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After their violent bout in the ring, everything goes white and textured, everything's been given the textured treatment, is made of cheneille, is colorwashed. Two low white couches in a white room, and the topic is Can This Marriage Be Saved? Calamity’s incredulous: her red hat’s been bleached, and the Narrator’s shadowy form has taken on the solid heft of a whale -- or a pegleg. On the opposite sofa, an angel with perfectly coiffed hair, her enormous wings tucked modestly behind her. The angel steps out to the studio audience to take comments and questions. A fat woman with enormous white breasts stands up to tell the two sofagirls that they should just get along and to say that it is goddam self-centered kids like this that are driving this great country of ours down the craphole. Pure and simple. A camera cranes in for a reaction shot and the pair look at each other, astonished. The Narrator takes out a notebook from her back pocket, writes "How's tricks?" and holds it up by the low corner. Calamity swivels a gun out from under her hip and shoots fast-- 1, 2, 3 holes right through the notebook, whose falling shreds resemble feathers. The whole studio begins to sink like pouring milk through the holes, the audience woozes together, folds in, the sofas sway and flow and everything is white, white, white, white, white. Waking up in the abandoned ring, the two rub their bruised heads and do a spitshake, silently stealing away. posted by Reen at 11:35 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Track shot over the darkling plain, then spot to reveal, in this corner, Calamity, in red, and in this corner, er, um, who's that again? Such a boy's way of fighting, but here goes nothing. The bell sounds and it's a blur of chop-socky sound effects, the high kick to the head and Hi-Yah! There goes a tooth, sailing over the crowd like a distant bird, and it's a blur: whiplash of hair, weird cracks of bone, bright flashes of blood. Here’s what happens when there’s a failure of diplomacy, and thank god both parties were timely reminded to take out their earrings– there's nothing nastier than a catfight– nor more worthy of study. Scientifically- minded patrons of the blood sports may observe (watch out–one of them's got a folding chair) that enemies are often alike, and as we see here, nearly joined at the hip, tearing to tear themselves apart but managing only to jam themselves back together. A heave and a crack, crack, crack, a sucker-punch followed by a hook, and a round solid left. By the time the bell sounds the end of the round and the smoke clears away from the platform, the contenders have been reduced, like white wine on the stove, to a series of discrete arguments written in muscle. Whither the soul, professor? But who gives a good goddam? We scientists deal in the material, and are eager to get it, ready to dispense a crack team of Igors to gather the magnificent, beating remains. posted by Reen at 10:52 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Tired army of one strung out along night's several hours, nursing curses, nursing memories of day camp, of bee stings, of daydreams, febrile, unreal. Then she was a hero, with a red hat and a brace of silver pistols. She has been alone before. She can do that again. But can she really be herself Just that? They face each other and sink in, as reflections sinking into the bodies that themselves sink beneath the surface of a lake. Underneath is different. You get what you don't see and she could be the real, two-for-one deal. Surfacing into her lonesome self, the smell of her skin draws bees. posted by Reen at 5:21 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Dear [ ]: You've moved the spotlight, which until recently was properly trained on me. Please do not deceive yourself that the nattering thoughts which inhabit your skull are somehow more intriguing than my own amazing exploits. I have a backlog of adventures that will take you months to record. And while embroidery is an element of narration, I have noticed a few rumors, innuendoes, even tall tales that you appear to have made up, whole hog. For instance, I have never battled my own fifty-foot-tall, cloned, robotic warrior. I would if I could, but I'm devoted to truth, and must conclude you invented this tale simply to cast some reflected glory on your own piss-poor self. A few other things: I would like you to stop repeating the following lies. I have never appeared in a tortilla. I will not appear in a mirror in a darkened bathroom if you call out my name three times. There is no such thing as an Official Nonbeliever's Entrance Exam, and if there were, I would not fail it. I have not challenged Alexandr Solzhenitsyn to a duel, and certainly did not cackle over his bleeding corpse. I will confirm, however, I am the subject of a number of scientifically unsustainable creation myths. Also, my birth certificate is lost. Sincerely: Calamity P.S. Which one of us wrote this again? posted by Reen at 12:55 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Calamity in her black mantilla leans across the balcony, lilting. "Adieu, adieu." A carillion of descending sevenths moans in the background. No one sits in the theater. Her hat is slung over a pile of abandoned scenery-- a castle wall, an armory. It waits in the wings. She drops a black silk handkerchief. A jellyfish sinking, retreating. Calamity wipes a black tear, greasy with mascara from behind her veil. She's touching, quite touching, but her goodbye is always a dress rehearsal. posted by Reen at 12:25 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Reduced to my most basic schizophrenic tendencies, I took to leaving cryptic notes. So cryptic, in fact, that I hoped she wouldn't notice they were there. Once, I even opened her letterbox, thrust my arm into its throat, let it devour my elbow, and with a key, scratched out into its belly the words, "your true love is waiting, with fists of silk," in phonetically-spelled Cyrillic. She never even saw it, but though she did come across a few other examples of my mental debris, she could not decipher the meaning of a stray brick in the backyard, labeled in purposeful green chalk, "Weird limp, sly mustache," or the have-you-seen- this-dog sign tacked to the lightpost before her house that stated, in fine print, "it lies under time, where not a single blade Of grass is to be found." Petty, I know, the ropes of words I secret in her world, my thoughts, my dreams coating the surface of her consciousness, slowly, but still, it makes me happy to see her surrounded. posted by Reen at 12:16 PM | link| versify 0 comments
After too many dismal outcomes: Her life lines are always so short And she often strays from the palm To the face, pointing out the customers' Crows feet. The ceremony of expulsion Involves a thousand kerchiefed women With hook noses, severe black hair Scraped back and gold hoops in their ears, All with names like Madame Fatima, Whose business cards bear the mark Of an all-seeing eye, a question mark, A mark of mystery. Calamity's got No mystery, just brutal, precise Predictions of your heartache, Your loss, your pain, your sorrow, And there have been many complaints That she doesn’t understand that No one comes to her for truth. The Gypsies surround her, robes askew, Arms racked with bangles, ululating, Circling her as though she were a fire, A flame in the desert, a strange card In the tarot, bearing only the image Of a solid circle, punctuation, correction, The massacre of all surviving doubt. posted by Reen at 12:14 PM | link| versify 0 comments
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