thoughts (fragments)

strange lifeforms by luis dechtiar


the day actually starts at 12:01. not when i wake up , not when it's light out.

[he looks at the time 12:57am] , an hour already it's been newness.
[he smiles and licks his lips] , new new new 'how beautiful' he thinks.

and newness makes him happy at 12:59am monday morning. a new darkness. there's less to worry about this new darkness. it's not the end of something. not the middle. we're not stuck in it. left alone with it on our hands like the old car that doesn't start in the garage. it's the start of it. the A of the alphabet. a whole 25 more to go. the whole periodic table before us.


*___*___*

so he does nothing. swims in it. eats mini muffins and takes a minute at the end to pick up crumbs and eat them too so his fingers are a little oily.

sshhh. don't speak she says. he says nothing with a smile. and she smiles back. he picks up another crumb , asks if she wants yogurt. she shakes her head reminds him i don't eat yogurt. she almost adds remember? at the end but realises he probably doesn't. maybe he does. who knows.

he gets a text on his phone: send thingee in today.
he responds: GF-secretary service, exceptional. please renew subscription another yr. direct debit.

later they dance. in one dream or some other - every whichwaythere is always someone dancing. always? she wants to know._ a l w a y s_ he says definitely.
and the music always plays.
and bodies are always warm.
and lips are never far when you need them,
and hands grow like trees and when you are sad one's not far away
and we grow up to be cherry pies and dandelions and piano melodies ,
and we die like our perfect sleep : an island floating on our own most memorable laughs and the smiles of daughters and highschool boyfriends and ivy dangling

and that's why we're dancing he says loudly , shouting it as he gets out the shower , comes running out naked and laughing , leaving a slippery wet streak behind him like a snail ; she's startled and laughs ppeeenis! and they both laugh (and take out their notebooks and jot down the date and time to remember it for ever and never) what a gift, i thought it might be valentines day she says.


*___*___*

i am old enough now to feel it.

it's lovely.

i once wrote a story about a boy who inhaled the nightsky.

i am old enough now to feel it.


*___*___*

i've been listening to, and love very much..., a LIST:

(1) ::M∆DE::IN::HEIGHTS:: __(you need this)

(2) Shostakovich, string quartet No. 15 in e-flat minor

(regarding the opening elegy Shostakovich told the Beethoven Quartet, before they premiered the work to play it: so that flies drop dead in mid-air, and the audience start leaving the hall from sheer boredom; of course that's impossible. instead it inhabits the air. takes over your room like four separate ghosts, sitting on the side of your bed and behind your desk, and your lounge chair and one on the couch besides you, sitting patiently, and seconds turn into leaves and fall drop out the sky and dry up)

(3) The Invisible Insurrection by Desolate

(4) The King of Limbs by Radiohead

(5) Dark Storm EP by the Jezebels

(6) Ravedeath, 1972 by Tim Hecker

fuzzy love, fuzzy time, fuzzy how it all works or tries to and changes merges grows or jammed and hated is pushed from one to the next discontinuous discontiguous ...


*___*___*

he wakes up sweaty. not remembering anything.

and hungry.

he hopes he dreamt of being underwater. walking along the bottom. everything was blue. it sounded like a pipe organ. everything was slow so he had time to remember it. and it was slow so he had time to let his body feel it. and it was dark. and silent. and still. and those are things he loves and tries to fit into his bag wherever he goes ; and failing 9 times out of every 8, he wants to dream stillness into being. get home from work and walk to the closet and get it out like a jacket and put it on. and then it is slow. and wear it to sleep so he dreams slow. and not take it off when he makes love so he dies slow.

eats cake for breakfast. with tea. and reads the new york times on his iphone and scratches his head trying to play a move on scrabble. gives up on all three and walks to the glass and looks out over the lake to assess the coming sunlight. he remembers the day started four hours ago. has been sitting waiting for him. excited like a puppy. ___he finishes his tea, puts the rest in the sink, and decides to dream a little more of aquatic pipe organs.