and I eventually came to a big fork. Had I ever been there before? I don’t know. The left path, which continued as the sandy “main” road went off into the distance, but the right one seemed to have grown over a little bit with more of the long, green grass — obviously it had been unused for a long time because there were no tire tracks whatsoever.

It is so hard to describe the desolation — it was so melancholically compelling. I walked in a few steps and then saw something with red and blue stripes. I neared closer and saw that it was a shirt that was covering an old friend. He was there on his back, with one arm brutally twisted behind him. Evidently, his head had been almost completely severed except for a patch of flesh at the nape of his neck. There was dried, black blood all over his chin, nose and the rest of his face. Trembling with fright, I took a few steps closer and peered down at his face and his head that was practically separated from his mangled body. I shrank with horror and turned away. I made myself walk away but couldn’t help but turn around to look at my decapitated friend who now seemed so monstrously inhuman and unlike the person that I once knew. That was when he opened his eyes and looked at me with a curious hostility. His gaze held me fast. I was his prisoner, and he knew it.

 

return to table of contents

 

 

The Shattered Womb

(1989)

 

It might have been an intended camping place at which we had stopped, to throw down our backpacks beneath a disturbingly quiet twilight. Maybe the sky and air could have been best described as bright but indifferent.

After unloading some of our equipment, including a neutral-colored tarp and some animals, Dave helped me attach the four corners of the tarp to the trees with rope. The resulting contraption looked like a trampoline that sagged slightly from an invisible weight. Into the tarp we threw a couple of big rocks, some water, some branches and some crumpled leaves. The plastic of the tarp began to sag with the weight of the objects, right over a pile of wood or a tree that grew from the leaves not far below. This arrangement now started to seem less like a tarp with its components, but more like a levitating tide pool found at sea, like a complete biological unit unto itself. Somehow a fire sprang into being, and the water began to bubble and steam slightly. Actually, I do not really know why the plastic of the tarp didn’t melt, and I also could not tell you how the plastic, rocks, and water remained in the air, because the ropes that held the plastic to the trees faded into nothing.

We looked over some of the animals that rested down by our feet like equipment: four young kittens, a puppy or two, and some goldfish with several variations in color, all of which were completely inactive. Steadily we placed the plastic, rubber-like fish onto the branches which cris-crossed over the stones and hot water in the levitating pocket. Even though the fish were extremely flexible, their fins were stiff, allowing them to remain on the branches with ease. Some of them were orange; others orange with black spots, or further still, black and white striped. As I positioned some fish on the brittle tree limbs, one of them, about one inch long on a high branch, had already been resting there since we started our fish-mounting task. It eyed me continuously every time I approached the fire set-up. Another silent, unknown person with whom I worked helped me. We finished placing the goldfish onto the hard wood, at which point the fish suddenly came to life by scuttling up and down the branches at a rapid, uniform rate. That rubber, streaked fish from the highest branch continued to gaze at me. It had little, tiny pink eyes that glowed and glared at me, and it seemed to be and to know more than the average rubber fish. This was no toy, but something that held a silent, hidden secret that would be revealed to no one.

Next, I put a brown and white puppy into the steaming water, whose warmth gave a scratchy sensation, and I draped the lifeless plastic meat onto a brownish-grey, smooth stone. The same treatment was given to a hibernating plastic kitty; the two quiescent animals just sat and slept on their water-worn rocks. That same scratchy sensation from the water suddenly made me look up at the sky, which was a clear, cloudless paste that gripped the trees. The trees had lodged themselves into the whitish-grey, viscous sky.

Back on the ground, the fire had reached out slightly more than before. How? I don’t know; a mild mist of confusion enveloped me, and I cannot remember what happened next because I momentarily lost the perception of time. Although unsure, I believe that we continued to view the developing cat and dog. I’m also certain that we peered at the now inactive fish who seemed to have momentarily stopped their weary, monotonous march up and down the branches over the mysterious stew. I turned my attention to walking around to the opposite side of the strange, floating earthly pocket of wood, stones and water. Seated on the ground, I noticed the bare, scruffy trees with their scattered leaves.

Everything — the ground, trees, fire, water, stones, branches and animals — was picture-postcard still. It was an appropriate scene for an alien photograph, totally incomprehensible and incoherent for human eyes and minds. Breaking out of the stillness with a yelp, the plastic embryonic kitty, now a cat, leaped out of its babbling, womblike menagerie only to run off among the stunted and scrawling trees of the unknown forest. As the last of the cat’s rusty red tail darted behind a dead bush, I was compelled to activate the remaining three kittens, so I picked them up and initiated them into water and rocks, as was done with the other one before. However, these newer felines behaved differently than the original one, because upon their introduction to the artificial water womb, they obscured themselves quickly underneath and among the crevices of the rocks. As I stood there to observe them, the odd rubber goldfish seemed to have become alarmed at my remaining there, which could be noticed by a certain squeezing of its tiny but radiant pink eyes. As it writhed and vibrated on its branch, I was impressed by the way it seemed more solid and real than before, because of its less-plastic appearance. At the same time, however, the other fish had dulled to a pale orange and they seemed more like lifeless constructions of cellophane who now lived within themselves, oblivious to what passed around them.

But now I must tell you of the elephant. I would not swear to you that it was an elephant that resided within the levitating womb, but I can safely say that the rocks in our unearthly pool changed their shapes and molded into something that resembled an elephant with sharp, gashed crevices all over its deflated frame. This very thin and emaciated thing reposed on its side in a fetal position. But whatever it really was, it was still just as lifeless as the stones in the bottom of the pool. Perhaps it could have been any dead piece of meat. It was wrapped, enveloped, bound by an old, weathered hospital sheet and a thin, razorlike cord — all of which highlighted the crevices that sliced throughout its body. For the whole time it was there until it disappeared, it did not make a single move.

But there was life within that pool now, because the three cats had ceremoniously sprung out of the crevices formed by the dead giant. Once again, they were different from the previous cat who had been released from its plastic hibernation because they were very friendly and allowed us to stroke them gently. In retrospect, I think the “elephant” was a transformed composite of the stones which we had originally placed into the tarp-like womb.

Some other changes took place in our environment, also: the trees and the air had changed by becoming shorter and drier, respectively. In fact, the lack of moisture in the air led us to conclude that perhaps we had passively approached the edge of a bright desert. As usual, the trees bore no leaves.

These new changes were so distractingly peaceful that I fell “asleep,” because everything became clouded and obscure for a second until I awoke to find myself sitting down, leaning up against the foot of a tree. I had no knowledge of deciding to sit next to the bare, tan tree, so for that reason I conclude that I had been “sleeping.” What seemed to awaken me were shouts of “Murder!” and “You must stop!” People were running around the fire and the hot water pool, examining the elephant-thing that was covered with the branches. Those unknown people might have been talking to me, but I wasn’t certain about that; there was too much excitement. Then I noticed that while “sleeping,” the fire and the tide-pool set-up had drifted about fifty to seventy feet away from me. Or perhaps I had drifted away from them.

Almost out of control, the flames licked at the side of the tarp. Once again, the screams forced me to concentrate on what was wrong, so I ran down a trail that was worn but recently unearthed and definitely not there before.

With my attention shifted back to the confusion, I saw the fire occasionally flaring out from under the tarp, within a fifteen foot radius. Because of this incessant flaring, the nearby area had been singed black. The same thing had happened to the outer shell of the tarp or levitating pool. And the pool itself seemed to be falling apart: as when dealing with a boiling stew that is bound to spill over, I noticed the thin, deflated elephant stewing among the frothy, discolored water beneath the flaming branches that used to support the rubber goldfish. Where had the fish gone? There was no trace of melted plastic, flesh or anything on the disintegrating wood. Maybe those impassive fish escaped back to the waters from which they originally came — who knows?

But the more serious problem (or so I thought) was controlling the out-of-control fire. I did not panic because a red bucket was at my feet. I managed, as if with the help of some magic tap, to get the bucket half-filled. With water bucket in hand, I again faced the scene of disaster. It seemed that a tree had begun to grow underneath the tarp while I slept. Now it appeared well-established because its trunks seemed to wrap around the floating pool like the flames, in the same way possessive prongs would clasp a precious stone into a piece of jewelry. Of course, this tree was as black as every other burnt object. Now it was my turn to try to beat the flames. I wincingly stepped a few feet toward the blaze, at which point a flame gushed out almost in my direction, enveloping a tree; the arboreal fibers and tissues simply disintegrated into ashes. My job was still undone, so I neared again and threw the water over the fire, and it seemed to explode with a bang and a hiss. Let me say that at this point I never saw the lonely elephant nor the other animals again, and I don’t think anyone else knew where they went. Strangely enough, the fire went out with my measly handful of water.

I sleepily turned away and walked up the lonely, dark trail past a few wood and metal crates which had no words or labels. There were more crates stacked against a light-blue canvas tent that could house at least ten people. The tent flaps blew loosely in the wind, summoning me, so I went inside. But before penetrating that veil of mystery, I noticed how a pale, yellowish-green light irradiated dark leaves, twigs and stones on the ground, making them reflect an eerie, electric olive color splashed with black shadows. In the tent the neon lightbulb illuminated nameless and faceless boxes on the floor that held cargoes of unknown materials, belonging to mysterious and absent people.

In there, on the floor was a person whose gender I could not at first determine. Yet somehow, we wanted each other desperately. She sat with the soles of her feet pressed together, with both the heels and balls of her feet flush up against her vagina. In this meditative position, the throbbing of her clitoris seemed to sympathetically synchronize with the throbbing of the feet that were so sore from hiking in the wilderness. Strangely enough, the two became one: the vagina and feet, both throbbing heavily with blood, melded together for a moment. However, this new plastic-like image lasted only for moments, because as soon as her genitals became the soles of her feet, they transformed back into the former. We eventually completed the sexual act but experienced no real sensory feeling or emotion.

There’s nothing much else to report, except that “we” eventually hiked out of the unknown forest and stopped to eat a trashy fast-food meal at some old trashy fast-food restaurant. None of us spoke of the things that transpired during that period in the wilderness.

 

return to table of contents

 

 

The Mayfish

(1990)

 

In a house decorated with flimsy and trendy things, I found myself. In the downstairs portion of the house, where I was, it was impossible to see much, since most of the lights were out and my parents were sleeping.

The entire scene was essentially lifeless and desolate, except for a bubbling fishtank that perched at the bottom of the stairs. There were small fish that swam in the tank — little fish that were no bigger than a few centimeters and which were brown in color. They had small, round black eyes.

I watched the fish in the timelessness of midnight , when everyone was asleep. I do not know why I wasn’t sleeping like everyone else. Eternity seemed to lull me into a certain state of passivity as I gazed at the fish in the semi-darkness.

I’m not exactly sure when something went wrong with the tank, but eventually it became apparent that the small, brown fish had slowed their swimming, ultimately to fall to the bottom. Pangs of alarm pulled me out of the stupor into which I had fallen. Although the fish had landed on the bottom of the tank and seemed dead, they still were breathing — it was possible to watch their chests slowly suck in and then expel water carrying oxygen, in a slow, monotonous rhythm.

I don’t know how long I stared into the tank, watching that breathing, but eventually it became clear that the fish weren’t really dying at all but instead were in a process of change (although it was uncertain what kind of metamorphosis this would be). The color of the fishs’ skin slowly lightened to a tan color, with small but tiny red spots the size of bleeding pin-pricks. The bodies of the fish also changed: while only a few centimeters long in the beginning, it only took a minute for them to become ten times their original length. Simultaneously, the eyes — usually with a bipolar arrangement on the skulls of the animals — came together and migrated to one side of the fishs’ heads, in the same way the juvenile flounder transforms into the oddly-skulled adult flounder that hides out flat on the bottom of the water. As the bodies of the fish continued to elongate, the bones in the tail started to look more and more like tentacles. Although the tentacles did not seem prehensile, they vaguely and involuntarily moved with the currents of the salt water. Another interesting development was that two small bulges had formed in the base of the mutating fishs’ tails, right before the “tentacles” started to branch off.

I sat entranced yet full of emotion as I watched this unfolding of weird events. Eventually the mouth was pulled up underneath the eyes, which had become very sentient and beady, and it all resembled the face of a hungry shark. The gills at the base of the skull became even more pronounced and the creature breathed furiously, as if it was pumping up its body full of air. Perhaps this growing creature was nothing but a slimy balloon, a sick joke. But there was something about its eyes — about all of their eyes — that told of a forthcoming trouble or danger that would be unavoidable. Their tentacles began to clench, like fingers, around rocks and other debris that littered the bottom of the tank and eventually these “mayfish” (as they called themselves) got big enough to leave the tank that kept them prisoner for so long. At this point, these “mayfish” looked less like fish but more like three or four feet long squid-like predators that used their tentacles both for sitting and for grabbing things. The largest of the Mayfish leaped upon me and attempted to use its shark-like mouth to tear out my throat or chest. Its slimy, creamy skin, covered with those odd, blood-red spots, would not let my hands grasp it firmly, so I did my best to push it away from me, retching from the stale air that it exhaled through its mucous-covered gills. This particular Mayfish somehow communicated to me that the poison that was secreted by the red glands on its skin would eventually kill me, especially if I added more octopus to my diet. It almost felt as if I were being spoken to in a telepathic way. I was afraid, but also very determined to get away from them. Although the “fish” were strong, they were still out of their element as they eventually collapsed, falling back into the pool, possibly dead. They did not revert back to their small, brown “adult fish” form.

Soon after the demise of the Mayfish, my father awoke and came downstairs. I explained to him what had happened, and he recommended eating a little chocolate. My mother arrived and immediately forbade me to eat because it was late. This prompted me to leave their presence. I never saw the Mayfish again after that, and I certainly never saw a fish look at me the way the Mayfish did.

 

return to table of contents

 

 

The Subterranean Invertebrate Pool

(1990)

 

One day I tore open a hole in the ground. Looking down the hole, I saw a staircase that led down, down, down into the Earth. Unfortunately, it was too dark to see where the staircase went. Before descending the stairs, I got the impression that I was being watched, and that I had better leave the top world before something or someone decided to follow me down the tunnel.

After reaching the bottom after an indeterminate amount of time spent going down the awfully steep and rickety stairs, I found myself in what appeared to be a pit that perhaps once was the subterranean den of large, monster-like mammals. There were faint, artificial lights in the pit, so I could make out only the barest of details: the “pit” actually was some kind of studio or laboratory, perhaps with a maximum distance of 100 yards between the walls. Looking around, I saw boxes and burlap sacks filled with what appeared to be living things — it was possible to see what looked like teeth or other sharp projections poke through the boxes and bags. In addition to these oddities, there were tables and shelves which held books, art supplies, and scientific equipment. There were doorways periodically found in the walls, placed at almost-regular intervals which presumably opened onto tunnels which led to other places.

I hid when a light approached through one of the dark tunnels. I could also hear footsteps, and fearfully concealed myself behind a large box that contained one of those animals that had the fangs or claws. Although I could not see well, I saw a tall shape enter the studio/laboratory. I was relieved to discover that the shape was human and that it was an old man, dressed in very dandy-like clothing. He piddled about for awhile, checking on this or that piece of equipment, even though it was impossible to guess what he was in the process of doing. The man turned on a large lightbulb that hung from the center of the room, and the resulting rays of light pierced out in various directions, even though I managed to remain encapsulated in the darkness. I was relieved that he couldn’t see me, because although he was old, there was something about his presence that was intimidating; he was still well-built and stood tall.

I watched him in awe for a few minutes until he started talking to me, even though when he spoke he did not look up or even speak in my direction. How was he able to detect my presence? I was never able to figure this out. Eventually, I stepped out of the shadows and we had a conversation, even though it seemed as if I was being interrogated. Whatever we talked about has been forgotten.

This “sorcerer,” as I felt that he was, either snapped his fingers or hit an invisible control which caused a sixteen-foot diameter table of rock to slowly be pushed up from the stone floor of the cavern. We stepped onto the rising platform, which raised us up so that we could almost reach out to touch the bright lightbulb, which almost seemed to give off daylight, of all things. In the light, on the platform, we faced each other. He had grey hair and wore an archaic grey flannel suit with a matching hat. There was something very kindly and attractive about this person, even though his apparently extensive knowledge and wisdom made me reticent in trusting him. At one point I even got the impression that he had somehow led me to find his subterranean cave. These feelings led me to conceal as much of myself from him as possible. Although I wanted to trust him, there was no substantial evidence that anything I were to tell him wouldn’t be used against me later. Nevertheless, we seemed to maintain a friendly rapport.

I’m not sure how we got down from the raised platform, because it had risen at least twenty feet above ground level. When we got to the bottom, the raised cylinder of stone revealed an opening which led directly down, away from the surface of the Earth. The man explained that he was working on a project that could be found if I entered the aperture in the side of the stone cylinder. My curiosity led me to pass through the opening and I climbed down perhaps almost thirty feet. The bottom of the vertical passageway was unbelievable: instead of darkness and lifeless dirt, it opened onto a smaller cavern which was directly underneath the first cavern. This second cavern — the man’s “experiment” — was circular and covered with moss and other wet, slippery plants. Circumscribing this area was a small, but deep and briskly-moving stream. The water entered the room through one opening in the ground, while exiting through another. I would almost swear that the openings through which the water came and went were growing larger, when passively observing the scene, and this made me very frightened.

At that moment, my father appeared and urged me to move away from the stream’s exit, where the water disappeared back down into the ground with a gush. The green surface on which I was standing was becoming steep and slippery, and I began to fear that I would fall down into the hole and get sucked deep into the Earth. My father helped me move away from the dangerous-looking aperture. He also told me that there’s water down there that hasn’t seen the light in years; any type of water could come up through the opening at any time.

As new water from the depths flowed into the circular stream, the old water at the other terminus left the cave through that foreboding exit. I listened to my father’s warning and avoided both openings. I said goodbye to my father and sat in the middle of the cave, observing and trying to imagine what would happen next. The way the water entered and left the cave, in pulses, reminded me very much of breathing. I found this disturbing, as if I were trapped inside of something that was alive.

What happened next in the dream was very alarming. From the peculiar stream’s opening issued forth several kinds of invertebrates. They swarmed from the depths into the bright artificial light in the cave cast by those same bulbs that gave off very natural-seeming light. The creatures seemed to represent the Mollusc, Cnidarian and Crustacean categories — there were all shapes and sizes of cephalopods, jellyfish and colorful land-crabs, respectively. While the squids and octopods remained in the stream and settled to the bottom (but still ever so alert, though), the jellyfish and crabs floated to the top of the water. Only the crabs walked onto the land, and they positioned themselves only feet away from me.

These creatures seemed to be aware of me, as all of them would move every time I did. I was drawn to observe the cephalopods, who were especially concentrated near the hole where the stream exited the cave. How they managed to remain stationary without being sucked out by the current I don’t know. Perhaps their suction cups were strong enough to anchor them to the rocks. What was so peculiar, also, about these molluscs was that they appeared to be made of a white plastic or latex rubber. Throughout their bodies and tentacles, there were circular or latitudinal stripes, each one was a different color of the rainbow. Because of this, the highly intelligent molluscs almost seemed like candy; they looked so unlike the squids and octopods that are found in the surface world. Nevertheless, candy or not, their eyes were trained on me at all times — For this reason, I watched them but avoided getting too close to the water lest I fall in or lest they reach out to pull me in. As it turned out, I did slip and fell dangerously close to the water. I was frantically clawing at the ground, trying to pull myself out of danger. During this process, a new pulse of water issued from the opening and I barely made it up to higher ground. When looking down, I saw the pulse of ancient water crash up against the spot where I had been only moments before. If I had stayed there, I would have been dislodged by the current and carried down the hole, to even deeper depths.

I went back up to the first cavern, where the “sorcerer” was, and he asked me if I was interested in working with him in the future. I told him yes.

 

return to table of contents

 

 

The Plastic Cephalopod Sex Goddess

(1994)

 

Had I found my way back to the subterranean invertebrate pool? I’m not sure if the body of water in front of me was the same one as before. The more I think about it, the more it seems that I had found a second pool of invertebrates. This time, there were only squid and other cephalopods present. As before, they were composed of what looked like white plastic with vibrantly colored stripes, each of which formed a complete ring whether wrapped around a tentacle or the hood of the creature.

These squids were also larger than before — each of them was at least a hundred pounds or so in weight.

Surrounding the pool/stream that housed these creatures, and which seemed to continue off into the distance, was a thick, matted tropical sea grass or kelp that lined the banks of the water. This kelp-like matt was very slippery, and I almost fell into the water when observing a rather large, plastic rainbow squid. Somehow it seemed that falling into the water might not be a good idea.

The squid was watching me, too, and after I almost fell in, the cephalopod slowly rose to the surface of the water. I maintained my distance. The squid, large enough to kill and eat me, managed to lift itself onto the bank. At this point, it transformed into a human shape. After the transformation was complete, the humanoid creature clearly resembled a woman who had wanted to fornicate with me a few years before. Although intelligent, the squid-woman was distant and I think it was difficult communicating with her.

I do not remember exactly what happened next, other than that we left the water behind us and traveled into a city. I don’t remember exactly what we did in that city, but at least we stopped at a fast-food place and ate a meal. For some reason, I think I began to like this squid-woman. Although I do not remember why the police were after us, we were pursued by pigs and were eventually cornered in a deserted, crumbling tenement building. At this time my squid princess also became ill, perhaps due to the effects of the cheap, unhealthy “food” we had consumed before. It only occurred to me later that perhaps this squid-creature was not yet ready to take in the strange kinds of substances that humans ingest.

Nevertheless, the squid-woman was ill and we were eventually found by the police and the medics. Hours after the squid-woman had died in a hospital, the doctors finally came in to inform me that the creature was dead, due to her inability to digest conventional terrestrial foodstuffs. They showed me a vial containing samples of muscle fibers taken from her heart. When I held up the vial to the light in order to peer at the fibers, they disintegrated right before my eyes.

 

return to table of contents

 

 

The Androgyne

(1997)

 

As a favor to my sister, I bring some soup base over to the cafe where she works. Upon arriving at the coffee house, which also serves food, I go inside and find her there, worrying over a large cauldron in which the soup is made daily. While my sister sits down at one of the many wire tables, I slowly stir in the soup mix with a large, heavy, copper canoe paddle. This task is very involving, so I lose track of time as well as what is happening around me.

My concentration is broken when a young couple walks in with a guitar. The couple confronts me by asking me about my soup-making efforts. They ask me where the soup base came from and I respond that it was probably obtained from the flesh of a pig. They respond: “You kill a pig, but are you prepared to feed the entire city with it?” This question is asked very accusingly, but their intentions escape me.

During this confrontation, the phone rings, and somehow I know that it is the old and crabby owner who is calling, trying to find out why the cafe has not been locked for the night and why my sister and I haven’t brought her the money for that day. Nevertheless, the accusative couple still bothers us, showing us diagrams of buildings (especially pagodas) with captions that are printed in other languages. While one of the couple points out certain features within the architectural diagrams, the other one plays annoying songs on the acoustic guitar.

After a few minutes, the door bursts open and the owner, an old woman who looks very much like a nun, comes in. She seems threatened by the guitar music. Although blind, the nun/business owner seems to know that both my sister and I are in the room, as well as the troublesome couple with the guitar and the architecture pictures. She exclaims: “But you’re letting them take my vacation money!”

Overcome with pain, the old woman has a flashback of a childhood experience: she is an adolescent — an androgynous he dressed in a divided red and white satin jester’s outfit, or perhaps one of those similarly color-bisected costumes that Indo-European androgynes are seen wearing in certain depictions. She — or he — is at a family gathering in a crumbling brick courtyard. There is music and other festivities in the yard, and all is shielded by tall, leafy palm trees that create sufficient shade. Nevertheless, the heat is very tropical and very stifling. The androgyne/clown observes a male relative having passionate sex with a woman next to a cold fountain in the middle of the courtyard. No one else seems to notice. However, the adolescent’s mother grabs the androgyne and turns “him” away from the sex, but it is too late; he has already seen the sexual act and still continues to hear it, even though his back is turned to the fornicating couple.

Isolated from everyone else, the young clown/androgyne goes to another crumbling brick courtyard, one that is empty, and peers down into a murky fishpond. Next to the pond is a bucket of fish. Up from the depths of the water, an intelligent, twenty-foot long black eel lifts its head out and begs the child for fish. The clown/androgyne gives the eel as much fish as it wants. The eel does not bite its own tail.

 

return to table of contents

 

 

The Folded Womb

(1998)

 

I find myself somewhere in the middle of a green and hilly, rural area, in Connecticut . For most of the dream, Ashleigh is with me and we end up spending time with people with whom perhaps we shouldn’t. Although most of the memories of what transpired have been repressed, I do remember the end of the dream, after which I woke up:

Ashleigh and I are in the presence of people who might be related to us. Although these “relatives” are of both sexes, there was nothing else that allowed us to distinguish them from each other. The main point, though, is that somehow we were coerced into spending time around these people, participating in whatever they were doing, which did not seem all that appealing (even though I cannot remember why).

Throughout this hilly landscape, with its pleasant green trees and sweet-smelling breeze, there was an air of desperation, as if certain unliveable systems of “reality” were being applied to this environment against its will. And when I use the word “environment,” I mean not only the hills and the plants, but also the animals (including humans). Although we did not openly discuss our impressions, it seemed as if we were both frustrated through being dragged around by our “relatives.”

The most memorable part of the dream occurred underneath a thick canopy of trees with laterally-projecting branches that were completely covered with leaves; they filtered out the hot summer sun. This particular grouping of trees was not more than fifty feet in diameter, and we all (about five or six in total) congregated around a recently constructed burial site. The person who died was supposedly my “father.”

This particular “father” had reportedly died in his bed, and he was laid out in this “bed,” amidst rocks and dirt that covered the ground in this shady area. Outside of the thicket one could see the sun cook whatever was exposed to it. Beneath the thicket, the “father” was on his bed. My relatives told me that he had stayed in bed so long in his last years, in a state of virtual inactivity, that dust and grime had collected and settled all over him and the bed such that his resting place was less and less of a bed and more of a coffin. Actually, upon closer scrutiny, I noticed that the mattress of the death bed was slowly ossifying into rock, like sandstone.

The relatives we were with spent most of the time wailing and lamenting, as well as trying to make Ashleigh and me feel guilty for the death of this person. They blamed us for the “father’s” state of inactivity, specifying that through our negligence he ended up being slowly buried alive in dirt. Interspersed with these accusations, the “wife” of the “father” added many expressions of regret. So supposedly it was our fault for letting this dead person wither in his final days.

The turning point occurred when our attention was once again brought to the grave: while at first all that could be seen was the outline of a dead human covered with dust and pebbles, this figure had now been replaced with a curious object that looked like a womb with the adjoining birth canal. What made this particular womb remarkable was that it was much larger than that of a human’s and it was made out of a substance that resembled paper mache. In fact, this womb-apparatus was the same size as “my father.”

We were told by the “mother” that the “son” of this “father” had also perished with the father, and that this outcome was also our fault. Throughout this whole period of accusations against us, we refrained from responding to the “mother.” My curiosity (and outrage) led me to investigate this “womb” further. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the birth canal of this strange object had been folded over, and that the uterus was bloated, as if it really did contain an unborn something-or-other, as the “mother” had told us. I found it extremely odd that, in “reality,” this “father” of mine was actually a paper mache womb that carried an unborn fetus — the “son” of this “father.” Wasn’t this “father” really a “mother,” since it was able to give birth? And why would this family unit wish to draw Ashleigh and me into its midst? After all, there was nothing familiar about them. There even was something dishonest about the whole interaction, on the part of the “relatives” of ours.

Eventually we decided that we were not interested in guilt-trips and so we left that very peculiar burial place, to leave the peculiar living to attend to the peculiar dead. Ashleigh and I sat down on a large rock on the grassy hill. Several feet away we saw a red split-leaf maple tree distinguish itself from the surrounding greenery. In front of the rock on which we sat was a metal post with one of those metal signs that usually tells you either to do something or refrain from doing something else; there’s never a shortage of behavior-corrective street signs in our crowded, miserabilist society. In this sign in front of us, there were small dents in the metal, as if someone with a BB gun had been purposefully ruining its prized flatness. Simultaneously, I found myself swatting at mosquitos, trying to hit them away from me with my hands. At that point Ashleigh made a curious statement to this effect: “You’re such a silly: throughout your childhood you must have been causing these dents through the impact of the mosquito’s bodies that you have sent crashing into the sign!”

 

return to table of contents