It was one of those nights with stars & a moon in the sky, like you would expect – before they painted it all out & put zebras up there, making it a child’s bedroom with no one to glimpse it.
Not only was I not hearing her, but I also was not listening, yes. That was before we went to Mexico to get away. But then we came back, unhappily. Mexico, where they were already painting zebras out of mules to make it more fun for the dwindling tourists’ children. But they weren’t buying it. They weren’t having fun & neither was I. No one was buying. And then, we were no longer welcome. Baja ha ha. As if nobody had seen that one coming, obviously, from a long, long way off.
Anyway & besides, that was long before I was dead. Being dead means you don’t need to be heard. Or listen. Or stick your head out the dirty window to get a clear look at the moon, no. You are the moon. Yes.
You are the sky. You are the sand. You can paint the mountains, or what’s left of them, with one hand while fishing the oceans with the other. Although, yes, there are no fish now, either. Best of all, nothing matters now. No, not at all.
In some texts, they called themselves “the quick,” as I recall. But, actually those motherfuckers were really quite slow. And dumb. Yes, mostly dumb. Dumb & digging up stuff from the peaks, the flats, & all the places in between. And beating up the Mexicans that worked for them. Looking at it the other way, as they would say, they were really, really smart. Right. Smarter than a box of rocks, I’d say. Yes. And the wall. And caged children. So sad. Sick & sad I’d said.
They were digging up stuff everywhere. Even from places where they really shouldn’t: like, under the ice – which was all, by then, nearly melted away anyway. And from deep beneath the seas. Digging for uranium. More & more uranium to make plutonium, or oil to make their autos go autonomously, finding more. Morons. Spewing more spew into the thick air. In the end, it killed them all as they passed through hell on their way to “Go,” collecting every body.
I know. I was there, saying “NO!” And I’d started saying that early, talking to the rocks when I was five. I was putting my “gee?” into geology at a most tender age. Ha. Or maybe I’m wrong, yes. Maybe it was as late as seven, while I was still aching to live a life. I had a giraffe then. A tall clothes rack of a giraffe. I could hang my clothes on these pegs beside his ears. Big ears, yes. But it wasn’t really real, that giraffe, no. But then, what was? Nothing I guessed. Nothing, I now know.
So. Now, that you ask, yes, I find being dead is quite nice, yes, that is, once you get over what happens to your “self.” Of course, the ooze part is just horrible, oh. But after that dries up & blows away, or after the crows fly off with you, bit-by-bit, it is – as they say – “OK.” At least, that’s what I say. So many others hung around far too long, corpse-riders. Poor ghostly fucks. People really were boxes of rocks.
But those aren’t real crows, no. Besides, when it goes well – & it did for me – here’s how it works: that boney guy with the scythe & the fake crows (yes, he really exists), he gives you a kiss & – boom! – that’s it. You’re done. Yup. And we all went instantaneously. Wow. I don’t know how he smote so many of us all at once, because he had to be literally everywhere. Yes, everywhere. But that’s his job & he’s good at it, you know. We all left our keys in our cars, so to speak, engines running.
Oh yes, I can still remember that silence at my ears when I didn’t have any. And then, I didn’t need them anyway, no. Now I hear everything. And nothing. Yes, it is finality. Totally. Boom.
“It’s all about me,” she said as she rolled off the bed, lighting a cigarette. I couldn’t say anything. That was my last stab at intimacy. Boom. My last – if you will – memory. Never saw her again. Or anything. There was no one to see. Nope, I never liked cigarettes anyway. Never liked cars. Or airplanes. (I laughed & called them error-planes.) Or, get this, “Living better through electricity.” Dad used to take me surfing there. And I tried, tried to say, tried to explain that it all felt so unnatural. Mostly because it made no sense to me, no, not at all. Boom.
Now I wouldn’t dream of flying, no. But then, I don’t need to. Not to dream nor fly. Yes, I’m everywhere, like plutonium. I guess you could say it glows,ha! So I don’t dream, no. Don’t miss it. You know, it was a nightmare mostly anyway. Or a daymare, yes, to be most accurate. Back then, back there, at some point I learned just to talk to myself, yup. And after all & anyhow, yes, I’d known all along that I was the only one listening anyway. Boom. No!
Now we’re all, e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e, we are it. And it’s all & always about everybody & no bodies, yes. Finally, now, it’s all me. No choice: somehow we simply all agree. Nothing to agree upon; not even those painted zebras. No right, no wrong. No left or right or up or down. Boom. No time to write. Boom. No need to publish. Or read, nope. And you can forget about the harps. No one sings or strums the guitar up here, no. Boom.
Then as now it was over, all-over & everywhere, all over instantly. Yup, Boom. We’re stilled, yes. Boom. As a matter of fact, yes, there was no need to be quick about it; no, not at all. “No more calls,” no. For there was no more time, either. Nor need, even, to say “Goodbye.” No, it was just: “BOOM.” And yes, we’re all here.
Boom. Stars. The end.
~jwl
https://www.jonwarrenlentz.com
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2016-0420-0429 & 2019-0225, 0404