Flight of Ideas

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  The crackling of paper

  In his head.

  The taste of bile

  In his head.

  The crack of a bat.

  But he can’t hear any of it, not yet. No music, though the musicians play instruments. No shouts, though the crowd on either side of the street is shouting.

  Then, finally, Frank hears a single, sustained note from far away, getting closer. What instrument is that? he wonders. Sounds like a trumpet playing solo, just holding one note until the rest join in and then

  The empty space you leave behind

  Follows us,

  A chalk outline shivering in the back seat,

  At the table

  In bed,

  In our heads,

  In the way,

  Never gone

  Until finally we just want you

  Gone,

  We just want you

  Dead.

  It turns out

  We didn’t lose you

  After all.

  On another planet, Karen screams his name, good old reliable Karen who even now can’t stop herself from trying to save his life. He recognizes the name as his, though what he hears is, “Baaaaaggg!”

  Then, the trumpet’s note is close enough to touch, and Frank’s world tilts and fills with light. It is only then, in the bright white flare, that he realizes he knows Queen Morgan from somewhere other than the Berkeley Springs Tomato Festival of 1941.

  *****

  SHAVE

  The giant silver wedge roars closer, slicing down forests of follicles, herds of mites stampeding before its gleaming sharpness.

  I shiver in the giant blade's shadow as it sweeps toward me, razing the world in a cloud of white foam, a blizzard of skin flakes.

  Only now, too late, do I know the stories from the south are true, tales of a clearcutting blade like an apocalyptic angel's wing.

  Help us! cry my subjects. Please save us! Can I, their cowlick king, do nothing to stop this destruction? Can I even save myself?

  Follicle brothers and sisters fall before me, slashed down screaming as the blade plows closer, pushing a blistering wind ahead of it.

  I strain and flex and suddenly break free! Roots snap and tear as I leap from my pore. The blade nears, and I stumble in its path.

  Cilia sprout from my bottom and I find my footing. Rooted follicles around me wail as I skitter past, away from the onrushing blade.

  Suddenly, I slip and fall. The silver wedge roars toward me, a juggernaut blotting out the sky...and then it lifts and swoops away.

  I'm left staring at a pink wasteland stripped bald, gleaming and still. So this is what the world looks like without forests of hair.

  Am I the last surviving follicle? I see no others in any direction, so I set out across the empty scalpscape, seeking more of my kind.

  I cross the Straits of the Fontanelles and scale Mount Occipital. Gazing down, I see the country below is as barren as that behind me.

  I circle the world to the peaks of The Temples, and here I find hope. Far below, I glimpse terraces of pale follicles. I am not alone!

  My climb down the slope of the headland takes forever. I clamber from furrow to ridge, cilia scrambling on the oily surface.

  I finally reach the terrace, heavy with fatigue, but my spirit's light. A forest of sandy brown follicles sways around me, my cousins.

  Relieved, I nestle between the downy roots and sleep under the woven canopy overhead. The fronds murmur the name of this place: Brow.

  Maybe this is the reason for the horror. I'm the first of my kind to break free. If not for the crisis, it might never have happened.

  Maybe this is my destiny: starting over in a new land. Sometimes, I did feel restless in my old kingdom. Now new dreams fill my sleep.

  But my rest doesn't last. At first, I think the screaming is in a dream I'm having. Then I wake to see monstrous pincers descending.

  The gleaming silver pincers plunge through the canopy of fronds. I scramble away as they crash down around the root I was leaning on.

  Clamping around the root, the pincers winch it upward, pulling the skin of the world with it. I tumble down the steepening bank.

  With a wrenching roar, the pincers pluck out the follicle, leaving a vast crater. The giant silver jaws carry off the uprooted frond.

  I scurry out of Brow, away from the pincers, and slide down a huge slope and up over a dome. Fellow follicles lash up and catch me.

  The lashes carry me with them, tangled in their curling weave. I'm dizzy as they flick up, down, up, down, gliding like angels' wings.

  Shaken free by the moving lashes, I tumble away from them, splashing down into gelid whiteness. I cling to the sticky quivering film.

  As soon as I land, liquid runs over the white film, pooling around me. When I squirm, it pours faster, rushing over me, a flash flood.

  Suddenly, a mammoth pink object looms, blocking out all light. It presses toward me, its surface a maze of intricate, swirling ridges.

  The pink object descends, and I can't get away. I scream as it catches me between its ridges and drags me away from the white film.

  I ride through space, stuck to the pink ridges, and stop before enormous red gates. They part, and a torrent of wind issues forth.

  The wind blasts me loose and sends me spinning through the air, sailing free of all connections to the life and world I once knew.

  As I drift, I realize I took my kingdom of hair for granted. I wish I could have it back or have another kingdom. Another chance.

  My prayers are answered. I shiver with joy as I flutter into a brown jungle, so thick the air around it is filled with orbiting fluff.

  I touch down in the densest forest I've ever known. Mites hop past, chirping gaily. Lice sing as they spring from strand to strand.

  A flea gallops by, and I leap up and ride him bareback, surveying the new kingdom. Was I meant to rule this wild, furry heaven?

  The native follicles whisper and wave as I pass. Who is this rootless wonder come down from the sky above? They bow to my greatness.

  King Cowlick walks among you! I tell the awed strands. I will lead you into a new era! I will teach you to free yourselves as I have!

  The follicles rustle and cheer as I promise mobility and adventure. We will start a movement of free range hair that sweeps the world!

  I have found my furry new kingdom, my new start. The vast jungle of follicles roars as one, proclaiming me king for now and always.

  Just as my reign begins, the world suddenly lurches. I'm thrown from my flea steed as New Cowlickland pitches violently on its side.

  What's happening? Follicles catch and wrap themselves around me. You are in terrible danger, King Cowlick! It's the Purge!

  Something pink crashes through the jungle nearby. Not dry, ridged, and rigid, but supple and wet, flexing and curling like rubber.

  Another nightmare from above! Screaming strands call it Tung, come to purge the weak and damaged, tearing away more with each pass.

  My subjects howl as Tung scoops me out of their grasp. It hauls me from my kingdom and reels me into an enormous, jagged maw.

  What comes next? A journey in pitch darkness through slime-covered tunnels, squeezed downward, ever downward by rippling fleshy walls.

  I spend ages floating in a dark sea of bubbling acid, waiting to die. But instead of dying, I cling to other follicles in the sea.

  The other strands and I mesh, forming a raft. We hold tight in the foul darkness, longing for rescue from the worst hair day ever.

  One day, we do escape. The sea quakes and churns, then heaves us up the slimy tunnels and out the jagged maw, soaring to freedom.

  Our life raft lands on a cushiony white world awash with morning light. A voice booms Ew! The cat left a gift on your pillow again!

  But the gift is mine. Ahead of me, I see a familiar scalpscape, only the once-barren country is studded with dark stubble now.

  Weeping and laughing, I pry myself free from the hairba
ll and run toward the new growth, the second chance, my beautiful home.

  *****

  Milo's Face

  Someone once told Milo Rubberneck that if he kept making faces, his face would freeze like that…and it did. Milo went through life with his features twisted in a bizarre expression: eyes squinting, nose scrunched like a pig’s snout, lips peeled back from his teeth, tongue sticking out. It was the very same expression he’d used to tease his little brother, only now it wasn’t so funny. Not to Milo, anyway.

  Some folks thought his face looked scary, others thought he looked hilarious, others pathetic. No one, but no one, thought for a second he looked cool. Needless to say, Milo couldn’t hold a job or get a girlfriend or even go to the grocery store in peace. He could barely stand to look at himself in a mirror, for that matter.

  And things went from bad to worse. Once, when he cussed somebody out, his voice froze that way, so the only thing he could say from then on was the same stream of cuss words. This, on top of his crazy expression, helped keep everyone steering well clear of him.

  Then, when he let out a huge blow of gas one day, his digestive system froze like that. From that day forward, Milo constantly emitted a cloud of noxious fumes. When anyone came within ten feet of him, they didn’t stay there for long. Whenever he got into a swimming pool, the water bubbled so much around him, it looked and sounded like it had come to a boil…though it smelled oh so much worse than plain old boiling water.

  Milo really bottomed out when he made obscene gestures with his fingers, and they stuck that way. Never again would he be able to bend his middle fingers. Never again would he be able to walk or drive past anyone without totally torqueing them off and taking some kind of pounding, be it verbal or physical. Combined with the crazy expression, the constant cussing, and the neverending stream of gas, he was begging for continual beatings, and he got them. And no matter how hard he tried to cover his face and hands and stopper every cuss and gas releasing orifice, he could never keep himself under cover for long.

  So this was how Milo lived out his brief and violent life, though in truth he had the soul of a poet. His brilliant mind, locked away in that out of control shell of a body, spun the most elegant and tragic soliloquies you can imagine. He always imagined that perhaps, if he managed to write or speak them aloud, his voice would freeze that way. His cusses and obscene gestures would refreeze into eloquent beauty, his awkwardness would freeze into grace.

  But it never happened. The poems never made it past the obscenity. The passionate intensity never made it past the farts. Though one day, the bar finally dropped so low in the world around him that his foul-mouthed grotesquerie became like unto the finest verse. Which is how Milo Rubberheart came to outshine every great literary giant since humanity first laid words together in lines. That is why, today, we pay such tribute to this remarkable man of letters.

  *****

  I Wake After Seventy Years Instead Of Seven

  Thanks to a terrible mixup.

  I fell through the cracks, according to the man in the white hood and smoked visor

  Who's very sorry and making-it-up-to-me-saying, and I squeeze his gloved hand

  Reassuringly just as soon as I defrost enough.

  The same way a dog doesn't mind being leashed to a new master as long as there's food,

  I don't mind a bit.

  Welcome to Up, as in nowhere-to-go-but,

  As in leaving it all behind me

  Whatever "It" was.

  Dear Diary, can you tell me what I did seventy years ago

  That made me want to sleep it off for seven years?

  I can't remember

  But it must have been something.

  I guess that's the problem with seventy years of slowly melting brain in a ziplock bag

  "Pseudocide's" better than killing yourself but it still comes with freezer burn.

  Why they throw me a parade is a mystery to me.

  Blue and gold banners rippling in the wind obscure their faces,

  and when the wind changes direction

  I see plasticene false faces gleaming in the sun, masks on everyone

  On the marching band stomping down the street

  On the firemen the Red Hat women the American Legion,

  Lone Ranger domino masks on Shriners and Cub Scouts,

  Full-face wrestling hoods embroidered and bespangled,

  Some poor sons of bitches just with paper bags over their heads.

  All the sex I can eat

  All the steak I can screw,

  Does it get any better than this?

  Flattery and strong bowel movements all day long, fine wines and front row tickets to the game.

  My naked face pink as pork chops on the Jumbotron, blue eyes flashing like beer can pull tabs.

  I alone without a mask among the cheering multitudes.

  How do I know it was seventy years?

  It could have been seven hundred or seven thousand.

  Or was this how things were before my pseudocide sleepathon? I can't remember.

  Did we always have a Wet Hour at 14 o'clock? What about the retractable 11th and 12th fingers?

  I don't have them, but maybe I'm just a freak of nature.

  I wish I could go back and see for sure. The black lakes, the dragonflies big as my head,

  The endless whistling wind and darkness, the only light from bulbs and lamps

  And the spontaneous spot-fires popping up on people's bodies.

  They try to tell me I was a celebrity of some kind, my face on magazines and bottles of ketchup

  Both of which they show me, but I'm not convinced. Sometimes, I could swear I hear them

  Snickering behind their masks, but maybe it's just me.

  Is it the world that's gone strange, or have I?

  Children in ski masks recite random numbers at my window.

  I think it's a language or a code, I wish I understood.

  Something in their voices makes me think of colors other than black,

  Touches other than cold, animals other than insects.

  A pulsating golden light in the sky, shedding warmth and faint pressure

  As of paint tightening on canvas, blood drying on skin,

  Moss clinging like memories to the surface of a stone, abiding always deep in thought

  But never speaking, only in dreams and then only in silence,

  Parting in the shapes of letters that spell my name, a name I forget upon waking

  But which I know is not the name they call me here.

  Is this better or worse than the life I knew before?

  No one can answer this question, not even my freezer-burned brain.

  I can only hope that whatever drove me here is long gone, blown away like ribbons by the wind

  And not the heart of all I survey,

  The relentless god of this dark world that swells around me

  Staring me in the face from the moment I awoke,

  Exhaling his breath into my lungs,

  His world a secret joke the way all worlds are secret jokes,

  Painted over treasure maps in the grain of wood

  The whorls of fingerprints

  The songs of birds

  The shapes of snowflakes

  The stars in the sky.

  *****

  The Day After They Rounded Up Everyone Who Could Love Unconditionally

  I drink orange juice straight from the carton. Like heat spreading out from a swallow of wine, the memories of what happened yesterday flow through me. So many surprises.

  Like the fact that so few people were taken. Not much disruption at all.

  A lot less painful than expected, like getting a shot from the doctor. So much anticipation, so little payoff.

  And the ease of it all. Slow and graceful and gentle. Excuse me, sir, would you come with us please? Sheepish looks and shrugs, not surprised at all to be found out but maybe they’d been hoping to stay under the radar. May I just grab my purse and j
acket? No, you won’t be needing them, ma’am.

  Have a white carnation, ma’am.

  Awkward waves to the rest of the office. Meaningful glances among the spared ones. We’ll talk about her later over coffee. Who gets her stapler?

  That was the most surprising thing about yesterday. No one really acted surprised…not that so-and-so was taken, or such-and-such was spared. Not that it took three or four guardsmen in such a high state of alert to lead out the package at gunpoint.