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Flodis Issue 24b
FLLLLOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i am lonely in the forest, here.
OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
waiter, bring me something.
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
a diet cola, please!
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPTTTTTTTTTTTTIIIIIIIIIIOO
no, not diet rite! that crap make me ralph!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
trilobyte's zine
for anjee tasha and the greater
elephantitis-influenced
population of north america
and elsewhere,
not to say that tasha
and anjee have elephantitis,
but if they did,
they should see a doctor about it
or perhaps take pictures and sell them on the internet
........................
there is an arcade in lake geneva, wisconsin. there are games there
that have been around since games were first invented. the joysticks
and pinball machines have been manipulated and cursed at by children of
many ages, of many times. children of chicago millionaires played
nickel target shoots during the 50s. the same, but different kids, did
acid and played pinball there in the 60s. still other american
adolescents enjoyed the transformance of mechanical entertainment
machines to electronic entertainment machines in the 70s. town kids
and tourists played the graphical masterpieces of the 80s, and kids in
the nineties get to do all of the above, and explore polygon-depicted
worlds as well.
i walked in and sat down at a galaga machine, from the early eighties,
popped in a quarter, and played to about 65,000 points. that's a
decent score for a hobbyist such as myself. then i sat down at the
tabletop machine next to it and played tetris. had there been a girl
with me, we could have played against each other, on opposite ends of
the table. but then i wouldn't want any strife to break us apart when
i whooped her ass in tetris...
so, instead, i would take her down by the lake, after buying some
popcorn, perhaps caramel-coated. we would sit on a bench in the shade
of a tree, the wind would be blowing gently, and i would smoke a
cigarette and talk about old people. the kind sitting in the library,
facing the lake, and reading a newspaper. the pretty seagulls, bobbing
boats, and tumultous waves are nothing new to these folks, who have
seen ages of people come through town, tearing it down and subsequently
building it back up again. they've seen vacationing teenagers meet at
the beach and fall in love, come back for their honeymoon, and return
on a family vacation with kids. these elderly folk have seen the life
in this town, perhaps lived it.
some elderly people stroll along the cement path, smiling as they
remember the wild 40s when they fell in love.
and certainly these old people had kids of their own; kids who grew up
having rich parents, rich kids who grew up travelling the world with
other rich kids, rich kids who vacationed in lake geneva, wisconsin,
and got to see girls and guys they could party with on the beach, or on
boats, during the comfortable and lazy summer months.
the kids would go from making sandcastles on the beach in their youth,
to experimenting with alcohol in their adolescence, to forming cocaine
habits in their eruptive years around twenty-two. and soon enough the
guys would calm down enough to take the high-paying, low-lustre deskjob
in their fathers' company, and marry one of the sweethearts he used to
make sandcastles with. they would have kids, whom the father would
play football with or the mother would bake cookies for. they'd live
in a big house outside of some big city, and take family vacations in
wisconsin.
_+_++_
speaking of college life, and how it can affect one's mind, body, soul,
existence, and non-existence; speaking of rambunctiousness during late
adolescence; speaking of love between girls, guys, and poets; and
having made a little reference to the great gatsby as an introduction
to zaff or ron or sweeney erect's submission would have been a great
thing to do, but i have failed:
a friday spent lonely and bored
by ron , zaff, sweeney erect, et al
note: what you see here, except for the post-script
is simply some notes i wrote on a friday
night/saturday morning before passing out, transcribed
word for word.
walking on the fucking quad tonight and i ran into
this lanky, smelly, blonde bastard named jay. jay has
a chipped front tooth and a lisp and wants people to
like him and that's why i think he sells drugs. he's
the only guy i know who can get mushrooms all the time
which is the only reason i talk to him at all, and i
still don't know his last name or how to get ahold of
him except that i run into him sometimes. i was broke
and didn't feel like talking to the fuck, so i said
'i'm broke'. =
i was walking away when he said 'wanna come do some
lines? no charge.' and i don't fucking like coke
very much, but just then i realized that i really was
in the mood to get severely fucked up. i'd rather
have gotten fucked up on shrooms, but that wasn't the
offer on the table, so i said 'sure.'
we went to this shitty mexican restaurant on main
street called 'la bamba's'. they say their burritos
are as big as your head but they aren't. but you
can't make jokes about it to the help because they're
mexicans who don't speak much english, or anyway
pretend not to.
the tacos were good and greasy and when we finished we
went to the bathroom. i bet the mexicans thought we
were queer--jay would have been my sugar daddy because
i am the better looking of us by far.
one of us would stand against the door while the other
did the lines.
the coke was shit stuff (i hadn't expected any
different) but it hit me pretty fast so i wasn't going
to bitch much. jay knew a party we could walk to and
get some beer or vodka at, so we walked down a narrow
street with lots of trees and couches full of fucking
frat boys on all the lawns until we got to maybe the
shittiest house on the block, which had flashing
lights inside it and a bunch of fucks smoking on the
porch.
i paid for cups because jay had bumped me so i was
still way ahead of the game financially.
the party was loud hot and crowded and the beer was
way the hell off in a corner, which meant i almost got
into a lot of fights because i hate running into
sweaty stupid frat boys with no glimmer of
intelligence in their eyes and not having them say
'excuse me' so i always said it pointedly on my way to
the keg.
after 8 or 9 beers i asked jay if he had any more shit
because i was starting to come down already and the
beer wasn't cutting the buzz. i knew it wouldn't
really do much good because for me when the buzz
starts to go it is going to go--but he slipped me a
little packet and i went into the bathroom and snorted
it off the toilet top. waiting to get into the
bathroom i was really irritable and pissy, and once i
got in i checked the lock about 5 times to make sure i
was secure.
i came out and noticed a girl who looked a lot like my
ex gf, and so i went over and started to talk to her. =
i don't remember what we talked about, but i must have
been a charmer because she stood and waited time and
again while i went to get more beers. after my 15th
she left the fucking party with me.
we got back to my dorm room at about 1 or 1:30 or
something and she sat on the bed and asked what i
wanted to do. she asked if she could smoke and that
made me mad because my ex would never smoke, but i
said sure, and then i started to read her some yeats.
the bitch didn't get the yeats at all, i realized when
i looked up, she just liked the fact that somebody was
going to read her poetry before he fucked her. just
then i fucking hated that bitch more than anybody else
in the world, more than george w bush, and i told her
to leave. =
she said 'what?' and i said 'fucking leave before i
throw you out.'
i think she was bawling and she slammed the door. so
i went and got a half bottle of vodka i had left out
of my underwear drawer and here i am now.
huzzah
post-script
all i have to say as an addendum is that i woke up the
next afternoon sprawled on my floor clutching my
pillow in one hand, a book of byron's poetry in the
other. the bottle of vodka is empty, but it isn't
clear how much i drank and how much i spilled.
0-0-=-0=0-=0-=0-=-=0-=0-0=-=0-0=-=00-=
memories can turn a water-filled hole in the ground into a momentous
destination; and a booming town into a row of saloon-sized
gravestones.
but i'd build a track for trains going through the old dusty main
street, rename the ghost town WESTERN LAND, and dozens of thousands of
millions of families will come 'n visit year after year, hoping to
catch a glimpse of the gold seen a century ago, hoping to sneeze on a
piece of the past.
some kid would pick up a stupid green rock, take it home with him, and
keep it for the rest of his life. and hopefully he wouldn't inbreed
with his relatives because that could make things messy.
and hopefully that kid wouldn't turn into oregano, because he already
exists, and wrote this nice t-file for this here zine-thing:
* * * * * *
Originally I came up with the concept for these stories just
for Tashy, but since Flodis is about Angee too, I modified
them a bit and added some Canadian content to make it palatable
to both.
This is the first in a very short October series.
The Headless Head Librarian
Tashgee never liked going into the East wing of the library.
There was something creepy about that part of the library,
something she could feel but not put her finger on.
The East wing held all the old books, books mostly from before
World War II, back when the library was founded. Many of these
books had not been opened in over 30 years but Tashgee was told
to go and dust off the books, they needed thair annual cleaning.
Tashgee was reluctant, but did as she was told, cussing to
herself about her supervisor as she went with the feather-duster.
The East wing was almost another building, Tashgee went through a
long, damp, cold corridor to get there. Outside the weather was
drizzly in Edmonton and a chill had taken to the October air.
Tashgee was worried she'd catch a cold and miss part of the
curling season which was due to start later that week. Plus her
father, a member of the Mounties, needed Tashgee to feed his
horse while he went out deer hunting.
Tashgee turned on the lights in that seldom used wing of the
library and looked at all the books. Since this part of the
library was so old, the books were stacked on shelves higher than
in the rest of the library. A ladder rode back ond forth on a
track and Tashgee was able to climb to the highest books.
"Better start at the top and work my way down," Tashgee
muttered. She climbed the ladder and at the very top saw books
older then her oldest relatives. The shelving numbers of the
books were tagged 666.66 and she was curious what that could be.
She took a book out and blew the dust off the cover. "Witchcraft
in 1900s Edmonton" Her curiosity picqued she opened the book and
read some of the book out loud.
"Spell to revive a restless spirit," she read, then she read
the spell, sounding out the ancient script. The ladder shook and
a slight smell of sulfer nipped the air.
A groan came out of the next row, "IIIIIIII waaaaaaaant
myyyyyy heeeeeeead."
A sudden wind gusted and the door slammed shut. Tashgee
dropped the book, slid down the ladder in a panic and tested the
door. It was indeed locked. She looked down the row of books
and there was a woman dressed in the style of the early 1900s,
carrying a catalog of some sort, a catalog of books perhaps.
This woman had no head!
The woman came closer to Tashgee and said, "My you have a
lovely head. Your head will do nicely. I can have a young head,
I can have a pretty head. I will take your head."
The woman raised her arms and grabbed for Tashgee, but
Tashgee, being smaller and aliver ducked under her arms and ran
down the row. Books passed her on either side as she ran. A
wall brought her to a stop, no possible exit.
She managed to pick up the spell book on her way, knowing it
would be her only hope. She leafed through it quickly, looking
for ways to satisfy a headless ghost, but all the pages were blank.
The ghost meanwhile had come after Tashgee and it would be only a few
moments before she had Tashgee, and more importantly, Tashgee's head.
Tashgee threw down the book in exaperation and looked on the
shelves for other books which could help her. She saw one from
Dale Caranegie "How to get a-head in business." She smiled at
her ingenuinity and read out loud the "12 ways to get a-head."
The ghost nodded knowingly at the pragmatic approach, seemed
satisfied, and disappeared.
Tashgee was worn out but continued her work and dusted every
book in the East wing of the Edmonton library. She did not get a
single hour of overtime or thanks from her supervisor. All she
got was grief for damaging the book which fell from her hands
when she came down the ladder to face the headless head
librarian.
The End
***********************
if that librarian were a british rock band manager, he would tell me to
shove off, and to bugger on, and to sod off, and to move along, because
i would be shantying my way across main street, jamming along to a song
inside my head; i'd be spinning in the crosswalk, disrupting cars,
including that of the british rock band manager, while singing along to
the sweetest juice of a voice -- the voice of the fair Gwendolyn,
keeper of the trashcan which rolled into main street in front of a
moving car.
"Gwendolyn!" i'd yell in ecstasy. "You are one groovy woman! I can
hear your body roar!" i'd snap my fingers and continue with my jig.
she'd wave her rolled-up newspaper in my direction and yell, smiling,
"Garter-Belt Sam, i thought i told you not to come round these parts
any more, not after what happened between you and old Hammond." she'd
put her hand on her hip and look at me, expecting a witty reply.
"i told him to sod off!" i'd yell, and flick my middle finger at the
rock band manager, who'd then grunt out of his car and run up to me
with a finger jammed in my face, saying,
"i'm fuckin' tired 'a fucks like you, fuckin' wid cars like mine...
we'd been tryin' to get along with this street but NO " -- he'd raise
his hands and shoulders in desparation to the sky -- "you're out here
reliving some childhood fantasy of yours, and what the hell kind of
drugs are you on anyway? i wish that garbage can had been you, ya
lousy bugger -- potheads like you are 'detriment to society, and i ain'
gonna put up wid none 'a dese bollocks. that's what it is you know,
that's what you are, you're just a bucket full of bollocks!" and he'd
stamp back into his auto and continue to honk his horn until i'd finish
crossing the street, overjoyed with the vibrance of life, excited with
the possibilities of stealing cheap candy from a rich baby, a pacifier
from a ecstasy-addicted rave diva.
"detrimental to my health!" i'd exclaim to the fast-moving cars on main
street. i'd spit on 'em too. "your mere existence is enough to melt
my mind into a highly-condensed chunk of overchewed bubble gum!"
but none of that happened, so i asked Gwendolyn, the sweet-heart, if
she had been on any canoe trips lately, and she said no, she'd been
pinned up in her apartment in this boring midwest town, and that she
would rather hang from the rafters than live one more week under that
roof.
the next night i came by with some gasoline and a match. i went up
onto the top of her building and made a large fire, and then left, and
she died, which i haven't thought about much, so i'm not sure if it was
very good or very bad.
---------
+++
++++++
+++
+++
+++ L O W E R S
,.....//
,,-----//
,, //
,, // FFFFFFFFFF
------/
^^^^^^
[][]]
[] ][
[] ][
[][]] isruption
email:!#% trilobyte@rockford.com
time and temperature: 1-815-968-2311
(applies to rockford, illinois
and surrounding areas)
today is october second, 1999, and it's too bad that it's not 1992,
because then life would be much cooler, and was she playing footsie
with me? i don't give a damn; if this was 7 years ago, we would be
having candy given to us in twenty-nine days; a hell of a lot of
candy, but never enough to make my face break out, because it didn't do
that very often, even when girls WOULD play footsie with me, but
actually i can't say that, because no girls ever DID. so i didn't
KNOW. and it's too bad that i didn't KNOW because i was willing to
LEARN!
grrr. i growl at misfortune! it's a spirit that haunts the loneliest
corners of life! so long as i get my food, water, and sleep, i'll be a
happy miscreant and misfortune can stay out of my way!
[flodis] wisdom is knowing that learning is eternal!
[flodis] one who tries not, shant be disappointed!
peace.
