A compulsory stroll

The next image from my book of 300 Drawing Prompts began as a blank page with the words “Fountain of youth” printed sideways at the right. So I cut out a photo of a meal from a fast-food advert and taped it to the paper. (See the previous pic if you . . . can’t think of a reason.)

Dear diary,

What can one really know about one’s country’s past leaders? I mean the leaders that have been mythologized—the highly approved leaders, the ones who are now legends; heroes; gods. For any person who lives in the Altered States Unamerican, ask yourself: What can we really know about christ Abram Lincoln? This question interests me because I live on the planet TRAPPIST-1g, which orbits the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, about twelve parsecs away from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius, thus I am very near the Altered States, and I must remodel my apartment, so I naturally desire to compare my ideas about interior decoration to those of a skilled professional. Here’s the first three verses of Genesis twelve:

Now the LORD had said unto Abram: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

I interpret this passage as indicating that Monsieur Lincoln, with his own bare hands, built a cabin out of logs from trees which could double as a church, when his parent abandoned him in the woods of Twin Peaks as an infant. This leads me to consider the abode that I myself bought. Twoscore and two years ago, a construction company erected a place of worship – actually it’s just a regular apartment, but I’m exaggerating in attempt to compete with the good Monsieur Lincoln – and this home was passed like a harlot from owner to owner, until the music stopped and I found myself holding the deed. Now I’m worried that mine own church walls may not be rain-proof (it’s raining as I write this, and I find myself preoccupied with the possibility of perceiving a leak that needs repair—this would be my worst nightmare, because I hate to work), yet I should remind myself that the best house ever, Monsieur Lincoln’s Log Cathedral, not only leaked so much that they had to keep a bucket tied to the gargoyle for bailing saltwater, but my sapphire flooring looks twice as good as the former christ’s dirt—for his floor was just the natural ground of the forest: If you accidentally planted a seed in his front room, he’d be forced to chop down a cherry tree the next day, because the seed would receive enough mist and sunlight to thrive, for Lincoln’s roof was only bamboo poles or sugar cane, and he didn’t even tar it to keep out predators: this allows life-sustaining elements to enter the sanctuary. —Believe me, you don’t want that.

So the above is an example of the type of writing that people hate. When I ask people “Why am I not your favorite writer?” they always answer: “Because you’re not personal enough. You think it’s cool to employ an unusual word or to let your thoughts take an unexpected turn; but we anticipate where you’re going, long before you’ve even dreamt it; and we grow impatient with your…”

I had to take a long walk yesterday. I wouldn’t normally say “I had to take…”—I’d simply say “I took a long walk”—but this walk was thrust upon me against my will. I had to vacate my residence temporarily. “Why?” you ask. “Were they spraying for bedbugs? Or was asbestos gushing from the air vents? Or did your neighbor break in and open the lid of the mysterious box that was hidden under your sofa, so that radiation brighter than ten thousand suns flooded the room and left him a skeleton?”

No, the reason I had to take a long walk yesterday is that Doug the Contractor was installing the floor in my bathroom (the sapphire-inlaid extravagance, not the dirt—I only use dirt if I’m building a place by myself in the forest when I’m three years old and there’s a civil war in the forecast). And to install new flooring in a bathroom, you must translocate the toilet. That is to say, you must physically lift and remove the toilet from all fundaments, so that the floor tiles can underlap the appliance. It’s like when a man gets blessed with a heart attack, so the surgeons are obliged to disconnect the heart from its ribcage and then vacuum out the vein-marrow from his widow-maker. For the toilet is the heart of the modern bathroom, and the repeal & replacement thereof is a delicate affair.

Say you own a trucking company like the one that my earthly father mismanaged, and your only driver ends up in the emergency room because his ex-wife broke his heart. After disconnecting the organ, they place it carefully upon a silver tray that is situated nearby; and the nurse’s aid is charged with massaging it gently, so that it keeps beating. Sometimes they exchange it with the heart of a pig or baboon, if they can find a willing donor:

What happens is that a police squad will call the hospital, saying: “We’ve got a fresh two-vehicle accident. A red sedan collided head-on with a silver coupe, and both drivers died instantly upon impact. One of them was wearing a bracelet with an engraving that reads: ‘Ship my soul to science / When the LORD calls me home’. Which is strange, because science is ungodly and atheistical – so why would a believer want to donate their only spiritual organ, their mortal soul, to a bunch of guys who basically hate Jehovah and only love Satan? But anyway, it’s your lucky day, Doc, because among the loot of the crash is a severed sow’s ear, a baby bear’s paw, and an intact frozen baboon carcass. At first we thought the latter might be the missing link – I mean a specimen of the group of living creatures that came between wolves and humans on the devo-scale – but, after closer inspection, it became apparent that the thing is just well-groomed.”

So, because the accident happened mere moments ago, the surgeons are able to rewire all the body parts to the heart-attack victim, and thus bring him back to life. This is exactly what happened to my bathroom yesterday. And I couldn’t stand to pace back and forth in the delivery room, waiting for the news (“It’s alive but toxic!”), so I went on a long walk around my neighborhood. My sweetheart stayed home and held our bathroom’s hand while the contractors operated. They used a bright yellow hydraulic jib crane to hoist the toilet off the floor: they hanged it high like an outlaw, moved it about four meters south, then carefully landed it in the bathtub.

Now, the whole time the toilet is removed, you’re not supposed to pee in it – that’s not just an old saloon-rumor; you really should wait until they connect the toilet back to the sewer line, before you pee. That’s another reason I wanted to leave the apartment while this procedure was underway. I hate being told: “These two strangers are going to disembowel your home, and, while they’re gutting it, you won’t be able to utilize your restroom: so there’ll be no rest for the wicked. The job will take a full eight hours, so don’t drink any water for three days prior to their visit; otherwise, when they scare you with their appearance, you’ll either have to: (A) pee your pants, or (B) steal their crane and briefly re-install the toilet when their backs are turned.” That’s too suspenseful for me – it’s like watching a heist film. Plus I drink mostly gin during the morning and afternoon and evening-time, so it’s not easy for me to go six hours without “paying my water bill”. Also note that, after performing countless studies in the desert using dry ice and baboon corpses, Science Itself has found that the human body cannot survive for more than forty-eight hours without alcohol. And, as noted above, this bathroom re-flooring project requires a full three days of fasting. That’s why I opted instead to simply pack a few deific beverages in a haversack and then wander around at the park. Unfortunately, however, my most hated enemy, the Christian God, still controls the weather. So here is what happened:

My sweetheart was manning the crow’s nest of our apartment (a crow’s nest is a structure in the upper part of the main mast of a ship that is used as a lookout point), and she rang her bell and shouted to me “They’re here!” So, to avoid having to engage in small-talk with the invading handymen, I dashed out the door at the back of our apartment. But I was ill-prepared to make an exit just then: for I was wearing only tan capris and a light-blue camisole. This would’ve been fine attire for any other day of the summer, because it’s normally hot and muggy here in the hinterlands, but, for this special occasion, God unleashed a freezing windy drizzle to plash me. So, by the time I arrived at the nearest park, I was drenched and shivering.

But I soon forgot that I was even being punished for my sins, as I lost myself in a good book. This is the advantage of being addicted to literary escapism: Not even God can get your goat. The book’s title, you ask? Selected Satires of Lucian. My esteemed fellow-statesman M.P. Powers has been raving about Lucian for eons, trying to warn me that if I don’t read him I might end up in Boring Angel Heaven and thus miss attaining the true energetic hellfire where heroes like Nietzsche and Goethe live. It took me a while to get my hands on a copy of Lucian because, at least in my own sad experience, his work is hard to find! Normally a classic writer will have multiple copies of many of her works waiting on my local library’s shelves unread and unloved (people shun wisdom) but, not only was Lucian nonexistent there, his work was almost impossible to find even by way of the interlibrary system (a service whereby a patron of an earthbound library can access items owned by extrasolar entities). I ended up reeling in a scant two volumes – & only to learn, when they finally arrived, that one is all Greek. But the good news is that the English version I got is a lively translation: it’s by Lionel Casson – I found it extremely pleasing to read. I had brought along a few other books, because I knew there’d be oceans of clocktime to vaporize, but I didn’t end up touching another title all day; I just went from Lucian to Lucian, wholly engrossed. After a couple introductory pieces, the book is divided into three major sections (presumably named by the editor): so I free-fell straight thru “Zeus’s World” down past “Pluto’s World” and landed somewhere in “Man’s World”. Just like my actual life.