Randitty

June 25, 2010

Paperclip Safari 4: The Origin of Office Supplies Species

What happens when you google ‘the origin of the wild paperclip’ and nothing substantial comes up? Well, another great thing about Washington, DC, is that you can find any wonderful book about any topic your heart might dream of… at the Library of Congress. While Valerie struggles to recover from an angry retaliation by Titan (not to worry, he targeted her shoestrings), I decided to do some research on the mysterious origins of the elusive wild paperclip. Hopefully, it will broaden our story. Above, is a page taken from Theodore T. Marsner’s The Origin of Office Supplies’ Species. It is a fossilized primordial paperclip discovered 1,000 years ago–in excellent condition isn’t it? What appears to be a female fossil is lined up next to a modern-day male Silverback, for perspective.

Eopaper Clippius, 50 million years ago.

Though the tiny rubber stegosaurus is chronologically misplaced, many of the other ancient species are excellent together in a museum-ish setting–even the exotic faux-clip, which imitates a vicious safety pin.

One can only wonder at the amazing size of the ancient golden female paperclip. What does it suggest about the dimensions and regal nature of her lost mate of 50 million years ago? What does this must mean about their diet during the Early Eocene Era? This was also the age of the early horse, known as Eohippus. Additionally, I wonder at downtown’s Natural History Museum not featuring Eopaper Clippius, when its sparkle might cheer a lot of the exotic models and fossils. Imagine an entire mural of early Paper Clippius!

Chapters
1 Paperclip Wisdom :: 2 The Mighty Silverback Paperclip :: 3 The Stripey Link Clan :: 4 The Origin of Office Supplies Species :: 5 Paperclip Savers are Environmentalists Too :: 6 The Blackest Friday :: 7 Furlough Reloaded!

Wild paperclips living free in nature as intended.

June 23, 2010

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Paperclip Safari 1: The Mighty Silverback

Our photag, who wishes only to be known as She Who Fears Public Ridicule–I’ll shorten it to Valerie–has tenderly named this family the Stripey Link clan. I suspect it is for the two adolescent paperclips with vibrant hides and similar mischievous personalities. The Silverback of the family is as noble as he must be, their mother behaves near to her strawberry sweet color as well and the babes scuttle along playfully, but the adolescents often challenge the family dynamic with silly skirmishes or practical jokes.

The adolescents must wait their turn, while the cliplings feed. For having this omega status, perhaps their sire is not the current Silverback? In a plentiful time, one senses an aura of tragedy…

In a strange picture Valerie showed me, that might have upset so many animal welfare organizations, the Stripey Twins had fastened themselves to the laces of Valerie’s tennis shoes and gone for a ride, flipping up and down the street and in the grass too, much to the horror of the alpha male. Valerie carefully plucked them off and returned the twins to their family, but the diverted show of adolescent aggression was not missed by their alpha parents at all. The Stripey Twins were later observed being kept strictly at the back of the herd by exhausted mother Strawberry, as punishment. When will they be turned back out into the wild world, as the rogues they are? We hope it won’t be too soon!

But, as summer temperatures continue to rise in Washington, DC, the Stripey Link clan has found itself making longer journeys in search of food and water. In time, this brought the silver male Titan (named for his scarce tolerance of the Stripey Twins he seems very dismayed at having fathered) and the rest of the paperclips, to a dry grassland. There seemed to be some sweet clover-flowers around and not much else worth nibbling on. But the tempting scraps, the clan soon found, were not unguarded! Strange creatures emerge:

Titan is a seasoned Silverback. He sees the lone den of pin-cubs first, then immediately prepares for an attack by their parents.

In sequence, the photographs make little sense. A skirmish started then ended itself like lightning and Valerie scrambled to capture it. Some other small silver creatures appeared before the dried clover, there was a brief stand off with Titan undoing himself to reveal one long, bright fang–which we hadn’t known paperclips were capable of! The remainder of the Stripey Link clan then ran off, just as Titan threw himself at the enemy, and completely alone. As they tangled–literally–six enemy Pinnius Safteyus were counted, including two cubs nested near an anthill. These tinier ants even came out to watch the amazing silvery struggle.

And so, we have at last identified one enemy of the Paperclip–though it is not yet clear whether this was a case of the Stripey Link clan stumbling onto the nesting grounds of highly protective Safety Pins (and now you know where the ‘safety’ comes from), or if the Safety Pin pack were out hunting and then glad to find easy prey wandering so close to their den.

Five of the safety pins, even the two pin-cubs, bare their sharps fangs at poor Titan!

All that is certain now, is that the Stripey Link family have separated over the skirmish. Titan’s fate against so many is yet unknown, and if the Stripey Twins are matured by the experience or resentful at all, then they may seize the opportunity to rise as alphas, themselves. The two could be swinging in the trees to strengthen lanky sinew forms and shed bold stripes in favor of a grown male’s proud silver-sheen, as we speak.

If so, then does this suggest cannibalism among paperclips? We cannot be sure of whether paperclips are, in fact, their own greatest enemy, until Titan fights his way back to his red mate and their cubs, and through a harsh metropolitan wilderness!

Chapters
Paperclip Wisdom :: 1 The Mighty Silverback Paperclip :: 2 The Stripey Link Clan :: 3 The Origin of Office Supplies Species :: 4 Paperclip Savers are Environmentalists Too :: 5 The Blackest Friday :: 6 Furlough Reloaded!

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June 21, 2010

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Paperclip Safari 3: The Stripey Link Clan

The other side of the issue.

Last week, while explaining the Paperclip Bar, it occurred to me that most people probably only have experience with the tamed paperclips we see on our desks: handfuls upon handfuls of the bowed Silverbacks. Sad, listless creatures having finally succumbed to a bitter end.

Before spirits dull and rusting sets in, before the capture and packaging of their mighty Silverbacks, all wild paperclips have surprisingly complex, though tinny social structures, and there are also severe environmental obstacles to their survival. The gargantuan size difference in most objects, for example… It is a little-known story of the lone office supply which is, in fact, not.

Paperclips are sweet, noble creatures who face worse challenges than we do–and this has been true since the onset of the modern age. Paperclips struggle simply because they are so small, made of metal, and sometimes encased in pretty, pretty plastic, and also really, very good at holding delicate things together (whenever a stapler can’t be found). Much as in the wild, where paperclips are closely linked to their own families.

The colorful red female shows small cliplings how to feed, while the majestic Silverback fastens himself strategically in the foreground. What resourceful little creatures!

Here, the Silverback protects his family–called a herd, or sometimes a Chain–while they feast on berries in the trees. Paperclips are natural climbers, being able to use strong, smooth jaws to fasten paper-thin leaves up against their flat bodies. Once low-hanging foliage is found, it is then only a matter of sliding up the leaf, clipping successively higher to eventually reach food and safety in the emerald canopy. One can also observe from the picture that the young, called cubs or cliplings**, must link together in order to climb as well as their parents. It is a useful protection technique too, as they will seem much larger and mature in the trees when chained, often dissuading predators from attack.

And, from what do such harmless little creatures have to fear predation? The natural defenses of paperclips seem to suggest many thousands of years of evolution. Paperclips have long been defending themselves against something more ancient and menacing than the large, nationwide office supply conglomerates (we’ll talk about the cruelty of staple-shooting machines later).

Sadly, so much about wild paperclips is still unknown. But thankfully, our photographer, who seems to have gained the trust of the Silverback, has offered to go on safari and risk herself for one week in order to try and unravel so many mysteries…

(To Be Continued)

**Note: Young paperclip cliplings are often packaged as ‘mini-paperclips’ in the black market office supplies trade where, beyond the cruelty of it, that term is a gross misnomer when the little ones don’t possess jaws strong enough to defend themselves, as do their parents.

…

More Paperclip Safari! and Mi’Raah later this week, homies.

(Randitty-O-Meter: ??, Let’s wait and see how wonderfully weird this gets, first.)

June 18, 2010

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Paperclip Wisdom: An Essay

Anyone else notice that you can’t ever tell the age of a paper clip? Well, first you might think, ‘Um, new-paper-clip is shiny. And old ones get all dark and rusty, don’t they?’
Well, maybe.

When I was a kid, I worked at the library of my elementary school. Sometimes I handled old cards from the catalogs or papers that had paper clips attached to them. They weren’t always black and dull-looking. This makes sense because metal needs water or air–weather–to rust it, correct? Sitting around in a stagnant card catalog shelf all day long won’t do that to a paper clip. Your standard, silver, tiny thing does what it is made to do, for as long as it can stand, like a brave soldier. Or like those steel cars made in the 50s that could last forever before manufacturers realized that they needed to break things to make things–depreciation, that is. Most products today are made to wear down after a while so that the manufacturer can sell you a new one and make even more money. But paper clips don’t suffer from this fate; they look good and clip well for years and years, unless you leave them out in the rain, or bend them to play at picking a peanut-sized closet door lock as a kid.

How in the heck do the paper clip people keep making their money, then?

A herd of card catalogs in their natural habitat: The 90s.

Because small things tend to get lost and then you have to buy more of them. Lost paper clips end up hanging out at the same smoke-filled, hole-in-the-wall bars that single-socks, the old remote control, uncirculated pennies, and the backs of your earrings waste away their final years in. They chat together at a rickety table with cloth sock-puppet mouths and soft clickless worn ‘play’ buttons about the good old days when single-sock had a wife and grandkids even, and crusty Earringback saw Marion Barry (Why him? Well, because he’s nearly everywhere you don’t expect him to be in DC) that time in the mall parking lot. Earringback swears up and down that she saw the local celebrity. But till this day, she’s not sure because at the last moment, her wearer shrugged parcels higher up into her arms, causing snooty shoulder to brush that slippery ear, who only apologized like a wimp before the car-door slammed. Then, suddenly, Earringback was lost and alone between chips of black, summer-hot gravel. Reflecting the sun in tiny star-points, and blinding people from far away like a lost treasure beneath the dark ocean was fun, for a time. Before rain eventually came and inevitable rust…

And so Earringback ended up at the Paper Clip Bar. A dark but kind place where ‘everybody knows her name’ and where deferred dreams also go when they’re too lazy and dejected to explode… The paper clips are still fine and shiny, though. I’m fairly sure that they even run the joint. Ageless silver behind the bar, full of guile as they mix drinks, maybe even bitter about their, well, bittersweet success. If success in an afterlife sort of place can really even be called that. You see, for an unblemished immortal god of the office supply world to have its life cut short simply because it slipped off of the paper it was binding so proudly for so long…

Or, was it no accident? If paper clips cannot age, then deterioration of any kind, even a rusty non-death, must be voluntary. A paper clip chooses to cease working in a final, desperate moment. One would think that it has no reason to give up because it has a small life, and a simple one–don’t we all?–but over time it allows itself to become overwhelmed, regardless. Therefore, the greatest shame of a paper clip must be to lose its singular purpose. When a paper clip ceases clipping, that is, refutes its very existence by rejecting paper so absolutely, it falls away to the carpet. In denying itself, it is excommunicated by the laws of its tinny nature to a dark world of ignominy. A personal, and very preventable, cheap hell. I say cheap, because paper clips don’t really cost all that much.

And so then, an old and lost paper clip may not age or lose its shine over the years, but it can lose its heart and soul if it ever gives in to those things that will always pull at it, and at all of us in this life: a broken heart perhaps, financial hardship, gravity…

Wait, what was the point of this entry again?

Oh, we may never know. But just to be safe, don’t give up on yourself. Specifically, I need you to stay inside of your office or home; don’t go out for fresh air or into the rain or expose yourself to the elements, like at all. Avoid rust at all costs. Also, don’t let go of that piece of paper you have there between your fingers! EVER.

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June 14, 2010

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May the Asses of Unicorns Guide You Always

Q: Is there really a true message in this god-awful, photoshopped picture?

A: Yes, but not in any magical way. Go on, assess the process by which certain asses assimilate to life in captivity, captivating those who plod down from civility to pause, peer and ponder on problems other than the mundane. Meditate on mediating what your mind can’t mend about domesticating: suppose you dwelt on the other side of this cage?

Or, dilute the prose a little–I admit, there’s just a fence–but still a petting zoo, in the same sense. If people could line up, wear their smiles and sign up for pats on the head to help get them through the day, I suppose, if they chose, being on the wrong side might actually pay. Yet, as it stands, they are just creatures, scraggly cute things with normal features. No charm nor trick about them, except that they are tame.

They haven’t horns to work your miracles, though they might-could deign to break things of yours if you plead a little. Yes, please kick-smash grandmama’s porcelain ponies. We don’t need no stinkin’ unicorns when these are phatter phonies. Because what you can do, for free, is watch donkeys, pet them, and smile wistfully while they play. Maybe now you feel better about your day?

photo: Cute little donkeys at a petting farm in Washington, DC.

June 11, 2010

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Pachacamac: Of Fertility and Death

A story crafted from three random words: Olmsted, feather headdress of a coastal Incan fertility and dealth god, M.G.H. You can thank the March 2005 National Geographic magazine for these randomly selected phrases that I will now turn into a witty story this morning…

Doctor Luella Roswurn just could not explain it, not by any medical means. The patient had a little success at first, then by summer, left her ward to recover within weeks of terminal diagnosis. His family had come in with jubilant babies and grannies, giddy, wistful Peruvian pipes, singing their songs and shifting the plastic curtain so loud that Mrs. Branson nextdoor stabbed the nurse call-button until long, unclipped fingernails stuck into the clicker’s white plastic housing.

A month before the balloons, back when the patient was still fully in her care, the family of Elmer Costales had come in to mourn without mourning–that is, smile at the old man, pat his hand, and promise that they were praying for him to recover. Doctor Roswurn had seen it done before. On that rainy spring day, she had backed down the hallway to give the family privacy. She then took a breath to distance herself in another way, before coming in to give that final diagnosis: the cancer was in Elmer’s kidneys, in the marrow of his bones, everywhere. No recovery.

While she was thus disconnected and hearing them say such hopeful things, Doctor Roswurn recalled having the strangest brain activity she ever remembered. Not that she had a running chart in her head, but there was, at times, a dark display going in the background. A green seismic meter made wild leaps against cranium walls or plunged into deep black-blue subconscious depths while she pondered. Doctor Roswurn would never admit that to someone else that part of her consciousness really had convinced itself that it was a fierce machine of physiological analysis, but she did find the silly internal scan to be useful. She could breathe deep and think back to her happy place, with the trees by so much serene water, and then enjoy a gentle raise and ebb in heartbeat, tamed green lightning across her mental screen.

In her meditation, she overheard the Costales family speak of ‘el muerte.’ Doctor Roswurn knew that word. She remembered eating it, a sugar candy skull while doing graduate research in Mexico. Pasa unos momentos más, y los Costales dicieron ‘we love you’ también…

And then her brain would lapse back into Spanish. This simple pulse would evolve into an advanced cat scan machine, flare, shift into the red, blaze, fairly salsa with all its machinery that couldn’t exist yet (because she was going to invent it). Language certainly evoked feeling, and Spanish reminded Doctor Roswurn of getting a hangover during that last week abroad with her professor. Wild, risky insanity, but he was so good at what he did and better at what he could teach her. Old, sad joke. Not that Luella saw herself as one of those women, but it was hard not to take that diploma from Professor Esteban’s hand, months later, and not feel that girlish, devilish shame anymore… just dirty.

“Pachacamac y Cristo se te mantiene el alma, querido Elmer…Amen.”

Green flatline. Doctor Roswurn never did reach the beautiful place she coveted, that could lower her heart rate and decrease brain activity the moment she glimpsed it again. ‘Amen’ was a very old Hebrew word–it was necessary to keep words academic, logical–and ‘amen’ was as clear in a Spanish accent as in any other language that dressed it. ‘Amen’ came at the end of things. So wake up girl, the Costales family had just finished their prayer. Now to go and tell them God didn’t exist.

Pachacamac was too good of a vibration on her mental Richter Scale to pass up, it turned out later. Doctor Roswurn learned that Pachacamac was an Incan creator god, through one half-hearted image search (as a break for her eyes) that brought up an ancient but strikingly beautiful feather headdress of a coastal Incan fertility and death god , and also the name of a town in Peru. She feared to assume los Costales had been praying directly to Pachacamac on that day, or just reminding their patriarch that the ruins and Lima itself would always be near to him?

This realization came after her magically recovered patient quit her care and even the hospital when funding for the radical treatment was cut. Her mind wandering once more as she waited down the hallway. Another jade flatline, another dying patient. This one’s family was Irish. Amen.

Doctor Luella Roswurn had many patients. But this one from Peru turned out not to be like all the others. Mr. Costales’ miraculous recovery, and his sudden offended flight from her hospital bed, her ward, became maddening. Luella found herself stalking the hallways with green meters flashing and ripping behind her eyes, she covered her ears on a cot in the breakroom to keep out all that pretty pipe music, the stamping, the clapping, the praising of Pachacamac or God or whomever, out!

Thankfully, M.G.H. was in Boston and not far from the physical place Luella sought with her energy, on the most stressful days. Luella went to Lake Waban, about twenty minute’s drive away from Boston. Once there, she stood and pushed glasses up over her brow to rest on top of her head, like shades. Old, old habit that she never trained herself out of believing was a cool look in med school labs. Or, in sweaty Mexico.

Full recovery?
Elmer Costales had been terminal.
So many years of medical school…
They rejected my care, turned to experimentation, fled my ward.
Simply prayed him out of it.

Who in the HELL was Pachacamac! Why didn’t Professor Esteban protect her on that night? How long before all this foolishness, these bright calculations could get out of her head and before a team of MIT software engineers? When? At the end of her career? Wouldn’t it be too late by then, to start critical research on stimulated emotional centers of the brain in cancer patients? To finally learn whether or not sick people who prayed really were better off? Brain waves pulsated beyond the charts, to the white bone top of her head, standing all her wiry hair on end as it grew out of its relaxer, even now. Touch it up as many times as you want, girl, you don’t have the power to fix yourself.

Not that Doctor Luella Roswurn resisted belief in great, sacred things. She just felt sure that gods and spirits and whatever else was energy, which life implies, released into the air around human beings, homo sapiens, whatever animal-thing people still were. And it could be moved around, projected, given away to two individuals who didn’t belong together on an impossible night in Mexico City, re-birth them into a stellar doctor who, sometimes, if she worked hard enough, really could heal her patients, and a professor still capable of molding his students, after matriculation.

Professor Esteban emailed back that he was happy for Luella, and that no, he’d never before heard of Pachacamac. But couldn’t she also theorize that this Incan god might be like her Olmsted?

Another image search after a long day of staring at rows upon rows of falling statistics, bleak black and white. Doctor Luella Roswurn cussed at herself when she at last got the connection. Frederick Law Olmsted had designed Wellesley’s campus.

Around Lake Waban.

“He died anyway, I found out.” Luella told Professor Esteban at dinner. Her brain waves had flown off the charts, when she gained the courage, after so many years, to have him take her out. Luella found she needed a sip of wine first, and then to swallow, before trying still harder, “Mr. Costales lived long enough for his family to get him back to Peru and see Lima one last time.”

“But don’t you mean ‘to see Pachacamac?’ Are you still offended that they took him to another hospital once funding was cut for that trial treatment, and then he got a better diagnosis?”

“At the terminal stage? Hell no. I found out which sort of other facility they went to… one of those places that tells you what you want to hear, experiments and experiments until they can spin the results in some kind of other way. But it did scare me, for a while. I was beginning to think I was a bad doctor.”

Now he had some wine. Those same lines and dimples, they were still there. The beard was graying though. Handsome, or a little scary? “And so, Luella, you’re glad that a patient of yours died? Or, are you satisfied that Pachacamac–either the god or powerful nostalgia for the ruins–answered this old man’s prayer?”

“In that the Costales’ lawsuit won’t end my career, yes, I am happy he went peacefully.” Another bite of food. “And you know, maybe it was a chance for Mr. Costales to start over, even if brief, to fully realize hope. Just like when I go visit a park that I really love, like near Lake Waban. Not magic or religion or anything like that, but it does calm me down, the illusion of peace… Olmsted and Pachacamac have turned a page for me, a little bit. I see now, that I can ask for renewal at any time in life, strive and then really get it. One man‘s belief transported him from a dreary hospital bed in my ward and back to his homeland so that he could die with dignity. I wish I could stop worrying about the past and get another chance like that.” then Luella put down her fork, “And the case with Mr. Costales also puts things into perspective in another way. What happened with us… in Mexico, can’t end my career anymore, by comparison. Which means, after all the recommendations you wrote for me and us still hanging in there, as colleagues, we can finally talk about it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?” then he shushed her, and Luella lowered her voice, “Yes, it was–technically–consensual, but there was still a great difference in experience–I can see that now. Did you have feelings for me too? Was that how you got carried away? You owe some explanation.”

Her old professor sighed, making the candlelight flicker. He leaned back in the carved restaurant chair, until it creaked. “To be honest, Luella, I assumed that, all this time, you had forgiven me. So, I went with it. And now, we’re having dinner together.”

“I see. So, you’re glad that a student of yours went on to work at Massachusetts General Hospital because it means she made something of herself, after all? Or, are you relieved that she’s successful because now, out of some twisted sense of shame–some godlike fear–she might accidentally forgive you? Maybe even thank you for taking advantage?”

“What sin did I really commit?”

“You just admitted to knowing, that you really hurt me all these years!”

“You were and still are a very pretty girl, these things happen. Why make it into more than it is? I thought you didn’t believe in God, Luella.”

“No, it’s worse than what you’re thinking, Professor Esteban. I believe in Pachacamac. So, from now on, you’d better stay the fuck out of my life.”

And then Doctor Luella Roswurn slapped the bill shut, having swiftly paid for both their dinners.

Flatline. Flatline. Green. Amen.

Note: This story is purely fictional and definitely not based on anyone I know, as I was not a science major–if you need proof of it!

***

Source for today’s words: Shreeve, James. “The Mind is What the Brain Does.”, Mitchel, John G. “Frederick Law Olmsted’s Passion for Parks.”, Eeckhout, Peter. “Ancient Peru’s Power Elite.” National Geographic Magazine, March 2005: 2+, 32, 52 Print.

June 2, 2010

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Animals 9: Trying

Harmon used the last of his debt money to fly back to Orlando. He worked harder than ever before in his life, to find a legitimate broker and then sell the home he once shared with Carmen. She wasn’t coming back, and seeing that designer wardrobe still rotting in the pool would only make her feel worse, if she ever tried. A little joke, he told himself.

Carmen had been such a beautiful, vibrant woman. His favorite moment with her was when they moved into their first home, in Los Angeles. They’d been painting all day long and acting silly because of it. She wore the most casual piece of clothing he ever saw her in, a fake ‘Bayside Tigers’ t-shirt.

He didn’t recall the allusion at first, but then Carmen reminded him, and sang the whole theme song, confessed she had been hopelessly torn between Zack Morris and A.C. Slater once upon a time–and didn’t that guy wear the same stonewashed jeans in every episode?

What a silly, ridiculous woman. Not girlish, but really alive. He loved her, even when she was furious with him. Harmon had taken it as a sign that he and his wife would be able to get through anything, because even conflict should have been good to them.

But, for some reason, the petty universe had not been so kind. Yes, he’d made terrible mistakes, but Harmon felt he’d given Carmen everything in the end. He even pulled himself together and tried compassion, tried love. It was not enough to get her away from the brink. He’d only been able to save himself, by making one last pristinely human decision.

Harmon checked the mail one last time, before taking his suitcase into the car. There was a postcard from Binny Sparks along with so many bills:

Dear guys,

Sorry we left in a hurry, but Washington, DC is expensive! Something opened fast, and then it went away, and we had to live in Virginia. But VA is amazing too. Well, there’s still terrible traffic; it’s the worst in the country–did you know that Harmon?

Carmen, I hope you are doing better. I’m sorry that we argued. If you ever want, our new house has a huge backyard with lots of pretty songbirds like in Snow White, you would love it. The front is a picture of the baby (he’s the pink rolly-poly one) the rest lined right next to him are the bunnies from a pet rabbit we adopted from the neighbor who raises them. So, we had a litter, surprise!

And, you know it means Sparky is happy too.

Love,

Binny-Bunny and Buster Tarrier Sparks.

Harmon sat in the car with the engine running, and wrote a note back. He wasn’t sure if he was going to actually mail it, as Binny had, and then used every inch of space on the back of the home-made card, to make a nice gesture. His response might go on the computer instead, but he wanted to finish with this all, here and now. One last glance up at the blaring Orlando sun. It began to rain. Yeah, he was going back to Cali, home, to deal with life as it was, and never coming back here. Nor would he ever go to Vegas again.

Dear guys,

You are my friends. I’m glad for you.

What else? Harmon took a breath, wrote without blinking.

Carmen and I went to Vegas… we didn’t make it.

Oh God. How awful. But they deserved to hear back. Good people reaching out, when they know others are in pain.

But I’m still so glad for you two. I don’t know where she is. I know where I am–trying. I guess, sometimes, it’s just hard being human.

-Harmon.

There was no other way to sign it.

-the end-

A note: Animals was inspired by a course I took at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival a few years ago, during which the professor emphasized a defining element in the sorts of animal characters one finds in children’s stories–they are like ‘people in animal suits.’ Immediately, I felt challenged to try the opposite, when I always sought to write animals as realistically (or intensely, when it comes to fantasy fiction) as possible: I plotted a story about animals, who were wearing people suits.

Chapters
1 La Rabia :: 2 Like Cats and Dogs :: 3 Shark Bait :: 4 Ferocious Mentirosas :: 5 Out of the Cage:: 6 Con Cola, sin Senso :: 7 Surviving the Slots :: 8 It Stays in Vegas:: 9 Trying

June 1, 2010

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Animals 8: It Stays in Vegas

Harmon began by hugging his wife. And, ducking swipe of her claws.

“You know, that whole cat-woman movie was a lie. This is not fun. At all.” He then turned over each of her hands.

“But at least it’s soft fur. I’d make a great coat…” Carmen cried less. It was a start.

“So are we finally going to talk? I burned your clothes because–alright, I was being destructive and insane. But you went ahead with this open marriage thing without me. I wanted to think about it… no, I wanted to argue some more, but what am I supposed to do when you are already sleeping with someone else? We can’t have a discussion about that. Carmen, it was painful enough to learn that you were cheating, and it was worse when I saw how you tried to force the situation, to manipulate me.”

“Lo sé. Lo siento.”

“You could never be sorry enough. This has been killing me.” Harmon held tight but then abandoned her again. This time, he stayed near the bed. “Is all this bull-crap because I’m white?”

“Dios mío.”

“Dios mío is not an answer. Flavio, that’s not a white guy? I’m assuming…” he let her fill in. Carmen cursed herself, she found she couldn’t lie again, and it would have been so easy here. “So then, all that I thought we had in common, the difference between us that I found thrilling, it’s a lie.”

“It’s not because Flavio’s familia es de México. It’s not that.” she sniffed and showed a sharp tooth when her lip curled. “Mira, it’s because we had to move down here all of a sudden and I thought I knew why but you wouldn’t come clean with me. So my head’s been full of sueños y pesadillas, cuál es el mejor cuando estoy viviendo contigo? No lo sé… It is not a good thing, ever, to fear your own husband. When I saw the gun you packed away, I was scared. When I saw you passing money to Sparks all those times, I was horrified–”

“You always knew about that? Oh God. Carmen, if you need the truth, then there’s something else. I can’t… I lost my job.”

“Is that your big secret, after all these, las tonterías? That is no excuse! You are no excuse of a man.”

“Hold it. You cheated on me. A married woman, run off to Miami for some freaking Spring Break thing, with the neighbor.”

“Whom you kissed.”

“Jesus, Carmen, you act like you’re still seventeen, sometimes!”

“It’s because Flavio looked like my Juan, there, lo he dicho.”

“De verdad? Really? So, you broke up our marriage because you wanted to sleep with a soap star.”

“Well you brandish guns in people’s faces.”

“I did it for you, so we’d have security, so you’d be happy!”

“Well I did mine because that stupid acting gig, as Cinderella, did not work out. It was depressing, the day I learned there is no such thing as a fairy tale princess. I just wanted to share my happiness with all those little girls, but I think I hurt them.”

“Wow, is that what made our lives fall apart? Yeah, you probably did scare them, acting like that.”

Harmon did not cross his arms forever, though. They sat together, he ordered room service in order to feel in control.

“Carmen, you shouldn’t beat yourself up, over the acting thing, I guess. It’s not like it was a real job… But if it were, I mean, if you think about it, you were taking it more seriously than anyone else could have, on that day.”

Half a smile from her.

“It’s sort of sweet that you felt it could be real. That’s just like you, to get caught up.” he bounced a slot token in one hand, “I don’t know about you, but I still believe in that happily ever after junk.”

“You do?”

“A lot of our LA friends used to get on me pretty bad, for saying that you swept me off of my feet. Remember? Men aren’t supposed to say that, apparently. I didn’t know.”

Afterward, they could eat together, at the least.

There was either too much talking to be done, or no amount of conversation could really resolve the Davises’ deep hurt. That same evening, Harmon and Carmen watched a movie, but then awakened to a hungry morning without coffee or real freedom from their problems. Retreating back downstairs for more gambling was not an option for Harmon. At present, that their meals could be put toward the room bill was helping. And, yes, he did also recall creepy, flamingo-church-lady.

It also occurred to Harmon that the old woman had changed on her own. He certainly didn’t bite her, like Buster (yeck, what had he been on?) or Carmen. Nor did the old woman didn’t look injured in any way, when they were sitting so close. There was a chance that her husband was some werewolf, like he often felt this past month… then, that Harmon could have ever imagined himself something like that–even while drunk, seemed truly silly. Somehow, worse than his wife acting like a crazed animal and then becoming one. What Carmen was going through was not some curse. Harmon decided it was how people really could get, what they really were beneath their skins when they lost their tempers or indulged pain for too long. Under the wrong kinds of pressure, a seemingly decent guy could become a murderer, a monster. Harmon felt himself so close to that more than a few times, behind the trigger. What if he’d finally pulled it on Bill, before leaving Orlando?

The state was too big to drive out of fast, in any direction from where Bill lived. Harmon would have dashed off into the swamps, maybe, laid low until he could sneak away. That wasn’t unlike going feral. It was not so different from Carmen wanting the star-struck life so badly that she came to Vegas only to sit up nights and swat cramped fingers against the window at so many pretty lights. Night after night. She knew there was cold, air-conditioned glass between what she wanted to chase out in the intense desert-heat of real, pulsating life, and the civilized creature she’d learned to become over a lifetime. But, even if she was a real woman, that didn’t matter. Carmen was depressed, terrified and tired of her human life filled with trials and decisions, constantly toughening up to take a little bit more. She desperately wanted to be a cat. Eat, sleep, forget and play. Only Carmen could decide for herself, in the end, whether to give up.

Harmon was afraid to open his mouth and say anything else that might tempt her. One such day, he lay next to his wife on the bed and folded hands over his full stomach. The one thing he felt proud of, that through credit or stolen money, or a tab–whatever, he could still feed and house both of them.

Carmen finished licking woman-sized paws to wash her face, twitched back an ear pensively, then announced to her husband that she was going to call Binny.

Harmon hastened to do the part that involved people-fingers. She insisted on at least attempting to hold the phone herself, after he dialed.

The girlfriends were pleasant, at first. Many women can be. Pacing across one another’s paths, trying on compliments, sharing pleasantries, and then those escalate into racing competitive, better life experiences…

“Why didn’t you tell me you were PREGNANT!” Carmen ended up screaming through the phone at Binny. “No me confías? Porqué no? Porqué! Soy la amiga más importante y delgada que tienes. No puedo creer que estas tratándome tan peor! De verdad! Quieres que permanecer tan gorda pasa toda la vida? Binny! Alo… Alo?”

Harmon got a little confidence from mini-bar vodka. “Nice try but, I think that… calling her fat for the millionth time pretty much cinched it.”

“You shut the hell up.” Carmen couldn’t even slam down the phone with no thumb or fingers. “It’s over. She’s won. I won’t ever have a baby. I told myself that I was tired of waiting for you be right again, or I wasn’t my perfect size yet. No, I was just being selfish. I lied to you, when we could have talked.” Then, Carmen stopped itching herself. The fur on her back began to recede. Harmon saw because he lay there, massaging what was left of her warm skin. “But if we ever get out of Vegas, we can’t go back to our home… and nunca más a Los Angeles. There’s no place else for us in this stupid country where we can live. The real reason why Binny left is because she hates us. She didn’t want to live anywhere near me, and no one else ever will. I’m such a bitch.” Her cynicism grayed over, again, just beneath Harmon’s fingertips.

Somehow, Harmon was not relieved to hear his wife say it. Now, the way they were, she was degrading herself. He tried to stay calm, through a surge of protective anger. “Hey, you can’t measure yourself like that, querida. Binny is… well, she’s just an average woman on the outside, just like you. And the inside is also hurt. Give your friend time. Or else, maybe we’ll go and make some tougher friends. Or, nicer ones… I dunno.”

Precious quiet. Her ears pointed. Carmen was thinking. But then, she screamed out of it–whatever self reflection now felt like to her. It ended in a feline yowling that infuriated her even more, to hear. She awkwardly fished her purse strap around her arm and headed for the door.

Harmon got there first, put arms around his wife’s waist and hugged her tight. “You can’t. People will see you, Carmencita. It isn’t safe.”

“But I want to go out. We’re in Vegas, I can’t take it anymore.” she meowed again and then another sour time. “Do you know how this feels? It burns, a woman’s got to trust her instinct. I can’t take it, the walls are pressing in, no puede respirar, tengo miedo, por favor, ayúdame. Por favor, no me molestes. No quiero ser contigo ninguno mas. No más. No puedo…” Carmen sank to the floor, and Harmon went with her. She shuddered and cried.

In two more days, Carmen could do nothing for herself but mourn. She had no hands to even bathe. Harmon did all those things for her. He even had to put her meals on the floor. She turned up her nose at him, really despised him after the first time, when he left napkins and utensils by the plate, out of habit, and she couldn’t use them. Finally, Carmen had trained Harmon to offer her dinner when he was exhausted with waiting, watching TV or done raging, and ready to hide under the covers and sleep it off. All so that she could eat when he couldn’t see her.

As her confidence waned, so did Carmen’s size. One day, she was as small as a housecat. Harmon was lucky when she came out of her hiding places, desperate for attention and sat near him on the couch so that he could pet her. Otherwise, it felt like he was holed up in the hotel room by himself, for no reason at all. Then, the casino and resort decided to be especially charming. Someone knocked hard on their door at five-o’clock in the morning, and slipped their bill under the door.

It was necessary to leave the room and go settle it, or else risk them sending special guard upstairs. Harmon had seen the real thing, once, tough guys wearing shades and crew cuts, re-fastening their black ties after tossing some drunken brawler directly onto the sidewalk. Worse than in the movies. Because, casinos could make their own rules. Spend your money and they love you. Waste their time or resources and there are several painful reminders ready, that casinos generate a great deal of a city’s revenue, which pays the police force, and so on… to Harmon, it felt near to the wrath of some angry god.

You made it all the way to Vegas, so you should know better. Especially, if you’d passed through Los Angeles and Orlando first.

Harmon locked the door when he went to go talk to rhinoceros bouncers, he supposed. But later, when he came back, all of their things, and Carmen, was gone. The room had been cleaned and worse.

When he returned to what they called Guest Services, a kindly offer was made to take prompt legal action against him, for still not having the money. Harmon sprinted. He decided, in a panic, that a casino with a regular supply of healthy lions did not need a tiny house cat. He hailed a cab as fast as he could manage outside, then ordered the driver to circle the block.

At night time, with so many loud people out on the strip and awful traffic, a little gray Carmen would be hard to find. Their fifth time passing an alleyway the cabby refused to turn into, and a shock of gray that was not rat-sized propelled Harmon from the car and into the shadows. Shadow against shadow, which was his wife?

He called Carmen’s name many times. He pleaded with her in his gringo Spanish. When they first met, she replied in a foul stream of English so unhealthy he became addicted, fast, and couldn’t be forced to leave her side. Now, she wasn’t even angry enough at him to fight anymore.

Or, had it been some wayward rat all along? How far could a cat get beyond a casino in the heat with so much terrible energy about? Harmon didn’t know. Harmon swiped arm across his eyes, like a boy, and realized he was not looking for anyone or anything real anymore at all.

The fountain show at the Bellaggio began. There was no way in hell he was going to stay and see it. The damned earth might as well have been spewing flame. And then, the cab driver, now headed to the airport, took them by the Mirage and that is exactly what Harmon saw.

Chapters
1 La Rabia :: 2 Like Cats and Dogs :: 3 Shark Bait :: 4 Ferocious Mentirosas :: 5 Out of the Cage:: 6 Con Cola, sin Senso :: 7 Surviving the Slots :: 8 It Stays in Vegas:: 9 Trying

May 27, 2010

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Animals 7: Surviving the Slots

It is very easy to discern what is real and what matters when one is losing money.

Harmon wanted a bold poker game, to order drinks he wasn’t going to pay for, and then talk the dealer’s ear off. But, slot machines were right in front of him when he got off the elevator. So, he put his back to lions (hard not to keep checking over one’s shoulder, when there are lions mere feet away) and started pushing buttons. An old black lady, by way of offering comfort, showed him how to do it:

“But first, before you go touching things, you need to pick a game with odds in your favor, and cheap each time you play. Mine’s got the treasure chest, you see, and then there’s all these lines, almost twenty–where the letters and numbers can match up for me to win back my dollar. So, with twenty lines and if it’s five cents a pull, I play a whole dollar. But, if I want to try my luck with half that many chances to win, it’s only fifty cents.”

Harmon scratched beneath his sideburns and the Ralph Lauren shades. “Look, I’m not really into this…”

“People don’t come to Vegas for no good reason, now. Here, you’ll feel better honey, try it. I was a high-roller in Atlantic City and it’s going to be like that here, too, before long.” She paused to re-fix hairpins beneath a grievous rose-colored church-lady hat.

“Do you mean that you moved, here, Ma’am?”

“I’m a good gambler,” she shrugged. “And Mr. Samuels wanted this place or Orlando, so that the grandkids might finally make their excuse to come visit. Oh, but I fixed him when we went by the Borgata in Jersey. His first time in my favorite casino, we walked right out of one of those complimentary platinum member limos, me dressed up like the queen I am–he didn’t wanna listen–but he regretted that. I explained the penny-slots and told him all that luxury was because of my so-called, expensive habit. I said, ‘Forget Orlando. Just imagine baby, what Vegas does for people like us, in our retirement.'”

“Oh God–”

“Terrible economy out here, though, worse than a lot of places if you’re not set up nice with a job in one of these casinos. But I’m an old woman so I gamble. You alright there, young man? If you’re sick, you’d better head out to the lobby and get some fresh air-conditioning in you…”

In his haze, Harmon began to see that he already knew how to play the slots. In his life, he’d been playing about five lines this past month, including Bill who’d finally paid up, Zeus, Sparky, Binny and Carmen. What a glittering nightmare, waiting for just one of those people to come through with something to make Orlando worth it. Celebration had fallen through, their mansion with a pool had not been worth the extra money, then the only other state where he passed the bar didn’t want him. Carmen found two decent friends for them to play with eventually, but that only got started about a year ago and the other couple was already fleeing. No wonder he’d been losing money steadily along the way, when he was already losing patience, losing his sense…

But wasn’t Carmen was still with him? She was just upstairs, waiting. One last pull, one line, that wasn’t so complicated, was it?

For reasons Harmon didn’t want to think through, “Hey there, you said you’ve been gambling a while? Have you ever seen–and this is gonna sound stupid–a person change into an animal, at a casino?”

“What, do you mean like one of them Cirque du Soleil shows? I went just the other night with Mr. Samuels, it’s not weird at all–well, it is strange and artistic, but in a good way. In a, ‘they might as well use so many rhinestones and painted-on spandex, when it better be worth my hundred dollars’ kinda way. Ha!”

Harmon finished startling all around himself and even up at the ceiling. The voice was not directly nearby like before. It’d gone tinny and its owner disappeared from his plane of view. A pink flamingo’s neck dipped down by his elbow, snakelike, to tap blinking buttons on the machine next door. The neck was so flexible, it was able to duck far enough and around, to skim across a row of flashing beeps in their almost cellular song. The woman’s regular plump shoulders feathered pink out of the edge of her dress, the arms turned into wings, when he blinked. “Come on, come on,” sang the beak as it scissored upside down, “I’ll have to switch machines if it’s gonna be like this–I thought for sure I’d get a bonus round by now, or somethin.’ Hey, Miss, I’d like a drink while I’m sitting here… how about a margarita–no, not salty enough. Maybe a brine solution, or a shrimp cocktail?”

Who all knows how strange casino guests could be or else however short the waitress in black miniskirt was on tips that afternoon. She took the order down fast, then asked Harmon what he wanted without missing a beat. He patted himself down to make sure all his limbs were intact first, then got out of there.

No, back upstairs had to be far more simple.

Chapters
1 La Rabia :: 2 Like Cats and Dogs :: 3 Shark Bait :: 4 Ferocious Mentirosas :: 5 Out of the Cage:: 6 Con Cola, sin Senso :: 7 Surviving the Slots :: 8 It Stays in Vegas:: 9 Trying

May 24, 2010

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Bird Twitter

Greater Rhea, Dipper, Kauai O-o: Three random animals brought to you by the MacMillian Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia.

Did you know that, in nature, birds use tweets to establish territory, keep track of one another and share other obnoxious bits of non-information? In true Twitter style–scroll down, and start reading at the bottom– to enjoy mother nature’s original tweets:

(start reading here, then work up)

…

Now that, was fun. And if you enjoyed procrastinating with birds, this looks like even more fun!