5 MEWL

She did not let the height of her stack of silk diminish. She had a face that had once been broken. Imagine the front of her skull a mask--and that mask smashed and broken. The front of her skull had been broken--but it was broken under the skin. The instrument that had been used did not break the skin, but it did smash the front of her skull. Her face. She had a child who loved to take his clay and make noses for skulls. That skulls did not have noses did not bother him. He simply enjoyed to make noses for skulls, and she was always so impressed at how human a skull began to look once it had a nose. Humans are called Homo sapiens, of course, but there are some people who believe that humans, instead, should be called Homo loquens. Humans are really not all that wise. But they can speak, so perhaps loquens is a better fit. She had to have a fake face put in. She was lucky because they were able to make her a fake face to replace all that had bee smashed. All they had to do was take an old mask that she had and break it in a chalet. The chalet had a low price when they first bought it. It was right on the lake, so they knew it would be a good thing to invest in. Birds were what died near them.

Someone had tied a dog to the cross at the top of the church. It was the prank that was so often played. I lived on Church Street, and I woke to a dog. Someone had tied a dog to the cross that's on the top of the church. I went to cut down the dog. It was a black lab maybe. Someone had tied it to the cross. It was tied with its belly to the cross. Someone had once tied a pig to the cross. Someone had tied little goat. All sorts of animals tied to the cross. I wondered if the person who did this also shot out the signs on stores. Would this person shoot out lights? I told the child that this is the factory where they make people. This is where they make most of the people in the world. I told the child that, before the people are released, they all have to eat a special meal. If they don't eat that meal, then they become murderers. That's why there are so many murderers in this town. Not enough of them eat the meal that they are supposed to eat after they are made. What is in the meal? What of it? He was told to eat a piece of quartz. He was told to swallow marbles and throw them up. He was told to hide the marbles. He was told to plant something in marbles and make it grow. What I never understood was how a machine could have so much waste in it. I stand next to any machine, and I wonder when it will tell me which way to the round board.

Her bust, in my eye, was unflagging. I saw what was about to happen in a dream. Because I have synaesthesia, I realize that it is not unusual that I am ambidextrous and that I have precognitive dreams. I experience deja vu often, and I have very little sense of direction and have never done well in math. My brother has epilepsy. He was given a choice--that is, whether or not he wanted to have the hemispheres of his brain cut into. That would relieve all that is in the fishtank. We found an empty fishtank--still unbroken--at the dump. So, what we did was grease it with Vaseline and have people strip down and fold themselves into it. Like geeks. We liked to see what a thigh looked like greased and pressed against glass. A breast, maybe. This was when dirt was on the roof. Our father, with a bunch of other men, dug a twenty-foot deep hole. Our father swindled the other men in that he got to keep the best dirt, while they were fooled into hauling the inferior dirt. Our father put all that dirt on the roof of our house. He told us to go inside while, with a high-powered hose, he shot water onto the roof. We watched as it all flopped down.