All I Ever Dreamed

by Michael Blumlein

  Ever so slowly, Carl reached in his pocket, feeling for his knife. Careful to avoid sudden movement he drew it out and with one hand opened the blade. He could not remember the last time he had used it, although he did recall that it was dull. Still, it gave him confidence. It made him feel that he was someone to be taken seriously. Shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet, he raised his hands to a fighting position. He was no great hunter, certainly no great man, but he could think with his eyes open. He could feel things, he had friends, and he could act.

  GREEDY FOR KISSES

  (Note: This story was written to be read aloud. If Allen Ginsberg were alive, I’d ask him to chant the thing.)

  Where they came from no one knew. But it didn’t take long to find out why they were here. They came for kisses.

  They started out slowly, carefully, choosing people who wouldn’t be alarmed, who weren’t afraid, people who wanted to be kissed. This showed they were smart. This showed cunning. They kissed housewives waiting at home for their husbands to return from work. They kissed husbands hurrying home to their wives. They kissed working women after they had time to freshen up, working men and women after they had taken naps. They kissed girls, tender, sweet, beautiful girls, standing on the doorsteps after their first date. They kissed downy cheeked boys with perfumed hair and pimply chins, swaggering, petrified, mouths open but not knowing what to say. They kissed girls who’d been around the block, loose-lipped girls who liked the touch of fingertips and flesh, who liked kissing. They kissed the boys who liked these girls and the boys who didn’t care for girls, the boys who didn’t notice them, and they kissed the girls who didn’t notice boys. They kissed the two-year-olds, the one-year-olds, the newborns, feather light kisses on soft shell skulls, whispering kisses, breaths of air. They kissed the perfunctory grownup morning kiss, the coffee kiss, the lazy summer kiss, the comrade kiss, the kiss of evening, the kiss of firelight and shadows, the kiss of state. They kissed the lover kiss behind the ear, the nuzzling kiss, the bare neck kiss, the goosebump kiss, the touchy feely kiss, the kiss that melted hearts and hardened nipples. They kissed the father’s kiss on the eve of battle, lips pressed against the forehead of the son, hands cradling the beloved child’s head. They kissed the kiss of gratitude and relief on victory, the kiss of liberation, the tarty kiss of whores, the kiss of fortune-hunters, the wet-cheeked kiss of mothers, the kiss of coming home. They kissed the bishop’s kiss, the rabbi’s and the imam’s kiss, the kiss of blessing over newlyweds and newly born, the kiss of comfort on the deathbed, the kiss of solace, the kiss of love, the kiss of everlasting life. They kissed the feet of lepers. They kissed the flickering eyelids of dreaming women. They kissed dogs and cats and guinea pigs. With sloppy, wet and noisy kisses they tickled the bellies of little boys.

  All this kissing spurred debate. Naturally, there was concern. The issue wasn’t so much the kissing as what the kissing led to. And what was behind it. What it meant. And also the time that was lost for other things. Time for work. Time for play. Time for problem solving, community affairs, business, shopping, sports.

  How much time was lost? No one knew. Who had ever thought to quantify and measure kissing? And who would be the best to do so? Who were the experts? The ones with the most kissing experience? Could they be relied on? Wouldn’t they be fatally biased? The ones with the least? The detached, objective ones? Wouldn’t they be likewise biased? Wasn’t objectivity a form of disdain?

  While these matters were being debated, the kissing proceeded. Reports trickled in, erroneously, that it was slowing down, when in fact it was just changing gears. With a foothold gained, they, the visitors, turned their attention to the harder cases. But first, to soften them up, they jammed the world with song.

  A kiss to build a dream on, a little kiss each morning, baby let me kiss you, kiss me kate, kiss me carl, pucker up, kiss me in the rain, kiss me on the bus, kiss and tell, kiss and don’t tell, kiss me to the music, kiss me on the lips, kiss me all over, suck my kiss, steal my kisses, this kiss, that kiss, kisses sweeter than wine, kisses like honey, our first kiss, the last kiss, besamè mucho, kiss me quick, kiss me slow, sealed with a kiss, shut up and kiss me, kiss off.

  Old songs, new songs, pink songs, blue songs, rock and rap and rat-a-tat, trance, dance, stim, ballad, songs of every shade and stripe and kind. It didn’t take long to get the people of the world singing. They seemed to yearn for song. This accomplished, the visitors turned their attention on other media to manipulate.

  Day and nighttime television was flooded with re-runs of romantic sitcoms. New sitcoms, with a focus on the kiss, took up what remained of prime time slots. Documentaries uncovered and revealed the nearly universal practice of kissing. They traced its evolution, and the evolution of lips. Newscasters noted the steady rise of kisses per capita, and on-the-scene reporters interviewed recipients of the biggest, the loudest, the sweetest, the most audacious kiss. Movie plexes sponsored contests. Studios bankrolled a spate of new kiss-centric films. For every act of violence on the silver screen, directors shot twice as many acts of kissing. Films got very long.

  The internet was the last to be taken and didn’t go down without a fight. But even nerds and anarchists, it turned out, could be taught to want a kiss. The spate of pop-ups and viruses that self-destructed in a mesmerizing blaze of light, triggering memories and pseudo-memories of the wonderful sights and smells and sounds of kisses, were clever, mathematically complex and irresistible. Kiss blogs—klogs—became the rage. Businesses shot up, trading in kiss paraphernalia. The price of kiss futures soared.

  These foundations firmly in place, the visitors began the second wave of their attack. They kissed the ones too busy to be kissed, too embarrassed, too fearful of touching or disease or someone else’s breath, too wounded by kisses, too important, too hopeless, too ugly, too tired, too bored. They kissed the women who heard voices and feared to be touched. They kissed the wailing, raw-nerved babies born to crack cocaine. They kissed the men who had nightmares about being kissed. They kissed the women who’d been physically abused by kisses. They kissed the boys and girls who stank of halitosis. They kissed the men and women ravaged by disease with sores and blisters on their lips, they kissed the burn victims whose lips were gone. They kissed the doomed women of unspeakable beauty, with lips like cherries, gleaming teeth and picture perfect smiles. They kissed the ones with rotten teeth and buck teeth and snaggle teeth, and the ones with no teeth at all, whose lips curled under their gums in the act of collapsing into their mouths. They kissed lips that were too fat, too thin, harelips, overpainted lips, dry lips, cracked lips, lips too dark, lips with blemishes, cruel lips, mocking lips, lips of traitors, lips of heroes, lips of spies. They kissed the men who had other things on their mind, pale men, nail-biting men, tough men, tanned men with lips like muscles, lips of steel, coming from the gym, the boardroom, the trenches, carrying shovels and diplomas, carrying briefcases full of papers, carrying guns, busy men, quiet men, hardworking men, they got kisses too. They kissed the tribal warriors of Africa. They kissed the streetwalkers of Dubuque and Bombay. They kissed the freedom fighters of Asia and South America. They kissed the extremists and the terrorists. They kissed the mercenaries. They kissed the hardened criminals. They kissed the runaways and the refugees. They kissed the Pope. They kissed the Dalai Lama. They kissed the Undersecretary of State while he was delivering a speech. They kissed the Vice President while he was thinking up a plan for war. They kissed the President, who longed to be kissed again.

  They kissed nearly everyone in the world, with nearly every kiss that you could name. The French kiss, the Belgium kiss, the Down Under kiss, the Round the World kiss, the lingering kiss, the sucking kiss, the icy kiss, the burning kiss, the one-lipped kiss, the flicker kiss, the biting kiss, the tender kiss, the closed lip and the parted lip kiss, the sweeping and the dashing kiss, the fey kiss, the honey kiss, the stolen kiss, the cheek-to-cheek, the peaches-and-cream, the silent kiss, the noisy kiss, the Fish, the Liza
rd, the Drops of Blood.

  The world, oddly, did not come to a halt, nor did life grind to a standstill, but things did change. With so much kissing it was hard to carry on as before. A few diehards railed about the past, but most people accepted the new status quo. On the whole, most people adjusted nicely.

  And then one day the visitors departed. Just like that. They were here, and then they weren’t. The reaction was instantaneous: shock—world-wide shock—followed by confusion, panic and despair. Why had they left? Would they be back? Where did they go? Had they found someone else? What had gone wrong? Who was to blame? What would become of the world without kisses?

  So many questions. So much grief, sadness and woe. Would the world survive? Could its citizens provide for themselves what up to then had been provided for them?

  Many did. It was astounding really, once the shock wore off, how quickly people recovered, how resilient the human race turned out to be. North, south, east, west: the citizens of Earth kissed as they never had before. Morning, noon and night, on the road and in the air, by land and by sea, eyes closed, eyes open, arms at the side, arms entwined, fleeting kisses, friendly kisses, sexy kisses, standing, sitting, kneeling kisses, kisses blown through the air, kisses underground, kisses falling, kisses rising, kisses upside-down. Such a show of solidarity, such unity of heart and mind. Survive? Oh yes. The world did more than survive. This was victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. This was a triumph.

  Which was not to say there were no difficulties. The human race did not become what it was without obstacles to overcome. Opinions varied as to the proper way to kiss, the proper frequency, the proper place, the proper time, the proper style. And also the proper state of mind, the proper thoughts and feelings to have when kissing. By and large, these conflicts fell into the realm of friendly disagreements, neighborly disputes, jokes, good-natured teasing, and the exceedingly rare and hardly to be remarked upon ethnic slur.

  Naturally, with time some of these disputes persisted. Some widened. Some grew more intense. Kissing could be done correctly or incorrectly. It was really quite simple. Who in the world would willfully choose to do it wrong?

  Who indeed. It turned out that there were wrongdoers lurking everywhere, across every boundary line, over every fence. Edicts were posted, warning these delinquents to change their habits and their ways, but in return, these rogues, these villains, issued threats of their own. Tempers flared. Conflicts deepened. Kissing became a cause célèbre. Lines were drawn.

  The leaders of the world responded. There was grave concern, but beyond concern, solidarity and resolve. Peacemakers were called in, diplomats, generals, social scientists, professors, pundits and politicians. What could be done to put an end to the unrest? How to stop the discontent? How could these schisms, these charged polarities, these wounds, be mended?

  There was widespread debate and discussion, and the answer, when it finally came, was as obvious as it was profound. Inevitably, it led back to the question of why the visitors had left and how to get them back. The answer to this lay in the discovery of some new information. There was an island near the equator, a large, jungly island, where kissing was both common and highly evolved. The visitors had little to offer the natives of this island, who were cordial but on the whole nonplussed by their arrival. There was no bowing of the head. No bending of the knee. The natives kowtowed to no one when it came to kisses.

  Surely, to beings who could travel to the stars and beyond, such a reception was a breach of etiquette, a slap in the face, a slight, possibly of galactic proportions. Never mind that many in the world had at first been suspicious and resistant to the visitors’ advances. The islanders were worse: they’d been indifferent all along.

  The course was clear. Troops were mobilized, vacationers removed from the island’s idyllic jungles and beaches, fishing boats sent back to port. The island was encircled by a ring of battleships, each flying the colors of the world, and at dawn of what would become known as the Day of Reconciliation, it was destroyed.

  FIDELITY: A PRIMER

  I. Born Torn

  Lydell called me with the news that he was torn. This, of course, was no news at all. Lydell has been torn since birth. This time it had to do with his sons, Max and Ernest. The boys were twins, and still in utero. Lydell couldn’t decide whether to have them circumcised or not.

  He’d done the leg-work. When it came to so deeply personal a matter, he was nothing if not thorough. Uncircumcised men, he had found, did have a slightly higher incidence of infection, but the infections were usually trivial and easily treated. Balanitis, where the foreskin became red and inflamed, was uncommon. Phimosis, where the inflammation led to scarring, trapping the penis in its hood and making erections and intercourse painful (if not impossible), was likewise rare.

  Circumcision, by contrast, was a uniformly traumatic event. What effect this trauma had was debatable, although the preponderance of evidence suggested long-lasting and not entirely beneficial sequelae. After all, such a grisly and disfiguring procedure at so young and tender an age. At any age. Was this absolutely necessary for a man to be a man? Some thought not.

  As to the issue of pleasure, there seemed little question. The greater the amount of intact skin, the greater the concentration of nerves. The greater the concentration of nerves, the better the sensation. And while sensation itself did not guarantee pleasure, there was certainly the chance that it might.

  On the other hand was tradition. Lydell was a Jew. Jews were circumcised. Judith, his wife, thought the boys might think it slightly odd if they were not. But she could see the other side too, most notably the avoidance of unnecessary pain and trauma. If pressed, she would probably have cast her vote with letting the poor things’ tiny penises be, but in the end, she deferred to her husband, who not only had a penis but strong views as to its proper handling and use.

  Lydell consulted a rabbi, who advised him to search his soul. He suggested he remember his parentage and lineage, and if he still had doubts after that, to take a good hard look in the mirror. In addition, he referred him to the Old Testament, First Kings, Chapter 3, which spoke of King Solomon, the great and illustrious Jewish leader, who, when faced with two women, each claiming to be the mother of the same infant, advised them to share the baby by cutting it in two. The false mother agreed, the true one did not, and thus was the question of motherhood decided.

  Lydell pondered the well-known tale. On the face of it, the message seemed clear enough: be clever, be insightful, value life (and love) above possessions. But the lesson seemed difficult to generalize, and Lydell sensed a deeper meaning that was far from transparent. He puzzled it day and night, up until the very hour of the boys’ birth.

  They came out strapping and healthy, with dark, curly hair, brown eyes, and flattened little baby faces. Identical faces, at that. Identical bodies. They were, in fact, identical twins.

  It was a transformative event for Lydell. Both the birth and the fact that they were identical. A light seemed to shine from above (it was a sunny day). Suddenly, the path was clear. Ernest and Max, Max and Ernest: the very sameness of the children held the key to the solution. An individual was a precious thing—perhaps the most precious thing in the world. Just as the true mother would not permit her only child to be split asunder, so Lydell would not allow his two sons to grow up indistinguishable from one another. They were unique, and thus would be uniquely set apart.

  One would be circumcised (this fell to Max). The other (Ernest) would not.

  Judith took issue with this, strong issue, but Lydell would not be moved. He was resolute, and she had little choice but go along. She soothed herself (or tried) with the belief that somehow, somewhere, he knew best. The penis was his territory: she kept telling herself this. It was her mantra during this difficult and trying time. The penis was his.

  II. Poolside, Where A Stone Tossed Years Before Creates A Ripple

  He had a lingering medical problem. She had a difficult marriage. They me
t at the pool where their children were taking swimming lessons.

  Her eyes were large and compassionate.

  His hair was to his shoulders.

  He wore a silver bracelet and held his wrist coquettishly.

  She favored skirts that brushed the floor.

  They sat on a wooden bench with their backs to the wall, watching the children swim. They spoke without turning, like spies. Pointed observations delivered in a glancing, off-handed way.

  She was a devoted mother.

  He was a solicitous father.

  He had a daughter. She, two sons.

  The swimming lessons lasted thirty minutes. To him this was never quite enough. He worked alone and felt the need for contact. He wanted more.

  She was often distracted by her sons, delighted by their antics and their progress. She would clap for them and call out her encouragement.

  He sensed in some small way that she was using them as a buffer, or a baffle, to deflect his interest in her and hers in him, to disrupt their fledgling chemistry.

  They spoke about their jobs. About their children’s schools. About religion. She was Jewish. They spoke about the Holocaust. She decried the lingering hatred. It upset her, even as she understood it. She was interested, in theory, in forgiveness and reconciliation.

  He listened to her closely and attentively, often nodding his agreement. He showed his sympathy and understanding, smelled her hormones, won her trust.

  At the end of the lessons they parted without ceremony, sometimes without so much as a word. She wrapped her sons in towels and escorted them to the dressing room, waiting outside the door until they were done. He did the same for his daughter. Afterwards, there was candy and then the walk to the car. Often the five of them walked together, though they rarely talked. The kids weren’t interested, and the grown-ups had had their time together. Half an hour, session done.