by John Gould
Poe, Tell-Tale Heart. Unreliable narrator?
Creates an alternate persona to get famous first. Or could he get famous being himself, a man whose only ambition is not to say anything?
What about when he’s asleep? The sudden silence of his heart not beating will wake him up.
Yes, the same way he used to wake up when his husband rolled over and stopped snoring.
So he had a husband. What happened to him? Left him for another man? For a woman? How not to specify which? Let the loss
The final moment, the one true moment, the moment that can’t be revised. How to say this.
Come up with a new way of sounding out a heartbeat. Th-thump has been done to death. Use that line.
A lot of samurai cheated, wrote the death poem ahead of time. How will he resist this temptation?
Hearing his heartbeat changes him. At first drives him crazy, then something else.
Every novelist wants to write the last novel, the one that makes all other novels unnecessary, impossible. He wants to do this with Twitter.
Ryan?
An identity begins to form around the phony tweets. Is this his real self? When his heart stops beating, who will die?
Or characters, plural. What if he creates 140 characters through tweets of 140 characters? Self-reference. Find that book, the white one.
Jacob. Or is he Japanese?
How hard it is to keep saying nothing, even if you think nothing is the thing to say.
Darjeeling
Thank you all for being here today. As most of you know I’m Sara, Gail’s daughter. My brother and I have so appreciated your condolences, and the memories of Mum you’ve shared with us, and we’re honoured that you’ve joined us for this celebration of life.
But celebration of whose life, is my question. The woman who died on Monday wasn’t the real Gail White. A lot of folks have been saying that. A lot of you folks, actually. The real Gail White was a smart, breezy woman, “a social butterfly with this crazy-smart brain,” like her old friend Mrs. Hecht put it — hi Mrs. Hecht! — whereas the Gail White who died on Monday was, let’s face it, I’m sorry but kind of dim. She kept moseying around in her old-womany sort of way, and she kept on talking, but she didn’t have much to say, did she? Let’s be honest. And she almost never knew who she was talking to. Just before she died she called out to me, “Not that one, the burgundy one!” referring to who knows what, whereas shouldn’t she have been saying how much she loved me, how proud she was of me and my life? You’ve all been feeling bereft too, of course. You mourn the old Gail White, the real one. One of Mum’s caregivers — okay, it was Marie — put a hand on my arm the other day while somebody was changing Mum’s diaper and said, “Don’t worry, this isn’t your mother.” She meant it kindly, but what about the woman having her bottom wiped? Who was that if not my mum? And where was my mum if she wasn’t there having her bottom wiped? Of course I’d have been happy to hear how much my mother adored me, but if she wanted the burgundy one wasn’t that her business?
I told Marie to go to hell, and that’s kind of what I’d like to say to you folks too. Even you, Mrs. Hecht, though I know you and Mum go way back, to grade three is it? But do you really get to decide which was the real Gail White? Isn’t that cruel? I should know, because Mum did it to me for years, for decades. I wouldn’t be saying this except it’s true. Mum got hold of one me, the me of about twelve years old, just before I got all sullen and spotty and started letting Davey Fry from youth group feel me up, sorry, and from then on she made sure I knew how disappointed she was in every new version of me. She kept it up till just after her second stroke, which you probably think of as when she started bursting out in song all the time, mostly sea shanties she’d learned as a young woman from her first serious boyfriend, Willie something-or-other, which was awkward since Dad had only been dead a month or so when she started singing, but to me the big thing was that she couldn’t hang onto a real me anymore. She had no choice but to love the me standing in front of her. The actual me as opposed to the real me, if that makes any sense.
I know I’m going to regret saying all this, but so what? The me who regrets it won’t be the real me, and neither is this one. How can I be the real me if I’m motherless? Motherless. Motherless. How can you be the same person you were when you had a sister or an aunt or a friend or whatever you lost when you lost Mum? What if you’re in a coma right now, dreaming all this while Mum’s alive and having afternoon tea, Darjeeling with a splash of homo? Or what if she’s dead and you’re here acting peculiar and don’t know it? For instance, I got drunk on Mum’s vermouth last night and fooled around on her couch with my high school boyfriend, who for some bizarre reason still lives in the old neighbourhood — hey Jason! — but was that the real me? Who exactly was Jason groping?
Sorry. I’m really sorry … What? Oh yeah, my brother and I hope you’ll join us for refreshments and chat in the reception room, right through those doors. Those doors right there, just go through them.
The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying
I’m like, I bought the dress. The green one? Remember I said it was that or the black? You’re gonna like it. You’re gonna love it.
He’s like, Oh.
I’m like, Hailey booked the limo. It’s her and Ty and me and you. We’ll do some shots here first. Mum and Dad have swing dance, ell-oh-ell.
He’s like, Our life is but a vapour.
I’m like, What?
He’s like, Thou cannot have a word that can signify a verier nothing.
I’m like, Not this shit again. Seriously, Brett, don’t start.
He’s like, He that would die well must always look for death, every day knocking at the gates of the grave.
I’m like, Do not, repeat, do not do this to me. The prom is in three days. I swear to God —
He’s like, I have read of a young Eremite who —
I’m like, You must be kidding me.
He’s like, I have read of a young Eremite who —
I’m like, What’s a fricking Eremite? Do you even know?
He’s like, Who, being passionately in love with a young lady, could not by all the arts of religion and mortification suppress the trouble of that fancy, till at last being told that she was dead, and had been buried about fourteen days —
I’m like, You’re making me sick, Brett. Honestly, I’m gonna hurl.
He’s like, He went secretly to her vault, and with the skirt of his mantle wiped the moisture from the carcass, and still at the return of his temptation laid it before him, saying, Behold, this is the beauty of the woman thou didst so much desire: and so the man found his cure.
I’m like, Is this you being deep and mysterious, Brett? Is that what this is? Because it’s been done.
He’s like, By who? By Cole? Is Cole deep and mysterious?
I’m like, I’m gonna go kill myself now, Brett. My mum has pills. Bye.
He’s like, A man goes off and is forgotten like the dream of a distracted person.
I’m like, I saved myself for you, you know that? For Friday night. It was gonna be a surprise. Me and Hailey got a motel room. We were gonna take turns, them and then us. We flipped for it.
He’s like, What about Cole?
I’m like, That was one blowie, Brett. One little blowie when I was wasted in the back of his mother’s stupid Acura. Which isn’t the same, and which you wouldn’t even know about if he wasn’t such a Facebook slut.
He’s like, Cole said two. Two blowies, and he had his finger inside you.
I’m like, And what have you had inside Shannon, hmm?
He’s like, I have seen a Rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fair as the Morning —
I’m like, I swear to God, Brett. I want to be with you. I’m saying … do you hear what I’m saying?
He’s like, I’m trying.
I’m like, It’s green. And silky. Feel it in your head.
He’s like, Certain it is that a
mourning spirit and an afflicted body are great instruments of reconciling God to a sinner.
I’m like, Are you going to start up with this crap on Friday night?
He’s like, I don’t think so.
I’m like, Because I can change my mind.
He’s like, He that would die holily and happily must in this world love tears, humility, solitude and repentance.
I’m like, Half past seven. Gardenias, hint hint.
The Works
A buzzer sounds in the brimstone works, a brief, nerve-shredding racket, the kind of abject bleating sound a fire alarm might make if it were genuinely terrified of the flames. An infinite number of men down picks and shovels, make their way up the various tunnels towards the cafeteria and the vast phalanx of vending machines.
“Jeezuz aitch keeryst,” mutters Franklin as he joins his buddies at their regular table. He grips a Styrofoam cup in one knobby pincer of a hand, a Twinkie in the other. His flesh smokes and sizzles as it cools in the stale air. “I thought that goddamn morning would never … Hey, that’s my chair. That one there, the one you’re sitting in. How ’bout you get the fuck outta my chair?”
“What do you mean, your chair,” says Stretch DeVries. “It’s a chair, is what it is. One’s the same as another.” Stretch’s nickname is well earned. Where other men shrivel in the heat of the works, bits of dung or dried fruit, Stretch elongates like pulled taffy. He’s all limb, his torso a knot at the hub of his pipe cleaner physique. He squats on the chair in question like a spider on a dying bug, gazing querulously at the floor.
Franklin takes a deep breath, scowling for the billionth time at the scent of burnt flesh in his nostrils. He swivels his charred skull in the direction of one of the other men. “Al,” he says, “Al, I don’t think chairs are all the same. I really don’t. What’s your view?”
“Franky,” says Al, placing the grey ember of a fingertip ruminatively on his chin, “I believe every chair’s different, in this whole godforsaken world.” He glances about in search of testimony, squinting against the bright sulfurous light. “Look, some have arms on ’em, some don’t. That one has a gouge out of it just here, this other one —”
“So how ’bout it, Stretch?” says Franklin. “How ’bout you shift your ass outta there before this thing melts on me?” He dangles his Twinkie aloft so everyone can witness the moist chocolate pooling in pockets of the cellophane bag. The cellophane itself softens and elongates between his smouldering fingers.
Stretch sighs and grimaces, unfolds his legs and heaves himself onto another chair. Franklin slaps himself down.
There’s a crackling in the air and a voice booms from the vast chasm above the men’s heads. “Attention please. There will be a meeting of Local 196 in the upper lounge at eight o’clock tonight. This week’s Wednesday night film will be screened on Thursday night instead. Thank you.” The sound system cuts out with a deafening pop.
“Figure we’ll strike, Franky?” says Al.
“Fuckin’ right we’ll strike,” says Franklin. “And watch this place go to hell without us. I’ve forgotten more about brimstone than those bozos will ever —”
“They’ll legislate us back,” says Stretch, butting out his cigarette on the back of his hand.
“Nobody legislates me back to nothin’,” says Franklin. He glares about at the other men at the table, inviting them to have a go at legislating him here and now.
“Medical and dental,” says one of them.
“Buck an hour raise,” says another.
“Goddamn rights,” says Al. “Time-and-a-half for anything over twenty-four hours a day, or they can — Ah, shit.” He whacks irritably at his head, which has burst into fresh flame.
Stretch raises his arms, coils them about himself in despair. “Time, time-and-a-half,” he says, “what’s the fucking difference? Don’t you get it? We’re here forever.”
The other men stare at him blankly, so many chunks of charred furniture in a burned-out building.
“Well, fuck you then,” Franklin finally offers, gnawing on his Twinkie. “Just f —”
Franklin’s voice is obliterated by the back-to-work buzzer. He checks his watch, shakes his head. “I hate this goddamn job,” he says. He’s said it a billion times before, a billion billion, a billion billion billion, but for some reason he actually hears himself say it this time. “Huh,” he adds.
Which is when Jesus appears, stumbling up out of one of the tunnels with a dismayed, nobody-tells-me-nothin’ look on his face.
Everybody stares at him.
Jesus says, “Blessed is the one who came into being before he came into being.”
“What the fuck are you on about now?” says Al.
Jesus says, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.”
“Jeezuz aitch,” says Franklin. He pushes himself to his feet, starts back down into the earth. Jesus turns and follows him.
Skeletal
She wasn’t even going to do death, my daughter, or okay, stepdaughter. She was going to do insomnia. Natalie’s never been much of a sleeper, but it was worse than usual last week with her science project due and her having no plan. Her dad had the bright idea of using that — Tony was an actor when we first met (Nat was six at the time), and that’s what actors do, use their own experiences to get into a part. Tony once played a guy whose wife switched gender and left him, and every night before he went on he’d remember his best friend moving away to Europe when he was a kid, how that felt. He was pretty good. It makes me sad, all the things he and I used to do and now don’t.
Anyhow, Nat was losing sleep over her project, so Tony said, “Why don’t you do not sleeping?” Nat loved the idea. She pulled out her phone and looked up “what happens when you can’t get to sleep,” or at least that’s what she intended to look up, but she only got as far as “what happens when …” when the search engine filled in “you die.” What happens when you die — it’s a hard question not to want to see the answer to, especially when your favourite aunt is sick, which hers was, and still is, Tony’s sister. And hopefully not but maybe dying. So that’s what she touched on the screen.
Tony and I figured she’d be researching heaven and whatnot, so we started being open on that subject. Tony grew up Anglican, but a while ago he went Wiccan, mostly to be close to his sister. He explained to Nat that they believe in something called the Summerland, a meadowy sort of place you go to when you die. You hang out there for a while with people you’ve loved who’re also dead, and then you’re reborn.
“What were you last time?” said Nat.
“A lion tamer,” said Tony. “No, I have no idea. You usually can’t remember.”
“Then how do you …?”
Tony did his life’s-a-mystery shrug. Nat came back with her eye-roll, which even if you’ve seen it before makes you think she’s having a seizure.
“Have I ever told you about my Great-Uncle Alex?” I said. I explained that I couldn’t say anything for sure about the afterlife, but that I once had a whole conversation with my Great-Uncle Alex about his business trips to the Middle East, even though he’d been dead three months. I was on mescaline that night, and I explained this to Nat — Tony and I have decided to keep going with the honesty thing even if, at times, it seems like a really awful idea.
“Mescaline?”
“A drug. Kind of like acid. Which I did too, I’m afraid, back when I was a singer.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“I loved it.”
Tony said, “We should go to the Middle East sometime. Israel, Palestine. The three of us. Maybe once you’ve studied it in school.”
“We’ve studied it,” said Nat. “But is that actually what you’d talk about if you were dead? The stupid places you went to when you were alive?”
I tried to think back. “He talked a lot about camels,” I said. “And the wind, this hot wind, how it was like the planet was gasping for air. Or I might be making that part up.”
As it turns out, Nat’s project wasn’t about this kind of stuff anyhow. Her project was about maggots. Microbes and maggots. What she wanted to know was what consumes us, and what happens to us as we’re consumed. For her presentation she made five life-sized cutouts of herself, having me trace her on a big role of brown paper. I didn’t angle the marker in to make her look less chubby — the honesty thing again. Then she got out her water colours and painted what she’d look like at each of the five stages of decomposition.
She sang to herself the whole time she was painting, some obnoxious new song, do me n-n-n-n-now. I sang along, even threw in a bit of harmony, but Tony was bugged as usual by the lewd lyrics from his little girl so he kept interrupting to ask about the stages. Fresh, for instance, the very first. Nat just looked like herself at this stage, or her own goofy rendering of herself, but she explained to us that her blood was pooling, her muscles were stiffening, and her body was beginning to digest itself. Autolysis — she hand-wrote a glossary on a separate sheet of construction paper. And then Bloat, for which she had to do shading to show her belly ballooning out from the gas given off by the microbes going crazy in there, which also forced purple (in Nat’s version) liquid out from here and there. And then Active Decay, when the maggots really got going. Nat isn’t much of an artist, fortunately, but that one was still disgusting.
“Maggots are just baby flies,” said Nat. “And babies are cute.” Tony’s face was doing that funny-ugly thing where he might cry, so I got into it with Natalie about the maggots. It’s a resolution of mine, to make myself see them the way she does.
Nat got an A+ on her project, but also a note that said we should come in for a sit-down with Mr. Okamura to discuss certain “issues” regarding her attitude. All five Nats are up on her bedroom wall now, taped over her other posters, which are of angry-looking women with tattoos and great tits and tight abs. Another issue awaiting us, I suppose. Below each Nat is the name of the stage she’s on.