Our home was static. Nothing in it moved--not even us. I wore black dancer's tights. I wrapped plastic tubing around my arms and tried to fit objects in my mouth. First, I lit the humunculus. Then, I made something of an embryo with ferns and rusty bolts. It smelled of metal in my hands. I gave out trinkets because I had made them. My job was to set whatever had been wronged right. I started by reupholstering the chairs. I had learned to do leather work. I did not hide behind the donkey because, today, I had caught my allotment of fish. The other day, I had had to hide because I had not caught enough fish. And what I had caught was much too small to feed an entire schoolhouse of children and mice. I told my darling that I would have to leave because my stomach ailment had worsened such that I forever craved porcelain. I felt cold, so I made a sweater for myself. I did not know how to buy wool so I made my sweater out of plant tendrils. I sought her help but did not find it. Instead, what I found was her veil--one that I had given her--in an empty room that had a For Rent sign in its window. Do not be brattish. You'll get your turn at the machine.
An eelworm. A nematode. The boys on the wrestling team got ringworm on their faces because of the rancid mats on which they gamboled and writhed and dreamt of rope fights. I had brass on my bed. I had nickel on my dress. She wore a dress that, on its hem, had lead trinkets. She wore a hat that had metal charms dangling off its brim. She bought a large container filled with dates and ate most of them before going to whatever was most fashionable that season. I was not ready for anything painful. And yet what I got was painful in the extreme. An outpouring of garbage on my hands. I could not raise my hands above my head because they had so much garbage on them. I found a fan--someone very supportive of what it was I was feigning. I had an outflow of flux. I had a bandage on my arm because I had just given plasma for forty dollars. Now I had enough money for a bike. I wanted a bike because I wanted to put test animals in my tires and ride around. This was a splurge for me. I had never owned such rapid transportation. Once, though, I had sat in the back of a car that had leather seats. They creaked and were a little cracked. I saw that the driver was aglow, so I asked him what made him so pleased. He told me he had caught a tagged fish, and that that catch had made him 500$.
He didn't have faith. He had faithery--it was all fake. A pretense. And what did he have faith in? He believed, full-hearted, that if a dog were to bite him, it would immediately let go. Same with a snake or an eel. A komodo dragon. I was certainly not handsome. Adonic. I was homely. I had scars on my chin. I had hair in the wrong places. The smell that came out of my mouth would not be attractive if I were to go tango dancing. So I hid. I got under a structure and hoped I would not be found. I found a sweaty man in a field at night. I tried to wake him, but he wouldn't. I asked if he was okay. As always, we shared what we had dreamt. She was in it this time. We looked for symbols. The only symbols that counted were ones that had not been made by a building renovated for the surge perceived. Chilly. Wintry. Gelid. Ways to describe a night with me. Here comes the decline. The decline angled down into the ocean and into an ancient trench. The submarine, on a line, trailed a styrofoam cup. The pressure of so many fathoms about it shrank it. Take it to third grade.
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