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by Marcus, Ben

  AIR DIES ELSEWHERE

  When air kills itself in remote regions, the debris settles here on the grass, sharpening the points. Men of the house may not walk on these areas, nor may they ever observe the grass without pain in the chest and belly. They exist as figures which are doubled over, in static repose against the house territory. When children sleep on these points of lawn, the funeral of air passes just above their heads in a crosswind with the body. Funerals generally are staged in pollinated wind frames, so that the air can shoot to the east off of the children’s breath, dying elsewhere along the way, allowing fresh, living air to swoop in on the blast-back to attack the house. This funeral-chasing ability of children explains why they are allowed outside during the daytime and back in again the next day. The Mother cleans the child’s mouth with her finger and is said to act as a transom for the warring agencies of wind. This is why she is placed in the window, wires bobbing from each hand, bowing forward against the glass.

  Other forms of sleeping also calm the sky. Wealthy landowners hire professional sleepers to practice their fits on key areas of the grounds. The best sleepers stuff their pockets with grass and sleep standing up. Many amateur sleepers never wake up, or never fall asleep. If a professional wakes and discovers a protector still sleeping, or unable to sleep and making an attempt of it—in the shed, for example, downwind of the house—he is permitted to practice smashes upon this body. Freelancers take their dream seizures near the door, and storms are said to be held in abeyance. They are paid according to success. Much booty has been disbursed, but no one has ever succeeded in sleeping so deeply that the house is not smashed upon waking.

  If men or parts of men in the house regions are ever studied, it will be their feet or their forelegs—whichever object is comprised of a knuckle buried under taut, dry, hairless skin. The primary bulletin of these times ensues between grass and the paw. When we kill men, we kill them because we are sad. sadness develops in and outside of the house, either just after entering or just after leaving. These are also the times of war, when we encounter men losing or gaining the house and we have the opportunity to act upon them. The feet of men, through a tradition established outside of the Schedule of Emotions, are soaked in Corey, a chemical produced in grass after air has mixed the shape of the house. Experts believe that our bodies grow heavier after being noticed, lighter when touched, and remain the same when left alone. This is further true of the wires that generate sadness through the chimney and other open areas.

  RULE OF EXIT

  When the sun’s wires are measured, we discover the coordinates for a place or places that shall hereafter be known as perfect or final or miraculous. The house shall be built here using soft blocks of wood and certain solidified emotions, such as tungsten. By nightfall, the bird counter will collapse, and a new or beginning man must be placed at the road to resume the tally while the construction continues. His harness will be a great cloth fixture bound unto his head, to protect his mouth from the destroying conflicts, lest strong birds sweep in on the wires to knock back the homes. Every house prayer shall for all time ever read thusly:

  Please let the wires not have been crooked or falsely dangling or stretched by the demon sun, let our measurements be exact and true, and bless our perfect place with abundant grasses. Cover us in shade so that we are hidden in your color. Hide us from birds and wires and the wind that sends them. Let smoke conceal us during the storm life, and give us strong walls. Let not any stray wind break us down and we will honor you. Bless us and a great shelter will be made for you in the new season. Help us thrive. We lie low here in the place that you have given us. Please remember that you have killed us and you can kill us and we wait and long in our deepest hearts to be killed only by you. Let this be our last and final house. Amen.

  EXPORTING THE INNER MAN

  Coughing, in humans, device for transporting people or goods from one level to another. The term is applied to the enclosed structures of the throat as well as the open platforms used to provide vertical transportation within cars and while lying in bed; it is also applied to devices consisting of a continuous belt or chain with attached buckets for handling bulk material. Simple throat hoists were used from ancient times, often retrieving people whose whereabouts had long been unknown. This retrieval can be halted or staggered if any of the human air ports are obstructed, causing limbs of the body to inflate or swell during coughing. This is called expanded house, and, in effect, increases the area a person has available to himself to hide in. For effective retrieval, the coughing must be focused on a specific limb and requires an exact, crouching posture of the cougher. Otherwise, the hiding person will vanish inside the boggy limb from one secret place to another, skillfully avoiding the suction of the cough and remaining undetected.

  VIEWS FROM THE FIRST

  HOUSE

  It is understood in terms of the phenomenon of combustion as seen in wood and brick; it is one of the basic tools in human culture. In ancient America and earlier, it was considered one of the four basic objects, a substance from which all things were composed. Its great importance to humans, the mystery of its powers, and its seeming largeness have made the house divine or sacred to many peoples. As a god, it is a characteristic feature of Messonism, in which, as with many house-worshiping religions, houses are considered the earthly model or emblem of the HEAVEN shelter, the essential difference being that occupants of a house are instructed always to LOOK IN (strup), to examine the contents within a house (Chakay) and derive instructions and strategies from these, whereas with the heaven container it is only possible to LOOK OUT; the area is one-way constructed with cloud shims and cannot be seen into. Occupants, if any, must train their attention outward (bog); they must never be seen watching themselves or looking at any other objects within the house (heen viewing, forbidden, punished by expulsion to lower house). The belief that houses are sacred is universal in science, and such beliefs have survived in some highly hidden cultures, including those that destroy houses for food and fuel, as well as nomadic cultures whose members derive spontaneous houses from water, cloth, and salt.

  The most carefully preserved shelter cult in America was that of Perkins, the first god of territory. His disciples forbade sleeping near, in, or on their houses because it was believed that the sleeper was the first to be attacked by the fiend. The fiend sailed off the south shadow of his own shelter, tacking in the wind bowl at the back door, while the slipstream that poured from his roof broke open the houses of Perkins and sealed any sleepers in a fossil of hot wind and crumbs. These became the crumbs of the fiend; the ones that were not eaten were used to rudder the house that the fiend rode. An implicit goal of the Perkins group was to douse this necklaced chain of fossilized sleepers with salt as it keeled behind the house, in the hope that the sleepers might bloat into anchors and cancel the advance of the fiend.

  A further American truth is that of John, a house / garment correlationist who developed the first shirt shelters and land scarves that were sufficiently large enough to supply a family with shelter while still outfitting them in rashproof garments that did not crush under. It was John’s theory that a family member should exist within the confines of a garment hovel; naked collisions were notable in this interior, and sleeve rooms were often damp and difficult to traverse, but tailoring of such a shelter was achieved easily by zipping cloth onto a room or snapping hoods onto windows or dog doors. John claimed that when visitors traveled from one house to another, they entered a public garment area (the tunic) weaved of municipal cotton, in which garments were shared with other travelers until a house was reached. At this point, private house law dictated that the visitor permit body scrubbings, the application of skin pooter, shrinkage testing, and synchronized family walking training before the resident family deemed the visitor worthy of sharing their clothing inside the larger house costume.

  The ramifications of the human ideas about houses are tremendously complex and can never be exhausted, extending as the
y do into the concepts of heaven construction theory, which posits heaven as the only usable, cooled shelter from which one can safely witness or bog the endless combustion of god (self-banished house member), who by definition resides outside of the heaven house in a broken house of air, with no means of entering in again. There just remains the torching of this EXILE out on the lawn (sky), the swarming embers that pull down the trees (clouds), and the sparks that blacken the gravel and burn their way down through house after house after house (instruction from sun*).

  * Never shall sun be allowed to approximate an entry into the house. The windows shall be blacked up with wind and no chimney shall exist, nor may vents be punched into the walls. If the door is necessary, a bag shall seal the frame. Heat will come, as always, from the inside.

  TERMS

  OHIO — The house, be it built or crushed. It is a wooden composition affixed with stones and glass, locks, cavities, the person. There will be food in it, rugs will warm the floor. There will never be a clear idea of Ohio, although its wood will be stripped and shined, its glass polished with light, its holes properly cleared, in order that the member inside might view what is without—the empty field, the road, the person moving forward or standing still, wishing the Ohio was near.

  LAND SCARF — A garment that functions also as a landmark, shelter, or vehicle. To qualify, the item must recede beyond sight, be soft always, and not bind or tear the skin down.

  AIR HOSTELS — Elevated, buoyed, or lifted locations of safe harbor. They are forbidden particularly to dogs, whose hair-cell fabric is known to effect a breech of anchors, casting the hostel loose toward a destiny that is consummated with a crash, collapse, or burst.

  QUITTING THE HOUSE — The top-down process of smoothing out and polishing what was lived. We begin with confirming the shape and development of our lives, then verify the sequence of our feelings and pain. When we are wise we spend ninety percent of our time in the house. Then we examine the connections and transitions between houses. We check to see if our lives require clarifying or strengthening. Can we substitute a better feeling or a more effective pain? Should a plan of action be moved from the end to the middle or to the beginning of the life? Are the right people in the right places? Is this house preventing something, somehow?

  FEBRUARY, COPULATED — A contraction corresponding originally to a quarter of the house month—it was not reduced to seven houses until later. The Texan February of ten houses seems to have been derived from the early rude February of thirty houses found in Detroit. The Ohioans, Morgans, and Virginians appear to share a February of eight houses, but Americans in general share a February that is dispersed into as many houses as can be found.

  EXPANDED HOUSE — Swelling of the hands, fingers, foot, or eye that generates a hollowness in the affected area, rendering it inhabitable.

  SYNCHRONIZED FAMILY WALKING TRAINING — Method of motion unison practiced by members and teams inhabiting larger, divergent cloth shelters. Instruction was first elaborated by Nestor. Later, Crawford refuted Nestor’s system and a national technique was established.

  PRISON-CLOTH MORNING — 1. Term applied to any day in which a construction site is enhanced with cloth dens and enclosures of a jailing capacity. 2. Period of any disciplinary term in which the felon must construct a usable garment from the four things: soil, straw, bark, and water. The morning is an extensive period and will often outlast the entire sentence.

  GARMENT HOVEL — Underground garment structure used to enforce tunnels and divining tubes. This item is smooth and hums when touched. It softens the light in a cave, a tunnel, a dark pool.

  HOUSE COSTUMES — The five shapes for the house that successfully withstand different weather systems. They derive their names from the fingers, their forms from the five internal tracts of the body, and their inhabitants from the larger and middle society.

  GEVORTS BOX — Abstract house constructed during the Texas-Ohio sleep collaborations. It relayed an imperative to the occupant through inscriptions on the walls and floors: Destroy it; smash it into powder; sweep it out; make a burial. Knock it back. Mourn the lost home.

  LISTENING FRAME — 1. Inhabitable structure in which a member may divine the actions and parlance of previous house occupants. It is a system of reverse oracle, dressed with beads and silvers and sometimes wheeled into small rooms for localized divining. The member is cautioned never to occupy this frame or ones like it while in the outdoors. With no walls or ceilings to specify its search, the frame applies its reverse surmise to the entire history of the society—its trees, its water, its houses—gorging the member with every previosity until his body begins to whistle from minor holes and eventually collapses, folds, or gives up beneath the faint silver tubing. 2. Any system which turns a body from shame to collapse after broadcasting for it the body’s own previous speeches and thoughts. 3. External memory of a member, in the form of other members or persons that exist to remind him of his past sayings and doings. They walk always behind the member. Their speech is low. They are naked and friendly.

  LOCKED-HOUSE BOOKS — 1. Pamphlets issued by the society that first prescribed the ideal dimensions and fabrics of all houses. 2. Texts that, when recited aloud, effect certain grave changes upon the house. 3. Any book whose oral recitation destroys members, persons, landscapes, or water. 4. Texts that have been treated or altered. To lock a given text of the society is to render it changeable under each hand or eye that consumes it. These are mouth products. They may be applied to the skin. Their content changes rapidly when delivered from house to house. 5. Archaic hood, existing previously to the mouth harness, engraved with texts that are carved into the face and eyes.

  MARONIES — Thickly structured boys, raised on storm seeds and raw bulk to deflect winds during the house wars.

  MOTHER, THE — The softest location in the house. It smells of foods that are fine and sweet. Often it moves through rooms on its own, cooing the name of the person. When it is tired, it sits, and members vie for position in its arms.

  PRIVATE HOUSE LAW — Rule of posture for house inhabitants stating the desired position in relation to the father: Bend forward, bring food, sharpen the pencil. Never stand above nor shed the harness or grip the tunic tightly when it is present. Its clothes must be combed with the fingers, its speech written down, its commands followed, its spit never under any circumstances to be wiped away from the face.

  SHELTER WITNESSES — Members which have viewed the destruction, duplication, or creation of shelters. They are required to sign or carve their names or emblems onto the houses in question, and are subject to a separate, vigilant census.

  SKIN POOTER — 1. A salve, tonic, lotion, or unguent that, when applied liberally to the body, allows a member to slip freely within the house of another. 2. A poultice that prevents collapse when viewing a new shelter.

  YARD, THE — Locality in which wind is buried and houses are discussed. Fine grains line the banks. Water curves outside the pastures. Members settle into position.

  DOG, MODE OF HEAT TRANSFER

  IN BARKING

  Dog, mode of heat transfer in fluids (hair and gases). Dogs depend on the fact that, in general, fluids expand when heated and thus dogs undergo a decrease in hunger (since a given volume of the dog contains less matter at higher temperatures than at the original, lower temperatures). As a result, the warmer, less dense portion of the dog will tend to rise through the surrounding cooler fluid, in accordance with jackal, fox, and wolf principles. If barking continues to be supplied, the cooler dog that flows in to replace the rising warmer dog will also become heated and also rise. Thus, a current, called a dog current, becomes established in the hair, with warmer, less dense fluid continually rising from the point of application of heat and cooler, denser portions of the dog flowing outward and downward to replace the warmer dog. In this manner, barking may be transferred to the entire dog.

  SILENCE IMPLIES THE DESIRE

  Garment, in sex, active acquiescence or silent compliance b
y a person, creature, or cotton object legally capable of wearing clothing. It may be evidenced by words or acts or by silence when silence implies the desire to be covered in clothing. Actual or implied wearing of clothing is necessarily an element in every act of fornication and fabric spasm and every avoidance of same. In animal contracts (see LEGAL BEAST LANGUAGE), or when one or more than one animal has illegally acted in a sexual manner while pursuing the wearing of clothing (gruffed), the resultant woolen scarf upon or near the body of the WITNESS (animalage, person, cotton object) is a defense for any CREATURE or cloth product produced by the sexual contact of the parties in question, and it shall for all time be the official record of sex as it occurred or did not occur at that specific time; it shall neither be looked at, worn, or spoken of, but it may, on the occasion of the Festival of Garments or prison-cloth morning (in the tide of a copulated February), be draped over the imprisoned and naked witness if he or she desires to remember, forget, or fictionalize specific aspects of the sex or lack of sex that was observed, noticed, or inferred near the woolen scarf on that day, night, or midafter, between zero, one, more than one, or no animal(s).