1/20-?/1997
This morning and it started out with a cough I remember it well. I was at the breakfast table, and had just put my shoes on. The cats dangling in front of the window were rustling in a spring breeze. The Marmoset on the stove steaming off a black vapor of thaw- as all who freeze their marmosets can attend to. Why, Bartholomew my younger brother, had just wiped down the wall with the last coat of think green paint. And my mother standing on the stool and swatting at things with a fly sweater between her teeth. I licked my shoes and started off, out into the world on this shining day- mail box slung across my shoulder. But a cough came up through my larynx. Not the light wispy cough of the youth I once was, but a repulsive, vial, thick, chunky black cough. I gulped down a carton of milk and looked around to see if anyone else had heard it, for I feared they were all staring at me- appalled. But my clever scanning eyes caught nothing- as apparently neither had they.
Off at once in a flash of bravado and silver shoe buckles I ripped through the terrace screen door and skipped lightly down the stairs singing nursery rhymes. I thought about my body- how I hadn’t before noticed how old it was- how my arms and legs must be ready to self amputate from sheer exhaustion- "I am an old man" I stated unto mine own ears resignedly- caring not for the big blue elephant puffs and cardinal wheels of orange cream that roamed the skies above mine head- caring not for the grass which spun in the miniature carnivals of the earliest motion cartoons. I could feel my hair falling out… that was it- no time for school why I was about to die of old age there is no time for such as them. Thenly and redirecting of my bipedal direction I started off for yonder park, where all old people go and spend their short remaining days.
When I got to the park I felt it must have been night time- how soon will I get used to this rapid retreat of sweet, sweet time- where has it all gone why have I squandered my youth- I do not even remember growing old and already it is here. All the birds bright and quick, but singing my funeral march I am sure. I looked around for a bench, and saw the others, elderly like myself. Oh they had it good compared to me and my condition. My skin might look young but its about to break any minute and spill out my innards for the geese to pick through- I am sure of it.
I was fifty feet from the bench, I had found one unoccupied, when I realized that I would probably die before I got there. So I toppled over, and let the grass scratch away at my face. I rolled onto my back, and closed my eyes, possibly for the last time. And I waited. I waited to see a light coming toward me. A few times I almost thought that I saw it, like a train coming through to remove me from my decrepit functionless body and put my spirit in some box to be put in a pine shack called "Visions of Peace." I fantasized of all the marvels of being rid of my retched body. None of the tortures of this world for me, "I am off into a nothingness unflawed and incorruptible," I almost heard my voice but realized the thought so ridiculous. Of course I had no mouth I was buried under some tree. But I could still hear the wind. Must be that the wind echoes so the dead can hear it. I thought about how nice it was to be dead, how nothing would ever bother me again.
Then my soul floated off; at last and well deserved, I was once again a being of light- in this- my body of light. I shook my fists at the pathetic and philistine earth below me, and spat upon it my celestial mucus. Great angels that looked like parakeets with flopping human female breasts and the legs of elephants began to surround me and rub my arms and legs with wet halved artichokes. Their wings flapped in a silver breeze of illumined solar wind. Occasionally their heads would rotate in circles and they would ‘coo, coo’ the sad song of the mourning dove. But I shoed them away when I had grown tired of their sycophant vegetable strokings, and after a moments pause, I was about to decide on what I was going to do now that I was dead, when I felt something slightly cold run over me- like a sock of heavenly metal links so small as to be compared only to the finest silk. Then it came like a great tongue rubbing over what once was my face. I could feel it, I was being cleansed free of all earthly sins and soils. All treachery and desires- cast away as I entered... the better place.
But this cleansing was going on longer then I thought, and soon I heard from beneath the ground, "Harris, Harris come over here and stop licking that poor boy." My heavenly flight at once began to fade and my eyes opened- which in itself startled me as I assumed my eyes had been a hundred years decayed and replaced by groping roots and bulbs- but no, damn them, they were there and quite intact. And I dare say what flooded in upon me were hardly visions of peace and beings of light- but that of a slinky black hound dog and a middle aged house wife running after it. The dog turned once and glanced around, then went back to vigorously licking my face. I jerked away at once and the dog yelped and went running back to its owner -- leaping the full twelve feet into the gargantuan woman’s arms. "My god," I mumbled, "How long had that dog been licking me?" I turned to the lady to say something bitter and short that I thought an old person ought to say, but when I looked she was galloping her way towards me- her legs lanky and teetering like circus stilts and her head way up in the air like a tiny peach or an apple. "What did you do to my Mwelfpt," she yipped.
I rolled to my feet and ran toward the creek praying I would not be crushed by some monstrous yellow tennis shoe, or slapped silly by a seven foot arm. I scuttled across the grass -- my head spinning and spitting out nursery rhymes, "Black socks, they never get dirty the longer you ware them the stronger they get, sometimes..." and down the pebbled bank to the water. There I jumped around, eager eyes to see if I was followed or not. But it was in the distance I saw her, stroking her muppies and screeching out I could hear her from where I stood. I closed my eyes and tried to think. Then another cough erupted. I could feel my veins shriveling and failing. All my joints ached, I knew I must have used but my very last of cartilage running as I did. The last few lumps of decay settled on the sides of my mouth and I slumped down on a flat rock and sat; waiting to die listening to the stream and watching the water play over the rocks that looked to have come from all over the world.
As I sat there I noticed something odd, an odd feeling. Why, my pants felt wet that’s what it was. And something smelled. Glancing down I froze with embarrassment, I had wet my pants. I thought for a second, ‘when could this have happened?’ Then I realized that when I had ascended to the heavens to be greeted by angels- that I had in fact descended into a deep sleep, and must have in that state released unto the world the contents of my bladder. Quickly I took off my pants and threw them into the water. "What do I need pants for," I thought, "I’m just going to die anyway," and tossed the remaining of my clothes in as well -- all the while chuckling complacently. Yes, only a few more minutes, how could I last longer then that?
There, naked but for my paisley socks and a sparkling silver wrist watch, I sat down. It felt quite good to be done with those clothes. "Like this body," I chuckled, oh it felt good to be old and naked. I thought about the dog licking my face and it’s tree-like owner bearing down on me with squeaks and squeals. I almost laughed and grinned my teeth bare- but reconsidered as it would be inappropriate for someone of my place in the world.
I had never sat down on a rock naked before, it felt nicer then I would have thought. I looked up- to hopefully catch a few last rays of sun before the end... when I froze at what I saw. Not one less then a million squirrels staring down on me with their beady soulless black animal eyes from the multitude of branches. I thought if I didn’t move they would go away. So I waited, and held my breath. Then I almost died- As if the branches themselves were falling- every one of those squirrels launched and plummeted. I slumped over and made a shield of my arms for the back of my head. It sounded like a million bowling balls landing in a field of lettuce. Thud, thud thud. Four or five bounced off me squeaking like rubber dog toys. When confident I was safe I opened my eyes, only to see every of the million jumping for my clothing and tearing them to shreds.
When I finally got home there were thirty or forty police and postal officers following me at a distance. I had no need to cover myself more, I had socks and the time. It was dark as I had spent the rest of the day walking up and down the length of the stream. Finally and luckily, I was in time for dinner. And they had moved the dinner table to right behind the front door and were eating as I walked in. "Burf, how are you come right in," my father said, "Sit down take a load off, had a long day(?) you know there’s orange juice and liver at the end of the table HEY LOOK BWEMPLE’S BACK, it’s good to see you son it really is." And he smiled a wide smile and then gave his complete attention back to carving his kidneys and brussel sprouts. My eighteen brothers and sisters were all blowing balloons and transporting food between one another's plates. I sat down at my seat with a tall glass of liver orange juice, and drank up.