Recycling Begins in the Heart

“Don’t you dare put any more paper plates through my new paper shredder,” Sherri called from the bathroom.

Ken froze in place, paper plate just millimeters from the mouth of the shredder. “I was just getting them ready for the composter.”

“I don’t want those dirty plates in my new shredder. Use the old one. I put in on the porch. Somebody put humus into it and the office stunk like a falafel house for a week.”

“Sorry,” Ken called back, “Two plates were stuck together. I didn’t notice until it was too late.”

“And you’d better not have those kitchen scraps in there on my new carpet.”

“No,” said Ken as he quietly picked up the plastic bag from the cream-colored sisal which had been delivered a few weeks ago. “I’ll just go use the shredder on the porch shall I?”

The old shredder did smell of rancid garbanzo and tahini, but it growled appreciatively as Ken fed it paper plates from last night’s dinner.

“I’m not sure why I’m still feeding the composter,” Ken told the shredder. “Sherri was the one who wanted to build the thing. But I’m the one who brings out all the scraps and turns the stinky thing with a shovel.”

“Grrrrgggrrrgggrrrgggrrrggg—aakk,” replied the shredder.

“I borrowed CC’s rototiller and laid out that garden plot in the back yard, but we never planted anything. It’s too late in the summer now and the grass is taking over already. It’s like I never did the work. She just doesn’t seem interested any more.”

“Mmmmm, quite tasty,” growled a voice from behind Ken. “Lost ambition, tangy with a salty touch of self pity.”

Ken whirled around to see a glowing ball of fog hovering near the rhododendrons. It shimmered as if lights were rotating slowly within it. The next door neighbor drove past the house in her SUV and waved at Ken as if it were just a normal Wednesday morning, as if there were no preternatural glowing fog throbbing gold and red on her neighbor’s front porch.

Ken waved back, but he was watching the misty orb. “Did you just say something?”

“You could be going crazy. Hearing voices. Halucinating.” The fog thing pulsed in time with the voice which unlike the misty appearance of the apparition sounded solid, like stones clacking against each other in a stream. “Of course I said something. The question is did you hear anything?”

His knees wobbled a bit, so Ken sat down on the plastic lawn chair. “I’m talking to a glowing fog.”

The front door opened and Sherri came out briefcase in hand. She walked past Ken and retrieved her cigarettes from the matching plastic table. The fog lifted gracefully up to avoid Sherri’s hair and then lowered silently back down to hover over the rhodis again.

“Illusions of lost youth,” the fog said with a hint of a wistful sigh. “Maturing nicely, but she’s not quite ready to let go yet. Oh, well I can wait.”

“Don’t sit here all morning, and don’t forget to take those packages to FedEx,” Sherri said as she lit a cigarette. “They have to be there before ten or we will miss the deadline.”

Stepping off the porch, Sherri waved with her cigarette over her shoulder and headed for her car, leaving behind the smell of tobacco and hairspray.

“She didn’t see you, Mr. Fog,” said Ken.

“Hell,” replied the mist, “She doesn’t really see you. Why would she see me?”

Ken cocked his head to one side and lifted an eyebrow in his best Spock imitation. “I get it. You’re that glowing light creature from Star Trek, the one that made Kirk’s crew and the Klingons fight each other with swords while it fed off the violent emotions. You’re trying to make Sherri and me fight with each other.”

The mist rippled and made a grinding noise like waves on a rocky beach that could have been laughter. “No, no, and no. That was the Plot Monster. He is in most movies and TV shows. You just don’t usually see him. Old PM makes the characters do inexplicable things to drive the plot into the direction the writers or the director want.”

“I’m not the Plot Monster. You can call me Eater, or Baku if you speak Japanese.”

“I always wanted to learn Japanese,” said Ken.

“Don’t tempt me with fast food like that, Sonny Boy. I need something more substantial, something that won’t leave me hungry again in an hour.”

“What is it you eat exactly?” Ken asked, not sure at all that he wanted to know the answer.

“Dreams. We haven’t been formally introduced. Sir, I am The Eater of Dreams.”

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t say pleased to meet you? I’m not sure I like the idea of someone eating my dreams.

“It’s all just recycling. Don’t be squeamish. You didn’t apologize to those hotdogs last night. You ate them. And if you hadn’t there is any number of organisms waiting in line to eat them, from the neighborhood cat to microscopic bacteria. They will even eat you someday. In fact that fungus between your toes isn’t even waiting for you to die.”

“But dreams are different,” said Ken, not sure he really believed it as he said it.

“No they’re not. Can you imagine how crowded the world would be if no one ate the dead dreams? You’d be drowning in them within a week if it weren’t for me. It’s only natural, everything gets eaten.”

“So what eats you, Eater?” Ken asked. “And why can I see you?”

“Don’t be vulgar, Meat Boy. And I am not the Eater of Unanswerable Questions. You’ll have to talk to Koan and his Zen Gang about that. But I can demonstrate the sound of one hand clapping. Shit, I don’t have any hands! Sorry.” The Eater made that rumbling laughing sound again.

“Okay,” said Ken nervously. “So what do you want?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just thought I would thank you in advance.”

“Thank me for what?”

“That would be telling, and loose lips spoil the soup. Just wanted to say that every dark cloud has a silver lining, or a jelly-filled center.”

The Eater of Dreams, contracted slightly then the lights seemed to speed up their rotation within him with anticipation.

“Gotta go now, Ken. Hang in there Kipper. It’s election season, so there are discarded illusions of democracy all over the place that need cleaning up. Nice chatting with you.”

There was a blinking, winking flash of light and the Eater was gone leaving behind a whiff of ash and dust.

Ken stood and carried the bag of table scraps to the garbage can by the curb and threw them in. The composter was too full already.

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Credits: Words and Collage by Jay Larsen

Day of the Dove is a Desilu Production

Postage Due

Postage Due
By Jay Larsen

“What do you mean it was delivered postage due?”

Lipstick was put back into his chrome case and unceremoniously dumped back into the white leather purse. Despite his most energetic magenta ministrations, the line of Sherri’s lips continued to fall. All the makeups were worried. Sherri had enjoyed such gravity-defying perkiness for so long, but now all that was changing.

“How much does he want and where is the package from?”

Her hair, her lips, the corners of her eyes, all seemed intent on drooping downward. Even Padded Bra could not hold up the now sagging breasts. They had been so buoyant not too long ago with their helium-filled pertness.

As he came to rest against Pock Calculator, Lipstick let out a sigh.

“It’s tax time again,” said Calculator. “Maybe that is what is bothering her.”

“I don’t remember ordering anything from India. Ask him if we can look inside first?”

“Do you think she is going into menopause?” asked Tampon, a tinge of fear in her voice.

“Twelve-fifty! You’ve got to be kidding me. Give him the company Amex card already and get back to work.”

“What’d I miss?” Mascara asked, as he came tumbling back into the purse with Mirror.

“Tampon thinks Sherri is going into menopause,” answered the latest pack of Breath Mints.

“Since when doesn’t the U.S. Postal Service take American Express? Shit! Get me the checkbook and get back to those files I gave you three hours ago.”

“No way,” countered Mascara. “I just saw a super economy sized box of those new Maxi Pads in the bathroom this morning. They were the cute ones. I remember `cause they were flirting and wiggling their wings at me.”

“This has got to be some worthless Third World piece of junk Ken ordered. This box looks like it was mailed by Gandhi himself in the Nineteen-Forties. Twelve-fifty postage due for God’s sake.”

“Those Maxis are nothing but big sluts,” Tampon pouted. “Besides you think every object in town is hitting on you.”

“That husband of mine buys the most useless junk. Crap normal customers will not touch. And by touch I mean pay money for.”

“Yeah, you hussy painter,” Mirror taunted Mascara. “You were trying to seduce Blow-Dryer last weekend. “I heard you talking about getting her to blow a fuse.”

“Postage due. If people are going to mail something, they ought to pay for it. Not just throw it at the system and wait for someone else to cover for them. It’s irresponsible.”

“Mmmmm, Momma,” sighed Mascara. “That sexy appliance gets me hot!”

“You think I should open this? I paid the damn postage due—That makes it mine, right? Or at least half mine.”

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Credits: Words and Collage by Jay Larsen

USPS brought into being by the Second Continental Congress

One Year Ago: Emperor Jack

The Emperor Has No Closure

Emperor Jack chased his mother’s skirt across the well manicured lawn.
Everything he needed could be had with speed and precision.
But everything he wanted was always just out of reach.
Mother was supervising the restoration of the old pavilion.
She was especially concerned about the custom glass and the cornice work.
Workers in white coveralls scurried out of Mother’s path,
Leaving the Foreman exposed and vulnerable despite the clipboard in his hand.
“Ah, Madam,” the Foreman said with a minimal nod of the head.
Emperor Jack, skidding to a stop to avoid bumping into Mother’s backside.
He was not an expert in the intricate rituals of courtly protocol,
But he was sure proper respect was not being paid.
“You can see,” continued the Foreman, sweeping the site with the clipboard,
“The work is progressing apace. Although the glazers will require significant flogging
If we hope to finish the work on schedule.”
As if to punctuate this feeble statement with an oversized exclamation point,
A man with a trowel yelped and jumped backward
Just as a twelve-foot pane of glass fell out of its frame
Shattering into ten-thousand shimmering pieces
With a curiously muted sound.
One triangular segment slid across the pavement
Coming to a stop only an inch from Mother’s ruby slipper.
Emperor Jack noticed a small red splotch on a corner of the glass.
Horrified, he felt sure it was a flake of red from Mother’s shoe.
Then with relief, he thought it was only the worker’s blood.
But with growing puzzlement, Emperor Jack watched the red
Solidify and clarify its form into a circle made up of printed letters,
A logo of some sort printed on the corner of the pane of glass.
“Callard & Bowser: Confectioners”
“The sugar glass is not strong enough, Madam,” the Forman stated.
“And it will surly not survive the rainy season.”
Mother reduced her eyes to sinister slits and stared at the Forman.
“It is you who will receive a flogging if schedules are not met.”
Mother spun, skirts expanding like parasols, and stalked away from the pavilion.
Emperor Jack snatched up the triangular fragment from the pavement.
He waved it under the nose of the Foreman like a dagger.
Then Emperor Jack bit off a large portion of the sugar glass.
Emperor Jack chased his Mother’s skirts across the well manicured lawn.
He did not need the confectioner’s glass.
But he wanted it.
Even as it cut his tongue.

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Credits: Words and Collage by Jay Larsen

Originally Posted One Year Ago

Secondhand Mussels

“You can’t eat those—You don’t know where they came from!”

“Ken, I obviously know where they came from. These are green-lipped mussels from New Zealand. They are one of the largest of the mussel species and are unique in that they only have one adductor muscle.”

“I know the’re mussels, CC. I mean you don’t know how they got here, on your front porch. You can’t just eat raw shelfish left anonymously on your door step.”

“Why not? Are you telling me that you would turn away from an obvious karmic gift like this? Besides, Kenny-boy, they are packed in ice.”

“Are you just fucking with me CC? You come home after work and find an ice chest, a grody held together with duct tape ice chest on your front step, and you are just gonna dive right in and eat the contents?”

“Of course not. I’m going to plunge these babies into boiling water and watch until the shell just starts to open. Then I am going to dip them in melted butter and eat them. Mmmmmm….”

“But how long have they been here? Who left them? Are they still good? Do you have any enemies? Death by food poisoning would look pretty natural.”

“Ken, you’re a smart guy, but you get overwhelmed by fear at the strangest times. Then other times you are completely oblivious to the obvious and real danger you are in.”

“Okay, Mr. Cryptic. What real danger?”

“Like yesterday when your wife came in with that pin-striped lawyer and handed you all those papers and a shiny new pen. You should have smelled the musk of corporate carnivore oozing from around that guy’s French cuffs and run for the back door of the store. But you just stood there nodding and smiling and asking Mr. Sabertooth Esquire if he was related to the Ventura Sabertooths because you have a cousin who married a young Sabertooth. You don’t know when to be afraid is all I’m saying. You jump away from ropes and then naively ask snakes if they will keep an eye on your pet mouse.”

“Fuck you, CC. Sherri is just cleaning up some of the legal paperwork. You know you never take care of that shit. If she hadn’t gone through all those old account books the IRS would own the store by now.”

“If you say so.”

“Well, don’t talk shit about my wife. That ain’t cool.”

“So now you grow a spine and bare your teeth. Ropes and snakes. See what I mean?”

“Sakes and ladders, dude. Snakes on a plane. Snakes in the fucking grass. Don’t pretend to be my friend and then attack my wife.”

“I am your friend, Kenny. I just think Sherri’s been buying too much snake oil lately. I love you guys, man. But she’s not the same girl you met in college. That’s all. She’s getting too attached to the money. Money can pull you off center, make you do bad things.”

“Whatever… Are you really gonna eat these things?”

“Yes, I’m going to eat the shellfish left on my porch. I don’t look a gift mussel in the mouth. You want to hang out, help me cook ‘em? I’ve got ravioli left if you don’t dare lock lips with a New Zealand green lip. What you say?”

“No, that’s alright. Sherri wants us to go to this new place over by the marina. They have crab cakes to die for, apparently.”------------------------------

Credits: Words by Jay Larsen

Dead Writers & Whistling Espresso Machines

Dead Writers & Whistling Espresso Machines
By Jay Larsen

Every Monday Ken and his dead friend Karen would write together. They would meet at The Parisian Used Book Store & Café in the Mission District of San Francisco. Ken would sip coffee, paying for every refill. The waitresses loved Ken because they thought the subsequent payments were tips for good service, and being good American lovers of money, they also loved its source.

Karen would sit across from Ken and tell him things to write in his notebook. Karen didn’t like coffee anymore—the afterlife has that effect on some people—but she did like the whistling coffee and espresso machine at the Parisian. She would listen for hours to the variety of tunes the brass contraption would perform. Being Italian, the espresso machine had an affinity for Italian love arias, a fact which annoyed the Parisian’s Korean owners to no end. They were always cursing at the Italian apparatus and whacking it with large wooden spoons, threatening and pleading with the machine to whistle anything but Italian opera. “We in Amellica now. Why you not whistle Amellican songs? Spllingstien or Simon and Gallfunckel? At least something Fllench!”

Sometimes the machine would relent and buy itself a pause in the beatings by belting out a few Sinatra tunes: “New York, New York” and “My Way.” But after a short time the arias and the complaining would begin anew. Karen would listen to the espresso machine, as well as the Korean complaining, with a sparkle of joy in her eyes that Ken had never seen while she was alive. And he noticed that none of the customers ever complained about the machine’s taste in music.

“Being dead really makes you appreciate things,” Karen would say when questioned about her reaction to the recurring conflict. Then she would tell Ken to shut-up and start writing again. The waitresses thought Ken was talking to the portraits of Dead American Writers that hung on the walls, all of which had written in Paris at some point in their now famous careers. It was obvious to the waitresses that Ken was a writer who finding himself removed from the literary center of the universe, Paris, attempted to contact his muse in the next best place for writers outside of France, the Korean owned Parisian Used Books Store & Café.

Ken had no desire to be a writer or even to talk to dead ones. In fact, he was not even troubled by the complete lack of books in a shop which proclaimed itself to be a used book store. The coffee was good, and that was good enough for Ken. Also, he missed his dead friend Karen, and she would only meet with him if he agreed to document her fantastic accounts of the realms beyond the mortal plane. So Ken would sit, pen in hand, and he scribbled notes in his notebook while talking to Karen about whatever subject came up: business at the Store; Sherri; the raise in tuition at State Universities; or the construction of pyramids (a subject which Karen claimed to know a great deal about).

No, Ken had no desire to be a writer, but he did enjoy hearing his old friend’s voice as it wove a delicate duet with the whistling espresso machine. And as long as the pretense of a notebook and a chewed up pencil kept him from losing contact with Karen, Ken was willing pay.

Luckily, Karen never thought to say to Ken, “Now read that back to me will you?”

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Credits: Words and Collage by Jay Larsen

Radio Personality

I first wrote this story in 1990 to explore the way real life and the radio broadcasts sometimes sync up. It deals with two of my favorite topics, technology and synchronicity. My short story professor in grad school said no one would ever publish this story because it was too abstract and the characters had no names. I was trying for a psychological everyman story, but he didn't get it. Later the story was published by an English Language Magazine in Japan called Printed Matter. So it just goes to show how much your professors know.... I even got some fan mail from Japan. One guy said it was amazing how well I knew the Japanese male Psyche. I have never been to Japan. Any way, hope you enjoy it.

Radio Personality

He flipped the sterile page of another day and was pleased to notice an inscription in thin red ink on today's calendar page. A rush of suppressed memory came flooding in, to infuse what he had expected to be another ordinary day with exquisite anticipation. Today he would sample the new radio station. The red ink told him so.

The station was not strictly speaking new; it had begun broadcasting exactly one year ago today. But knowing the true importance of the magic called radio he had made a conscious decision not to tune-in this new station during its first year. Virgin stations were not to be trusted. During the first year things would be wound too tight; programming would be designed only to convert masses of new, unaware listeners. The broadcasting personnel and the machines they served would be new at their jobs, unused to working together. The red notation on his calendar, recorded by his own hand one year ago, proclaimed that it was now safe to sample the waters of this untried station.

With false calmness, he flicked the familiar power switch on the stereo receiver. As the power hummed through the cold circuits, he was twisting the dial, sending the glowing green band-indicator gliding across the face of the radio like a canoe skimming the surface of an unexplored lake.

---Click Here to Read the rest of the story.

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Credits: Words and Images by Jay Larsen

Male Psyche by Universal Emanations of Eminent Emergence

Can I buy a Ticket to the Mountain, Again?

The boy used to wander in the fields around his house.
“Don’t go too far,” his mother would cry.
But the boy used to wander in the fields around his house.
One day he followed the teasing of a crow.
Into the dry hills which climbed like steps
On a magic staircase lit by sun and moon
When the crow abandoned the boy
There was no sun, no moon
Just a rocky seat and a cold, cold wind

“Shhhhhh…..”

“Why did I wander so far from home?”
The boy shivered and wondered
“Who do I think I am to wander so far?”
The boy sat and shivered in that dark place
Until a silent explosion of light broke through
Clouds the boy did not know were lurking in the dark
Light blazed forth and the boy beheld that his hard seat
Was the grand pinnacle of a great high mountain.

“Oooooh….”

Eventually the light was shrouded by the clouds again
And hungry for his mother’s sugar cakes, he thought of home.
The boy left the mountain and climbed down the hills
He promised the crow he would not forget the mountain
As he reentered the fields around his house
And was wrapped in the apron embrace of his mother on the porch
He promised the crow he would not forget the light
“Why did you wander so far from home?” mother asked
The boy tried to explain about the crow, the hills,
The rocky seat, the mountain and the light
But the words did not reach her heart

“Hmmm….”

Mother kept the boy close to home
And frowned when ever he talked to crows
Or sang tuneless melodies about alpine light
“You must go to the town and learn your trade”
“You must please the mayor, the banker and the priest”
“You must never, ever let them hear you talking to the crows.”
So with a sack lunch in his hand
The boy put his feet on the hard road to town
And tried not to hear the complaints of the crow
Behind him in the fields around his house

“Awwwk….”

Now the man works in the market square
Buying and selling but never far from his house
He greets the mayor each morning
Gossips with the banker over lunch
Bows his head and accepts the blessings of the priest
Searching for cheap groceries to take to his wife
Buying and selling but never far from his house
The crow sometimes teases him
Calling from the telephone post
The crow leaves him gleaming white gifts
Which remind the man of small mountains
Drying and crumbling slowly in the sun

Waking in the Dark

Waking in the dark, tongue dry and gritty, face pressed against an uneven slab of hardness, the prisoner felt the aches and pains of his last torture session reassert themselves in his ancient body. His hands traced slowly across the cold floor piling up small heaps of dirt and straw and who knew what else in their wake. His mind stumbled, fell and then caught itself on the edge of consciousness. Jump, he thought. Jump. He giggled quietly, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a funny joke. Maybe it wasn’t even a joke. Jump. His legs twitched sympathetically. But it was his returning thoughts and their insistent habit of forming concepts out of memories that he wanted to avoid. Jump into the blackness again damn it. This is no time for self awareness.

Blackness and unconsciousness did not return. Instead, dust tickled his nose. A dim light leaked in between his crusty eyelids. A cough brought up flem thick with blood and a cursed memory of a padded stick falling repeatedly across the small of his back. Padded to avoid causing too many visible bruises. His mind offered this conjecture in spite of his emotional and physical desire for oblivion. And a name. His mind kept echoing a name. Samuel. The pivot point of a host of questions, questions accented with the stick and pain in the ribs, in the gut, on the back, on his legs. Where is Samuel? Pain. How did you help Samuel escape? Pain. How do you communicate with Samuel? Pain. Samuel. Pain.

Noise outside his cell drowned out the echoes. Boots crunching sand against stone. A gurgling sound, like beer in a barrel. He knew what beer was. Bitter hops and golden grain stimulated a cascade of associations where there had only been darkness a moment before. A woman’s voice singing. The smell of smoke, tobacco and other kinds. But before he could make sense of the memory a sudden whoosh of air and the jolt of being doused by cold, cold water shocked him like electricity. The prisoner shot up, going from prone to standing in one fluid movement with a grace and energy hid did not know he possessed. Teeth bared he growled at the guard like a wild animal deep in his throat. His hands twitched remembering ways to puncture flesh, bruise nerve clusters, break bones. The guard took a nervous step backward, dropping a wooden bucket before remembering the steel bars between him and the prisoner.

“Get this animal cleaned up,” the guard said to a pair of workers wearing blue coveralls and dragging a fire hose down the corridor. “The prosecutor wants him scrubbed up nice for the judge and jury.”

The guard turned and walked away from the cell as quickly as possible while trying to look calm and unhurried. Above the sound of the hose he could hear the prisoner screaming. “Why am I a prisoner? Who is the prosecutor? What am I charged with? Who is Samuel? Who am I?” The guard rubbed his throat with one trembling hand and prayed the prisoner would never remember the answers to those questions.