Arcane Desires

"Loft Party"

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:36:00 +0000

Lapis lazuli eyeshadow, exposed pipes, and Scandinavian metal greeted Brendan as he opened the loft door. There was no welcome mat. Eyelashes windshield-wiped and obsidian eyeliner mixed into the canvas, turning the delicate pockets holding the eyes a deep, dark violent violet. Marble blended with lapis in a kind of contact metamorphism. The pipes carried electricity, tap water, gas, cable, and sewage around the makeshift apartment. The door was makeshift too, cardboard which created a portal in a sheet of knockoff imitation cardboard which was designated as a wall. The allure of the hue, like ambient lights reflecting in a new age opium den, enraptured and entranced him.

“Hey, what’s up? You can put the beer in the fridge for now.” That was Liza. It was her loft. It was her oil paint smearing on skin like pure pigment settling on a peach countertop after floating in the air. And now it was her walking across the room to talk to some guido about the coke delivery.

Brendan’s arm twitched twice. He was hypersensitive to stimuli. His mother had always told him that. And two arm twitches with pain told him to back away. Two arm twitches without pain, if he felt bloodflow on the other hand, meant that he was right. One of his homunculi told him, “You’re a good person, Brendan. Keep doing what you’re doing.” He fingered a pill in his pocket. “Now would be a bad time to take the medicine, Brendan. Keep doing a good job and listen to the twitches. You know how hard it is to interpret the twitches when you take the medicine.” He took his hand out of his pocket and let the capsule fall to the soft cloth seam at the bottom. The homunculi were like navigators – backseat drivers, really – but Brendan was the one ultimately in control of the car. He had the keys. The homunculi were non-corporeal, but he could make those limbs move, make them stretch out if he knew for sure that a twitch or an itch would guide him the wrong way. He cleared his throat, and the sound reverberated and resonated through the refrigerator. He made room for the 6-pack and set it down. The first homunculus – the one who had guided him through the twitches – was a little gnome who was silly sometimes but mostly serious. He had a large red nose and eyes that insisted he spoke the truth. His imaginary physical representation only appeared when Brendan wasn’t paying enough attention to him.

The party was full of plenty of stimuli for Brendan to interpret, and he created new semiological systems with each new synapse firing in his brain. A Sharpie painting of a forlorn-looking woman with a long black dress was hanging on the wall at the other corner of the loft. Brendan couldn’t see far enough to know it, but the painting was signed by someone named The_Marauder. Obviously, Brendan knew this painting was a portal to a universe of ineffable desolation, and the closer he got to it, the more he could feel the spirits descend. The_Marauder didn’t even know what the word desolation meant, but he knew beyond reasonable doubt – beyond a shadow of a doubt – that this painting meant death. He slunk away from it, terrified of going through the portal. The doctor said this was Brendan’s problem: his surety, his certainty in interpretation. Everyone reads the signs, but the healthy ones stay unsure. That wasn’t exactly what the doctor said, but it was mostly.

The second homunculus began to converse with the first. This one was tall and gaunt, with a small, thin face. “You fucking idiot, you always do the same fucking thing. If you keep doing this shit, they won’t even let you go out anymore. Don’t you remember the hospital, the way that kind nurse looked at you with so much pity and simultaneous hate? You go crazy with the twitches, scare people, the paramedics come, and you wind up hooked up to a haliperidol drip trying to get some sleep on a too-small ER bed. How long can you do that before you become a life-long crazy?” Just as the second homunculus finished his monologue, he could feel the first taking precedence again.

“What if each time you get the drip, they’ve caught you and they’re controlling you?” asked the gnome’s nose. “You’re always fine until they give you the drip. You’re one with everything. You have certainty, you have purpose, and that--“

“Oh shit, the keg is kicked. Fucking sucks. It’s only 12:30. Where’s the fucking beer, man?” The guy was looking at Brendan. “Yo, can I borrow a stoge?”

“What?” asked Brendan.

“A stoge, a bogey. Cig.”

“Uh, yeah,” Brendan said. He didn’t hesitate before handing the guy a cigarette.

The gnome homunculus grew visible in his mind again, hairy ears slightly offset. “What, you want to end up like him? Do you think he has any purpose? Any gift for prophecy like you’ve shown? What does he know of the future? What does he even know of the present? Hey dick, why are you here? To get fucked up? To get some pussy?”

Brendan’s upbringing, some strain of agnostic humanism in his parents, acted as counterbalance. He wouldn’t say that. But he looked to the guy like he might.

“Where do you live?” asked the guy.

“Around here,” said Brendan. “Like 15 minutes.”

“Nice. Damn, check that shit out,” drooled the guy.

“What a goddamn surprise,” said the gnome, drowning out the protestations of his all-too logical counterpart.

“What a goddamn surprise,” said Brendan.

“What?” said the guy. “Damn, you missed her. Your loss. Okay, I’m gonna go get a drink somewhere. Plenty of half-full beers around. Later.”

Brendan didn’t say goodbye. The first homunculus was right again.

The music had changed to some 8-step-full-on-hardstyle-dub-rampant with musique-concrète influences that would be carved out as a particular sub-sub-genre of a sub-culture next week. It made Brendan uneasy, and he felt nauseated. What was his purpose at this party? It seemed like there was nothing to do. Just a bunch of unprophetic people wandering around trying desperately to silence the gnawing desperation. How were people having fun here? He saw three people making out in a corner. Oh.

Brendan had a girlfriend a few years back. He had courted her heavily. 1-800-FLOWERS.com boxes left at her doorstep by the deliveryman dressed up like a florist, or if he was lucky, making it inside Becca’s office accompanied by a security guard to ensure the integrity of physical goods brought inside the building. They had been out twice: first a movie, unmemorable. Second, a local symphony concert with a woodwinds section that made Brendan scratch his scalp vigorously. But it wasn’t just the woodwinds. He didn’t know it was going to be Wagner. Prelude to the 3^rd Act of Lohengrin. All Brendan could see were concentration camps when he closed his eyes. There was no separation between the music’s signification and any beauty it had outside of Wagner. So he opened his eyes, and they started appearing in his open-eye perceptions too, soldiers kicking starved prisoners, barbed wire fences. Wagner was the impresario. The piece wasn’t short enough. Brendan started screaming bloody murder. He was forcibly dragged out; the orchestra played through it all. Becca had been sleeping. Dark concert halls with music playing always made her sleepy. They didn’t see each other after that. Brendan knew the conductor was furious. They dragged him out on a stretcher. He was out in a few days. He signed his diagnosis paper without reading it during the evaluation, and that was that. Eat more vitamins. Omega-3. Fish oil. Snake oil. Brendan started reading anti-psychiatry books and journals. Thomas Szasz and shit. He knew he was right about these premonitions. Something was clouding his perceptions when he found out he was wrong. Someone changed everything around on him.

He came to a realization with some of the homunculi’s help: his system of interpretation, his hermeneutic method, was different from that of everyone else around him. The decisions he was making were justified by the way he read the signs. It all had this beautiful, elegant internal logic. But because others weren’t perceiving the world with the pre-requisite of his gathered experiences, they couldn’t comprehend why he would do the things he had done. A profound sense of loneliness followed this. No one could feel a total empathy with him, no one, because it would be impossible to dictate his emotional, mental, and spiritual impressions. That was what he had always longed for: a complete shared experience with another being, the notion of comprehension and two bound wills, but it was ultimately impossible. Becca could have kissed him, yes. She might even have fucked him. But she wouldn’t have heard Wagner the same way. Some people say that’s beautiful, some uniqueness which allows subjective experience to be had. But Brendan didn’t want subjectivity. Once he knew that was impossible, he felt resigned to his fate, and he vowed to live in the only way he could: treating all stimuli as his own and no one else’s. He would read the signs, and he alone would interpret the objective signification which all objects were endowed with: why they were there to begin with.

It was this will that kept Brendan solid in his convictions, clinging to them despite the doctors who claimed they were irrational and exhibited signs of dangerous and psychopathic behavior. The intensity of what he stood for, which was how each of the symbols would direct his life and the lives of others, shimmered in some perfect new world where he alone was the keyholder of meaning.

And so as he stood at the party, there was little doubt about what the gnome told him. He walked over to the guy who had stood in the kitchen with him before. The guy had apparently found some beer. He kept palming one of the bottles on the table, which was indistinguishable from the others except for the liquid inside of it.

“We meet again,” said the guy happily.

“Yeah, we do.” Brendan thought for a moment and then asked the question he already knew the answer to. “You looking for pills?”

“Yeah man, fucking always,” said the guy. “What do you got?”

“Check it out.” Brendan took out the haloperidol pill. It said GG 126 on it. 10 milligrams. “It’s kind of heavy shit, though. It’s an anti-psychotic.”

“Oh, like Xanax and shit. I know all about that. How much?”

“Te—twenty. I got it for 15, but I’ve gotta make money somehow,” said Brendan, acting cool, acting like he knew what he was doing.

“Okay,” said the guy. “I’ll give you 15. I can’t do any more than that.”

“Fine,” said Brendan. “15. Take it with water. And save it until you’re on acid or K or whatever and you want to come down. It’s better than milk.”

“Bottom’s up,” said the guy, with a devil-may-care smile seeping across his lips. “How long does it take to kick in?”

“Trust me,” said Brendan. “You’ll feel it.” Brendan walked away after the handshake, avoiding the Sharpie drawing at the other corner of the room.

Brendan saw what appeared to be specters encircling the bar. The walls started to shake. Brendan could see them shaking.

“It’s the wrath of God. This place is going to crumble like a house of cards,” said the gnome homunculus. “It’s coming down. Like the old song, you know. The walls came tumbling down.”

“We have to get out,” said Brendan. “It’s time to go. It’s time to go.”

A third homunculus, a jukebox flapping its metal mouth open, started to sing. “And you can talk about your men of Gideon, and you can talk about your men of Saul.”

Brendan ran out of the loft, knocking people over if they were in his way. The gaunt homunculus looked on, powerless. Brendan knocked over Lisa.

“You asshole!” shouted Lisa. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Brendan ran out of the loft and looked back up on it.

The jukebox homunculus kept singing. “But there’s none like good old Joshua, at the battle of Jericho.”

The lapis lazuli, the painting, the guy. Brendan saw the imitation cardboard walls collapse and crush the party with his own two eyes. There was no article in the paper the next day.

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:48:00 +0000

"Pop Through Busted Speakers"

Play using the stream above, or download the MP3 here.

Tracklist:

1. John Merrik - Ravers Like To Do Drugs
2. Sickboy - High School Musical
3. Squarepusher - Do You Know Squarepusher?
4. Society Suckers - Toxic
5. Helix - Attack
6. Graz - Bobunk Dejabrew

Photo by danielle_blue, used under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. Art by Kevin Carter using FIGWin, GIMP, and Notepad. Created using Ableton Live 8 and Audacity 1.3.9 beta.

"The Gummi Worm Man"

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 02:11:00 +0000

Palm Sunday

Everyone got to church in time for the PowerPoint presentation. Everyone, that is, except for a couple of unlucky stragglers who had to sit in the two front pews as penance for staying up past 9:30 on Saturday night. Those first two pews were damning; not even Pastor Ted Buckley was holy enough to sit there, let alone some lukewarmers that God would spit out of His mouth someday. Andrew Paulson, who had strayed from the flock a few years back, told everyone who would listen that sitting in those pews "is like swimming in God's asshole. It’s as hot as shit, and it lasts forever."

The PowerPoint presentation was remarkable. Steven Dulles, CEO of SD Contracting LLC, had graciously volunteered to "program" it. Church advertisements flooded the projector screen, which rolled down and back up again as if the hand of the Lord Himself guided it. It was like getting there before the movie to see what the next big feature was. The presentation even had animations. One slide announced the all-church picnic next month which featured a tableau of Jesus' tomb, and the next slide came in from the right side of the screen with an announcement about the big youth meeting in North Dakota, On Fire. Until May 1st, On Fire was only $500 plus expenses per young adult. After May 1st, it was $700. The next slide, which employed the fade out technique, gave instructions for corporate sponsorship and tithing of the church. The church was a place of commerce; there was a booth in the foyer specifically designated for church business. At the booth, you could trade money for tokens which could be used inside the church to buy refreshments or toys. Outsiders from the town ecumenical council who had visited the church referred to it as the “money changers table.”

Lester Friedman had tokens flowing out of his pockets with some money in his wallet to spare. Lester was the church's musical director. The church clinic had cured him of homosexuality, cross dressing, and effeminacy three years ago, and he married Lindy Buckley -- the pastor's daughter -- two years ago. Now, he had brainwashed himself. washed that brain until it was milky white, and he geared himself up for singing love songs to God that were catchier than the top 40. He wasn't much of a composer, and he never really understood how to play instruments, but he sang like a meadowlark. He just had to remember what the counselor had taught his class: "Turn off your inner diva, and tune into God!" This was difficult for Lester. He used to play in a piano bar; now he was God’s man, not some fussy, wimpy, lisping, pansy pantyboy. The glitter and the sequins were gone for the most part: glistening, shattered fragments of a distant past. And he liked it better that way. Yes, he liked it better that way, but sometimes it was hard for him to think about the armor of God without picturing an immaculately chain-mailed soldier with the breastplate of righteousness displaying each chiseled muscle. And after the glory of performing, telling his stories and witticisms onstage to a crowd of bears and twinks – yes, it was a difficult transition.

Gary Vandeleer was the pianist, and shared Les’ remarkable Broadway repertoire: his secret and his secret alone. He had beat out Mary Woolridge for the spot on the worship team, mostly because the church believed that women should not lead anything in the church other than bake sales or gossip groups. Gary was the one who knew the high note Lester's voice wavered on. He was the one who had to keep his desire to end each song with jazz hands under wraps, mummified like the body of Lazarus, while Lester paraded up and down the stage. He was the one who had to repeat "all music is for the glory of God" on days when Lester got carried away. Like that day when Lester was in charge of tinseling the Christmas tree outside the church and started prancing around. Gary almost thought about reporting him to Pastor Buckley for effeminate behavior. Gary could barely hold it in; his anger seethed. Why did he have to be the masculine one? Lester got all the glory, with all of his lacy frills and happy pills and off-key trills.

Today was one of those days. That morning, Lester had spoken to the stagehands (known in the Catholic church as altar boys) to have them help him carry out his plan. He wanted to make it a very special Palm Sunday for everyone in the audience, so at the beginning of the set, it was Lester who rigged the boxes above the stage with cross-shaped confetti and glitter. He sprinkled in a few rhinestoned Israeli flags to remind everyone that Christians were now anti-Holocaust. One day, a visitor that everyone knew was drunk of the grapes of the vine had come into the church and asked what why God let the Holocaust happen. Even after Pastor Ted talked to him for a while, he wouldn’t accept that everything was for the glory of God. Pastor Ted guessed that people just couldn’t understand free will without going to seminary.

Lester led the first song as soon as the confetti fell. This is what they sang, to a melody full of warmth and cheer:

"God is good!
All the time!
He put this song of praise!
In this heart of mine!
God is good!
All the time!
And through the darkest night!
His light will shine!

God is good!
He's so good!
God is good!
Oh, so good!
God is good!
He's so good!
All the time!"

Lester unbuttoned his size 54 jacket before the chorus, and the bulge from his stomach unraveled. That was the vice that had controlled his life since his Biblical counseling sessions. Everyone started clapping on the first and third beats of every measure. The particularly dramatic women raised their hands in the air as if to touch the face of God, and husbands and children reluctantly followed. Although the atmosphere was one of praise, the audience knew the liturgy well, and the time to get really intimate with God was during the "Worship" portion of the service, not the "Praise." That came after the greeting routine. Each segment of the service was strictly planned before, and each crew member and performer were given itineraries, like stage hands before a play.

Afterwards, the lights on the stage dimmed for a moment, and the lighting director put the backlights up to reveal the cross at the center of the stage. This was the new cross, purchased a few months ago by the church, and it was backlit and radiant unlike the old wooden one. It revealed the new prosperity of the church, for God rewarded the holy with prosperity, unless he was testing them like Job. For this special Sunday service, the Women’s Group had carefully decorated the stage with lilies, the Christian flag, and an Israeli flag with “Messiah” written in Hebrew under it. Sue Davidson had nailed three palm branches to the cross in symbolic places to augment its radiance. She had tried pushpins first, but the new cross was so resilient that she had to find a hammer to bang the nails into the cross until the head of the nails were flush with the strange plastic substance. It took her a while, but after repeated bangs of the hammer and a sore thumb, everyone agreed that it looked beautiful, and there were a few oohs and ahhs scattered around the audience.

There was a special praise offering from a musical group composed of three of the elders’ daughters afterwards. The group was called Grace Notes, and they performed a song by a contemporary Christian singer. This was controversial. The singer had gotten a divorce from her husband a few years back, and real Christians weren’t supposed to get divorced. Besides that, the singer had just released a love song the congregation thought might be to her new lover instead of Jesus. It was a bold and bohemian move, but the song was orthodox enough that the congregation didn’t seem to mind too much.

Grace Notes performed a pantomime act to the music with costumes. Two of them put on dark robes during a dramatic portion of the song to pose as demons as they pretended to nail the fatter girl wearing white to the cross. Each motion was carefully plotted to sync in time to the rest of the music, and they incorporated sign language into the performance. At the end, the fatter girl was lying down and then sprung back up, punching the demons and knocking them to the floor. The audience applauded. Christy June was so touched by the performance that her mascara smeared all over her face, and she had to use the brand new box of Kleenex that she had bought that morning to clean herself up for the Lord.

After an awkward pause, Pastor Ted and Lester walked up on stage to the sound of applause from the congregation. This was the “Welcome” portion of the service, where Pastor Ted and Lester did what Lester liked to refer to as a “Christian vaudeville routine.”

Pastor Ted began. “Good morning to all of you, God’s beautiful children, and what a blessed morning it is, Amen Les?”

“Amen, pastor,” agreed Lester, “and it is so good to give him praise with the sounds of the piano and the lyre.”

“Oh, Lester,” said Pastor Ted with a chuckle. “More like the liar and the piano, am I right everyone?” The crowd let out a delayed laugh. “And if you liked that lovely performance from the Grace Notes, make sure to come back next week for our passion play, where each of those lovely girls will be playing the townspeople.”

It was time for the sermon. Pastor Ted got up to the podium with his wireless headset mic, and he gave a slightly varied version of the sermon he had given the previous Easter. After he was done, Pastor Ted prayed a prayer which was mostly him talking about how he felt. There were drinks and refreshments in the lobby.

Bud Abbott always wore a blazer, a button-up shirt, and slacks on Sunday mornings. His wife Cindy wore floral prints in spring, modest ankle-length sundresses in summer, leaf prints in fall, and snowman blouses over dark dresses in winter. He was impotent, and she was barren. Through rain, sleet, snow, or gloom of night -- even on the holy day when the post office was closed -- they made the 45 minute drive to Salome Baptist Church.

They were friends with Pastor Buckley, but everyone was friends with Pastor Buckley. Bud always shook his hand at the exit door the firmest out of the entire congregation and told him that the sermon that day "was particularly good today, Pastor Buckley, particularly good." Cindy would smile with her big teeth at Pastor Buckley and say, "God bless you, Pastor."

Pastor Buckley never knew what to say other than "Thank you, Bud" and "God bless you as well, sister." Sister Buckley died years ago. Only a few people knew that her coffin was empty. After three days, she rose again. Pastor Buckley couldn't tell everyone about his wife's resurrection. It was only for the elect to know.

After that, they usually went into the foyer with the Davidsons and Junes and discussed the Davidson and June children. That was what happened this week too. Both Bud and Cindy pretended to be fascinated by Luke's summer camp and Christina's ballet lessons, even though they were all Satanic snot-fingered brats. Then the conversation veered towards church gossip.

"Did you see that Lester Friedman went up for the altar call again this week?" asked Sue Davidson, chuckling mildly. "I think that was the third time this year that he's been born again."

"Hopefully something will change this time around," agreed Christy June, grinning. They all laughed, remembering the days where they used to go up for altar calls every week. Now things were comfortable. Now they knew they were saved once and for all.

A younger couple walked by, and Cindy Abbott called out to them. "Hello, friends!" she cried, her voice raising about three quarters of an octave. "Welcome to the church!"

"Um, thanks," replied the man. "I'm Chris, and this is Norah."

"Hi," said Norah.

"Hello!" shrieked Sue Davidson. "And what's your last name?"

"Uh, Tolling."

"And I'm Norah Paulson."

"Oh," said Sue Davidson. "You're such a lovely couple. Have you gotten one of our welcome packs yet?"

"Yes," said Chris. "Thank you very much."

"Mmm, good," replied Sue Davidson. "Now, are you courting Ms. Paulson, Chris? You both look to be about marrying age!"

Chris laughed. "Oh no, we're just dating."

"Oh," said Sue Davidson. "Oh, I see."

There was a lull in the conversation.

Christy June broke in. "I also heard that Sister Wilminson is in the hospital again."

"Oh Sister Wilminson. She is so strong. Such a woman of the Lord. I really think she is the best epitome of the true Proverbs 31 woman," ventured Ron June.

Christy June agreed. "Yes, such a servant. I think that's what Philip's unspoken was during the service."

Both Chris Tolling and Norah Paulson looked confused. "What do you mean by unspoken?" asked Chris.

Christy June didn't know whether or not he was serious. "Chris, an unspoken request is when a request is too personal to share with the congregation. It's only between that person and God."

Chris was confused. "Then why would you pray for it in front of the whole church?"

This conversation would usually only last for about ten minutes, because Bud had his Sunday school class for next week to prepare for in his office, and Cindy needed to get home to check on the roast. They would usually share a meager kiss goodbye, and Bud would hand her the keys to the station wagon to take home before he went back into Classroom F. Before she left, Cindy would throw that week's rotten apples into the donation box. They were both secretly happy when they got to leave each other.

Good Friday

Beth Lewis was one of those nice-to-be-naughty and naughty-to-be-nice girls. She did a very good job of obeying her parents' commandments about chores and homework, and since they trusted her implicitly, she could get away with murder. Of course she didn't ever actually go so far as to murder anyone, but despite Mr. and Mrs. Lewis' harshness toward her younger brother and sister, Beth had her parents off her back.

She began completely taking advantage of this situation when she met Erica. Erica was one of her witnessing friends now. Because Beth went to public school unlike most of her church friends, many of her classmates hadn't asked Jesus into their hearts yet. Erica was one of them.

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis became worried about Beth's public school friends after they met Erica at the school spelling bee. The first alarm went off in their heads when Beth told them that Erica was only going to be watching the spelling bee instead of participating. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis believed that spelling was paramount in a young Christian girl's life. Without spelling, endlessly drilling long lists of words before the bee, how could any girl learn the self-discipline required to follow Christ's commandments?

The second sign was the layers of Erica's makeup which refused to blend into the rest of her skin. Mrs. Lewis always worried about things like this and complained to the board of elders when Nessa, one of the other girls around Beth's age, started wearing skirts with hemlines above the knees. Mrs. Lewis thought Erica looked like a harlot. Mrs. Lewis thought a lot about sex.

This was one of the few times that Mr. and Mrs. Lewis were concerned, so they decided to talk with Beth about it after the "kids" -- which is what Beth called her brother and sister -- had gone to bed. Mrs. Lewis was especially firm that she didn't "at all very much like Erica," and that she would appreciate it if Beth stopped spending time with her. Mr. Lewis used the "one bad apple" analogy he always used, and Beth was sad that she wouldn't get to see her friend anymore. Beth decided to reference the Great Commission, which Pastor Buckley had given his sermon about that Sunday. Beth plaintively asked her parents, "Doesn't Jesus want us to witness to people who don't know about him?" After that, her parents couldn't protest. They felt guilty enough for not giving to the panhandling missionary that morning and gave Beth a hug and a kiss for being such a good girl. Apparently, some small part of them realized that building an insular community which was based on isolating members from the world was antithetical to their god's teaching.

There were PG-13 movies at Erica's house. There were even some rated R movies. Beth was never allowed to watch PG-13 movies, even though she was 13, and her parents even stopped her from watching some PG movies. It was usually only the PG movies with sex in them, though. Beth's parents didn't care about her watching violent movies-- I mean, that was just people killing other people. People having sex with other people was the dangerous thing. After watching a few of the movies geared towards the 13-18 marketing segment, Beth started to think that Erica's house might be heaven. This went on for a few months. About every other week, Beth would ask permission to sleep over and watch another romantic teen comedy, feeling secretly dirty and simultaneously thrilled at engaging in this kind of anathematic behavior.

One night, Erica said that she had found a copy of a porno movie in her parents' room when they were upstate the weekend before. Porno movies were for perverts. Beth knew that. She used to read about X-rated movies which changed to NC-17 later on. She read about them in a big film review book her parents kept in the family room. After she confused Felix the Cat with Fritz the Cat in a conversation with her dad, the book disappeared.

"I don't think we should watch this," said Beth. "Porn is for pervs like Jimmy McFall." Jimmy was one of the froggy kids in their class who always smelled weird. Even though cooties were long forgotten about by the time sixth grade rolled around, Jimmy still had cooties.

Erica wasn't convinced. "You're such a prude, Beth. It's just a movie."

Beth didn't know what to do. She was curious, but she remembered what her mom had said about curiosity. It killed her cat Speckles. Speckles was the tabby Beth got as a present from her parents when she was 8, and Speckles died after an ill-fated jump off of their roof. Curiosity was bad.

Beth thought about what her Sunday School teacher Mr. Abbott had taught her about resisting temptation the year before. Mr. Abbott said to always think about Jesus all the time, every second, and everything would be okay.

"C'mon, I'm putting the DVD in now. It's not even one of the hardcore ones. It's just like a Skinemax."

Beth replied, "Erica, I'm going into the other room. I'm sorry, but I'm a Christian, and I don't think I should watch it. Jesus wouldn't want me to do this.”

"Jesus wouldn't want you to do this? What, is Jesus your boyfriend?"

"No, he's not my boyfriend!" shout-whispered Beth. “He is so much more important than a boyfriend could ever be to me.”

At that moment, Beth got an idea. Mr. Abbott told her in a private conversation that if she was being tempted by boys, it was especially important to think about Jesus. That way, even if she was ever raped or succumbed to temptation before she was married, she would be thinking about Jesus, and He would make it okay. Beth thought for another second about what Mr. Abbott did after that, and how it made it all okay.

"He's not my boyfriend," said Beth again. "But He loves me like a boyfriend would love me. Like the best boyfriend."

"I bet you wish you could make out with Jesus, don't you?" prodded Erica, laughing.

"Sometimes when I think about doing things like this, I think about Him instead." Erica started giggling madly. Was she talking too much? Beth's parents told her to try to witness at every given opportunity, and this was the perfect opportunity. “He wants me to feel good, but He doesn’t want me to do bad things to feel good. What's so funny?" Beth was embarrassed. Mr. Abbott had told her that was the right thing to do, and that if she was tempted about boys, she should touch herself and think about Jesus instead. Was that wrong?

Erica kept laughing. "Jesus is dead, Beth! He can't be your boyfriend. Plus, that's just weird. You're a person, and he's, well... he's a god!"

"It isn't weird," protested Beth. "Don't you think he's handsome?"

"Well sure he's handsome, but you're missing the point.”

Beth was wearing pumpkin pajamas. Erica was wearing an orange top with black sweatpants.

"Watch," said Beth. "I'll show you." Beth started rubbing herself through her PJs. She looked at Erica until Erica started doing the same thing. Beth closed her eyes, moved her bottom lip to one side, and bit it. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh my God.” Beth opened her eyes for a minute, realizing that she wasn’t alone this time, and asked, “Do you know why whenever you watch a movie and people are having sex, they always say God or Jesus?”

Erica didn’t know.

Beth said, “It’s because they realize that only God or Jesus could make them feel that good. But sometimes, if they’re not married and they’re cheating on their husband or wife, it’s just Satan tricking them into thinking that they’re feeling good when they’re feeling spiritually empty. That’s what my teacher says. Erica, I don’t want to watch the movie. But if you have these kind of feelings, there is a right way for you to express them. That’s what Mr. Abbott told me. He gave me this.” Beth went over to her backpack and pulled out a white pocket copy of the New Testament. The pages were slightly frayed, and “New Testament: New International Version” was imprinted on the cover in gold. “Mr. Abbott, my Sunday school teacher, gave this to me. He told me that the best way to keep temptation away from you is to keep the Word of God close. And this is as close as Jesus can get to you.”

Beth started to rub her clit with the soft cover of her pocket New Testament. The spine poked its way into the creases. Beth licked her lips and whispered, “I want to know you more, Jesus. I want you feel you closer to me.”

“What the hell are you doing, Beth?” Erica shout-whispered. “You’re so fucked up, I can’t believe this. This is so fucked up.” Erica ran up the stairs to her bedroom.

“Erica, wait! I want to show you this. I want to show you how good this can feel when you do it right, when you do it in a holy way!” Beth was afraid for a moment that Erica would get her parents and have them come down. But she knew God would protect her. She knew God wouldn’t let them come down.

“Lord Jesus, you make me feel so good.” With two fingers inside herself and one hand stroking herself with the white book, Beth started to envision crosses with her eyes closed, brown crosses floating in her imagination and Jesus standing naked before her. “I want your love, Jesus, I want you to come into my heart. I beg for you to come into my heart!” She came hard on the carpet, and then she rested in her pumpkin pajamas on the floor, waiting for her savior to come again.

Sleepy Saturday

Everyone was asleep in the neighborhood. Everyone slept late on Sleepy Saturday. Everyone except for Mr. Abbott. Mr. Abbott used this as his morning quiet time. There were too many human distractions throughout the day, and it was vital for Mr. Abbott to wade through each distraction until he reached the point that Christ alone was his sole thought. That was the only way to truly understand the divine revelations and esoterica. That along with the sacrament.

Mr. Abbott knew that Salvinorin A was the secret communion bread which Christ Himself served to his disciples during the Last Supper. He knew this with certainty. How did Mr. Abbott know that Salvinorin A was the secret communion bread of Christ? It was because Christ Himself told Mr. Abbott that it was. Mr. Abbott and Christ had a special relationship. Mr. Abbott would talk to Christ directly at many points during the day. When there was a traffic jam and Mr. Abbott had to get to work on time, Mr. Abbott prayed for Christ to take away enough traffic to help him get there before Lester caught him. When Mr. Abbott got to work on time, he praised God. When he couldn’t get to work on time, with horrible Satanic cars in front of him, he knew that he had sinned and had to ask Christ for atonement. Mr. Abbott sometimes heard Christ call him Bud. It was a private joke between them. Since Mr. Abbott’s first name was Bud, he knew that he was Christ’s buddy. His Bud, His servant, doing his will upon Earth the best way he knew how. He knew this through faith, through not letting any stray thought distract him from his path.

Mr. Abbott had been reading too, and his readings confirmed what he knew was Christ’s will. Just to make sure he wasn’t being fooled by one of Satan’s tricks, he knew to test each spirit that spoke to him in his mind. He remembered 1 John 4:1-3: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world." Mr. Abbott knew that because this spirit confessed that Jesus Christ is from God and actually said it was Jesus, it had to be Jesus according to John’s test. And if this spirit had told him that Salvinorin A was the hidden Communion bread, then that meant Jesus had to help him make it. When those bad spirits came, the ones who told him that he was wrong and Christianity wasn’t true, he knew it was the spirit of the antichrist.

Mr. Abbott had done his research, and he had created a lab in what used to be the guest bedroom. It was nothing as extravagant as he had wanted, but he knew the Lord commanded to make use of what you have, so he went to work anyway. He had done many extractions in his lab, and by now, he had it down to a science.

The first step was to crush the salvia divinorum leaves and put them in a cup. He had a coffee cup with a Promise Keepers logo on it. Promise Keepers is a men’s only organization devoted to ensuring the primacy of man in a family’s spiritual world. As St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, “As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” It was right for men to be the head of their households, because the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Mrs. Abbott understood this too. It had taken a few years to convince her, but after enough scriptural research on the issue, Mr. Abbott had complete dominance over his household. He made the decisions, he made the Abbotts’ schedule, and he alone ruled the house with deference to his beloved God. That is why he chose the Promise Keepers mug to make his tincture. That is why he could make Mrs. Abbott eat the holy sacred Communion bread. He alone knew the secret. He was a prophet, just as Ezekiel was a prophet, seeing the unknown and infinite.

The second step of making the extract, the purest form of Salvinorin A, was pouring acetone on each leaf as a solvent. After doing this, it was important to wash the leaves with a solvent twice more. That way, any chemicals outside of the element – any that strayed from the path of pure Salvinorin – would be flushed out. They would be cast away life chaff from grain.

After this process, it was Mr. Abbott’s duty to combine the solvent and comb through it to discover any stray particles. As he weeded out the unholy and concentrated the holy into one simultaneously fluid and solid creation, the room was filled with smoke from the burning of holy incense that Mr. Abbott breathed through his nostrils. It was three in one, just as the Trinity was three in one. God showed his continuous symbology through mysterious ways, and this was one such way. The Trinity was explained to Mr. Abbott once as being like water. God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are just as water vapor, liquid water, and ice are one. They are composed of the same material. They are three in one. He contemplated this for a moment, and blessed God for the occult information which was bestowed upon him alone. No one else truly appreciates the sacrament, thought Mr. Abbott. It is known only to me. They gulp down their wafer crumbs and drink their peasant fruit juice or spoiled grapes, but I am the beholder of the divine secret, by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He thought of the mysteries that would be unlocked in the children’s minds as they tasted his special mixture for the first time. He would disguise it, of course. That way, the impure in the church who had not been prepared for God’s secret knowledge would be content in their ignorance. He knew the proper mask, the necessary façade that would let them taste of the Communion without influence from the evil spirits. How much the children were sure to appreciate his gift! They would thank him for showing them the light, and upon the realization of God’s spirit, someone’s life was never the same again. They would not return to their worldly ways. Everything will work out nicely, thought Mr. Abbott.

Next, the tannin particles which were part of the mixture needed to be filtered out. The sedimentary element of the tannin, the fine brown, was removed. This process supposedly took about 12 hours, but Mr. Abbott had gotten a message from God that it shouldn’t take any more than a few moments due to His power. If God could make the sun stand still in the sky like he did for Joshua, surely such a minor miracle as this would be possible.

Mr. Abbott thought about how his life would have been different if he would have received one of these divine transmissions when he was still in Sunday School. Surely, things would have been different. He might have been exalted on a throne, high above the Babylon which surrounded him. As he was stirring, he reminded himself that it was not God’s will for Samuel to be king, but for Saul. There were so many things going on in Mr. Abbott’s mind. Sometimes he thought for a moment that it was God’s voice that was telling him things, but sometimes he found later that it wasn’t God’s voice at all.

He put a fan in front of the mug, trying to get the mixture to evaporate more quickly. This was wise thinking. The liquid began burning at about 150 degrees.

Mr. Abbott began having a vision. He was excited; they usually didn’t come on this quickly when he was just breathing the incense. Sometimes it caused him to tremor and for his body to boil up. That was what he called the holy hot to himself. No one that he had ever spoken to about the holy hot seemed to know what he was talking about. Perhaps he was the first one in history to feel it. Certainly, this sort of feeling will be recognized in future epistles, future letters to the church which will be deemed in accordance with the perfect divine will, thought Mr. Abbott.

He thought about Beth. What a wonderful wife she would make some man, if only she were blessed by the sacred Communion. This would only be a process of a few months, perhaps. A regular dosage of Mr. Abbott’s tincture when finished was easily enough to set someone’s mind upon heavenly things. Maybe he could recommend to Beth’s parents that she needed additional spiritual training. They would certainly agree to something that would be for the good of their child. Then he could train her in the ways of the Lord without fear of unnecessary interference. This would be perfect. She was so young but so mature. What a Proverbs 31 woman she would make.

Isopropanol was needed to perform the next step of the extraction. Mr. Abbott thought for a moment. This was the contemplative part of the procedure. For all of this work, I hope the students appreciate it. There was the naphtha next and washing the chlorophyll and at this point, the steps all ran together. He trusted God for this part, because God was the one who really knew what the best way to make his Communion was. Mr. Abbott was just the messenger. Mr. Abbott was just his servant.

Easter Sunday

It was the first day of small groups for this year, and Mr. Abbott smiled like a gargoyle. If you haven't been to Salome Baptist before, you wouldn't know about the gargoyles. When the church built the new building, the chief architect had slipped the gargoyles into the blueprint at the last minute. It wasn't approved by Pastor Buckley or the board of elders. Too Catholic. There was something that bothered Pastor Buckley about them too. One year he had gone up on the roof himself to chip away at them with a broken piece of metal, but God had told him to get down from the roof before he fell. And so the gargoyles still sat at the top of the building, paralyzed by the cross on the steeple. They were paralyzed, but they were also gory and monstrous, glorified terrors under the command of the most High.

There was reason behind Mr. Abbott's smile. With each new class that walked through the door, the first thing Mr. Abbott did was train his flock to stand up at the exact moment he walked through the classroom door. He said that it was a matter of showing respect for him, and he marched the kids out of the door and back in again if not everyone stood up at the moment he entered. This happened until everyone had it just right. Every year, there were always a few sprinkled around the room who couldn't get it until the 4th or 5th try. They were the ones who were lost in thoughts of football practice the next day, the friend's birthday party that afternoon, or their latest videogame save point.

At this point Mr. Abbott said, "I can keep doing this all day until everyone stands at the same time." He said it so kindly that it made the kids hurt. After that, everyone got it.

But Mr. Abbott was not a cruel master. Beth Lewis, one of the girls in his class last year, had even requested to be in the class again this year. She told her parents that she had learned so much the year before, and Mr. Abbott agreed that it would be good to have one of his prior students in the class again to act as a good example for this year. Before the class, he promised Beth that he would give her the special titles of "Line Leader" and "Prayer Warrior." Beth was one of his special students. He had had a lot of students like Beth, and he still sent some of them cute e-mails with dancing animals and notes about the coolest new Christian rock music. He knew they liked that kind of stuff.

Beth was special, though. He could already see that she was beginning to blossom sexually. In fact, he had told her that it was her duty as a woman to submit to God first, and then to submit to man. It was very important that she did not become a traitor to the hierarchy God had so carefully set up for society. Men received their instruction from God, and women received their instruction from men. Mr. Abbott enjoyed instructing Beth. He hoped that their relationship could continue to grow to help Beth’s eyes become as open to the spiritual world as physically possible.

Mr. Abbott gave his pupils gummi worms at the start of each lesson. Mrs. Abbott always bought the generic store brand to show she was frugal and a good homemaker. The kids never noticed that they were generic. They never noticed this or what Mr. Abbott did on the nights before service. Mr. Abbott used to be a chemistry teacher before he started working in the church front office, and he knew a lot about chemistry. There was a very special chemical that he and only a few other people knew about that was called Salvinorin A. Mr. Abbott decided a few years before that he wanted his class and his class alone to have a very special treat. He did a lot of other kinds of grown-up stuff on nights before the services that kids didn't know about.

Now some men and women are also interested in chemicals, but they are bad people, because they took chemicals that they weren't supposed to. These kinds of chemicals are called illegal chemicals. They make people go crazy. But Mr. Abbott's chemical was very legal and a very good chemical. It made people closer to God. He knew the children would like this chemical.

The chemical was called Salvinorin A. Mr. Abbott knew lots about the chemical. For instance, he knew that the molecular formula was C₂₃H₂₈O₈ and its molar mass was 432.464. He also knew, of course, that it was a selective kappa opioid receptor agonist. It was very difficult to synthesize, and Mr. Abbott spent many hours on it in his homemade lab. Not even Mrs. Abbott really knew how he did it. Mrs. Abbott didn't like to take this chemical. She said it made her go bonkers. But Mr. Abbott would sometimes take the chemical and then read the newspaper. He thought it made him understand the newspaper better, as long as the noises weren't there when he took it. Mr. Abbott decided that he was going to put some of the chemical in that day. It would be a very small amount of the chemical, but a little of the chemical could go a long way! He decided he would put about 1500 micrograms in each gummi worm to give the pupils a special surprise. That sounds like a lot of micrograms, but it is actually a very small amount of the chemical.

It was time for Mr. Abbott to pass out the gummi worms to the class. He was a funny teacher, and when it came time for Beth Lewis to get her gummi worm, he dangled it in front of her lips instead of handing it to her. Mr. Abbott watched as Beth slurped the neon green and yellow gummi worm into her tart, pink mouth, and everyone else laughed.

After passing out the gummi worms, Mr. Abbott began the lesson for the week. The lesson he had picked for today would be the parable of the sheep and the goats that Jesus had preached. Mr. Abbott had a sticky board in front of the class, and it was helpful for him to instruct the children by using pictures to spark their imaginations.

Mr. Abbott began the lesson by talking about how one day, Jesus will be on the throne in front of the whole world. At that moment, He would separate the sheep from the goats. Mr. Abbott read this part from the Bible to give it further emphasis. He had a great Bible reading voice; Mrs. Abbott said that was one of the things which attracted her the most to him. When Mr. Abbott read the Bible, he believed everything he was reading.

“Matthew 25, verses 32 and 33,” said Mr. Abbott, with a televangelist’s sense of elocution and timing. “And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” Mr. Abbott stuck a flock of sheep on the right side of the throne, which had no one sitting on it in the drawing, and a single lone goat on the left side of him. He had forgotten that from the perspective of the throne looking out at the sheep and the goats, the sheep would be on the right, and the goats would be on the left. It was a silly mistake; left was right and right was left.

Jordan Peters raised his hand high in the air, and Mr. Abbott called on him. “Yes, you, in the purple sweater,” said Mr. Abbott, a little upset that he had been interrupted so soon into his sermon.

Jordan, one of the younger students in the small group, said that he had gone on a field trip with his class to a farm, and they had gotten to pet a goat while they were there. Before Mr. Abbott had a chance to respond, a few of Jordan’s friends said, “Cooool!”

Mr. Abbott decided to bring everyone’s attention back to the lesson by skipping the part about the sheep and going right to the goats. “No, Jordan,” said Mr. Abbott, smiling condescendingly. “Goats are an accursed animal of God. In church history, we read that in the Middle Ages, goats used to talk, and they used to whisper horrible things in the ears of saints at night. Here is what Jesus has to say to the goats.” Mr. Abbott found his place in the Bible again.

“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”

After the reading, Mr. Abbott noticed the shift in the first few students he had given the worms to. This was the first phase of the homoousias, the period of revelation, when each of the children would begin to receive the prophecies from God. Even though the 1500 mg dosage he had put into the worms was typically an adult dosage, he knew that these children of God were responsible enough in the spirit to receive a testimony from the Most High. Their eyes began to shift, and Jordan and some of the others began to talk in a strange way. That’s how Mr. Abbott knew that the communion was taking place. Some of the children began to speak in what Mr. Abbott regarded as the angelic tongue, a language which could only be translated by the Holy Spirit. In fact, Mr. Abbott knew that there were many angelic tongues, many different languages. The cherubim spoke differently than the seraphim, but each was understandable to the other. Mr. Abbott did not speak like the angels; he spoke in the tongue of God. That way, he could avoid being tempted against revolution in heaven just as the Light-Bearer was. But children like Jordan were beginning to babble; when someone received the sacrament who was not ready to become one flesh with God, they began to speak in the unholy language that the builders of the tower spoke in before God confused their languages. This worried Mr. Abbott. It worried Jordan too. Jordan began crying out, “I don’t want to be a goat! Goats are bad! Goats have horns just like the Devil!” Jordan was worried. Mr. Abbott saw that some of the other children were getting worried about Jordan, and they looked confused too. Mr. Abbott wasn’t sure what to do.

But some of the children were speaking so beautifully. Their visions had obviously been guided by God. They were bowing down to God, prostrated in a beautiful deference. Their eyes had been opened, and they were responding in the way which all men should: with an overwhelmed soul. Some of their visions were shining brightly; Beth’s in particular was. But he needed them to be quiet for a moment. Mr. Abbott thought.

“Children, you remember naptime in preschool, don’t you? Everyone needs to lie down just like naptime in preschool. We’ve already had snacks, and that means it’s now time for you to rest and concentrate on listening to the Bible story I’m telling you. Everyone needs to be quiet right now.”

It took them a while, but thanks to the example of most of the children who were still lucid, the whole room was lying on their backs in just a few moments. As each one started to lie down, Mr. Abbott started to compose a poem in his mind. He had always considered himself a man of poesy before science, and the composition began:

The elation of being preferred to the doing:
Apocryphal streams of the phoenix's cooing
eclipse all the essences yet to be named
and the opal-eyed tigers still yet to be tamed.

The images were beautiful. They reminded him of Dali before Dali had gone wrong with his absurd worldliness. He thanked his Heavenly Father for the words and began to tell the story to the children again.

“The goats are disgusting, aren’t they children? You don’t want to be a goat, do you? They eat the grass, they fight each other with their horrible horns.” Mr. Abbott had eaten three of the gummi worms a few minutes before, just to ensure that he would have the fullest spirit of Communion possible, and he was seeing a brilliant light in his eyelid visions. “They are some of the dirtiest and stubbornest animals in the world. You want to be like sheep, don’t you?”

Most of the children were silent, remembering the command to be quiet, but some said “Yes!”

Mr. Abbott responded to the good children with a smile. “That’s right, children. Sheep are beautiful animals, and they are God’s creatures. They do not know where they are being led, but they obediently follow the shepherd’s commands. We are all members of God’s faithful flock. And any sheep who strays from the flock, God tells us he will leave the 99 sheep who are in the pasture until he finds the lost sheep. So now, you know that if you ever stray and try to become a goat, God will hunt you down and bring you back to the fold in his loving arms.” Mr. Abbott was surprised at his own eloquence; surely he was being guided by the spirit, as he was usually reluctant to talk and share the visions that he received from God with others for fear that they would succumb to demon gossip and spread horrible rumors about him.”

Illusion precludes all the meaning, it seems,
and fastens us now to the harbinger's dreams.
Until the webbed audience all takes a bow,
we must live in the present, the here and the now.

Mr. Abbott thought it was time for a song. He grabbed the guitar that sat in the corner of the meeting room and began playing. It was difficult for him at first; unfortunately, God had never bestowed him with the gift of music, probably to ensure that his ego would not prevent him from being a careful follower. Music was the trap that ensnared so many. It could drive demons out like David drove Saul’s demons out, but it could also be used as an egocentric tool of evil. After a few tries, he got the chords down to the song.

“Sing with me, children!”

“I don’t want to be a hypocrite
I don’t want to be a hypocrite,
‘cause a hypocrite ain’t hip with it!
I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”

Mr. Abbott repeated the verse again so the children could hear it. It was call and response, and they didn’t understand that. So he guided them through it a third time, until their voices weakly began repeating his own.

“I don’t want to be a Sadducee
I don’t want to be a Sadducee
‘cause a Sadducee is sad, you see!
I don’t want to be a Sadducee.”

“Better, children! Keep going!” said Mr. Abbott with an encouraging tone. Some of their voices started to get stronger on the second verse, and Mr. Abbott began laughing at the thought of the absurd pun.

“I don’t want to be a goat, nope.
I don’t want to be a goat, nope.
‘Cause a goat just wants to mope, yep!
I don’t want to be a goat, nope.

I just want to be a sheep, baa.
I just want to be a sheep, baa.
‘Cause a sheep can go to sleep, baa!
I just want to be a sheep, baa.

I just want to be a sheep, baa.
I just want to be a sheep, baa.
‘Cause a sheep can go to sleep, baa!
I just want to be a sheep, baa.”

Just reaching the perch of the talented foes
who elude the phenomenal cancer which grows
under each speck of flesh on your arms and your legs.
You must pull yourself out from the chasm's cold dregs.

After the song, some of the children started to come to their senses. Mr. Abbott thought of them as beautiful dreams; it was the cosmic consciousness taking a hold of his mind and teaching it transcendency. He started walking around the room and guiding the children through their visions. Jordan and his friend Nick were having a difficult time. They should have known better than to join a small group if they were not committed Christians yet. Eating of the pure Communion bread was a blessing for the saved and a nightmare for the unsaved. They probably witnessed the horrors of hell, and now due to their ignorance, Mr. Abbott had to guide them through the trip.

“I just want to be a sheep,” cried Jordan. “I just want to be a sheep, not a goat. I don’t like goats anymore, but they keep coming into my head and it’s like they’re ramming me with their horns! And I feel like I’m being pulled to the left! I feel like somebody’s pulling me to the left.”

Demonic possession,”thought Mr. Abbott. It was the one thing that could cause people to feel that they were being pulled by a force outside of the Heavenly Father’s. Damn them.

Mr. Abbott began casting the demon out of Jordan, and as soon as Nick started crying, he casted the demon out of Nick too. “By the power of Jesus Christ, I cast you out! I cast out the demons of jealousy, avarice, sexual sin, and all moral depravity! There will be no goats from this room on the Judgment Day!” shouted Mr. Abbott, getting annoyed. “All will be saved by the power of Christ Jesus!”

Some of the children started screaming “Jesus!” and hugging each other while they cried. Mr. Abbott had read about things like this happening during the Second Reformation. Jonathan Edwards led prayer groups through acceptance of the Spirit, and entire rooms began to quake. This was a new reformation. This was a reclaiming of God’s church as it was meant to be, directed by Bud Abbott, accepting his Holy Communion.

The children sat in a circle after some of the chaos had settled. Mr. Abbott told the children that they had been touched by the Holy Spirit, and he went around the circle asking each child what their experience had been like.

Faster the passages twirl in their swirl
and the whirl echoes down to each boy and each girl.

Mr. Abbott could tell who the good children and bad children were by the way they reacted to the Holy Communion. He remembered the words of Paul to the church in Corinth: “Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.”

That was how he could judge them, how he could discern who was truly ready for Communion and who needed to be cast away like chaff from grain.

Jordan was first. Mr. Abbott thought he might be able to turn Jordan’s negative experience into a positive one for the rest of the class. “There were goats everywhere! I walked into a goat and when I did, it was like a passage into another one. Like every goat was a goat door to the next goat. And they kept ramming me with their horns, and every time they did, it felt like Satan, it felt like my hands were getting pricked like Jesus’ hands by nails. And the room kept pushing down on me. It was like gravity… it felt like gravity. But it wasn’t gravity. Gravity pushes you down, but this… it kept pushing me to the left. I felt bad, I felt wrong. I was scared… I’m still scared.”

Mr. Abbott grimaced. “That’s enough, Jordan. Thank you for your answer, but some people just aren’t ready to receive the gifts of the Spirit. Jordan, I think you need to pray hard this week. God is good, and you must accept his gifts without being tempted by the forces of evil and injustice in this world. Nick, you’re next. I hope you had a greater experience than Jordan did.”

Nick felt guilty. He knew his experience had been just as bad, no, even worse than Jordan’s had been. He knew he could tell his experience with the doves morphing into monsters, seeing the horrific kaleidoscopes in the shadows, but he knew Mr. Abbott wouldn’t be happy with that answer. He knew Mr. Abbott thought speaking in tongues was the rarest gift of the spirit, and he wanted to make Mr. Abbott happy. So he decided to speak in tongues. His parents had taught him a song when he was younger about a baby elephant. They taught it to him in English and in Japanese. In English it went

Little elephant, little elephant,
You have a long long nose.
Yes sir, my parents have long noses, too.

In Japanese it went

Zou-san, zou-san
O-hana ga nagai no ne
Sou yo, kaasan mo
Nagai no yo

Nick started speaking the words loudly and then singing them until Mr. Abbott told Nick that he had done a wonderful job, and it was obvious that the Communion had been effective on him. Mr. Abbott said that he was going to make Nick the spiritual warrior for the week, and that he could help the rest of the class battle evil spirits through prayer. Nick breathed a sigh of relief.

The other children were still confused. A few of them couldn’t talk yet, and they were still sprawled out on their backs. Beth was one of the ones still on her back, and Mr. Abbott thought to himself that she must have had such a powerful experience that she was still in prayer thanking God for it. Mr. Abbott told everyone to spend a few minutes praying for people in their life who needed God’s help until the end of class.

After a few minutes, Mr. Abbott stood back up. There was still a drowsy, confused feeling all around the room. “Now children,” Mr. Abbott said, smiling. “You all have to agree not to tell your parents about our class today. Remember, you are God’s prophets, and some things need to be kept secret between God, his leaders, and his people.” He winked at Beth, who was sitting up again, and she smiled back at Mr. Abbott.

“Do you all remember the story of Joseph and his beautiful coat?” Mr. Abbott asked. The class nodded, and Mr. Abbott continued. “This vision is just like Joseph’s dreams. When he told his dreams to his brothers, they got angry and jealous with him. This vision that you have had after the Communion we have had together is like a beautiful coat. Don’t tell anyone else around, or you won’t be able to wear your beautiful coat anymore. God will stop giving you visions if you tell. Please, children, this is very important.” Mr. Abbott continued his monologue until he was convinced that his class could be trusted. Then he let them out, giving each one a hug on the way out the door to show Christ’s love. Each hug was given according to the children’s gifts.

Each member of the congregation was strongly encouraged to conduct an outreach ministry for Easter. Pastor Buckley had solemnly requested that they bring as many non-believers, atheists, Mormons, agnostics, Catholics, environmentalists, pro-abortion Christians, and Lutherans to the church as possible for the passion play. The whole church had been involved in decoration and acting. Lester had dreamt up the biggest fanfare for the Palm Sunday scene as he could, and they even had a huge white horse for Jesus to ride in on at the end! One of the parishioners owned a stable, and they had the horse brought in just for tonight. It was all so exciting! The whole church was glowing with a radiance that could only come from the love of their God.

Children were given Easter baskets with bunnies and marshmallow Peeps on their way in so that they could have something sweet to snack on throughout the play. In fact, unlike past years, they had made the passion play free this year. Before, you had to buy a $10 ticket to support the church, but they wanted to bring as many fresh new faces into the chapel as possible this year. Chris Tolling and Norah Paulson were in attendance.

Each choreographed song and dance went swimmingly, with Lester’s voice rising up to the heights of Gary Vandeleer’s playing, the songs that he had slaved over with God’s illumination for each chord. C7, G, C7, 7 like the number of God, like the number of Heaven. Nothing could go wrong.

Pastor Buckley was Jesus for the play this year. The lookalike Jesus they had hired for the previous years had to move to Kansas for a new job, so Pastor Buckley donned the Velcro-on beard and sandals for the play. It was perfect. He looked almost exactly like the traditional Western depiction of Jesus. Kids munched on Twix bars and wives looked up with their carefully prepared Kleenex packs at the right moment.

But in the midst of the perfection, there was something stirring up in Bud Abbott’s heart that night. He kept thinking that before the play, people were looking at him funny, especially the parents of the children in his class. Maybe it was Satan, tempting him with guilt. He knew he was blameless. He had already seen that the Holy Communion he had blessed the childrens’ hearts with was from God. Why did the guilt keep streaming back? Maybe God was allowing him to be tempted, like Job. Maybe after he finally freed himself from these trials, after he had repented in sackcloth and ashes, he would be blessed just like Job, with double the riches he had before.

As Bud sat in the pew next to Cindy in her new floral print dress, he realized what the feelings were about. Bud was doing what God told him, yes. It was the rest of the congregation that had failed God. They were just like the unwholesome, unworthy churches that Paul had preached to again and again. Bud prayed to God to receive complete instructions and guidance from Him. “God, it is your humble servant Bud Abbott. I wish to be made a pure vessel of you, without human interference. Help me to do your perfect will on this earth without limitations or any interference. I pray that you make me your prophet, that when I speak to these people, I might show your complete grace and glory.”

On stage, Judas (Christy June’s husband) was betraying Jesus (Pastor Buckley) for thirty pieces of silver, which is equivalent to about $25 in modern US currency.

Bud received the answer from God. He was to be as a Solomon of the modern age, equipped with the wisdom to rule God’s will in any situation. And he saw that these people were wicked and sinful. Bud had taken another dose of Communion before the passion play to ensure that he was fully equipped to deal with any of Satan’s snares that might try to entangle him throughout the evening.

Now Pastor Buckley was walking down the aisle passing the pews, carrying a cross to the stage, wearing Birkenstocks and a fake beard. Birkenstocks and a fake beard. Bud stood up and shouted, “You monster, you hypocrite, you unholy apparition! I am Jesus! I am the Spirit of God Incarnate, given instructions by Him on how to rule this Earth and govern this planet! Come before me, all you peoples of the Lord, and I will bestow unto you the blessings of the Communion that I have so graciously been given by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!”

One of the elders shouted, “Someone stop him!” His wife stood in horror as Bud shouted unintelligibly. There were nervous murmurs in the audience and the play was stopped. Some of the men rushed towards Bud to try to calm him down while someone called security. Bud was fighting against the men, invoking the holy language of his sacred Communion, pointing angrily at his pastor who was carrying the cross.

“Benla kasha neh hum!” screamed Bud. “Libo pentaba! Kasha kasha lay bata laba! Nomibus pen shele bektabal tamon meka tenko lay kasha! Benla kasha neh hum! Kasha!”

Bud was dragged out of the sanctuary, the carpet burning his back.

Next Easter

Bud Abbott was convicted by a state judge for sexual assault of a minor and distribution of illicit substances to minors. He would serve a term of 15 years in prison. As the police officers walked him from the courtroom to his cell, he realized that everything would be fine. He remembered the story from Acts that told of Paul and Silas being imprisoned. They were beaten and flogged naked. At midnight, Paul and Silas felt a great earthquake around them. Their chains fell off, and their guards hurriedly rushed to the cell, since they thought they would be punished for the prisoners’ escape. They soon made friends with one of the jailors and converted him and his family to Christ after the earthquake. They stayed in the cell for the night, and the next morning, the city officials sent word that they were free to go. Paul refused to leave until he and Silas were escorted from the jail. Escorts came and walked them out of the city to be on their way.

Bud knew that’s how it would be for him too. Jesus Himself acknowledged the reward of those who were persecuted because of Him. So when Bud heard the jail door slam, it was not a closing, but an opening.

"The Gummi Worm Man": Teaser

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:10:00 +0000

BUD ABBOTT ALWAYS WORE A BLAZER, a button-up shirt, and slacks on Sunday mornings. His wife Cindy wore floral prints in spring, modest ankle-length sundresses in summer, leaf prints in fall, and snowman blouses over dark dresses in winter. He was impotent, and she was barren. Through rain, sleet, snow, or gloom of night -- even on the holy day when the post office was closed -- they made the 45 minute drive to Salome Baptist Church.

They were friends with Pastor Buckley, but everyone was friends with Pastor Buckley. Bud always shook his hand at the exit door the firmest out of the entire congregation and told him that the sermon that day "was particularly good today, Pastor Buckley, particularly good." Cindy would smile with her big teeth at Pastor Buckley and say, "God bless you, Pastor."

Pastor Buckley never knew what to say other than "Thank you, Bud" and "God bless you as well, sister." Sister Buckley died years ago. Only a few people knew that her coffin was empty. After three days, she rose again. Pastor Buckley couldn't tell everyone about his wife's resurrection. It was only for the elect to know.

After that, they usually went into the foyer with the Davidsons and Junes and discussed the Davidson and June children. That was what happened this week too. Both Bud and Cindy pretended to be fascinated by Luke's summer camp and Christina's ballet classes, even though they were all Satanic snot-fingered brats. Then the conversation veered towards church gossip.

"Did you see that Lester Gilmore went up for the altar call again this week?" asked Sue Davidson, chuckling mildly. "I think that was the third time this year that he's been born again."

"Hopefully something will change this time around," agreed Christy June, grinning. They all laughed, remembering the days where they used to go up for altar calls every week. Now things were comfortable. Now they knew they were saved once and for all.

A younger couple walked by, and Cindy Abbott called out to them. "Hello, friends!" she cried, her voice raising about three quarters of an octave. "Welcome to the church!"

"Um, thanks," replied the man. "I'm Chris, and this is Norah."

"Hi," said Norah.

"Hello!" shrieked Sue Davidson. "And what's your last name?"

"Uh, Tolling."

"And I'm Norah Paulson."

"Oh," said Sue Davidson. "You're such a lovely couple. Have you gotten one of our welcome packs yet?"

"Yes," said Chris. "Thank you very much."

"Mmm, good," replied Sue Davidson. "Now, are you courting Ms. Paulson, Chris? You both look to be about marrying age!"

Chris laughed. "Oh no, we're just dating."

"Oh," said Sue Davidson. "Oh, I see."

There was a lull in the conversation.

Christy June broke in. "I also heard that Sister Wilminson is in the hospital again."

"Oh Sister Wilminson. She is so strong. Such a woman of the Lord. I really think she is the best epitome of the true Proverbs 31 woman," ventured Ron June.

Christy June agreed. "Yes, such a servant. I think that's what Philip's unspoken was during the service."

Both Chris Tolling and Norah Paulson looked confused. "What do you mean by unspoken?" asked Chris.

Christy June didn't know whether or not he was serious. "Chris, an unspoken request is when a request is too personal to share with the congregation. It's only between that person and God."

Chris was confused. "Then why would you pray for it in front of the whole church?"

This conversation would usually only last for about ten minutes, because Bud had his Sunday school class to teach, and Cindy needed to get home to check on the roast. They would share a meager kiss goodbye, and Bud would hand her the keys to the station wagon to take home before he went back into Classroom F. Before she left, Cindy would throw that week's rotten apples into the donation box. They were both secretly happy when they got to leave each other.

IT WAS THE FIRST DAY OF SMALL GROUPS for this year, and Mr. Abbott smiled like a gargoyle. If you haven't been to the Abbotts' church before, you wouldn't know about the gargoyles. When the church built the new building, the chief architect had slipped the gargoyles into the blueprint at the last minute. It wasn't approved by Pastor Buckley or the board of elders. Too Catholic. There was something that bothered Pastor Buckley about them too. One year he had gone up on the roof himself to chip away at them with a broken piece of metal, but God had told him to get down from the roof before he fell. And so the gargoyles still sat at the top of the building, paralyzed by the cross on the steeple. They were paralyzed, but they were also gory and monstrous, glorified terrors under the command of the most High.

There was reason behind Mr. Abbott's smile. With each new class that walked through the door, the first thing Mr. Abbott did was to train his flock to stand up at the exact moment he walked through the classroom door. He said that it was a matter of showing respect for him, and he marched the kids out of the door and back in again if not everyone stood up at the moment he entered. This happened until everyone had it just right. Every year, there were always a few sprinkled around the room who couldn't get it until the 4th or 5th try. They were the ones who were lost in thoughts of football practice the next day, the friend's birthday party that afternoon, or their latest videogame save point.

At this point Mr. Abbott said, "I can keep doing this all day until everyone stands at the same time." He said it so kindly that it made the kids hurt. After that, everyone got it.

BUT MR. ABBOTT WASN'T A CRUEL MASTER. Beth Lewis, one of the girls in his class last year, had even requested to be in the class again this year. She told her parents that she had learned so much the year before, and Mr. Abbott agreed that it would be good to have one of his prior students in the class again to act as a good example for this year. Before the class, he promised Beth that he would give her the special titles of "Line Leader" and "Prayer Warrior." Beth was one of his special students. He had a lot of students like Beth, and he still sent some of them cute e-mails with dancing animals and notes about the coolest new Christian rock music. He knew they liked that kind of stuff.

Mr. Abbott gave his pupils gummi worms at the start of each lesson. Mrs. Abbott always bought the generic store brand to show she was frugal and a good homemaker. The kids never noticed that they were generic. They never noticed this or what Mr. Abbott did on the nights before service. Mr. Abbott used to be a chemistry teacher before he started working in the church front office, and he knew a lot about chemistry. There was a very special chemical that he and only a few other people knew about that was called Salvinorin A. Mr. Abbott decided a few years before that he wanted his class and his class alone to have a very special treat. He did a lot of other kinds of grown-up stuff on nights before the services that kids didn't know about.

Now some men and women are also interested in chemicals, but they are bad people, because they took chemicals that they weren't supposed to. These kinds of chemicals are called illegal chemicals. They make people go crazy. But Mr. Abbott's chemical was very legal and a very good chemical. It made people closer to God. He knew the children would like this chemical.

The chemical was called Salvinorin A. Mr. Abbott knew lots about the chemical. For example, he knew that the molecular formula was C₂₃H₂₈O₈ and its molar mass was 432.464. He also knew, of course, that it was a selective kappa opioid receptor agonist. It was very difficult to synthesize, and Mr. Abbott spent many hours on it in his homemade lab. Not even Mrs. Abbott really knew how he did it. Mrs. Abbott didn't like to take this chemical. She said it made her go bonkers. But Mr. Abbott would sometimes take the chemical and then read the newspaper. He thought it made him understand the newspaper better, as long as the noises weren't there when he took it. Mr. Abbott decided that he was going to put some of the chemical in that day. It would be a very small amount of the chemical, but a little of the chemical could go a long way! He decided he would put about 1500 micrograms in each gummi worm to give the pupils a special surprise. That sounds like a lot of micrograms, but it is actually a very small amount of the chemical.

It was time for Mr. Abbott to pass out the gummi worms to the class. He was a funny teacher, and when it came time for Beth Lewis to get her gummi worm, he dangled it in front of her lips instead of handing it to her. Mr. Abbott watched as Beth slurped the neon green and yellow gummi worm into her tart, pink mouth, and everyone else laughed.

Skittlenacht

noreply@blogger.com (Emily G.) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:05:00 +0000

3500 words
(This draft is only ten seconds less raw than the one that was scrawled in my notebook over the course of eight hours. I am aware that it needs a lot of work and that there is no action. Thanks.)

The fact that Tommy Wayne Bachman killed hundreds of people by turning them into Skittles cannot be denied, but I found resisting his childlike insanity nearly impossible. When I met him, he was in his cell at the Andrew Sheehan Memorial Mental Institution, naked except for his gloves. When he moved his fingers, the lining of the gloves crunched and crackled. The candies that lined them had long since disintegrated into crystals. Despite all of the security gates, retinal-scan locks and stainless steel, those gloves were the true force keeping the world from horrible, crayon-colored death.

“Do you know the last thing I touched?” he asked the first time we met. No small talk, just that question. He wasn’t looking into the security camera that allowed me to watch his every move. He was staring, smiling at the wall.

“Officer Patrick Calhoun, Devil’s Point Police Department,” I said. “He was four years away from retirement, had two kids in college and a grandson on the way. He thought he was on a routine hold-up call.”

“Wrong,” he said, his face dissolving into a dreamy smile. “The skin of the human face. Don’t take that for granted, Ms. Petrie. Think about that. The texture of the human face.”

Involuntarily, my hand drifted to my cheek. It was warm and smooth except for one leftover pock mark near my jawline. I tore my hand away. Bachman grinned.

“What magazine do you write for, again?” he asked.

“This piece is freelance,” I said. “But there’s been a lot of interest from some major markets.

“Well, it’s not going to be very good,” he smirked. “The article, I mean. So far, I’ve been asking all the questions.”

I wrote that down. “The questions one asks may say a lot about one.”

He shifted into a cross-legged position on the floor, his fingers clasped. “And it’s not like I’m so interesting,” he said. “I just turn everything I touch into Skittles. What’s so interesting about that?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” I checked my recorder to make sure it was on. I’d missed too many quick quotes because of low batteries, and I knew I couldn’t write fast enough to catch everything.

“Not many people go on rampages. Devil’s Point is a ghost town now. I even dissolved the tumbleweeds.”

“Tell me about Devil’s Point.”

“No thanks,” he said with a smile. “Have you ever played Ation?”

“What is that?” I looked at Bachman inquisitively over my glasses, imagining some element of serial killer culture that would make a great introductory hook.

“A word game. You’re supposed to play with a big group of people, but you don’t have to. You go around in a circle, naming all the words you can think of that end with A-T-I-O-N. You’ll be amazed at how many you can think of. You’ll even keep thinking of them when the game is done. Try it.”

“I have work to do, Mr. Bachman. Tell me about Devil’s Point.”

“No? I’ll start, then. Inclination.”

“When did you find out about your curse?”

“Trepidation.

“What was your childhood like?”

“Amalgamation.”

“Do you feel any remorse for your actions?”

“Elimination.”

“What comes to mind when I say the word ‘crustacean’?”

He started, but laughed instead. “You almost got me there. But that’s an A-C-E-A-N. No good.”

“This will go much easier if you cooperate.” I glared at him, even though I knew he couldn’t see me.

“Cooperation, that’s a good one. But not an option, I’m afraid. Chaos, Ms. Petrie. Chaos.”

I’d read in my extended research that “Chaos” was a mantra for him, what he’d shouted in gleeful tones as he’d skipped through the tiny town of Devil’s Point, New Mexico, stopping only to shake the hands of unsuspecting strangers. Rumor had it, the breezes that blew through what was left of Devil’s Point were chemically fruity and sickly sweet.

Aching with frustration, I rose from my chair in the visitor’s room. “I’ve had enough of this conversation, Mr. Bachman. We’ll have to continue this visitation at a different time.”

“Fair enough,” he said, shrugging. “Ask them if I can have a Nintendo in here. Or an old Sega. I haven’t played Sonic in years.”

I rolled my eyes and left in anticipation of a long few weeks to come. I knew there was a story and a sympathetic character in his ramblings, but I’d have to dig for it with a razor-tipped shovel.

When I returned to the Institution, I was armed with a new tactic. Clearly, interviewing Bachman wasn’t going to work. The piece would be largely observational. My view of the subject through the video feed was as clear as video would allow, but not as detailed as it would be if I was looking through glass. Bachman’s cell had no glass or windows of any kind, in case he got his gloves off and tried to escape. Instead, it was wallpapered with yellow Skittles which, paired with the ceiling fluorescents, gave the room an alien quality of light and made Bachman appear jaundiced, his waist-length hair looking blonder than hair should. My research reported that he was a giant of a man, six foot three and solidly built, but on video he was dwarfed by the empty expanse of his cell. The room was furnished only with a low, hard cot, a bench set in the wall, and a toilet. The furnishings were not made of Skittles because dissolving them wouldn’t do Bachman any good.

This time, like the other, Bachman was folded in a crouch in the center of the room. When he heard my rustling over the intercom, though, he unfolded his long limbs and stood. “Hello, disembodied lady,” he said. “I still don’t make any sense.”

“I know,” I answered, making my presence known for certain.

“I have more word games for you,” he said, looking away from the camera.

“All right.” My tactic this time wasn’t reverse psychology, exactly, but rather an acknowledgment of the classical villain’s tendency to explain his plans. The best quotes come from attempts to fill empty conversational space.

“Aren’t you going to ask me some more questions?” he asked, his face impish.

“I thought you wanted to ask the questions,” I replied.

“Don’t feel like it.”

Another long silence.

“Turning everything I touch into Skittles isn’t my ideal superpower,” he remarked offhand. His voice was always tinged with a dark playfulness, but this comment was overflowing with it.

“Oh?” I tried to sound nonchalant, as if discussing his preference for sausage over bacon.

“Yep. I would rather be able to turn people’s brain cells into confetti with my mind.”

I scribbled “Brain cells = confetti?” in my notebook.

“It wouldn’t be painful for them,” he said. “It would be instantaneous. One minute you’re being annoying, and the next, bang. The millions of confetti pieces build enough pressure to explode your head off. No blood or gore, just lots and lots of confetti. It would make people happy.”

“Except the friends and families of people you’ve killed.”

He scoffed. “I wouldn’t do it to just anyone. Only the truly annoying. Truly annoying people don’t have friends.”

I was about to wholeheartedly disagree when he changed the subject. “Did you know the average person needs sixty-three minutes of peace and quiet per day? I get a lot more than that. But then, I need a lot more than that.” His face creased, then. It was the first expression I’d seen him have that was less than jovial.

“Do you?”

“People are annoying.” Pause. “Always talking about nothing. All the time.” Another long pause. “You learned not to, though. I like that. Adaptation. I saw a special on the Discovery Channel about a certain kind of monkey, I don’t remember which, that learned how to use tools and even siege tactics for defense. Most monkeys have a relatively advanced language system, but not those monkeys. They were doers, not talkers. Sometimes I think those monkeys are more evolved than humans.”

Throughout this monologue, Bachman tapped his foot on the floor in a constant fast rhythm. I wrote in my notebook, “Introverted – typical s. killer profile? Interested in trivia, wildlife. NtS: Look up antisocial monkeys. Possible anecdote for lead?”

“I can hear you writing up there. Are you writing that I’m a sociopath? I’m not, really. I like some people.”

“Like who?”

“I dunno,” he said, shrugging in a now-familiar gesture. “People. I’d rather not talk about this right now.”

“Okay,” I said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I dunno.” Bachman walked to the cot and lay on his back, gloved hands at his sides. He stayed that way, silent, long enough for me to realize that the day’s interview was over.

When I got back to my apartment after the second session, I unpacked my research. The reverse psychology had worked, but not well enough. At this rate, I’d have enough information to write a well-informed piece somewhere in the next three decades.

My experiences with Bachman clearly weren’t unique; out of all the extensive coverage on the Bachman phenomenon, all of the articles consisted of hard facts only. Not even the bigwigs in profile journalism had been able to get into his head. My contacts, even my friends, unanimously agreed that I was insane for trying but I considered it my duty. I was far from being a major member of the journalistic community; most of my printed work had been freelance for small magazines, but my profile on San Diego’s Egg Timer Slasher had been picked up by a few high-profile blogs and suddenly I was a sought-after investigator of the pathological. It also helped that I had connections in various prisons and psych wards. My cousin Barry held some secretive position at Sheehan Memorial, so I was able to take advantage of more lenient visiting policies than some other profilers had. Turning down the chance to dissect the Rainbow Candy Killer, as he had been dubbed in the press, would have been unwise at best and career suicide at worst.

Most of the articles on the Rainbow Candy Killer told the same story. Bachman was twenty five when he started dissolving people, relatively young for a serial killer. He worked full time at Suncrest, a middling Denver web development firm, as a programmer; Suncrest had hired him immediately after his graduation from nearby Sunderland College. There, he had studied computer science, kept a 3.1 grade-point average, and was treasurer on the executive board of one of the quieter, less notorious fraternities. When his curse descended, he lived alone in an apartment. He didn’t have many friends and his family mostly lived down South. His landlord said that Bachman kept his place neat, his rent up-to-date and rarely caused problems except for occasional loud music. A few days after he moved in, goldfish started appearing in some tenants’ toilets, but there was no proof that Bachman was involved.

On November 14, 2007, Bachman first failed to appear for work, and authorities believe that was the day he acquired his powers. On November 16, he returned to Suncrest, where he turned a stapler, a phone, a computer keyboard, his desk, and regional manager Skip Hartley into Skittles. He escaped undetected. Coworkers had heard the sound of the candies scattering to the floor, but had thought nothing of it until they went on lunch break and saw the mess that had once been the cubicle. At first, authorities thought Skip Hartley had simply disappeared and they were stymied by the thousands of Skittles in his office, but as events escated they managed to tie his death to Tommy Wayne Bachman.

Bachman himself was not sighted again until he dissolved an unidentified vagrant on a Greyhound bus on November 20. The resulting commotion left several dissolved, including the driver, and the bus careened offroad where it finally stopped in some dense underbrush shortly outside Devil’s Point, New Mexico. By November 21, the town was decimated into a saccharine wasteland. Few witnesses survived; most survivors escaped to bomb shelters and never saw Bachman.

The witnesses were highly traumatized by the events and left only muddled accounts of what they saw. One witness, administrative assistant Marianne Jenkins, could only say “Dissolved them. He dissolved them.” Her husband, Tim, had been a police officer on the scene and a subsequent victim. Mrs. Jenkins was thought to be the originator of the term “dissolve” to describe Bachman’s actions, a term that Bachman himself embraced.

The killer was next spotted, and eventually apprehended, outside of Albuquerque. The police caught him with his gloves on, a state in which he was powerless. Tabloid newspapers relished the manner in which Bachman was caught, and dozens of headlines the next day screamed in 2-inch letters ,”Rainbow Candy Killer Caught Red-Handed!!” The gloves were made of cherry Skittles.

The trial was short and uneventful. Bachman pleaded insanity, which no one could dispute. In custody, Bachman never started trouble or tried to escape. Besides, his eccentric conversational style and penchant for word games, he was a model inmate and patient.

In short, the facts gave me no insight into Bachman’s mindset, only a few pages of expositional padding for my piece. The institution’s employees were no help, as Bachman rarely spoke and spent most of his time supine in bed or crouched on the floor. Even the psychiatrists were unable to produce a reliable profile or link him to serial killer behaviors. I would have to do all the investigative work myself. In my apartment, I sat on the corner of my plush red sofa and flicked through my notes again and again. My eye rested on a column of scribbles from earlier that night. “63 minutes of peace and quiet.” “Look up antisocial monkeys.” Bachman was a student of trivia. Maybe I could gain some insight by playing his game instead of initiating one of my own.

The next session was three days later. I spent those three days researching frantically, seeking a bit of minutiae that Bachman would be willing to latch onto. I finally picked one and threw out the bait at the start of the session, knowing that any hesitation could give Bachman the illusion of control. “Have you ever heard of
something called ‘Dark Flow?’” I asked.

“I’ve been here for over a year. Any thing that happens is new to me.”

“Scientists recently discovered,” I said, “that distant galaxies are drifting towards an unseen supermassive object outside the far reaches of the universe. They call it ‘dark flow.’ It’s unprecedented.”

Bachman hummed under his breath. “Chaos,” he said. “What does that have to do with me?”

I wrote “Narcissism?” in my notebook. “We’re all drifting towards a set point outside of known space. How is that chaotic?”

“Consternation,” he replied. “A species of spider evolved from being a victim to a con artist in under a year. Traditionally, the females of the species ate the males after mating, but the males discovered that if they brought insects wrapped in webbing to the mating sessions, the females were distracted and ate the insect instead. And after that, when the males came to mate, the females unwrapped the webbing and found that it was empty.”

I wrote “Spiders. Gift-giving. Evolution” in my notebook. “What’s your point,” I said.

“Supermassive objects can be black holes.”

I wasn’t sure if any of this was true. In fact, I doubted it. But this spate of facts had to mean something. Serial killers, the narcissists at least, love giving clues.

“Guam eats more SPAM per capita than any other territory,” he added. I knew that one was true. I read it in the February entry in the SPAM Fun Facts calendear I received for Christmas from my cousin Barry in 2006.

“How’s the food here?” I asked. That was a dumb question.

“It’s food,” he said. “There could be more pie. I ate a lot of pie on the outside.”

The silence that followed was comfortable. Bachman flexed his hands, spreading his fingers apart and bringing them back together. I tried to remember more fun facts.

“You’re not writing anything,” he said after a few minutes.

“You haven’t given me anything to write,” I replied, crossing my legs under my chair.

“Write about spiders and expectations,” he said, with that exuberant expression that announced he was playing a game. “Write about swimming through a black hole. Write about how it feels to hold a pen, and read that one back to me.”

A thought sparked in my mind. “I can. With preconditions, of course.”

“Of course.” Bargaining. A game.

“I will discuss the texture of anything. But only if you answer my questions.” Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Why hadn’t Susan Orlean?

“Perhaps,” he said, stroking his chin with a gloved hand. “Throw in a nose-scratching.”

“Excuse me?”

“My nose has been itching since last November,” he said. “These things,” he lifted his gloved hands towards the camera. “These don’t do the trick. Scratch my nose, and I’ll tell you everything.”

I coughed. “They’ll never let me in there. Certainly not tonight.”

“Next time, then. You have connections, I’m sure. Make it happen. This itch is unbearable.”

“And if I can’t make it happen?”

“You will. You need this. But I’ll be willing to negotiate. First, tell me the story of holding a pen.”

I felt uncertain at first but figured that mollifying him once couldn’t hurt. “It’s a thick pen, a rollerball. I’m bracing it between my thumb and forefinger, with support from my middle finger.”

“The texture, Ms. Petrie, the texture.”

I closed my eyes for a second and felt. “There’s a rubber grip around the tip of the pen,” I said. “It’s slightly sticky from sweat.”

“More.”

“The grip is cushioned. When I squeeze it, there’s a tiny amount of give,
but holding too tight rubs against a callus on my forefinger. The shaft is smooth and cool, and I feel tiny indentations where the brand is imprinted there. And the end is dimpled with toothprints, which are sctchy when I rub my fingertips against them.”

I felt it difficult to articulate the exact experience of feeling, but Bachman seemed satisfied by my efforts. His eyes were closed and he wore a sideways grin.

“Adequate,” he said. “You may go.”

I did.

Convincing the staff of the Institution to let me into Bachman’s cell was far from easy. My cousin talked to a guy who talked to a guy, and even that guy paid a significant bribe. The process took ka week before the Institute finally let me go in with three armed guards, my own tazer, and a hazmat suit covered with Skittles. I wrote a list of important questions, the questions I had been wondering since I first saw Devil’s Point on the news all those months ago. How did he get his power? What had sent him on his dissolving spree? What did he think of me? What did dissolving someone feel like? How did he feel about the whole thing?

When the cell door slammed behind me and the guards, my heart could have stopped. Bachman was indeed a giant, dwarfing me by nearly a vertical foot. He smelled antiseptic and vaguely tangy.

“I thought you’d be a redhead,” he said, chuckling. “You talk like a redhead.”

“Sorry,” I said. I’d dyed my hair brown in graduate school because I thought it would make people take me seriously. “Shall we begin?”

“Nose scratch, first. Questions, after.”

I looked into his eyes earnestly. They were blue. The video feed sucked the color out of them, and the fluorescent lighting painted them yellow, but they were blue. “How can I be sure you’ll tell me anything?” I put my hands on my hips.

“I’ll give you a teaser.”

“A teaser?”

Bachman dipped his head down until his stubble touched my ear. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the guards start toward us, but I waved him off. I heard Bachman suck into a breath, and then he whispered in my ear: “The hobo was an accident.” I would have asked for clarification, but my lungs were empty. “I’m sure you read about the hobo on the Greyhound bus to Albuquerque. It was an accident. He tried to steal my gloves, there was a scuffle, my finger grazed his. The woman in the next aisle started a commotion that I couldn’t stop.”

A tear wanted to roll down my cheek but decided not to. “Thank you,” I choked.

“Now do what you came for.”

Slowly, like I was moving my arm through sugar syrup, I lifted my right hand near Bachman’s face, where it hung for seconds an inch away.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“It’s my nose,” he said with a smirk. “Stop stalling.”

In a millisecond, my finger fell. His nose was warm and soft, for a millisecond. In the next instant, his nose was hard, cold, and dense. I heard a short wave of muffled crackling and opened the eyes I didn’t know I’d closed.

I was standing in a sea of Skittles, a vibrant, unsettling blue.

Unrequited Minnesota Aubade-Elegy of Unrestrained Angry Rage

noreply@blogger.com (Emily G.) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:46:00 +0000

Love of my life,
Nader voter,
you left me
for a Catholic

You waited until
I befriended
your cat, your alcoholic
father and your city?

Nine hours on
a Greyhound bus
during winter finals
the most wonderful time

of the year in Minnesota.
The low winds froze my toes off
through tape-plugged shoe holes.
Your frozen weather iced my flash bulb

In October you are not suited
to Western Illinois.
Too much corn, too many dead
redneck poets you never read.

Too much cowfaced
bitter and unstable Jewess
here to suit you.
They say long distance never works, but now I can
reboot you.

An unholy amalgam

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:18:00 +0000

So this is Kanye's new album art. Does it remind you of anything in particular?

New Order's Blue Monday 12". Uh, obviously! Russ Marshalek pointed this out, and I made the poor decision of staying up late to make a mashup of Blue Monday and Kanyeezy's Love Lockdown. The track is called "Blue Lockdown"-- check it out here if the fear of God is no longer in you.

Shameless plug

noreply@blogger.com (Emily G.) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:27:00 +0000

The 2008 issue of my humor webzine, Diminished Capacity, was released today. It includes seven pieces of fiction, one cartoon, and three book reviews dedicated to literature of comedic intent. I wrote one of the pieces, so check it out if you like.

NEW ART: The Challenge Chips EP

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:48:00 +0000

The Challenge Chips EP was released last week. All chipmusic from ZZT/NES/C64 samples with drum production in Hammerhead and NES noise.

NEW ART: The Be Advised EP

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 01:59:00 +0000

Bliss St.

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:15:00 +0000

Ride up to Sunnyside
for a night like MIT hackers
who lost reality time in cyberspace.
The papers that fueled ecstasies were torn by our teeth:
ecstatics eating manna, the morning dew.
Om meditation, Zen enigma.
Powder fueled through a $20 bill.
Watching Sagan's endless universes and
remembering my father's "billions and billions."
Picasso's women lose lines and regain them,
and music wraps in wet tassels, womblike.
Stargaze Aquarius equine:
first sob before touch,
first incend incense quite new.
Ability crossed the gaze;
white heavens elapse their ways.
Belladonna, wormwood:
states of graceful stranded gutterpunks
buzz in fervor, feral
lifestream finding regal chiffon
crosses catalyst. Go find your sign
when every symmetry aligns.

EXT. TROMPE D’LOEIL DAY

noreply@blogger.com (Emily G.) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:12:00 +0000

Establishing shot of an old soft town,
slow pan into Frederick
Community Bridge, a mural painted
on a mural.
Jump cut
a too-still duck.
Jump cut
a two-dimensional Venus de Milo.
Diegetic child chatter,
an extradiegetic Hosanna.
Slow pan out to the anthropomorphic
projection, an ANGEL.
She peers unmoving, distended
in the wall.
A TOURIST
I can’t see it.
HIS DAUGHTER
Turn your head. We’ll
go up to the gallery.
They go, no idea that
they are being watched.

Porcelain

noreply@blogger.com (Emily G.) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:34:00 +0000

I saw the President
naked
thrice weekly for four years
he seventh-inning stretched and
first-pitched into me, my basin
pale, smooth, wet, warm.
I was made for him
(the man who took up the ocean)
and I
could comfortably fit four.
Adipose and sweating he
grumbled about The Law and
relaxed, sinking deeper and
starting to snore.

When they finally dragged me from the White House
I cracked.

NEW ART: "Perpetrators EP"

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:08:00 +0000

New album released tonight with heavy glitch/drum & bass influences. It's called The Perpetrators EP. Listen to it here. You can also download my last multi-track release, The Acouasm EP.

From Dirty Blvd.

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:40:00 +0000

Paul Hinn:

Every brick of these buildings has been laid out by unknown hands, either God or demiurge, and their power is revelatory and crippling. It's not only the bricks but what holds the bricks together, order out of chaos, chaos out of order. Fog is covering the stars' Busby Berkeley dance, and the moon's essentially female song is too faint to hear fallopian tube lullabies or deathdrone elegies. I try to turn the stock ticker subway roar into a cyberpunk fantasy, and the graffiti looks more beautiful that way. Imagination turns my cellphone nowires into a green tube flowing with the technolifestream, feeding me distant voices and spectres of rivalries of European kings. Technology itself is the oversoul, not some vast Emersonian concept: the everpresent panopticon of satellite maps, conspiracy theories, chloroform, lobotomy, religiobabble and misspellings. And it's so fucking destructively beautiful.

I'd rather spend my time musing about the effervescence of it all, the sheer glory of the societal structures and the way that all need to be deconstructed with a wrecking ball and rebuilt from the foundation up by cooperation between the Logos and the Other, but I'm forced to eat and pay rent. I wish that I could say that it's out of some sort of benevolent spirit within me, continually striving to repay society for thousands of meals, a pair of new eyes, and information and stimuli so vast I'm struggling to handle my sanity in its grasp, but I'm doing it to eat. It's the undeniable force that makes my workshirt stick out too much when it's tucked in, the transitory gratification that comes with a succulent piece of murdered meat. Ascetics have thought it impure, but it's all that motivates me. I am only a stomach, consuming like a garbage compactor, scrunching up everything until it fills up too full and I throw up my subsistence, everything that's broken down which makes up my body's own lifestream, red not green. And I'm too damned proud to live on the streets of this city ratshit-encrusted and numb from 40s, so I make rent.

I told myself I wasn't going to do this only when I was actually benefitting from bourgeois comforts. I never knew the struggle it takes just to survive. Privilege taken for granted and now I am privileged again after working for it. Hard work builds character, and hard work hardens you. Idealism becomes a facile exercise you fill up your spare time with instead of any sincere belief. The monotony, that deathdrone elegy of a noise that makes a note which is not music. I drift between nihilism and total belief in the System and all which it gives.

I'm not really sure if I'm a cyberpunk or any of the things I just wrote. It's a writer's pose, because we have to live two lives: the one on the page and the real one. Writing is destined to be a reflection upon actual life and never a reality. I reacted with vitriol when I read Plato's Republic for the first time, the section about art as a form of mimetic interpretation being inferior to the actual. But Platocrates had a point. Artists are constantly baring their souls attempting to either imitate or surpass God somehow, and it's a hopeless task. The world is full of near infinite complexity, and trying to imitate God is largely a losing battle. The only way to become a great artist is fighting God somehow by demonstrating the flawed craftsmanship of his works. The anxiety of influence is only said to be about Shakespeare or Milton because they came closest to approximating his works. The anxiety of influence is really the fear of being influenced by God.

So what am I trying to do by writing this if I realize that any artist who is bound by the concept of God writes in fetters? I strive to write in letters, pure human thought and emotion that denigrates God in existence, meaning surpasses. Idol hands are the devil's plaything. Damn braces; bless relaxes.

More than that, who am I? I've been warbling at you for a few paragraphs about metaphysical and artistic concerns, and you don't even know my name. I'm Paul Hinn. I love asking people the question "What are you working for?" because it breaks their poise. Usually I get non-committal answers like "I'm a student" or "I work for Starbucks." But the question is meant to get to the root of things: why do you live, why haven't you chosen suicide? I mean, God, everyone knows that it's the only serious philosophical problem.

The scary part is that sometimes I have a tough time answering the question myself. If someone walked up to me at a party when I was stoned off of my ass, I wouldn't really know what to say. I'd bullshit something about being an artist, but does that matter in an earthly sense, let alone a cosmic sense? I mean, when you see the earth from the planet Krypton or something, would you think about the pretentious, insignificant manuscript of some plebian-cum-patrician? I doubt it.

What I'm too scared to say is that I do marketing on Park Ave., and I don't even really know what that means. I was too apathetic to figure out a way to prolong getting a job and too unskilled to do anything that contributed whatsoever to the world at large. I read fucking Adbusters. I'm not supposed to be in marketing.

The scary part is this is what I actually do and I do it so I can go home, sit in front of the TV, and then after I make sure no one else is there, put the vintage Betty Page burlesque VHS tape I have that I keep hidden in the heat box. After that I eat more, smoke cigarettes or joints if I'm lucky, and go to bed. Despite my greatest efforts to actually do things, most of the time, I just go through the most banal actions and try to romanticize them later. QED. Living with constant intensity is looked down upon instead of being rightfully glorified, and our society looks like this because of it.

I'm trying to tell you about the beauty, the beauty I can see and can't see, but I always end up here cynical on the page. That's the separation between the human and the writer: contemplation takes precedence over reality, what actually occurred. Even now, I'm making dramatic statements about the nature of existence and our own personal essences while I'm eating ramen noodles and have stupid internet videos that I keep looking at while I'm writing this. I know it's become uncool to be self-referential, but I'm tired of it–everyone knows I'm writing, so I might as well tell you and not treat you like you're too stupid to figure it out or something.

I think the delusions of grandeur I have are caused by further reflection on myself, so I might as well try to filter that experience and tell you about the events that happen when I'm not exaggerating and indulging myself completely. They'll still be colored by my ridiculousness and imperfect hindsight, but there will be one less filter on the lens. It's just like if you were sitting in a chair instead of writing about one. Even though you're not dealing with the Platonic ideal chair, you're closer to the ideal when you're sitting in the chair than when you're writing about it, a chair in a small café with exquisitely designed legs designed by a Western European carpenter that curve erotically like the space between a woman's waist and her hips. I love that curve to everything when I touch it. I know that no one actually finds my touching erotic, but when I press my fingertips to something, I want to press my hold hand down afterwards, moving it rhythmically along the surface, feeling its substance and being willing to feel a splinter or two in my hand. Hell, that would probably make it better. BDSM chair erotica.

One of my friends used to get high all the time and talk to furniture. It's not like that glass of orange juice shit. He believed that since everything was made of matter, everything was essentially the same substance. It was only our minds that ruined it by classifying everything. That actually makes sense to me, talking to animals and inanimate objects. One time he thought that the spirit of his girlfriend was actually in the door because of the way that it felt when he pressed his cheek to it. He started having a conversation with it (on acid) and felt like the door was communicating with him the more he analyzed it. It's sort of like the hippies that used to sit in sensory deprivation tanks and then dose acid only to go out and analyze dolphins. No wonder they heard them talking–and who's to say that they didn't? Talking to dogs like they're infants is perfectly acceptable–why not to doors or chairs? Maybe they just haven't evolved to the point where they're able to understand us. We have smart phones and smart cards–maybe someday we'll have smart doors too. I see the logic in trying to communicate everything, because we're all carbon, water. The Park Ave. marketing intern hippie. I have reached a new low.

Like I said, technology doesn't just increase our ability to tap into this Oversoul. It is the Oversoul in and of itself. The same big green pipes that connect my phone and my head to the collective consciousness connect my computer, but it's imaginary. I have access to encyclopedic knowledge about every conceivable topic. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future, Google has the ability to communicate with dolphins using specific frequencies. They're powerful enough now that they can buy innovation, thoughts, the mental energy of any citizen worthy. It's terrifying, the dread of information overload. Like so many things, it embodies the polarity and cooperation of opposites instead of making them fierce competitors, with only one winner, the Logos. It combines the opposites and makes them work with each other. On one hand (probably the right), you have information overload, the experience in which there is continually too much to take in. I'm not saying this is a new phenomenon; our parents and grandparents experienced this long before we did. Even ancestors still dripping with primeval ooze did, staring up at the sun in its brilliance and being completely overwhelmed with stimuli. They stared into it too long or flew too close. Their eyes were blinded and the shadows of their waxwings were slain. Drink with me. Come a little closer and have a sip of my vermouth. As I was saying, their minds were filled up with this constant information flow simply because of their sensory experience. Now we have taken the senses for granted and moved on to greater things. You can read about Greek mythology, study particle physics, learn about Skittles, feel the relentless tapping of your keys to no end.

The power is intoxicating. The lack of power at being given everything without needing to give anything back is exhausting. You could drop off the face of the planet at the information would flow, because information wants to be free just like food wants to be free. I've had too much vermouth. More rum, more gin, more rummy. Let me feel this horrifyingly beautiful connection and start again, let me drift to the heights and have my wings melt. I'll grow a new pair and keep flying.

Soon bread will become free too, and we won't need to deal with the bullshit anymore. We'll have particle generators, machines that will transmute atoms and molecules and rearrange them to create strawberry pastries. Everyone will have what they need, and instead of working to fill their stomachs, they will work for the common good. People say that the human nature is meant to compete and meant to bring others to the brink of starvation. "Look at the animals," they say, "in the wild they fight for the flesh of others and crave it to the point where they'll let the others starve. It's nature." But when the information is circulated and people begin to realize the beauty and wholeness of existence, they'll change their minds and understand that "Those that do not work will not eat" is not a valid societal method of coercion of labor. Food replicators, intravenous tubes or pills you take to get your required daily nutrition will become natural and a part of everyday existence. No matter how terrifying it is to us, it will seem infinitely more natural than the supposed natural order. Because humans have the gift of logic, reasoning, and compassion, there will be no need for starvation. It concerns human progress and development more than requiring our species to have an inherent sense of compassion.

And these are the thoughts I have when I'm making copies of copies of faxes. I wish people would realize that this moment in history, this sordid collection of experiences and joys and pain aren't everything. I walked by a woman screaming on her cell phone and wanted to remind her, "Life is beautiful." I walked by a policeman holding his gun like he was about to shoot it on a November day where people were walking by with their sandwiches and wanted to ask him, "Are you planning on shooting that gun?" But I didn't, because of what Rousseau said. Man in his natural state is beautiful and at its pinnacle. Societal constraints will disconnect his positive characteristics from the rest of him.

And here I sit like Stephen Dedalus brooding in the sand, but there is no sand here. I can't even brood properly, with concrete under my feet, an epic hero with no trials to face.

"Mothauckas: A Public Service Announcement" by Ferdinand Magellan VII, Esq., PhD

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 06:43:00 +0000

THIS ARTICLE IS © COPYRIGHT AND IT IS WRITTEN BY FERDINAND MAGELLAN VII, ESQ., PHD MY DAD IS A LAWYER AND HE WILL SUE YOU IF YOU COPY ANY OF IT!!!

Throughout the course of the past few months, we at Arcane Desires have grown increasingly concerned with the prevalence of mothauckas uckin' with our shi. These mothauckas seem to have a predilection for fronting on us and generally wreaking havoc upon our existential milieu. This must not stand.

Shakespeare and Mothauckas

A little known piece of linguistic/semiotic trivia: the term "mothaucka" was initially coined by none other than "The Bard," William Shakespeare. The term was originally introduced in his play Cardenio, a collaboration with John Fletcher. Cardenio was once thought by so-called "literary scholars" to be one of Shakespeare's "lost plays." How wrong those criticasters were. The team at Arcane Desires uncovered the lost folio of the play on our recent archaeological dig at Stratford-upon-Avon. The relevant passage from the folio we discovered under Elizabethan soil follows below:

CARDENIO: What doth, pray tell, cast me in penury?
What causes all my grief and pain this day?
I blame not God nor any fault of mine.
'Tis nought but mothauckas whom I blame.
For through their service to the daemon lords,
Some devil's notion renders me in chains.
The villain Don Fernando cast his spell;
He wooed away Lucinda, mine true love.
This mothaucka is whom I despise;
I banish mothauckas all to hell.

In comparison with these lines, the rest of Shakespeare's canonical ouevre stands as mere doggerel. These gems of linear feet, which shine cherubically, allow a contemporary audience a glimpse into the mind of our Supreme Neologist. A short Bowdlerized passage from Hamnet, one of Shakespeare's most famous and belovéd plays, reveals that Shakespeare was writing about mothauckas long before his collaboration with Fletcher.

HAMNET: Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
A mothaucka kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same mothaucka send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
...
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the mothaucking pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as mothaucking
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Clearly, this unexpurgated version shows the true intent of "The Bard," William Shakespeare. He was a good writer. He was also smart.

What Does Mothaucka Mean?
The 1913 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines the term mothaucka as "an individual or group who ucks with the shi of another party, particularly with express purpose of either self-aggrandizement of hating on the superiority of that party." The secondary definition is "an individual who performs the act of sexual intercourse with another party's mother." Such a definition bothered the ever-witty Ambrose Bierce, causing him to bequeath an alternative definition to the masses in his Devil's Dictionary.

MOTHAUCKA.

Gog and Magog.

Where Can I Get Whatever Drugs You're On?

Contemporary society, up to this point, has encountered a dearth in the field of mothaucka ontology, until the philologist folk comedy duo Flight of the Conchords referenced the term in an episode of their hit Fox Family series, Flight of the Conchords. With exceptional bardic (not "The Bard" --ed.) spirit and erudition, they released their findings. You can see a crude "Youtube video" of their performance above. In the song "Mothauckas," the group poses the question of exactly how many mothauckas exist. Their findings:

BRET & JERMAINE (unison): How many mothauckas?
Too many to count, mothauckas.

Proposed Solution

We at Arcane Desires propose a simple solution to this troubling issue. If you see a mothaucka, kill him or her immediately by any means necessary. If you have a friend or a loved one whom you believe to be a mothaucka, do not hesitate by approaching them calmly or staging an intervention. Kill them as well. j/k

This has been a public service announcement from your friends at Arcane Desires.

THIS ARTICLE IS © COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AND IT IS WRITTEN BY FERDINAND MAGELLAN VII, ESQ., PHD MY DAD IS A LAWYER AND HE WILL SUE YOU IF YOU COPY ANY OF IT!!!

This article is orphaned

noreply@blogger.com (Emily G.) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:17:00 +0000

This article is orphaned

without associations

or uncles

or birthdays or picket

fences or hope.

This article is orphaned

please help by expanding it

and paying for its violin lessons

and playing it Pachelbel

while it sleeps.

This article is orphaned

it cites no references

but it has potential

but it had a great interview and

sticktuitiveness

Abdikarim Egeh Gulaid is Minister of State for Finance in the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia

and former Minister of State for Public Works & Housing.

NEW ART: "Perpetrators" MP3

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Click here. Starting to try my hand at glitch/D&B. Sample is from Prefuse 73's "End of Biters."

Metaphorical fire

noreply@blogger.com (Emily G.) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:47:00 +0000

Free-writing Prompt for English 207: Make a shopping list of literal items to be used in setting a metaphorical fire. Then, write a recipe for said metaphorical fire.

---

1 ream, typewriter paper
ink
100 pounds coffee beans
1 camera battery
1 box tripod screws
1 can paint (shiny)
10 gowns and suits (assorted, height of glamour)
wigs (several)

Insert paper into typewriter. Eject screenplay. Drink coffee as needed. Place battery in camera (you should already have this) and film everything. Place the camera on the tripod & film everything. Paint the town gold. Insert your friends & loved ones into the gowns & suits (height of glamour). Place the especially dour friends & loved ones in wigs (fright or otherwise.) Make them act for you. Set the world on fire with your low-budget deconstruction of young ruban life in postmodern Information Age America. Profit.

New novel excerpt

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:20:00 +0000

The below excerpt is from The Knowthing Compendium, a hypertext novel currently in progress. Check out more at knowthing.net:

--

"The Art of Ecstatics" was an aural art installation implemented by Yocto Angstrom in 1993. The installation occupied warehouse space in Manhattan's Meatpacking District in New York City, and the focus of the exhibition was on the manipulation of surfaces to create audio waveforms.

The pamphlet distributed at the exhibit went on to become more well-known than the exhibit itself. The full text is reproduced below:

Reconstructing through pale grey oblivion, after a disintegration of values, mores, sociopolitical guidelines falsely governing free human action-- what follows deconstruction? Prophetic undertones which crescendo to territories that are uncharted. Love streaming sensefully through galaxies and a continuation of cycles past, just dominating the gospellic visions.

Chart the uncharted space after a swim with the celestial beast. Cumulus horizons of hyperborean tendencies and mixtures of those chemicals with the radio on.

Polarizing forces eliminate global policies binding senselessly the senseful, those relying only on perception of three-dimensions because it is all the experience possible. Past Yemen and the Bering Strait, the corruptor seeks to annihilate. Just before the struggle collapses, a void of oblivion undulating under pigeonswarms. Collision is evitable. Exitable, when a connection through an integration of worship and time unseen. Pur(e)ity, pureness of thought and being should be the ultimate possessing force. Playing through fire, dancing under through about above beyond aside after against amidst among along beside between below belonging to pert hard homonyms, synonyms, anagrams, Afghanistans, pure trounced a Bushbuffoon picturing the under and the poles. And the Poles. Pan's creation under idyllic moon offering intricate watercolours of the world's pinch. Molecular toppings to a quark filled world.

Little ponds little numb pushing this surrender, my discorrosion. Play again love. Kiss. Man in journeys created by love. Pills grill, spaces fill, and the afterlife tomorrow, today the existence in parallels just Creole. Stews of just another destiny. Persimmons, penumbras, peaches, pears, and plums. Past the void of interatomic gesticulation, there is another voice coming through. 0pen to the greatness for names. Kiesa. Justlemoa, Politlovas. January made me quiver, February made me shiver. Undue man, undue. Pick through past parcels of storm, and you will see the divide. Just another Amon. Name this. Pole is the name of the pole. Name is the name Kiev. Rhine.

Polasy palsy . . .

Pale answer.

"Butter & Guns"

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:30:00 +0000

(Draft portion of a planned live performance piece.)

People want things. Large billboards and moving pictures convince people that they want these things. There is a place where people go to get the things they want. Large trucks carry the things to this place. People count the things and put them into trucks. Other people give electronic numbers to the people who used to have the things. The electronic numbers represent pieces of paper, and the pieces of paper represent more things. People almost never see the actual pieces of paper. The pieces of paper, which used to be larger pieces of paper, have pictures of old dead men on them. These men had lots of metal coins when they were living, which is one of the main reasons that they are on the sheets of paper. They bought different kinds of things with their coins than people do now with their pieces of paper.

Things are very popular with people. People wrap some things around their bodies and put different things in their mouths, and the things go through their gastrointestinal systems. Those same people carry things around in other things they buy. They take the things out of the things they carry them in and do other things with them. They put their things into the things of other people. The things store where people buy the things has so many things. They sell stomach things, things that move, things that talk, things to help things with, and things to hurt things with. The thing store has people that will give you the things and take your pieces of paper so they can get their own pieces of paper. At the things store, they sell butter. At the things store, they sell guns. At the things store, they sell butter and guns. Some people think this is not crazy at all.

--

Nebulae are somehow both chaotic and organized, the first stage in the cycle of a star. Plasma, hydrogen, and dust amalgamate and gather new substances. Nightshades, Neptunian orbs, jars of starfish swimming in bathtub gin, moonapples, and the rest of the big black nebularform words collide and become a new organism.

Is surreality the only way to enter the realm of nebular forms: amber and hyacinth? A montage of the beautiful, with crystalline necks of swans just hovering on a golden track as you drift. Is the illusory preferable, visual and auditory? What if you could taste the illusory, touch it, grab on to it with both hands? Rimbaud called for a derangement of the senses, and isn't that truly what we're trying to achieve in art? A manner of perception which eclipses that which we have been given in this world and takes us to new heights. But within this derangement, is it possible to reach a transcendent level, to escape stores that sell butter and guns just a few aisles apart?

If you convince your mind that the patterns are syncopated and syndicated, then your own simulacrum is your own. You can live in a painting or a book or an imaginary castle on an alien planet. Fantasies can be juvenile-- they are designed to bring us back to the spirit of childhood that we neglect in favor of a societal structure that forces misery and work on us. Maybe we should all get back in childhood cardboard boxes and lift off in our strange new spaceships with the ability to imagine, one of the keys which separates us from the status quo and gives us the ability to shift reality to the degree that we have already. Back to the garden, childlike not childish, as in children of god. And we could do this all inside of a cardboard box. Hike through virtual canyons, explore verisimilitudes unparalleled because they not only imitate life but go beyond in spontaneous acts of whimsical creation. Or we could just eat Whimsicles. A Whimsicle is like a Creamsicle, but they taste like cinnamon and smell like vanilla.

Butter and guns. Why the dichotomy: guns and butter, butter and guns? Don't we have other choices? We could be lachrymose acrostic agnostic gnostics with pockets full of pebbles on another plane, scorched with fire to deviate, disintegrate, enunciate, denigrate, and then create anew. That sounds like more fun.

I don't like the butter and guns store. I'm not going to go there anymore.

--

Hurry everybody hurry. Do your work in a cubicle, and you'll get a bigger cubicle and a slightly bigger house and you can eat sandwiches instead of just bread and maybe get a bed one of these days.

The worker works for his worker's pay all day. No time for thought or contemplation. By the time you're home, you're too tired to go out in the world, let alone protest the whole damn environment. The middle manager will make him wear his uniform. The boss wears an even shinier uniform than the middle manager.

Dreams save us. Extricate yourself from the cruelties of the world. Live in a monastery, one of your own choosing. Beg for alms. Arms grow longer, and you don't know what to do with them.

Get up again by some mechanical device that your body instinctually resists obeying. Loud, piercing noises. Noises you wouldn't like if you were already a ghost.

--

God does not play dice with the universe, says Einstein. What about the dice rolls for Jesus' rags? Christian cosmology declares that God is omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and most importantly omniscient. Aren't those quarks obeying God's commands? On those dice rolls, when the men were casting lots, wasn't every molecule predestined to give some lucky Roman soldier the garment, the crown, the cape?

--

Cash and carry those butter n GUNS. Pick 'em up and get 'em out of our way. We'll overcharge you for butter and guns. Guess what we'll buy? More butter and guns!

A fucking "meme" for added content

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:58:00 +0000

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair... just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

I am using voice recognition software on my laptop and pretending I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, commanding my laptop to play this video. "Computer, onscreen!" Geeky headset for the win:

Metaremixing

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:16:00 +0000

Over the past month I've been fascinated by the seemingly infinite remixes of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" (MP3) off of Kala. Her lyrics in the verses kick ass, and "M.I.A.: Third-World Democracy. Yeah, I got more records than the KGB" is the icing on the cake. The hook is sampled from The Clash's "Straight to Hell" (MP3) off of Combat Rock, and everyone from The Beastie Boys to Jim Jones have remixed it. Panda Riot even did a full-blown cover. But the Most Fucking Awesome Remix Award goes to Dskotek's nu skool breaks cut-up mix (MP3) . The drum production is fucking amazing, with these bleeps and bloops and swooping analog synths turning into 256th notes. Plus it takes all of the vocals into account perfectly, rather than going with the tired "use two second loops from the original and put a 4 on the floor beat behind it" technique. Highly recommended as one of the best tracks that I've heard in a fucking while.

Here's the weird part: T.I.'s new leaked single "Swagger Like Us," (MP3) -- featuring Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West -- doesn't remix "Paper Planes." It samples M.I.A.'s sample of "Straight to Hell." Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered the age of metaremixing. But is this a new phenomenon?

Unfortunately, no. Outside of the electronic music community, R. Kelly was probably the great-grandfather of meta-remixing. First there was "Ignition" (MP3). Then there was "Ignition (Remix)" (video). Then there was "Ignition (Remix of the Remix feat. Twista)" (MP3/image). You also had Radiohead doing with two different version of "Morning Bell" on Kid A (video) and Amnesiac (video). Where does the madness end, ladies and gentlemen? I ask you, where does it end?

Girl Talk's pay-what-you-want new album Feed the Animals (MP3s released on the "Illegal Art" label) samples 300 different songs. It was released on June 19, 2008 under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License, probably because he was trying to acknowledge that he was doing something cool but illegal. At this point, all of these sounds, these mashed-together waves, can be snatched up by producers and broken into infinitesimal fragments. At what point do they cease to be the original author's creation?

"'Is a quine' is a quine" is a quine. Is a remix of a remix a remix or a reremix or a metaremix?

"Franny & Zooey (& Peter)"

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:39:00 +0000

"Franny & Zooey (& Peter)" is a short story which was originally submitted to our friends at The Fiction Circus for their monthly slash fiction contest. The piece of short fiction, written by American presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois), controversially contains an erotic amalgamation of the literary worlds of two noted American authors: J.D. Salinger and Orson Scott Card.

The story was rejected by the site. Due to the tense political climate in the nation right now, the editorial staff at Arcane Desires believes that this information is highly newsworthy, and the public deserves to see this piece of "literotica" once and for all. Despite warnings from our legal staff, we are posting the story below, including a screenshot of Sen. Obama's original submission e-mail.

This e-mail is clearly genuine, and since it follows the format of other campaign e-mails, we can pretty much assume that someone didn't hack into Barack Obama's Yahoo Mail account to send it. But it also gives us insight to the man behind Barack Obama, the swirling thoughts in his mind as each synapse of his brain soaks in the perceptual stimuli he takes in daily.

The original short story follows below:

"Franny & Zooey (& Peter)"
by Barack Obama

On the ledge of the new Glass family Steinway, in between parenthetical green marble bookends which held Bessie's yellowed vaudville audition pieces, rested an opened pack of cigarettes. All it took for Franny to know they were Zooey's was the the way the pack looked.

Although there were only two cigarettes left unsmoked, the box looked crisp and clean. Zooey's packs always looked like they had been purchased directly from a tobacco farmer in Virginia and carted home in an armored car with a cast-iron case. There were two reasons for this. First, Zooey smoked constantly, and his packs never lasted more than 6 hours. Even as he retired to bed each night, he usually kept a few burning as a kind of soporific incense which lulled him into the land of Cockaigne. The second reason had to do with the way he took care of his packs. He would fit them lovingly inside his shirt or jacket pocket to secure them, the way he always kept things close to his heart. Franny had yearned to take one all weekend, but the time wasn't right yet.

Thinking about Zooey's cigarettes got Franny thinking about Zooey's face, and then his body. He had an incredible figure, probably staying fit for when the ultimate script, literate and aesthetically correct, was brought to him by an eager new agent. She imagined that one day he would get that part, because Christ, he looked Hollywood in a way. But Zooey was always modest, refusing to look into the mirror, even while he shaved. He feared the pull of Narcissus, but he always did his push-ups for the Fat Lady. He always did his pull-ups for the Fat Lady too. He always did his crunches for the Fat Lady.

Franny was by no means a Fat Lady, but she appreciated it all the same. She also appreciated the way he was so domineering. He had a way of making you think he was always right, of getting you to trust him. Even when he talked down to her, she felt like a silly, young girl being chastised by a strong man. After the war, everything was different. Men came back and wanted to be men again, and women wanted to be women.

She had been heart-and-cunt-lonely since breaking up with her boyfriend Lane Coutell the week before. Although Lane lacked testicularity, he was still good for a makeout session after a game. It was those lips, lips like Lord Byron would have. Zooey didn't like him from the first, Franny knew. She could always tell from the way he scrunched up his face. In a way, Zooey talked to Lane like he talked to Bessie.

"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner." Franny mouthed the words she had been praying for weeks out of the little green book. She had overheard Zooey talking and knew how much he hated the word "miserable" in the prayer, and she did it now just to spite him. Was she sinning now, in the want of her Zooey? Christ said that any man who looks at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery with her. Was it the same for a woman? And what about when it was her own brother? She caressed her upper thigh as she melded face down with the sofa.

--

Interlude

Meanwhile:

Seymour was dead. Muriel, Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948, had married someone else.

Buddy was in the bathtub reading Seymour's letters in utmost pleasure.

Boo Boo was having boring suburban sex with Mr. Tannenbaum.

Walt was dead.

Waker was having sex with a nun.

Lane Coutell was sitting in his dormitory. His roommate, Edgar Winters, had taken a leave of absence for the semester due to his frequent nosebleeds, and Lane had the room all to himself. He considered himself, delicate and sensitive to the world before him. Stephen Crane's "Red Badge of Courage" was draped across his lap with a hole through it, and Lane's engorged yet petite member -- which had created the hole -- was moving furiously in and out of the book.

--

"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner." No one was home. The cat was running around the front room. Zooey had told her that before she started praying to Jesus, she needed to figure out who Jesus was. And she had been trying for the past few weeks, trying hard to understand Him not as St. Francis of Assisi, but as Christ Himself. But it was so hard meditating on treasures in Heaven when there were so many splendid treasures on Earth. So much skin to caress as your own is caressed, so many muscles to touch, and so many desires to quench.

"Lord Zooey, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner." The prayer slipped out of her mouth before she realized it, but just as she despised herself for it, she adored the syllables brushing across her tongue and teeth. And as she began her new mantra, Franny's mind turned to thoughts of grimoires, fabulous and esoteric flowers she could gather to brew into a love potion while she repeated those unholy words in a fit of lustful rage. Her hand parted her thighs, and she imagined Zooey parting them, cigarette in one hand with the other slapping her pert little ass. She burned for the thought of one of his ashes falling on her back, burned to be her Zooey's little ashtray.

Oh God, all she was thinking about was Zooey. His cigarettes, his meetings with friends, and the way he tenderly took on Buddy's voice to comfort her. Surely he felt the same way, surely! But he could be rough too. That was his most fervent hope, that tender Zooey could be rough with her flesh. And as she prayed the prayer, it was these thoughts that flickered through her helpless mind as she finger-fucked herself on the sofa.

"Lord Zooey, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner!" she screamed, visibly shaking at the thought of him behind her, having his way with her. She wanted to be Zooey's actress. She wanted to play the roles he wrote out for her, damsel in distress or lascivious seductress. Two fingers curved into her fresh young slit.

Suddenly, an old, hermetic-looking man carrying enormous color-coded filing cabinets walked into the room. When he noticed the spectacle, he looked intrigued but horrified. Before he could stop Franny's reverie, a blowdart sailed through the air into his back. He collapsed on the ground without Franny noticing.

Franny peered into the mirror across from the sofa and watched her litheness spread itself out on the couch. What radiance, what beauty God had instilled in her! And all of it was there for Zooey's pleasure if he would simply ask to taste of it.

"Hey buddy. What's new?"

He was there. He had walked into the room. Franny began to tremble more. When she heard his words, she looked over her shoulder at him seductively with an intense need, like a female cat displaying and ready to be mounted.

Their love was bliss. Pure, idealized bliss, just as is the face of God. This is why mere mortals, even the holiest of men, can not look upon the face of God. It is holier than they are prepared for, despite their consecration. They realized at that moment that Seymour and Buddy, with all their ridiculous lecturing about the Diamond Sutra and Zen koans, were preparing them for this moment. They were alienated by the rest of the world only because they were sanctified for each other. All of the loneliness of the past melted away like a snowflake in a furnace. At that moment, they realized why their lives had been so troubled: they had not been fucking each other. And this was it. Limbs grasping for limbs, pure intellect and sensation like that of an immaculate Rilke poem! And when they came, there was a wet spot on the bed in the shape of a bouquet of very early-blooming parentheses. (((())))

And I, Peter Wiggins, was the one watching this spectacle from the Glass family front closet. Watching their bodies intertwined was my moment of anagnorisis. Finally, I understood why I had treated Valentine Ender, and the rest of the world so badly in the past. I had wanted them, and I had been jealous of their love together. What I desperately needed was not war or power, but a consummation of my love with the two of them. I needed an orgy, a beautiful Wiggins family orgy, where we could share our love fully and deeply. And now I am off to find both of them somewhere in these interminable galaxies. I am off to discover, to re-discover, and to suck Ender's cock and lap at Valentine's cunt. I am now prepared for incestuous bisexual orgiastic bliss.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Carter) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:39:00 +0000

Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.