August 11

I’m mystified. Last night in my dream there was a guy who sort of looked like my boss yelling at me for all the work I hadn’t done, because I’d gotten really into re-editing the Wikipedia page about Internet addiction. I still have no idea what it means. I also had the dream about eating my pillow. When I woke up, the Jet-Puffed Marshmallows I keep by the side of the bed were gone.

August 12

Dreams really are inscrutable. Last night I had this dream where I got crushed underneath every word I’ve ever typed in an IM conversation. Then this guy who kind of looked like my boss tried to help me but got trapped as well. I’m baffled. I also dreamed that I ate a chicken that looked like my dad, but when I woke up, Pops was sleeping soundly on the floor right next to my bed, just like always.

August 13

Who can know the whims of the unconscious? Last night I dreamt that I was at work playing a computer game for toddlers called The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, but it was so hard that I couldn’t figure it out. Then a baby who looked like my boss beat the game and threatened to set me on fire. Weird, right? I also dreamed that I ate my laptop, and when I woke up the chocolate laptop I’d been saving for the weekend was gone.

August 14

I fell asleep at work today and had this dream where my family and friends and co-workers and everyone crowded around me and told me I had a problem. But right when they were about to tell me what the problem was, I was rudely awakened by my boss, who’d gathered my family and friends and co-workers around me to tell me I had a problem, which made me really mad. I started yelling at them before they told me what the problem was. I stormed out and bought a soothing bag of marshmallows and went home and slept. I didn’t really have any dreams, except for the one where everything below me is burning and I fly away in a bed shaped like the internet. I think that one demonstrates the importance of dreams and how nothing can stop you if you just believe in them.

MP3: The Zombies – “Hung Up On a Dream”

- Flann O’Rion lives in Eugene, OR and never dreams.

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Several years ago a couple in their seventies used to come to the park near my house with metal detectors. They’d show up about once a week. Around their waists they both wore small aprons with pockets to collect their finds; the kind a waitress might use for tips. I liked the idea that they were working so quickly they needed to stash their winnings on-the-go, heedless of what they’d dug up until later. Since I didn’t usually have much to do in the evenings, I sat and watched them whenever they showed up.

In this way, I became increasingly curious about them. They never found anything in the park. I couldn’t understand why they came back to my park so consistently. Occasionally one of them would fixate on a spot, take out a small object shaped like a grill lighter, and dig it into the wood chips, but they never retrieved anything.

Finally one day, feeling creepy, I decided to follow them to their next site, and then to the next. I accidentally followed them home. I had never done anything this obsessive, not even after Lucy left me. I never followed her anywhere. So, I figured out their route. They went twice a week. They had all kinds of spots, most of them pretty successful, but my park was the only one they hit every week.

Because they never found anything there, but came back every week, I figured that the park had some special meaning for them. They used to go there in their youth. They met there. Maybe they used to bring their children there. Lucy and I used to swing there in the evenings. It was a nice park.

I was impressed with my tailing skills until I got arrested. I couldn’t explain my actions, which counted against me. Eventually the couple asked to speak with me. An officer accompanied me to their home, where I sat on their couch and drank iced tea. I’d expected their house to be decorated with their finds. I expected metal detecting to be the substance of their lives. The only evidence of the hobby was the grill lighter shaped object left out on the counter. I explained how I’d gotten interested in them, and finally asked what it was that brought them back to the park. “Have you ever found anything there?” I asked.

“No,” said Mr. Trumble.

“Then why do you come back?” I asked

“We come back,” Mrs. Trumble broke in, “because the wood chips are so easy to dig in. As soon as anything shows up there, we’ll find it, and without any effort. The digging’s the part I hate the most.”

“Me too,” said Mr. Trumble. They smiled at me. “Any other questions?”

I asked them what the grill lighter thing was. They dropped the charges.

MP3: Taken by Trees – “Lost and Found”

-Sven Gull lives outside of Philadelphia with his wife, Alma. He’s never followed anyone anywhere. The thought of it bugs him.

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Mel and I watched everyone walking past. We guessed about what everyone did. We sat on the bench in front of the playground facing toward the street. It’s about twenty yards to the street from the bench and in the early evening we used to do a lot of people-watching. We both wore jackets; mine olive, Mel’s a surprising shade of red. Mel said the sky looked like the yellow inside of a foam pillow ripped up by dogs and scattered across the sky. I couldn’t agree. I claimed it looked like a patient waking up just after the ether, eyes clear in front of a fogged brain. Mel stuck to his guns.

A man wearing pants with plastic buckles at the ankles. Bald on top, with a bird’s nest of hair running around the sides. “Billabong,” his shirt said. I said that he owned his own cleaning company. Mel said he sold pot, which he might have had on authority. I didn’t ask. Mel still had this element of a private life that I wasn’t part of. He might have just liked to hint at its edginess. I didn’t like it.

A woman with a cat face, short hair, calf-length black polyester skirt, scarf bunched at her throat. She took a full minute to cross our field of vision. We both said, “Real-estate.”

A man of medium-build and all muscle, head shaved close, grey t-shirt, olive pants. I said, “Hitman.” Mel said, “Dancer.” We looked at each other. I wished that I had said “dancer.” Mel said, “I wish I had said ‘hitman.’” I leaned against him. That was the first time our opinions diverged and we didn’t fight and saw that we were not the same and each wanted to be more like the other.

MP3: A.C. Newman – “Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer”

- Therese Illus lives alone in Rhode Island.

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Two men, Tolly and Stephen, have shut themselves up in a room. They’re adapting Tolly’s off-Broadway play,The Heart Within the Heart, for the screen.

Stephen: So, in the play Robbie and Jeff are gay?

Tolly: No. They’re brothers.

Stephen: So why do they live in the same room?

Tolly: Because they’re brothers and their family’s a little poor, so they have to share a room.

Stephen: Well, I guess you would know. But that’s kind of a bummer. Because you know what’s really funny? Gays.

Tolly: I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to say that.

Stephen: Anyway, I really want to get down to the heart of The Heart Within the Heart so we can make sure we preserve your intent.

Tolly: That’s what I want too.

Stephen: Even if we have to change a lot of stuff.

Tolly: Like what kind of stuff?

Stephen: Well, I don’t think the dad being gay really works. Gays are funny and you don’t want to confuse people by making a gay guy really mean.

Tolly: Well, that’s fine, because their dad’s not gay.

Stephen: Really?

Tolly: Yeah. Really. What made you think he was gay?

Stephen: Well, that one time where the mother tells him to ‘go to hell’ and he leaves the house and then comes back drunk.

Tolly: And you thought he was gay because he came back drunk.

Stephen: Yeah, well I guess I just imagined him running off and meeting up with his gay lover, this guy who works the soda fountain in town.

Tolly: What are you talking about? The play is set in modern day. There’s no soda fountain. Not to mention, there’s absolutely no gay lover. No one in the play is gay.

Stephen: Well, I guess you would know. It’s just my imagination. Your original play is just so vivid, but also restrained. It seems to me like sometimes it’s what’s not being said that comes across so well.

Tolly: That’s very nice, but no one in the play is gay.

Stephen: Okay. I guess you would know. Oh, and I have to say: I really respect your choice to make the dog straight. It’s not popular these days, and it’s really hard to find a straight dog to play the parts, and the gay dogs hate to play straight, but I just thought that was really, really brave.

Tolly: There’s no dog in the play.

Stephen: No! You’ve got to be kidding me. The little dog that runs around and always tries to look up the female characters’ skirts?

Tolly: No. That never happens. Why would we cast a dog in a stage play? That’s a logistical nightmare.

Stephen: Oh. Are there lots of gay dogs in theater too?

Tolly: Listen, I think I’ve made a mistake. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to work together on this. We’re just coming from two very different points of view.

Stephen: Well, I guess you would know. But I only want what’s best for The Heart Within the Heart, and . . . I don’t know if you’ve seen how well some of my other features have done.

Tolly: Yeah. I have. That’s one reason I was interested in working with you.

Stephen: For instance Too Many Gays had a Ten-Million Dollar Opening weekend. That set me up pretty well.

Tolly: Not bad.

Stephen: And Gay Dad on a Hot Tin Roof earned me four Golden Globes.

Tolly: Okay.

Stephen: And my documentary Barnyard of Opression: Civil Rights for Transgendered Animals appeared on PBS. The reviewers called it, “more thrilling than Ken Burns and preachier than Billy Graham.”

Tolly: Alright. Okay. Let’s do this.

The resulting movie proved very successful. Three years later we find Stephen shut up in a room, working on a television pilot with Terry for The Heart Within the Heart.

Terry: First thing we need to do is make all of the characters gay. Except for the dad and the pig.

Stephen. I couldn’t agree more. But the pig’s supposed to be a dog.

Terry: Nope. Not anymore. The dog’s a pig, on the inside.

The pilot airs on television for the first time. Robert Ben Greensmith, author of the original novel The Heart Within the Heart sits in front of his television and looks aghast as the credits roll.

Robert: I told that damn playwright the dad was supposed to be gay and the pig was supposed to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Can’t get nothin’ to translate nowadays.

MP3: The Magnetic Fields – “I Think I Need A New Heart”

- Flann O’Rion does not have any pets and shares an apartment with his brother in Eugene, Oregon.

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Two former roommates meet at a class reunion. One of them works as a sales rep for Walgreen and the other is a physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider.

Chris: So you’re working on that thing? That’s amazing. Is it going create a black-hole and kill us all? (Laughs)

Lance does not react.

Lance: No, that’s impossible. There’s no way that anything like that could happen. We’re looking for other dimensions.

Chris: Okay. Sure, sure. So, how’s everything going?

Lance: Actually, not terribly well. When we turn it on we get what’s called a quench.

Chris: Yeah, right. Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a quench?

Lance: It’s when a bad solder causes our cables to heat up and lose their superconductivity.

Chris: I hear you, I hear you. Isn’t that what Viagra’s for? (Laughs) Am I right?

Lance does not react. Chris goes on.

Chris: So, Lance. The guys you’re working with? They’re pretty smart, right?

Lance: The best physicists living, and physicists are the smartest kinds of scientists.

Chris: Exactly. I always say that. But you guys aren’t the best solderers living.

Lance shifts on his feet.

Lance: Well, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of minute solders. Also, we don’t do them. We have engineers, and they’re definitely some of the best solderers living.

Chris: Fair enough. But they still didn’t get all of those connections exactly right?

Lance: Well . . .

Chris: It actually seems like they’re getting them a little bit wrong.

Lance: Well, we don’t know exactly why this is happening. It’s a little mysterious.

Chris: Mysterious? As someone who likes not being sucked into a black-hole, this makes me a little nervous

Lance: There’s no way that can happen.

Chris: You’re sure?

Lance: I’m absolutely sure. We’re looking for other dimensions. The theories all suggest . . .

Chris: And you’re testing your theories with the LHC? Why?

Lance: To see if they’re correct.

Chris: Because you’re not sure.

Lance: I’m going to have another Sangria.

MP3: Department of Eagles – “Phantom Other”

- Flann O’Rion doesn’t know anything about physics or the Large Hadron Collider, lives in Eugene, Oregon, and thinks that both characters in this story (and their interactions) are unlikely. Still, he argues, they really don’t know.

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A condemned man, you have to kill the rule.
You have to keep down at mind.

If you have to have me,
break the first born friend
till it pass over me, stricken designs.

Use your keep, if you have to,
you have to sell me over.

If, if, if . . . pass over that die.

MP3: J. Tillman – “First Born”

- Jaque Nay, blind since childhood, memorized all the words and rearranged them in his head every night for a week, just before sleeping. He lives in Chino, California.

A century ago, so I am told, some busy entomologist, went up into the roof of the dining hall with a penknife and poked at the beams and found that they were full of beetles. This was reported to the College Council, who met in some dismay, because where would they get beams of that calibre nowadays?

One of the Junior Fellows stuck his neck out and suggested that there might be on College lands some oak. These colleges are endowed with pieces of land scattered across the country. So they called in the College Forester, who of course had not been near the college itself for some years, and asked him about oaks.

And he pulled his forelock and said, “Well sirs, we was wonderin’ when you’d be askin’.”

Upon further enquiry it was discovered that when the College was founded, a grove of oaks had been planted to replace the beams in the dinning hall when they became beetly, because oak beams always become beetly in the end. This plan had been passed down from one Forester to the next for five hundred years. “Your don’t cut them oaks. Them’s for the College Hall.”

A nice story. That’s the way to run a culture.

HT.

MP3: Roadside Graves, “Ruby”

- Brendan O’Donnell liked this story. That last line about “that’s the way to run a culture” impressed him. So’d the song. It’s a good piece of oak; it’ll hold up the ceiling beautifully. He’s just not sure people eat in that room anymore.

We found the booth immediately, buried under a pile of greasy popcorn bags and carnie bones. Something (perhaps the sheer volume of carnie bones?), told me we should leave, but the booth drew me in. It was a Crippled Principal brand fortune-teller booth, popular at career-fairs in the mid-nineties. I put in a quarter. The thing creaked to life. The principal shook his head. “Mooooore fundiiing,” the recorded voice said. I put in another quarter. His decrepit head threatened to fall off with the shaking. “You can’t put a price-tag on your fuuuu-ture.” I looked at Mary. She shrugged. I put in two more quarters.

He stood, hobbled by his bad leg, a chart in one hand, pencil in the other. and asked his question: “What do you want to beeeeeee when you grow up?” I looked at Mary, who was struggling to find a spot of ground not occupied by carnie bones, in her graceful way. I answered in my head, “Exactly who I am right now.”

It made sense. I was young, without real concerns. I had Mary. She let me put my hand in her back pocket.

At first, I didn’t notice anything. I couldn’t have noticed anything. Nothing changed. However, when I got to my eighteenth birthday three months later, Jimmy and I were sitting around drinking Milwaukee’s Beast after my parents had gone to bed, and when we hit twelve AM, I found myself standing in front of the Crippled Principal again, Mary trying not to step on the bones of carnies past.

The rest of my life has only been those three months over and over again. I haven’t been able to figure out any way out of the loop. I have no idea if these notebooks make their way out of whatever reality I exist in, and into whatever might be the real world out there. If so, my parents must have found them and probably feel like my disappearance (I imagine that I just disappear in their world, but I have no confirmation) has been brought on by some hidden malady of my psyche, expressed just too late, in this hypergraphia. I don’t know how many times I’ve written this out.

Those three months are an unfortunate period of time. Mary breaks up with me six weeks after the fairgrounds, and there’s nothing I’ve been able to do to stop it. I’ve extended, by a single day, the time she stays with me by breaking up with her in the fairgrounds and then apologizing two days later, but the net loss of that one day isn’t worth it. The day after the fairground is the first day that she kisses me without reserve, holding nothing back.

I’ve endured over two-hundred iterations of these three months, which comes out to around 50 years, so I’m approaching seventy. Whatever my soul is, it’s approaching seventy. The fact of aging shows in me only slightly, but I feel it much deeper. Mary feels it too. The older I get, the earlier she begins to pull away from me.

My existence has been mostly torturous, I won’t deny it. Every three months the day that Mary tells me it’s over rolls around. She never explains. I think she’s just the kind of person who leaves. But she comes back after my birthday, and I’m always so happy to see her.

I know death is approaching, which is a merciful fact. The irony is that I’m not at all who I was. Even within this curse, that’s unavoidable. But, however I change, even when I’m depressed after she dumps me again, I still look forward to that moment when she kisses me without regard for anything else.

MP3: Atlas Sound ft. Noah Lennox – “Walkabout”

- Sven Gull claims he found this passage in the basement of his new house, in one book from a pile of notebooks he says number well into the hundreds. He lives outside of Philadelphia, PA with his wife Alma.

Bianca cannot get married until Kate gets married. Kate is not a happy camper, primarily due to activities like cooking over fires and not taking showers. Their father loves camping more than even arbitrary and dramatically pregnant rules. Let’s camp this weekend, their father says, I feel I need it. The girls feel they do not need it. But they are oddly compelled to obey their father’s wishes.

Lionkiller is at home with this environment. He views Kate as the quarry. He thinks, she is only a shrew. How many lions does he have to his name? He has not kept the numbers well, but the skins certainly dominate his apartment. Can’t open a cupboard without starting an avalanche of the damn things. He wears the headdress pretty regular, and he’s one of the few who put up with lionskin briefs. Sweaty in the summer.

Out there somewhere in the tall grasses of the suburbs lurks a lion, tawnier than most. He blends with the grasses.

Lionkiller’s friend Cass sees Bianca. Cass cannot stop talking about Bianca to Lionkiller. In astronomical terms he is over the moon for her. He thinks this, but never says it. No one can deny that it is a cliché, and Cass eschews these. Lionkiller wishes that Cass would stop. Bianca remains unobtainable for Cass, who attempts to smother himself in Lionkillers lionskins. Lionkiller saves him and agrees that he needs help. He will free Bianca by conquest of Kate. She is a shrew.

He finds out about the family spending several days in the godforsaken wilderness. He presents himself as a guide. He wears his headdress which offends Kate. She does not believe in the wholesale slaughter of lions. Lionkiller suppresses his amazement. Cass comes along as a spiritual guide. His careful avoidance of cliché impresses the hell out of Bianca. She makes eyes at me, Cass observes, but is careful not to say this out loud.

Around the campfire on the first night, watching the fire, drinking sixty-four ounce sodas with shots of vodka, they listen to Cass describe the spirit world. He describes gods as thoughtful executives dressed in Edwardian garb, perhaps in the style of Oscar Wilde. Kate clenches fists. Superstition, she says and jumps to her feet. She snatches a burning coal out of the fire and juggles it calmly before pitching it at Cass. It catches him squarely below the left eye and burns a black mark there that looks not unlike the grease football players apply at game time. This cruelty disturbs Lionkiller. Kate expounds the virtues of atheism. Or, she says, as we prefer, humanism. She goes on for two and a half hours, disturbing Lionkiller further.

In the night the lion lurks, not making himself known. He feels great concern for Lionkiller’s prowess, and his own extra tawniness which he suspects is a tawniness too far.

Lionkiller makes attempts to woo Kate. He dances his groin-oriented “Rejoice, Lion, for Death is Swift.” He delivers a complete narration of the film Never Cry Wolf. He kills a doe elk in front of her to show his power, but spares the doe’s faun to show his magnanimity. These efforts prove unsuccessful, in the sense that she does not fall in love with him. But in the sense that Kate’s father is impressed and suggests that they get married anyway, the efforts, it has to be said, achieve some level of success.

Bianca watches Lionkiller’s performance as well. Her eyes and heart swell with admiration. Unlike her sister, she values such virility. Much to my chagrin, whispers Cass to himself. But, Kate is spoken for, and now is his chance with Bianca. Cass makes an effort to woo her. He performs a dance which he calls “Rolling Up My Pants” In which he mimes the careful rolling of his pant cuffs, the up and down motion of his rump keeping the beat. He improvises a story using the word mammary as a starting point. He smashes a hamster with his fist. The exploits further encourage Bianca’s eye to wander. Such is life, says Cass out loud while buying Arbor Mist Peaches and Cream Wine in a convenience store. He cuts off communication with the whole crew.

Lionkiller and Kate arrive home for the first time after their honeymoon. Kate is mostly fed up with Lionkiller, after an incident on the beach of their coastal Icelandic resort wherein Lionkiller personally dismembered 41 sea-lions while shouting out vows of devotion. Lionkiller sings loudly as he goes around turning on the lights in the house. Kate looks around the kitchen and then decides to put away the many bottles of duty-free rum they’ve brought home. She opens a cupboard and disappears beneath the skins. Lionkiller comes to her rescue. He pulls her from the pile, but does not hold her to him. He stares suspiciously at a skin that appears tawnier than the others. The lion realizes he is discovered and attacks. Lionkiller wrenches off the lion’s tail with a motion like cracking a whip. The lion flees.

He writes a memoir of his troubles which proves popular. He later meets Bianca in a hotel bar during his book tour. They fall into a smooth and flirtatious conversation. They laugh when they realize their connection through Lionkiller. It turns out that Cass is also in town, also on tour, in support of an album. He sees Bianca and moves to her side. Imagine seeing you here, he says, feeling comfortable with the banality of the statement. Bianca makes perfunctory conversation, tells him about Lionkiller and Kate, and then ends the conversation abruptly, preferring to speak further with the lion. Within two weeks the lion proposes marriage.

I do not understand, says Cass to the bartender, why anyone in their right mind would get married nowadays.

Cass McCombs – “Lionkiller Got Married” mp3

- Flann O’Rion writes from his home in Eugene, Oregon and feels that far too little is made of Arbor Mist Wine products.

- Nate Stevenson has Drawn many Songs. See them here.

Claudette Gable looked in the refrigerator for the aloe. She bent down and moved condiments in the door. Her hand on the mustard, she seized slightly and emitted a low groan. She thrust her hand under the back of her shirt and scratched. She righted herself, groaned again. In the bathroom she lifted her shirt and twisted to look at the redness of her back, which had an unnatural glow that she imagined resembled the sweet and sour sauce at a Chinese restaurant. She decided not to scratch. She would just let the itchiness go.

The scratching didn’t help. Drinking water and applying aloe were the only things that helped. Otherwise it burned, and it actually burned. Her back burned as though she were a Buddhist monk protesting the war. She poured a glass of water from the ceramic dispenser and thought of coolness of the aloe. She began to retrace her steps.

One patch of skin, she could tell, wanted to come off. She wasn’t going to scratch it though. Let it go, she thought, and imagined herself in a yoga video. Namaste, she thought. The patch of skin tingled. Screw it. Aloe, she thought.

As she walked through the living room closing the blinds against the night, still looking, she picked a picture off the desk and held it between forefinger and thumb as she searched. The itching started and she decided to jump lightly up and down and see if it passed. She’d just recently heard somewhere, on a video someone sent her maybe, that jumping up and down actually improved your mood, regardless of sunburn. She couldn’t say that she believed it. She stopped jumping and tried to think of something else. She looked at the photo, but the burning stabbed again, and she went back to jumping. She couldn’t imagine where the aloe was. Screw it, she thought.

The skin had begun to slough today and when she un-tucked her shirt at home, the bits poured out, celebrating the end of the workday and torture by fire. She looked at the photo again. She drank another glass of water and poured one to keep by the bed. She couldn’t imagine that she would sleep tonight. She poured herself a glass of boxed wine. She tried to drink it as it was, but found she couldn’t. She added a shot of Seagram’s gin, a spoonful of frozen limeade concentrate, and four ice cubes.

Claudette put down her photo and picked up an issue of Real Simple. A sentence into an article on all-natural cleaning agents, she remembered. She left the aloe in the basement when she started a load of laundry. She didn’t want to go into the basement. She wished, for only a second, that Kent was there. She would make him go into the basement. But she didn’t really want him there. The patch of skin wanted her to go into the basement, was asking her to put it out of its misery. She picked up the photo. She lifted the useless latch on the basement door, flipped on the light, and started down the stairs.

The basement was still a mess. She didn’t care about that. The windows butting against the ceiling were dark. She didn’t want to look at the windows. She used to scare herself in her parents’ house by looking into dark windows and imagining something awful suddenly popping into the frame. She turned into the hall towards the laundry room and tried to concentrate on the grit gathering on the undersides of her bare feet. The laundry room was lit by the light that she left burning there always, just in case she had to come down in the night like this, because you had to enter the room and pull the string to turn it on, which required more faith than she felt she had; there on the folding table was the aloe. She grabbed it and ran the way that, she was sure even though she was approaching thirty years old, she would always run out of basements. The already tingling skin of her back tingled more. She slammed the door and carefully threw the useless latch.

She threw up the back of her shirt and applied the aloe, and believed momentarily that the sense of relief was worth it. She rubbed away the patch of skin. This was coolness.

She got into bed. She touched the place where the patch of skin had been. Did the new skin feel softer? Maybe. She put the photo on the stand by her bed and realized that she was very tired.

of Montreal – “We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafling” mp3

- Therese Illus lives alone in Rhode Island.