it was a rare moment when i had almost everything i wanted

Just red the motherfuckin' thing.

　
It was Thanksgiving morning.

Mid-morning to be exact.

I remember it just like it was four years ago Thursday.

I awoke, amazingly.

Although for the life of me I couldn’t remember what I’d dreamt.

The first thing I did [which is what I'd always done and continue to do to this day] was drink a shot of Kentucky bourbon.

I’ve tried North Dakota bourbon, and I’m sorry, it’s just not the same.
It was so delicious, that I had another shot.

Because, quite frankly, what else was there to do?

Oh sure, I could have read a self-improvement book, enrolled in a continuing education program at the local community college, written a poem, turned to religion, smoked some opium, got married, laughed at a joke, wandered through the desert like my ancestors; but Kentucky bourbon just has a way of exerting its ownership over men like me and I guess there's a part of me that loves how it feels to be dominated.

 Thank God for that.

Several minutes later, I got a call from a woman who always smelled of cocoa and shea butter.

Her name was Marjorie; and she claimed to be born under a morning star.

"I’m feeling off-kilter," she said.

"When was the last time you felt on-kilter?" I said.

"April… or May…"

She then let out a primal scream.

"Sorry," she said… "Must have experienced some childhood trauma and repressed it… so how are you, my lust…?"

"Feeling somewhat anachronistic… been sleeping with friends on couches and floors… was arrested for drunkenness and vagrancy… other than that…"

Marjorie laughed like Hades.

She thought I was joking.

I told her it was the truth.

"Jokes are often true," she said…

"So is tragedy…"

"Goodness…"

We talked for three more hours.

We talked about Kafka and Samuel Beckett.

We talked about Karl Marx and Charles Darwin.

We talked about abstract surrealism and cosmology.

We talked about eternalism and nihilism.

And we ended our conversation at quarter to three in the afternoon.

And, although many of our memories were fabricated and our stories appropriated from other sources, we’d never felt more vital or optimistic about our futures.

But then we had to remind ourselves that fantasies can sometimes make you feel that way.

As I hung up the phone, I sighed.

I think because I was tired.

But it also could have been because I hadn’t yet come to terms with my bitterness.

Bored, I looked out the window.

A parade passed by;

One of those parades where a quarter of the kids in the marching bands had forgotten their instruments, the clowns were all three drinks ahead of me and two old Marines were riding in wheelchairs pushed by two old Daughters of the American Revolution and the floats resembled dioramas constructed by pre-schoolers and the spectators fell asleep and the Grand Marshall ordered sushi from his cell phone.

Suddenly there was a heavy, gloomy feeling in the air and I didn’t quite feel at home or relaxed.

I felt like I was on the edge of something.

Reality, maybe.

Or maybe it was that I was on the verge of something.

A panic attack, perhaps;

Hands numb, arms tingling, heart racing.

I tried to do some deep-breathing exercises, thinking that might help to regain my equilibrium, but it only made me light-headed and sleepy.

So I took another shot of bourbon and laid down, fell asleep, and had the usual slipstream dream.

Or was it Dadaist…?

It was hard to tell; the images in this dream were filled with stylistic excess and looked like it was directed by an avant-garde poseur.

Whatever it was, it was very post-apocalyptic.

We’d been through some sort of disaster and the world was in ruins.

By we, I mean us.

Nobody knew for sure what had happened;

There were speculations, of course.

Nuclear war, plague, natural disaster.

Some scientists from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho went on short-wave radio claiming it was all carefully orchestrated and most likely a collaborative effort between the Bilderberg Group and the John Birch Society.

The fact is, we’d simply been annihilated by some thing, some force beyond our human imaginations.

Millions of people just spontaneously combusted.

Others, like me, wandered across the wasteland, trying to survive by any means possible.

Representatives from all of the Abrahamic religions met at an I-Hop in Oklahoma City to discuss what to do next.

For some reason, I-Hops were spared.

The only thing anybody could agree on was that the omelets tasted like they were frozen and microwaved.

At one point the Jewish tailor turned to the Christian Martyr and said, "Do we have a generator and batteries?"

That’s when I woke up.

I turned on the TV.

There was a local public affairs show playing;

A squat, fanatical little man was interviewing a stocky, arrogant woman.

Squat, Fanatical Little Man: "So God is a self-caused being…"

Stocky Arrogant Woman: "Of course…"

Squat, Fanatical Little Man: "But he didn’t have parents…"

Stocky, Arrogant Woman: "You’re missing the point… God isn’t under any obligation to reveal anything to us… any of His works… He reveals what he wants to… on His terms… in His way… you can’t get inside His head like that… you can’t define God in human terms… He’s like so far beyond our ability to conceptualize anything about Him… He’s freakin’ God, man!"

Squat, Fanatical Little Man: "But what kind of explanation is that? ’He’s freakin’ God?…’ What the hell does that mean?… that doesn’t mean anything to me… it just reinforces my belief that you don’t what the hell you’re talking about!"

I turned off the TV, walked to the grocery store, and bought a Swanson Hungry Man Turkey Dinner and a pecan pie.

On the way back I began to wonder if I’d be able to sustain this cool air of detachment I’d affected over the years.

Because there seemed to be a hell of a lot of time left.

And I laughed at myself as I unlocked the door to my apartment.
　
　
　
　
　
　

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Reviews

[roarke]

Heh, Philip, you took the words right out of my mouth. Pace, wry wit, and metaphors abound. Ever try a good, aged Rye? The parade para, excellent. More please.