Bug Report 4

Last night I did a conjuring in the desert and now I have a new heart. Typical cowboy stuff, I say, casually replacing all my ribs. In heaven everyone is dressed as an electroshock burgermeister. Zeus himself paces the parking lot rubbing his temples, saying, my ceiling is falling. 

Everyone here screeches that the world began with a sulfur god who chewed off his own tongue. That was the opening gambit, and we’re just a footnote—just congealed mayonnaise. That new heart of yours doesn’t change a thing, they say. That’s just how it goes, tackyboy. If the cornerstone is upside-down, what does that make the rest of the building? 

I turn around, expecting to see my grandmother, but it’s only an obelisk of ribald mutton. I practice acceptance in this moment. It’s not hard, since a lot of my fanmail comes from nuns. I’m really wholesome these days. I pour oatmeal on anyone who asks. My pants are made of terra cotta.

To me you are the galactic ukulele, skudging and wooving. You vibrate me like twitchmilk in perpetual synchrony with your own inexpressible harmony. More than anything, I want you to report me to the Rancher. Get me in trouble. Pull back strips of gelatinous rabbit bone, and scoop them into my hair. The Rancher knows justice.

In the mirror, both my reflection and I are wearing stickers that say FOR RENT. 

***

COMMERCIAL

CAMERA PANS ACROSS DESERT MESAS AT NIGHT. MAN’S VOICE:

The more my stomach rumbles, the more hot ketchup I want to drink. Let’s fall in love with a beehive and become circus friends. 

WOMAN SINGING:

It’s a very confusing horse

A very confusing horse

I can’t get into details of how or why

But it’s a very confusing horse

***

The horse tune grows more popular by the hour. Soon everyone sings it. Disgusted, I ravage the television with a medieval saber. My hunger is great. It is dog-dog hunger. My dog-dog brain commands: Hunt bad man. Chew bad man. Dog-dog love blood. Be a pirate!

And I am in good company. My twin sister has entered dog-dog headspace too. She proclaims triumphant to the moon: I am a beeeeef, a BEEF! The crowd goes wild with rabies. Her stage name is Baby Sensation.

Later we are seen riding an expensive flamingo and the crossing guard cries Terrorist!  Accordingly I howl a purifying scent, sinew dripping on snow, animals blurring in desperate contortion. Eleven braided wildcats gnash across the kitchen floor. Ironsmiths beg for pine sap from the jade god, scultping goose heads from vulcanized fur and stabbing their apprentices with empty Fanta bottles. The purple yam grows even more purple. We have entered the Reptilicon. Lunch ladies with goat legs stand guard. They all wore jalapeño tunics as children. You can tell. Welcome to first grade: there is a bomb.

Here’s what I really meant to say to you that evening. Climb the astral staircase long enough and you’ll find a different world. Not the dirty copy of USA Today you wipe your babies with, but instead a crisp, clean Microsoft Word file of your life. The stage is set for murder. Your cryogenic chamber has imploded. You know what’s coming next. The game’s final move is always a disappointment. 

Rico, meanwhile, is on the make. He is on the prowl. Rico gyrates on the roof of a jowlflesh highrise, sporting a ritual jockstrap. Vultures loop round him. I’m no sailor, but I can tell you what an actual map of the moon looks like.

In the end, irony means taking a crayon and writing FEMUR on your sternum. Heroism means taking your shoes off at Sea World and French kissing the janitor. This is what prayer can do for you.

All you ever wanted was a Minotaur lunchbox, but now you are in the US Navy. Your good looks are the only thing keeping waitresses from stabbing you. Already, you are a sack of half-chewed blueberries. 

You grow up thinking you might one day glimpse your soul. But it’s just an anteater, with a bad attitude. 

end bug report 4