A-Lone-some
She patted his matted down, ocher fur coat — fallow like a field — and sat up underneath the great green canopy of redwoods as he licked her face like every good dog does. Prairie Wheeler curled her toes tightly in the thick flannel lined sleeping bag and began to recall the avenues she had recently explored in her ever-developing, inexplicably charmed sort of life.
Let’s see…I wonder what was going in my mind last night? Crazy weird dreams. Rabba — tab — taz! Balderdash! Well I guess it could have happened. At least I’m still here in some mundane physical sense, at least Desmond’s back.
Ugh! That’s enough with the tongue, boy. Sorry, don’t have any Cheetos this morning.
You know the feeling like when you’re starring in a movie and this is where the credits are supposed to start rolling, but you’re still on screen for some reason? Neither do I, but I imagine this is what it feels like. Thinking therapeutic thoughts…for the first time in the great long history of mankind, my zany family has been united, even though this is rilly supposed to be a reunion.
After so many white encrusted moon pies and oodles of orange hot sunrays have come and gone, I’ve finally managed to meet my mother, the mysterious other half of me. I feel my face with my clammy hands and realize the gaps have been all been filled.
S’pose you could say I’ve done a lot of growing up over these last few weeks. What am I now?
Fourteen?
Twenty-six?
Feels more like forty-five.
Well, if someone would’ve popped a pointless question and asked me whether or not I’d meet a hyperactive, sexually deprived Asian Robert Redford, I’d prolly say you were bonkers. Straight off the nut and thrown threw a loop.
Never thought I’d meet a stringy blond busty Ninjette either.
Strange.
Bizarre, really,
to think she saved my mom’s life before I was even a consideration —
much less an infinitesimal blip on the Great Map of Existence. Back in the ancient and corroded days of 24fps, back during that long disposed of Revolution, when notions like sensible and realistic were not only hard to come by, but mythic, legendary, spectral.
I look into the past, twenty-four frames-per-second, each frame rapidly clicking onward, all photographs becoming a ceaseless blur of nonstop action-packed history.
Wait a sec.
What happened there?
Rewind. Pause. Play. Pause. Play.
Ah, that smile.
My mom’s beautifully crooked smile.
Was she faking it like an orgasm?
Not that any of that matters…it all happened…for a reason.
Still, it would be nice to be able to time travel. I’d enjoy that, quivering at the knees. Wouldn’t you? Direct access to the past and future, please.
Yes, I’d absolutely love to be treated like a princess, wake me up with a sweet kiss. Looking back and down from this royal pedestal, I can clearly see the manipulations, the broken hearts, mended not by time, but by distracted apathy.
Or so it seems. How could there be a doubt in anyone’s mind? What puzzle? No charades or riddles bog down this tale. It’s just a slow-motion affair. I swear, I swear, I swear…it played out like an episode of…well, I dunno. Happy Days, mebbe? Hardly.
We should most definitely have a show on the TeeVee Tube based around this cozy coven of mine — keep it All in the Family. It could even be filmed in real time — no actors or scripts necessary — just keep the tape rolling, folks, you’ll capture it all. Wouldn’t want to miss this.
I should talk to Dad about it. I should also get back to work soon. Eh, should is so overrated. Why think about the future? It’s happening right now, rilly, seconds ceaselessly bearing towards an unknown destination that might end up being fabulous, fair, or a famine of fun.
Can I have a fantastic fuzzy fairyland fabricated? — A fiction full of familiar family, funky freshness and fame, freedom and fast food?
Wouldn’t it be cool to be a cab driver?
Wow, shyah, that’s a career.
Might it possibly all be fate?
For now, there’ll have to be more on the future tomorrow.
Desmond! Get back here!
Grr!
That scruffy old dog just does what he pleases, lives in his own world, by his own rules and dreams. Must be hilarious as a dog, audience to our daily follies; funnier than an episode of M*A*S*H*, except your doggy voice box can’t physically laugh.
Instead, all urgent emotions are conveyed in the form of a big, loud bark. Oh, there’s the rare whimper, painful yelp, and a yawny whine or two, but anyone’s stomach can provide that spectrum of expression. Got to look elsewhere, stay clued in — like to those squishy bundles of hairs — eyebrows!
Or the wagging swaggering pinkish tongue, panting sweat like an organic engine. Or how could we forget the tail, the modern symbol of hyperactivity? A clever contraption, a beacon or antenna gone haywire; must be a faulty nerve connection, a lapsing synapse that can only stutter and twitch. Yet it all says something.
Yes.
It all says something.
Here’s the question that bounces off of billions of minds during an occasion or two:
Am I loved?
Like really really loved?
I want to think so, believe so, hope so…then…why? Why?
Why did I suddenly want that jerkass creep, that utterly and eerily handsome creep, the harvester of sorrow, the edifice of destruction to come carry me off like Persephone, if only momentarily. It’s like …like he had the answers to the most intimate secrets imaginable. Like he was gonna, I dunno, love me like a real lover would, like Chachi loving Joanie?
I tentatively asked mom about it last night…all she muttered was “Sh-nuh Say Kwah,” um, whatever that means. Heck, I don’t have a clue what he was going to do with me, but for that one instant, I wanted to find out. It’s probably for the best that I wasn’t swept off my feet and whisked far, far away… God!
I’d mean nothing to him, methinks. What would I be?
— A surrogate replacement for my mother?
— Fresh, untainted flesh for him to devour for whatever sadistic uses he could like of
— A five-dollar hooker destined for an anonymous misused and abused life?
I can’t ignore what he’s done. Good riddance, Brockie. Geez, where the heck am I, anyways? I’m squinting here; guess I need to eventually procure some glasses like Isaiah said I should.
Hmm…what’s that smoky smell? Pungent like…Ouch! Stupid rosebushes. Ahhh, it all makes sense now — of course he’d be getting high this early. Ahem! Hi Dad! Uhh…Hi Mom! Good morning!
Did you survive reading this dreck? Some background: I stumbled across this in an old Livejournal of mine from 12 years ago, when I was taking a Contemporary Literature course. The professor gave us an assignment to mimic the style of a writer we admired. I chose William H. Gass and modeled this piece on his experimental novel, Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife. In the course of preparing this text for publication, I learned that Mr. Gass passed (sorry) on December 6th of this year. He was an unheralded master. May he rest in peace.
