8 Vignettes From the Birthday Party

kate and james, Lina Scheynius


____1.
i am tired even as i walk in. the room is full of merriment. people laughing. there are colours everywhere, matching polo-shirts (for the guys) t-shirts (for the girls) with nicknames spray-painted on the back. it is a nice touch, and i can't help but smile (quietly) (to myself) (on the inside somewhere where smiles are first generated). Q - T I P . baby blue. the collar scratches my neck, it's been a while since i wore a polo.
____someone says something to me. they're all already tipsy so it's much louder than he might have intended. i'm taken aback a moment. my hand is in my pocket. it fidgets as i try to find another smile. yesyesyes. [smile] yeah good buddy, going well, it's been a crazy week huh?


____2.
- what's the question?
- what health problem do Churchill, Einstein, Thomas Edison and... someone else
- Da Vinci
- yeah, and Da Vinci have in common?
- Dyslexia.
- what? i thought they were all short.
- that's not a health problem.
- it kinda is.
- no, it's kinda not.
- are you sure it's dyslexia?
- sweetheart, the last time i was sure about something i was 8 years old and sure the dream was real.
- ... fair enough.
- go with dyslexia?
- Mike says it's dyslexia.
- fine. dyslexia.


____3.
but i can't hear the next question. someone's throwing pieces of chocolate cake around. block it out q, block it out q. the coffee-shop attendant throws a baleful glance our way. the table of pretentious 'adults' besides us throws us a meaner look (yeah, but you got the last question right Q so f*ck them! i laugh, dyslexia. who would have thought). a shout now, male. another, female. someone runs and the table erupts. laughter. a remnant from an untold joke only drunakrds and the too-highly-imaginative are privy to.

she wanders around quietly. eyes slightly redder than i'm used to seeing them. sits a while besides a tall German wearing a dark-blue polo. then rests her shoulder on another friend's shoulder. then she's behind me - what's the question?
- what are a group of unicorns called?
- a myth. it's a myth they don't exist.
- what about horses? it should be the same as horses.
- no, it's a trick question.
(she sits quietly through all this).

- what?
- what?
- did anyone hear the answer?
- a f*cking blessing of unicorns.
- what the f*ck!
- seriously. who reads sci-fi?!


____4.
the Starbucks attendant is beautiful. i can't tell her that. excuse me, i recently started drinking soy which means all my drinks taste like they're slightly demented- can you recommend a drink that tastes good with soy? She drinks everything with soy. i persist: can i tell you a story?, i'd like to tell you a story (girls love stories). she laughs on cue, and i stare at her eyes looking for a connection. something tangible that lives in the air between two people. her blue eyes eventually gloss over. that's attraction. i've learnt to spot it. now i can tell her she's beautiful, but i don't. i take my grande soy chai latte with 2 extra pumps please and step out onto the side of the street to talk about James Joyce.


____5.
- why is every conversation with you a conversation about James freaking Joyce?
- because he wrote about everything. so he relates to everything.
- ... fine. good answer. smart-ass.

somewhere between C.S. Lewis and Beckett's short stories i lose him to sobriety and walk alone to meet the loud noisy cover band that's enveloping my friends in a blanket of cacophony entirely unbearable.


____6.
i walk into your hug. you don't let go. your eyes are sadder when they're that redder colour. of course i struggle to read your face, but you smell nice.


____7.
we're strrreeaaakkkiiinnnnggggg. between the brown hair of the body on top of me, and the sand beneath me, i see a pale white male figure in black underwear running for the water. then, a woman's black bra- a horizontal silhouette on a white back follows, screaming. another. another. the zombies with a droned wail run for the waves. i laugh. behind me someone smokes a cigarette leaning against a tree. between brown hair and brittle sand i find a neck and lean into it.


____8.
- can we just take a moment to acknowledge how hot i look right now?
(the white figure. the black bra. wet hair. back home, a car ride later. still no shirt. it's true, she does:
- totally / - yeah seriously.
- shower-time! see ya!
(she runs into the bathroom with a light gambol).

two people left. standing opposite each other. tired eyes to red eyes.
- i... should __might, . um. go.
- ye ah. like . yeh.

lost lips to lost lips.

nuclear explosion.

clench your teeth and prepare to observe 2 minutes pandemonium.

incidental music

the fourteen flowers of the apocalypse are soo yellow in spring,
and memory is just that.
_______(but the thing i am here to say isn't about that,
_______it's about the beach on Saturday. - the movies when i finally get a chance to go,
_______those things i'd eventually like to know,

and time on my hands like some water i wash my face with,
_______delicious, deep,
what could be more meaningful than time?, is what i'm here to say
deeper and more colourful than all the black shapes you see when you close your eyes,
and...
_______driving with the windows down, too fast,
_______and running too fast so i could see my abdomen keeping my beat
_______and feet sinking just a little bit into sand reminds me of where i'm headed
(one way or another) (what could be more un/abundant than time?

the sunflower burnt bright on saturday. burns bright today, the sunday.
and i'm short of days left to burn.

reprise.

i forgot how it worked. a phrase. some random words. not pithy or anything like that no no. passing person. something someone says. something no one says. a pattern of lights. click. always starts the same. click.

it's delicious too. i forgot how much. sometimes i feel it. just kinda swimming around in the darkness (open your mouth wide, in there, that darkness- that's what i mean). when i feel it swimming i sometimes give it a Poland. hope that'll appease it. it'll go away. i don't know. what do you do with it? i sit by myself for a while. listen to Shostakovich. maybe Portishead. enough? you happy? scribble stuff in my notebook. ok. good.

today mom says to me, she says- you know i pray everyday you don't... start doing stuff again.
- scared your son will have a little fun?
- ...
- i'm not up to anything.
- there's something in your eye.

i thought about it for a while. no no no. being a part-time depressive is still a heck of a lot better than being a full time schizophrenic.


*___*___*

MacDonald's is more bright than an operating room. people's eyes all lit up like watery laser lights. the kid next to me, his eyes are brownish, looks like to the tops of two coffee cups looking back at me. it's a little scary and i look away. my feet. yes. safe. it's past midnight now... Thursday morning. what's with all the people? a Hasidic Jew gives me a disapproving glance as he side-steps past me.

i'm sad when i order. sorry to. i sit. someone should update Hopper's Diner. two angry young men sit and curse alot about there being too little mustard in their burgers. the brown-eyed kid sits with his back to me. a family, a father and three fat daughters of varying ages sit and chew in silence. this is the wrong silence. there's another silence. a better one. i remember it. i can't remember from where, or... what it sounded like... but it was the most peaceful thing.


*___*___*

tomorrow's the last one. exam. i think it's all this sitting in my room by myself. that's not usually conducive to anything. especially for people like me. it's hard to dodge bullets when you confine yourself to a bedroom. books and papers and CDs scattered everywhere. yesterday, maybe day before, i decided i hate all my music. i ransacked the garage and found three boxes of old CDs. i emptied them on my floor. they're all wrong too. i don't understand all the people i've been. maybe skin is just a nice way of saying casket. cardboard-box. watery-tomb. whatever. how many times have i died and fallen inwards? who are these people? who listened to this music? i stare at Waking Up the Neighbours. Hey mom, remember this? she doesn't. Are you kidding me? this is the first CD you ever bought me- back when they came in those boxes ya know? She takes it gently in her hands like it was a pearl or something. she smiles. sadly. we all have a gift for smiling sadly in my family. the past is soo much that way: sad smiles. yes. you can't know how hard this was for me. $13. she shakes her head. we had no money then. i love you soo much, i wanted you to have something. she says that because we couldn't afford posters, so all the decorations in my room where my drawings of animals i did from off Zoobooks. (we got those at a garage sale once. a whole boxfull of them for a few bucks). i remember the fence at that house, it was green. (i smile sadly).

i kick a few CDs. step on a book and feel its face squash into the floor. i'm going to the kitchen. yeah, follow me if you like. glass/water/drink/gulping sound. click as it sits on the counter top.

welcome back. haven't had to deal with you in a while.
[he smiles.]

find the drawer with the caffeine pills. grab another energy drink. make some jasmine tea. swallow/drink/gulping sound. i have an exam tomorrow i haven't prepared for. maybe the heart attack can save me. another pill. swallow/drink/gulping sound.

write. re-read. hate. ignore. _____(got 4 more chapters to read

very short stories

For the light I stepped in put out the stars, assuming they were there, which I doubted, remembering the clouds.

__The Calmative, Samuel Beckett










the crippled clown, Anthony Pontius
courtesy of my love for you is a stampede of horses


____i. (physics for beginners)
the piano attracts dust to itself. no matter what i do. absorbs light, the room has been darker ever since it's been in here. blankets, pillows, armfulls of paper, everything i drop lands at its feet, attracted to it by minute readjustments of gravity. the piano is a black-hole. a pit of intention. of shouldcouldwould-have-beens. my hands feel older looking at it. like scarecrows. if i open the lid i see slowly yellowing teeth. large teeth. when i depress keys i remember entire yesterdays. full. unhindered. they overcome me, my own younghood. all the things i never learned to do. (and all the things i've forgotten.


____ii. (gothic horror story)
i am a strand of protein. by chance i am whiter than the others. this is lucky. those others are much too dark for my taste. i am the one that gives this chin a touch of maturity- those blackest hairs, what good are they? they just make him look scruffy and unkempt and a little terrifying to be quite frankly about it. i am the wisdom of age. the symbol of stress-surpassed. my goal is to proliferate. to expand in stature, and to recruit albino cousins to join my cause. it has been five days already. we rarely make it past six or seven. somewhere there. if he starts scratching anymore we're through. then we start again. we are mushrooms, we will inherit the face. when he is dead, and buried, and there is no chance of further interferences, we will smile without cessation, and silently gnaw our way out. his box will be nothing but our tangled mass. we will digest skin and cartiledge. we will sneak through the gaps in the box. we will reach the moonlight. while you sleep- we are dreamtime's children. we are midnight's spring.


____iii. (liebestraum)
she stares at me from across the table. ____delicious. ____something vanilla. ____i reach out my hand, push some hairs out her face. ____(and decide.) ____i want to drink you.


____iv.
after twenty minutes i can't tell anymore. my panting is out of beat with my steps. running is its own thing. i'm curled up in a corner of my head, subsiting on whatever oxygen can be rationed to me. pant-step, pant stepant, step-pant. a real mess. the street goes in a circle. i don't remember my place anymore, i just go around and around (the fat kid on the carousel staring at his parents the whole time. (never was fun anyway)). the moon comes and goes. he just picks-up clouds and retreats to darker corners to tongue-kiss them. i'm a little jealous. let's be real, everyone can do with more kissing. step step paaantstep pastep nt. i've seen this house before. the air's a little misty so the lights diffuse in largish halos. large balls of toxic yellow. the moon comes back with a big grin on his face. his third blow-job tonight. f*ck you as i look up (i hate showoffs). i pass a few darkened houses and am lost in shadow. invisible to anyeveryone.


____v. (memory)
q! come here now.
_i wish.
seriously! i want 2 marry u right_now. y won't you marry me already!
_ha. patience dear. go pick ur table arrangements & keep urself busy.
A-hole.
_lol
ur not funny. don think ur.
_cu sooooon!


____vi. (notapoem)
now now. stale but neccessary.
inhalation is always more effort
__(than the other... part).
Time waits on the edge of next week.
she plays with her hair and kicks her legs up as she sits on the step.
yes yes dear. i see you. soon soon.


____vii. (rout)
- so you got a girlfriend?
- no no.
- why not? you always have a girlfriend.
- i know. but not this time.
- why not?
- i don't wanna stay here. i'm paranoid i'm going to meet someone great and have to stay here.
- where do you wanna- i mean, where would you rather be?
- ha. you know the drill man. anywhere is fine.
- you are anywhere.
- clearly i mean anywhere else. you know the drill, next next next. doesn't matter where, only thing matters is next.
- you still running?
- no.
- liar- what from?
- ...
- ...
- [shrug]
- liar.

sigh.

____I am a part of all that I have met;
____Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
____Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
____For ever and for ever when I move.

________Ulysses, Tennyson










it could just be. it's sad if it is. perhaps that's what aging is all about. those odd looking faces you see. shop assistants. the reason gas-station attendants never like talking. disappointment. an entire world populated with people whose mothers were wrong. perfectly ordinary. eggs. C-average students. can't be helped. know your rung.

unfair really, given the kaleidoscopes that live in our heads. i heard a story today about a man who was coughing blood. x-ray showed nothing much. invasive surgery revealed a fern growing in his lungs- creeping along his alveola. swallowed a seed or something. i thought it was a beautiful story. a transmogrification. definitive proof of magic. a man with a real tree for lungs. (sans blood anyway). that within my lungs there's enough air water and sunlight to nurture another life. to be mother to something. (the kaleidoscopes that live in our everywheres)

i am uncomfortable with all my is.es. is a man (kinda). is brown hair, curly. is dark eyes- currently puffy. is small but somewhat expressive hands that feel lonely independently of the rest of my is. is a writer (kinda). is a class of persons. is a consumer. is a filmgoer. is a not enough love maker. is a frozen-coke drinker. is an unreformed bigger-dreamer. is a constant lung-gardner. is a midnight guarder. is scared of anything too much darker.

what i'm saying is, it has become crystallised to me, unfortunately, the tremendous length and breadth of my ordinariness. which is not a terrible thing. it explains the limp way 10+ years married husband and oh. ___yeah. this is my wife's hold hands. because they never did move to Paris. never had sex in a park. never aced law-school. never wrote a novel. never took that hiking trip. this is normal. it happens. you wake up and work it out. wow. 26. an unwriter. B-student.

dear Q,
it's important you stop listening to the Last Resort by Trentemoller. it is true that it's the most sophisticated, lovely music you've encountered in a long while- but your brain is a fragile construction of shadow and twitchy carbon-based semi-conductive neurons. in other news:

when this is all over. i'm driving from the exam hall to the cinema.
with the largest frozen-coke i can get. in my lap. so it's wet in my lap.
and not care what i watch. so long as i can sit in the dark. and watch nothing(something.
worry later. think later. there are no dreams that you don't remember when you dance
(shake it up, it comes back to the surface). (snow-globe). doesn't last long. but long enough.

____________(and my face might be different

Time-Out

approaching exams. 

exam madness is upon us(me). 

will return/write (again)

when i am not reading a million pages a day and madly taking notes on like... everything. 

wish me luck. 

smoke it to the filter

the trailer, Federico Erra


i know it's true because sometimes you walk away going nononono to yourself. (i wanted to wear the lime green pyjama pants) (i should have kissed her) (why didn't i say hello, he was right _ there) (i shouldn't have left) (i shouldn't have stayed) (i should have jumped) (why did i open my big mouth?) (i just wanted to touch her hand) (is it strange that we parked the car and got out and touched a tree and inhaled the mist in the air, and kicked around a few rocks, and drove on again?)

the thing i am concerned with right now is owning ever single moment. because they are balloons. full of nothing. potential air. potential gravity. potential words. all silent. all stillness and vague and boring and translucent. and every moment can be 'won'. every moment has a definite ending... a plateau. i'm sharpening my words, pppuuusshing every moment to its crisis, scrunching every universe into a ball and throwing it at the bin... oh really? lean towards me and close your eyes then. courage. you want to? now? beach? it's 4am... let's do it. adventure can be feigned but i'm thinking how much better to expand into it. grow into and fill up the baggy snakeskin i'm wearing. yes yes yes yes.

i am only concerned with the word yes. any time, any where. any one. you want to talk? you want to run.jump.dance.kiss.f*ck.swim.scream.vent.makelove.sit silently saying nothing.drinkcoffee.drinkjuice.fall over and laugh.laugh.holdhands: i'm your guy.

i'm sharpening my words. i'm becoming sneaky. it's not just courage, half the time it's a conscious pushing. you feel it in the moment. something in it. something in this moment right here, wants to grow. there is a newer darkness in this. it wants to come out. there is a tragedy and a miracle here wanting to grow. my words, the look of my eye, the motion of my hands can water it. yesyesyes. i'm going to grind myself into every tension, bite into every quiet uncomfortable moment and come out the other side more loved/more hated/more confused than anyone ever before. sometimes even the night, the lunchtime, the coffeeshop girl, the best friend doesn't know it's there... or senses it and backs away. but that's where i come in. slide besides them. whisper in their ear. (they don't see it yet, but the moment is expanding, it's moving now, vectors, all vectors, movement in directions, arrows, cupid's bitch arrows, darkened clouds' darkened rain (is it black even before it hits the ground?)

drunker & higher & deeper & louder & farther than anyone's ever been lost before. (yesyesyesyes)

i'm not fooling around. i've found my panacea: it's me. and all that has to happen is i have to feed and nurture myself. accept it. develop it. watch it grow (me me me me)

oh it will be delicious. to approach every moment unafraid. unwavering. unapologetic. i'm going to smoke every second to the butt end, toss it aside, and think how stomach-full of life i am.
(yesyesyesyes)

there are too many solutions to these problems. why life is soo crap and dull and boring and the stench of decay my skin's unbearable and time soo drawn-out and monotonous (nononono) oh nononononono. no more. not i. oh no.

i have sharper teeth.
i'm going to bite each and everyone.

i must prepare the vampire.

thoughts (fragments)

untitled, JordiGual

____i.
and i guess it's a dream then. if that's all it has to be then that's all it has to be. distant intimations that maybe enough united silences could find a way to glue and stitch and clothe and feed sighs and moans and whimpers and the sound of chewing and snorting into one intelligible word. what would that word be if not: please? if not yess? if not love? if not sorry? if not never if not always if not
if not



____ii.
dearest _ _ _ _ _,

it seems the world will not rest until i am informed several times daily that you are married. congratulations. sincerely.

i'm not sure if i ever understood what you were really after. nevermind. let's just blame circumstance for it. in any case. i'm not certain you were after a man. it was more a universe you had in mind. (me too. we are too similar). i have a different universe in mind too. so let's shake hands here you and i. and diverge. and find each other sometime far far away later. in better, more beautiful worlds. and there, in that world, i will be soo happy to see you again.

signed in invisible silence.
a penny for the old guy.


____iii.
damn writer's block.
damn damn damn damn damn
damn damn damn damn damn
writer's block.

thoughts (fragments)

in the wet this happens. dark knights- these are tired young men now. they have longish unkempt hair. unsettled hands that fumble across the unimpressive glass of coffee cups. packets of raw sugar. rub the oils of their fingertips into the red tables. (the streetlights burn yellow). women with too much skin do suggestive dances and kiss on the lips and smoke like its the cure to cancer.
(it rains a little more). (there's noise, always noise.

rage is a quiet thing like a mouse. lives in quiet corners. scampers around mostly unseen. teeming with unsensed possibilities. (here i think of blood noses and red roses with wet petals) (and the streets soo dark when it rains). A drunk young man screams nonesense gibberish out loud. A drunk young woman who's straddling his knee leans back and laughs. (the streetlights burn a urine tinged yellow).

the dark knights have unslept eyes and mumble their words. nod. focus on your eyes, look at you straight.

(but the beauty of rage is its ability to motivate action. revolutions. genocides. first-kisses.)

what good is it if clouds trip and fall to the earth from time to time? what does one do with all this water? ____(i think in my head what self-destructive, self-loathing habit to indulge. it is a difficult task... smoking? too 90's. cocaine? too expensive. promiscuity? too dehumanizing. jogging? too healthy. cursing? own it. marijuana? too 'teen'. alcohol? too cliche.


*___*___*

a strange thing is happening in my head. i am feeling little bits of nonsense coalescing. phrases. ideomethodologies. it is time i wrote a decent story, something that might perchance, mayhaps have a slim-to-impossibility of being published somewhere. it must be the me-ist thing i've never written. also i have a new theme to add to the bundle: comfort. affection. this is linked to (one of our regulars here) home. and the final one is transcendence. freedom from alleverything. my novel ends in a disappearance. mayperbe this story should end in floating. in flying. in unravelling. mostly i want it to end under warm blankets and in mighty hugs. in homes that feel like homes and at moments when its ok for time to stop. it is about the dross bllaahhh. hh .hh of life and the search to overcome. to over come. to get over and (be) come. to come. to orgasm. to feel, even if by cutting (hating) (cursing) (kicking) (jogging) (smoking) (f*cking) (losing/winning) (snorting) whatevering- yearning leaning moaning edging towards intimations of feelingness.

it will be a mass of Orestes running across empty plains chased by the furies. it will be young knights with sweaty noses their glasses slip down. it will be that uncomfortable heat that builds up in cars so that when we finally return and slide in it feels like the sticky air inside someone's stomach. maybe after my exams i'll go to Adelaide. sit in one of about 4 dark corners i sit in when i'm in Adelaide. drink bllaahhhh (whatever who gives a) and scriblle bllaahhh (whatever who gives a) and try and make it intensely good.

*___*___*

Q v4.1, UPGRADE COMPATIBILITY REPORT

___- language has been differentiated into gears. can drop gears into quieter moods, and fluently return to more animated discussion. can transition deep&meaning and light&tasty as needed.
___- must improve suggestivity/insinuation.
___- can camoflage demonstrations of higher-value as 'natural', can utilize multiple-threads.
___- must overcome intimidation concerns through demonstrations of too esoteric knowledge, too inaccessible language. must convert intimidation into its more subtle form: admiration.
___- human-touch (kino) upgrade has been mostly successful. naturally access people's personal space through a progressive sequence of touches starting with light pats and ending in hand-holding/arm-in-arm walking, or heads-on-shoulders-while-looking-at-shop-windows type stances.
___- inner confidence improving therefore relying less on direct communication and more on 'the intensity of ones presence'
___- learning to stare into eyes proving difficult. in short bursts programming works fine, but must urge for full compliance to this principle. preliminary experimentation has not been unsuccessful, no reason full transition cannot be achieved in a matter of days.
___- must learn to absorb the vibe of the moment, use it as a gyro to convert possibility to action.
___- the nonexistent walls that are ever-present must be dismantled.
___- new music acquisitions have been minimal, but effort continues to be expended to this end
___- plan to supplement brain function with physiochemical stimulus is a go for after-exams
___- identity is largely settled upon, must now create ability to persuade people to join my frame-of-reference.
___- adventure and 'surprise' can be planned. keep handful of adventures in your pocket ready for opportunity. Collect, assemble and prepared the EMERGENCY SPONTANEOUS ADVENTURE-KIT.
___- no excuses, smoke it to the filter.

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