Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
That Dream
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
The buildings, people, trash cans, everything, collapsing like the Twin Towers had, only instead of clouds of smoke and debris, these transformed into architectural outlines on pavement that became a smooth hard flat surface. Arnold was unchanged, but everything else had become diagrammatic, somehow embedded in the surface of the plane. Crap! He was in that dream again.
He looked down. He stood on a long row of squares about 6 feet on a side, a wide black ribbon to his left and on his right large rectangles and other polyhedra. Inside each were smaller rectangles (desks), brackets of various sizes that must be chairs and couches, and colorful moving ovoids. He stepped over the wall of the nearest building and approached one. It backed away, or at least he presumed that the surface facing him, fraught with invaginations and small protrusions, was the front. He backed it into a corner, then cautiously reached down and touched its middle. It rippled violently and darted past him, spun around a few times in the center of the room, and came to rest in the doorway. Arnold looked at his fingertip, where a damp red spot was drying.
*
Arnold glided through the doorway. He could see Saunders and The Chief in front of the conference table. Suddenly, their shapes ballooned and wavered like threads in a fast wind. Saunders had split into two… and so had The Chief. One of the two Saunders’s disappeared and reappeared so close to Arnold he could smell shoe polish. Arnold shied away in alarm and slammed into the coat rack. F*ck! That dream again!
The chief disappeared: first one chief and then the other one. Saunders did the same a moment later. Arnold’s pants were wet.
*
Arnold inhaled her scent, caressed the delicious mound of Charlene’s belly as she slept. He pressed down slightly. His hand blurred, sank in; her skin closed around his wrist, a tight ring of flesh that rolled warmly up his arm as his hand passed through her muscles, her womb, their son’s tiny skull… his arm snapped back into focus.
Arnold convulsed backwards out of bed, across the tiny bedroom, and through the shattering window, but he could clearly see:
Charlene jerking up off the bed,
her red fountain,
the scream distorting her face.
He plunging toward the street,
naked, his red
and dripping hand.
With A Grain of Salt
Friday, July 27th, 2007
Taffy had done 18 months for hijacking one of Peter Piper’s trucks. Stole 16 tons of pickled peppers (Why?! Who knows?). But Piper had a good alibi. He’d been home with his wife, eating pumpkin pie and playing cards with a couple of neighbors. So who killed a two-bit hood by ripping his throat out, dousing him with slime, and dumping him in Sir Reginald Thimble’s flower bed? A similar murder in Dressmakers St. put me on the right track My client was a member of the notorious Tailor Gang At last everything was piecing itself together in my head.
*
Sir Reginald’s front door was open. Running up the steps I slipped and landed hard. A trail of goo came up the drive and went through the door. I followed, and almost tripped over the butler. Crushed flat.
Three well-dressed victims had been smoking in a room off the main hall,.my client among them. Blood was everywhere. I stepped back out. A snail the size of a Volkswagen was coming up fast from the back of the house. I pulled a salt shaker out of my pocket and raised it high. The snail stopped in its trail.
“So it is down to me and it is down to you, Deadbolt,” the snail gurgled. I was surprised to hear a mollusk quoting “The Princess Bride.” Usually they go in for live theater when they seek entertainment.
“One question,” I said. It dipped an eye stalk “Why? Did the Tailors pay you to hit the Welshman? And if they did, why start killing them? You’re a pro, not a garden-variety psycho.”
“You humanoids are all crooked. They put the hit on the little thief cos he was stupid enough to rip them off. Only an idiot steals from a syndicate.”
“You won’t get an argument from me,” I said, “but what about the Tailors? Doing your civic duty?”
“Thread-biters didn’t pay me.” It sounded outraged. “I let that get out, that people can push in my eyestalks, and I won’t be eating.”
“Three square salads a day where you’re going now,” I said, “you can thank me later.” Meanwhile, I had unscrewed the lid of the saltshaker. It would last until the cops got here with a couple of 5 pound sacks.
The end
References
“Taffy”
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/taffy.asp
“Peter Piper”
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/peterpiper.asp
“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater”
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/peterpeter.asp
“The tailors and the snail”
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/a24-four-and-twenty-tailors.htm