by Jeff Strand
The room that awaits me—my office—is not much bigger than a hummer limo, but square, and in it lies an infinite range of possibilities—books, crayons, pictures, toys, a Polaroid camera, and a computer loaded with mind-sweeper, solitaire, and scrabble—none of which are on my list of things to do. I think about the room—once I finish contemplating the ceiling—and how I don’t want to go in there. Not because it lacks charisma or because it’s messy, but because in it awaits that one necessary and certain possibility, which is my list of things to do today. I need to draft the last chapter of my dissertation: “The Formal Considerations of Popular Sculpture.”
“Mrrrrrow.”
I roll over onto my stomach. I feel a tingle in my groin as my stiffened penis rubs against the sheets. I have to pee. I know I’m not lazy. I’m simply tiring...
“Mrrrrrow…Mrrrrrow.”
My focus shifts entirely to these meows, which aren’t actually meows, but loud, penetrating moans, revealing a not-so-hidden, not-so-deep meaning about the cat’s current state of being, which mimics my rumbling stomach.
“Mrrrrrrrrrrooooooow.”
The moans compel me to roll around a bit, eventually, albeit haphazardly and inadvertently, resulting in my stepping off the bed. I’m vertical.
“Two, four, six, eight, ten…thirty-one.” It can’t be an odd number. Step back, step forward, thirty-two. Thirty-two steps from the bedroom to the workspace. Too quick and too smooth, even with all the pit stops: the bathroom, the kitchen, and then the bathroom again. Soon enough, I’m face to face with that definite and certain possibility lying on my desk, which takes up half of the room and, on the bright side, is both literally and figuratively facing the great outdoors.
It doesn’t take long for me to begin to wonder at the glorious courtyard before me. How amazing is that ivy, strategically attaching itself to my apartment walls, forming a pattern reminiscent of my very face. And look at those massive sunflowers, giant banana-hue lollipops of sweet joy, leaning slightly toward my window, inviting me to come outside and sniff their fragrant petals. Love to, not today.
The sun grows brighter in an instant. Its rays point toward my desk, giving the papers a fluorescent glow. I sit down and turn my thoughts away from the courtyard and onto the overwhelmingly abundant and sloppy pieces of paper on my desk, at my feet, and under my buttocks. I know I’m forgetting something incredibly important.
The Smurf puppet!
The Smurf puppet is missing and I must find it immediately.
The sun’s rays illuminate my entire desk and all the books and all the papers. Even my computer is glowing. In an effort to block the sun, I pull back the floral curtain barely hanging on the window in front of my desk. I will find that puppet! I check behind and overtop the bookshelves, littered with books and torn aesthetics journals, rustling crinkly papers from left to right and onto the floor. I move the shelves outward, crawling behind them. Achou. The dust is killing me. Achou. Achou. Achou. Always in threes. No, it was four.
“Mrrrrrrroooooooow.”
I eagerly push aside some books and papers that have fallen behind the shelves. An ancient art history notebook pops up among them. I cast it onto my desk. Air Guitar by Dave Hickey turns up beneath it. I cast it onto my desk. I come across some missing papers for chapter 1. I cast them onto my desk. I crumple seven old to-do lists and thrust them behind me. And then I push aside mounds of dust-bunnies that lie underneath.
“Mrrrrrrrrroooooooow.”
“Shut up, Kitty!”
I stare down at the empty floor, and then quickly brush the dust off my fingers. I step out from behind the shelves, and sit down on my swivel chair. Defeated, I swivel. I swivel in the other direction. Gawking once again in amazement at the courtyard, concerned about the whereabouts of the puppet, I begin, slowly and strategically, to tug at the tiny hairs on my forearm.
I begin to type. “Alas, the missing papers have been recovered. The implications of this are infinite…”
I’m in a groove. I forget about the puppet for a brief and calming moment. Then without effort comes the realization that the puppet most certainly sleeps inside my very desk, in a drawer, way in the back, amidst all the junk, in a box of fellow treasures recently rescued from my parents’ attic. I impatiently open the drawer and begin to toss out everything that isn’t that Smurf puppet: seven rogue staples, three old business cards, a Polaroid camera, and five instant photos fall to the floor. After what seems like a fruitless, endless, cyclic task of finding, tossing, counting, finding, counting, and tossing, I forget what I’m searching for, as I find myself hysterically spinning the tiny squares on my Rubik’s Cube.
I don’t find the puppet. It doesn’t matter.
Not a moment wasted. With every second, bands of tiny squares are forced in and out of the sockets with the help of my aggressive hands—my fingers growing callous from all the winding, the palm of my hands already irritated from the earlier tugging. I should find some W-D40 and oil that cube.
The sun disappears. There’s nothing to see without the sun’s rays. My office light has been out for three days. I don’t care. I could feel my way through the different colors just by way of them slipping in and out of the sockets. I turn on some calming music: Brad Meldeau’s piano version of Radiohead’s “Exit Music for a Film” overflows from my I-book speakers. The cube is fighting me. I can’t get that second red square where I want it without throwing off either one white, one yellow, or one orange square. Frustrated, I lay my head on my desk and fall asleep. Every single square, save for the red one, exactly where I want it.
The morning sun awakens me. I’ve chewed off three of my ten fingernails in my frustrated sleep. There’s no more music; there is only the sound of some birds playing outside my window. Kitty is staring at me intently from upon the desk. I should get some real quality rest before starting the day.
Mrrrrooooooww.
“Dammit, Kitty.”
In an attempt to swat Kitty from my desk, I inadvertently shove the cube onto the floor. It’s not how I left it. All of the red squares are mixed up in the blue squares and the orange and yellow squares are scattered among them, mingling with white, green, and pale orange ones. Perhaps I dreamt of the near perfect cube? No. I’m certain I dreamt of the bedroom ceiling. Perhaps I shoved the squares out of place in my restless sleep? No. I’m certain I only flicked my fingernails onto the floor. Looking down at the pile of fingernails, defeated, once again, and exhausted, I begin to gnaw on what is left of them.
A feeling of rejuvenated skill, coupled with newfound motivation overcomes my state of exasperation. I reach for the cube, which accompanies me to the bathroom, the kitchen, the bathroom again, and then back to my workspace. The squares, clanking in and out of their slots, are cooperating entirely with my agenda. In only a few short hours, all of the colors are matched up precisely the way they should be. How amazing what has just transpired! My joy ultimately lulls me into a deep, satisfying sleep.
I wake up sixteen hours later.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…thirty two” steps from the bathroom, the kitchen, and then to the bathroom, and back to the kitchen, seven steps from the sink to the fridge, eighteen steps to my office, and then…“What the hell!”
I wipe the guck out of the corners of my eyes, just in case it is obstructing my already faulty vision, and because, upon a single glance over my shoulder and over at my desk, I see the cube is not how I had left it. The perfectly matched colored squares are an ugly mess of mixed up reds, yellows, greens, whites, and blues. I turn toward the bathroom, but then quickly run back to my desk. I sit down on the swivel chair, swivel around three times, no four, and then pick up the cube. I hold it close to my face, feeling my way around the tiny squares and sockets. None of the squares are how I left them. The cube has been tampered with. My entire existence has been blackened with deep-seated anxiety about the state of this Rubik’s cube. This anxiety manifests as a sharp chill causing my body to shive
r from the bottom up. For a long time, I just sit there, peeling away at my cuticles.
My next impulse: check the windows. There are so many windows in here—three in my office, four in the bedroom, a whopping five in the living room, one in the kitchen, and another in the bathroom. All of them are locked. I scan the room for something more. There’s a shoe-sized hatch underneath the floor in my bedroom. Ignoring the fact that it is far too small for anything capable of moving the cube to crawl through, I check the hatch, which has, in fact, been left open overnight. This fact is meaningless, and I know it. Some crazy glue just in case. “Stay on the task.” I check the front door, the front door, and then the front door. “Two, four, six, eight…”
“Mrrrroooooooooooow.”
The phone rings. I’m not answering. What’s happening here is far more important than anything anyone could possibly have to say to me—even my mother, or the chair of my dissertation committee, who I’ve been avoiding for eight, solid months.
“Leo. It’s Mom. Where’ve you been? You missed your sister’s birthday. She’s a little hurt. Call her. Don’t tell her I told you to. And call me when you get this. Hope you’re getting a lot of work done. I know you are. Love ya.”
I feel sane for a moment. Taking advantage of my moment of sanity, I sit down on my swivel chair and pick up the cube. But not before leading Kitty outside to the courtyard.
Hours pass and I cannot get the cube anywhere near completion. I need a break. I need to go to the bathroom. I need some water. When is the last time I’ve eaten? Sunday? What day is today? I don’t have time for that now. I feel optimistic. My futile, unproductive, poor excuse for a day need not color my entire evening.
I’m wrong. I cube straight through the night. My fingers are numb, and they’re already cracked and bleeding from tearing off my fingernails and cuticles. I keep going, cubing and counting and counting and cubing, counting and cubing and cubing and counting. The once stiffly clanking squares have loosened up entirely by morning. The sun shines bright and then disappears once again as night falls.
Two days pass and I have not left the swivel chair. My mouth is dry and bitter, my legs are stiff, and my pants are soaked with urine. None of that matters. The cube is perfecto. I reach for the Polaroid camera lying on the floor underneath my desk. A sharp pain shoots downward from my neck to my lower back. I pick up the camera, take a picture of the cube, and sit it beside the actual cube. Satisfied and exhausted, I try to stand, but I fall to the floor.
A few hours later I’m awakened by several more of those loud, penetrating Kitty moans, this time coming from outside my apartment. I look up at the ceiling. So glad it hasn’t fallen upon me in the night. I inch my way onto the swivel chair. I look toward the courtyard, which invites me once again to come outside and play. The sun is bright, this time illuminating a concordant row of orange squares. I feel a crust around my right nostril where my nose-ring has gone missing. I lick the blood off my forefinger and pull off some of the crust. The crust reveals itself as dried blood. I recall the dream in which there is a snotty crust along the inside of my nose. In an attempt to clear my runny nose I pulled my nose-ring through the hole and caused a bleeding which had become crusty in the night. I must have slept longer than I thought. Neither the blood nor the sleep matters. I have the completed cube and I have a photograph to prove it.
I feel groggy. A little dizzy. Slightly dazed. Gratified. I move my fingers around my nose to pick out the dried blood. Like a pumice stone on torn feet the blood soothes my callous fingers. I create leftward circles of dried blood with my fingertips. I reverse directions. Which way now? I look up at my desk. The picture has been shredded completely. The state of the cube is no longer detectable on the photo paper. I anxiously reach for the cube, my hands shaking with terror. The concordant row of orange squares was an illusory blend of red, orange, and light orange ones. All of the cube’s squares have once again been displaced. I grip the cube tightly with my hands, clenching my right fist around it, the tension penetrating my body from this fist up to my head, which causes a sharp stabbing pain inside my cranium.
The windows are closed; the door locked; the hatch sealed; Kitty is outside. I have no hair left on my forearms, no more fingernails or cuticles, I have peed myself several times in the past few days, and I have a bloody crust surrounding my right nostril. I reach for the cube and begin to pull apart each of its tiny squares. In no time the once-Rubik’s Cube is a meaningless pile of multi-colored rubbish. I begin shoving the squares into my mouth, one by one, sucking on each of them until it is soft enough to chew—the red ones seem to take hours, the orange only minutes. The taste is oddly salty, most likely from my sweaty palms. It is not until I have just about finished chewing the last red square that I realize what happened to the puppet.
I begin to write, safety in the knowledge that both the puppet and the cube, which had once taunted me so, are trapped within the bounds of my belly, mutilated, drenched with partially digested food. They can’t hurt me now.
A Brightly-Colored Box Filled With Stars
Dorian Dawes
There is nothing perhaps more unnerving or unsettling than taking a walk in the rain on a busy sidewalk amongst crowds of other people. Drenched despite their black umbrellas, all huddling together, eager to make the next taxi cab or to at least hurry inside out of the cold, it is the one time I have seen where men forget their outward appearances, and let the human masks we wear drop. In the midst of this great gathering of their peers, they are naked and unconcerned for their nakedness, and the horrors of men’s souls are laid bare.
I looked into the face of a killer one day, I am certain of it. His jaw was tightly clenched and his eyebrows were furrowed together, and there was an agitated nervousness about his movements and his gait that betrayed him from the rest of us who were hurrying out of the rain. I could see his darkness. His guilt was plastered with the raindrops all over his face. Monsters lie in all men, I suppose.
For whatever absurd reason, be it madness or morbid curiosity, I elected to forego my original errands, and chose to pursue him quietly. Keeping track of him was not difficult; in the midst of the somber procession of soggy black umbrellas, his was a brilliant scarlet that stood apart from the others, a red beacon shining out to me, begging for me to follow. He kept making frequent glances behind him, and for a brief while I was certain he had spotted me following, though he never once made eye-contact. I realized it was nothing but a guilty paranoia dogging his footsteps, threatening him with every gesture. When he turned around, I saw genuine fear in his eyes. He was terrified of being pursued. He was terrified of me.
The terror brimming at the corners of his eyes only seemed to fill me with a mad sort of glee, and it made me reckless, too eager to get close to him. A part of me had the sick desire to be spotted by my prey, just so I could see the revelatory panic upon his face when his worst fears were realized. This was power, I thought, intrigue and adventure, to be the one in pursuit instead of being pursued, a primal instinct that lurks within all men, the hunter and the hunted. It is a game that is as old as the human race, a return to our old selves as animals, and I could only defend my inexcusable, childish behavior with my unsupportable suspicion that this man I followed had somewhere done some wrong, and that it was my duty to expose his misdeeds.
My imagination raced to every possible morbid scenario: of a wife who’d overdone the evening meal for the eighth time in a row, and the need for good nourishment had caused him to snap and stab her repeatedly in the chest with a kitchen knife; or perhaps he was a teacher, and one of his pupils had mouthed off for the final time, and so this man had kept his student after class so as to ensure that he’d never interrupt another soul with his incessant gabble ever again, by hiding the remains of his hacked up body parts in the ventilation for some other poor sap to find. It was also possible that all of these things were quite wrong, and that the reality was more grim and gruesome than anything my mind could come up with. I would onl
y learn by following him to his destination, where surely he was headed to cover up the remains of his crime.
My prey led me away from the main streets and into the darkened labyrinths of our city’s back alleys, a swirling, winding infrastructure populated by the sleeping homeless and passed-out drug addicts lying next to abandoned beer bottles and overflowing dumpster-bins. The stench of their filth burned the insides of my nostrils and I knew we were treading into dangerous areas, places of the city where few men dared go for the crime and the corruption, the seething underbelly of the city’s underworld, and the further I chased him the darker it became. He was leading me somewhere, and I knew he could tell there was another following him. He’d long since stopped looking over his shoulder.
After a long while of this constant running and chasing and my heart beating swiftly to the point where it ached inside of my chest, it stopped raining, and he ran into an area where the sun shone into a spot completely unlike the rest of the dark areas in the alleyways behind the derelict buildings. Here there was not only sun but grass and flowers, and little blue-birds nesting inside a well-trimmed tree, and at the end of this well-kept little yard and its pristine-white fence was a small two-story home with white shutters and a door painted red.
I am certain he knew of my presence, and yet still I kept myself hidden in the darkness as he approached the door, closed his umbrella neatly beneath his arm, and knocked three times upon the hard wood. It opened to him almost immediately, as if he’d been expected. He reached into the folds of his jacket and produced a large lollipop, the kind with a rainbow spiral that goes towards a white center and a red ribbon tied around the stick. I watched in morbid fascination as a withered hand, shriveled and claw-like reached from the darkness beyond the door and plucked it from his hands. It then crooked a finger at the man, who followed it into the strange and cheerful home. The door closed behind him all of its own accord, and a sense of dread began to build within me.
