7.3 Miles To Go

Love's Arrow ~ John Byrne

“Welcome to The Middle” said the grey-haired man on the square plinth.
The man sat cross legged and his eyes were closed, a fact that caused Atom to wonder how he knew they were there.
“The middle of what” said No.3.
“The middle of the sentence that I was busy thinking,” said the man, “The middle this edge of the page; the middle of the muddle we’re in.”
“Hello Miles” said Cajones, “Still talking loud but saying nothing I see.”
“Just because you don’t get it doesn’t negate it” said the man.
“True,” said Cajones, “Only problem is I do get it, it’s a game that you play with yourself.”
“A game?”
“Sorry to interrupt your happy reunion,” said Atom, “But where’s the music coming from?”
“A game?”
“A game,” said Cajones, “that we all know the rules to except you.”
“Oi!” No.3 prodded Cajones with the blunt end of his spear, “It’s rude to…” Cajones swatted him with a withdrawn-claw-paw, sending him flying, all legs ‘n’ loincloth, across the clearing.
“The music, young man,” said the Miles, turning towards Atom and opening his eyes, “is coming from the Signalman’s hut.”
“erm thanks” said Atom.
“You’re so full of yourself,” said the man to Cajones, “Teacher’s pet, free to roam.”
“You call me anybody’s pet again and I’ll dissect you alive, and I’ll do it slowly.”
“You and whose army?”
“Not again” said Atom covering his eyes, remembering the incident of the Desk Clerk.
The clearing was silent, except for the music from the Signalman’s hut and the sound of No.3 disentangling himself from the thorn bush in which he’s landed.
“ee…tsss…ah…owch…”
Atom opened his eyes to find Cajones and Miles grinning at one another. More precisely, Miles was grinning while Cajones was baring his teeth.
The music came to an abrupt halt. The silence lasted a heartbeat before the music began again; different, more strident.
“erm, guys?” said Atom, “can we please not do that thing which involves turning someone inside out and then artistically rearranging their innards? It’s really not my thing.”
They turn from one another to look at Atom, traces of their diverse grins falling from their faces.
“This one has got spirit, “says Miles.
“Is that what you call it,“ said Cajones, “He’s not the brightest bulb but he does make No.3 over there appear positively dog-like.”
“…and while we’re at it, could we not talk about me as if I wasn’t here” said Atom.
“Spirit” said Miles.
“No balls though” said Atom.

Pisces Iscariot Wants to be Your Friend on ...

Dan Piraro

Mother Knows Best

She had to wonder why he took it on the chin; never stood up to the constant stream of bullshit being streamed into his brain from the transmitter in the corner. She couldn’t help but see behind the transmissions, to question their purpose; to try and glean what was so carefully not being said.

He called her paranoid.
She called him stupid.

Night after night they observed from diametrically opposite corners of the room; night after night they came away with two different understandings of what was going on.

He called his mother.
She called it quits.

Tales for the attention-span deficit reader

7.2 Promises to Keep

“What’s on the other side of these woods?” Atom stopped to get his breath.
“How would I know?”
“Shh” No.3 crouched with spear pointing forward.
“Don’t you hiss at me” said Cajones
“Listen!” hissed No.3.
Cajones angled his ears in the direction indicated by No.3’s spear; Atom leaned forward like a hunt dog pointing; the trees bowed to the silence.
Music.
“I hate music,” said Cajones, sitting back on his haunches, “It’s fucking unnatural; confuses my eye/ear coordination.
“It’s beautiful” said Atom.
No.3 slid sideways between two trunks; Atom followed.
No.3 popped his head back a second later, “C’mon you big pussy, come join us out on the limb”

Say What?

		Nothing is given to man, and that little which is his to conquer is paid for by unjust deaths. But that isn't where his greatness lies. It lies in his decision to be greater than his condition. And if his condition is unjust, he has only one means to rise above it, and that is for he himself to be just. ~ Albert Camus

3. You Don’t Bring Me Orchids [Anymore]

[Extracted from the files of Mark Time P.I.]

Marlene Dietrich

What fundamental law of entropy declares that even the slightest transgression of personal standards will lead to abject despair?
For those of us raised to appreciate the benefits of frugality, the experience of pleasure is always a double-edged sword.
Payment is self-extracted and always above the going rate.
Mrs. Victor Barlia had guilt written all over her; from the extravagant cut of her dress to the studied curl of pencil at the corner of her eyes; from the togetherness of her knees above the edge of my desk to the cigarette that posed between the fingers of her poised hand.
“My husband doesn’t love me,” she said, “I want you to find out why.”
“If you suspect your husband of infidelity then I will do my utmost to provide you with evidence of such Mrs Barlia,” I raised my eyes from those knees to meet her eyes, “But as to the condition of your husband’s emotional attachment to you, I can only suggest guidance from a completely different kind of agency.”
“It amounts to the same thing Mr Time,” she drew smoke in with a short reverse gasp, “whether he enacts the physical manifestation or not; infidelity does not necessarily confine itself to the realm of action.”

7.1 Lonely, Dark & Deep

Dan McPharlin

The woods made clear their distrust of the interloping trio with silence. No path was offered and the trees closed together making progress slow and sinuous. This, of course offered no particular problem to Cajones; his width-guide whiskers played their role allowing him to insinuate himself forward like a complex mathematical formula made flesh. Atom and No.3 followed in their own manner.
Cajones had spent the night in spiral curl sleep with both ears on sentry duty while Atom had slept fitfully under the weight of the policeman’s coat. No.3, unable to sleep for the voices of NOM 1 & 2 echoing in his head, had fashioned a crude spear from a fallen branch.
In the array of branches and leaves that informed the woods with the particular benefits that only light can deliver; up and away from the base fear provided by contact with the black earth and her grim recycle; up in what passed as thoughts to the listening woods, there was an awareness that remembered to fear the complexity of these terribly mobile creatures. This awareness, though powerless to react in the immediacy of direct action, knew enough to begin proceedings that might allay their complete destruction at the hands of man.
Under the dew-soaked coat Atom had considered the emptiness of the space where he knew his self should reside. He’d lifted the coat enough to see the figure of No.3 performing some slow motion battle moves while the woollen loincloth hung dew-heavy in the crook of one of the branches that straggled into the clearing. Swivelling his eyes to the left Atom’d found Cajones looking directly at him from the ginger triangle that he formed against the morning mist.
“Morning”
“What time is it?”
“Morning”
“What’s Number Three doing?”
“Number Three?”
“Him” Atom pointed at No.3 who was in the process of impaling a large (and rather intimidating) portion of nothing on the end of his spear.
“Who knows,” Cajones blinked his eyes slowly, “He’s been at it since before it got light. He’s not quite right, your Number Three.”
“You should’ve seen the other two” said Atom.

A Pyramid of Needs

As the sky fell down on the sleeping town
Where they slept in enclosed arms
He dreamed of her and she of he
As if the world had deemed them charmed

As the sky fell down on the dreaming town
All motion-stop and coronal flame
He dreamed she dreamed of him alone
In a world washed free of shame

As the sky fell down on this shanty town
Where the sleepers rattle nightly
She dreamed he kept her safe from harm
In an embrace not taken lightly

Holidays In The Sun

The things we should feel most guilty about are the ones which were sold to us as life goals.
Nobody has ever truly been made happy by a shiny new car; not for long anyway, as it soon becomes a not-so-new-car and later merely a car.
It is a pity that we do not crave for more fulfilling possessions: the ones that we may use as tools to create a personal environment that does not rely on the fleeting currents of marketing values but rather seeks to slow the moments down so that they may be experienced at leisure.
What is the ultimate possession, the one that won’t, no sooner has it been grasped, slip through your fingers like water?
Our highest thoughts may come to believe that our minds are that possession; the one place that should belong solely to us; and yet we sell it to the voice that shouts the loudest.

“Wish you were here”
Read the postcard sent
From the man in the electric chair

∞.6c Mad Scientist's Notebook

What other purpose could we serve, if not war? Those pursuers of agendas other than domination have not the one drive that triggers the quantum leap: they have not the need to kill by means other that the unreliable bare hand. The two edged sword that is forged in the white heat of creativity must bare the hard edge of the anvil that technology deems a necessity for survival.
Perhaps I seek only to absolve myself of the guilt that runs through this process of titration and distillation, as if one person could have made a difference.

Still from Jonathan Weiss' The Atrocity Exhibition

∞.6b No.3's Nightmare

Nobody. Nothing. Chased into a room where the light switches fail to switch the lights on. Hot breath on my nape.

Subway ~ George Tooker

∞.6a Atom's Dream

Atom sat on the toilet in a room full of people who seemed not to have noticed his nakedness.
Someone was giving instructions to the gathering on the procedure for leaving but all Atom could think about was ‘I’m gonna have to wipe my arse before I can leave with them’.

Passive-Agressive Tendencies

Misathropissed

I must admit to an inability to understand those who see only the good in their fellow man. From where I sit I see delusional egotism and an utter disregard for all but the self.
I see the jostling crowd, elbows out with little time for anything but the endless stream of mis-spelt words issuing from crooked thumbs.
As if one’s location, if not broadcast to someone on the other side of the ether, would cease to exist; as if, in the absence of a constant stream of meaningless words one would disappear into the silence and there, perhaps, one would encounter a thought that asked a question whose answer has not been included in the script.

6.2 New Territory

Ray Morimura

The moonlit clearing was silent, Atom fancied he could hear the policeman’s shrill whistle far below in the valley.
“Okay, so what are our choices?” said Atom, “We either go back or go forward.”
“Or stay here” said Cajones, his eyes still closed.
“I’m not going back down there,” said No.3.
“Forward then”
“You talk as if forward is a direction you can point to with your little pink fingers,” Cajones’ eyes opened in irritation, “Which way, if forward?”
“That way” said Atom pointing a little pink finger in the direction of the woods that listened darkly from three sides of the clearing.
“Okay, okay, it’s no fur off my balls,” said Cajones with a sigh, “but I’d suggest that since you lot are rather bad at seeing in the dark, we wait until morning before venturing ‘forward’”