Automatic Brand Leprosy

Okay, Get Started.

As a water-critter is attracted to the metallic flash of a Coke can, so he is drawn to Damp Hallucinations. He vomits Stunted Stories based on the paltry Parlor Tricks his brain plays. Again and again (and again). Macabre poisons leaking like twists of Black Taffy, blurring like the panic of a slithering newt dropped into a soft, gurgling garbage disposal. There is a hole in his brain that leaks 90-proof pus and frames of black and white pornography. His choppy dreams are made manifest in the tacos he builds but never eats. Tacos bitter and cheeseless. The blood-red smear on a paper plate reveals a caustic truth. Salty schizophrenic American vibrations shed iceberg lettuce like the molting armadillo sheds dry carapace on Arizona macadam. In the end it is the story and not The Scribe that will survive. And he has polyps.

No good. They are taunting you. Get Serious.

He is a Human Carcinogen. A Visiting Nurse came to call on him once and he drove her away with his noxious flirtations. Trying to get her interested in his nonsensical Television Programs. He is an accident waiting to be tested and evaluated. Her name is Alice, like The Goon. She cannot relate to him as he itemizes his fears but she dutifully writes each one down and down and DOWN. He likes this one TV show about Inches. It’s about the measurement, that’s all it is. For hours. But it’s Really Funny, he tells her. It’s called “Inches.” She tries to give him a smile, standing there in her Blue Gown, holding a Huge Clipboard pinned with a list of all his insecurities.

I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?

He stands in line with five or six Others, waiting in the rain. Nobody talks. It is too early for mosquitoes but he feels one anyway, stinging his naked arm. He lets it fill up its gas tank and then he smacks it and is met with a Miniature Murder Scene. The Color of his Blood makes him grow faint and he gives up his place in line to sit down on a wet bench. He carries a book about Hiroshima that has nothing to do with The Bomb. Not even mentioned. He reads it there in the rain, letting the rain rape the pages. Each raindrop contains a Curious Face. Yes, the very Weather is staring at him in millions of ways. He folds the book and puts it back in his pocket to get back In Line.

So what happens next?

A Church Bell sings through the drizzle. He feels something Strange once in a While and writes it all down in his Daily Planner. There is no RISK anymore. He has gentle memories too but they get SHORT SHRIFT in favor of bloodshed and pestilence and maniacal guesswork. He’s a Thug and a Prostitute.

You’re wasting my time with this silliness.       

Yeah, I know. Time to hang it up. The End.