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| the Elephant and the Dragonfly | |
| By ss_albatross | ||||||||
| 23 December 2007 | ||||||||
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I wrote 'the Elephant and the Dragonfly' entirely from stream-of-conscience. My biggest purpose for writing it was for the interpretation from its readers, to see what people got out of it. I focused on using a lot of metaphors to hide any true meaning of the piece. One could say that that makes the piece almost meaningless, but I guess that's up for the reader to decide. In an old, hazy bistro, my mind is mutilated, sanguine death. The russet sofa has swallowed me whole and left my conscious melting on top of an oddly-shaped coffee table by the window. I can feel time picking away at my brain as I lay here. Its teeth gnaw at my insides like cancer and fill my lungs to keep me alive. The jaws of conscious bodies applaud around the room like hushed ambassadors and float up through the air in broken sign language. I can hear their blood flowing through fleshy, severed canals and gaping tunnels; splattered all over the walls like Jackson Pollock. Empty, jig-saw faces smoke cigarettes in the back of the room and procrastinate about heart ache and nuclear war. A television on the front wall is discussing the migration patterns of Canadian geese in the fall. No one is watching. The ceiling fan above has been spinning in deep, rhythmic undertones all morning. No one has noticed. A man in biker's spandex is smoking pot outside the bistro and he seems invisible. He's been standing there since I arrived. It's been almost three hours now. There's a man in a business suit standing at the front counter complaining to the employees about how cold his coffee is and how he doesn't like the music that's playing and how everything is unfair and stupid and ugly and miserable and dark. If I had a shovel, I'd scoop out his eyeballs and feed them to the biker outside. Unfortunately, they only sell food here. I came here on a bus at five in the morning to avoid sweeping up all the broken liquor bottles my uncle had thrown against the wall last night, to avoid dealing with him when he woke up complaining about how his body ached with death again. At 12:01 in the afternoon, an elephant walked into the bistro and sat down on the russet sofa next to me. The first thing he did was read the newspaper on the coffee table; then, he set it down and began staring blankly at the wall across from him, sniffing the musty air. "Smells like mayonnaise," he said. "Compost." I had watched a documentary once about kidnappings and I knew that this is how they started. I knew that the kidnapper would ask my name next. "So what's your name?" the elephant asked. I lied. I told him that my name was Bruce Lee, like the actor. That's what you're supposed to do in these situations. One thing most kidnappers have in common is a deprived childhood. He's probably never watched a martial arts film in his entire life. The elephant glanced at me one more time, licked the side of his mouth, and wiped some gunk out of his eye. "Bruce, huh?" A person with big, round sunglasses walked up to us and stole the newspaper off the coffee table, then walked to the back of the room with the empty, jig-saw faced smokers. The microwave at the back of the room stopped buzzing. I looked over at the elephant again who was staring blankly at the wall across from him. His face was sick and scruff. Curly, dark hair billowed in and out from his head like steel wool. His belly looked like a pillowcase filled with sand. His nose was crooked at the base and his stubby chin was unevenly shaved. His skin looked plastic and pale like a mask. He wasn't human. He was a big, inconspicuous foil in the room: an elephant. He stood up slowly, clutching his hands to his chest and took several deep breath. His face had turned white and beads of sweat were rolling down between his eyes and off the tip of his nose. He wiped his forehead and then glanced across the room. "For christ's sake!" he gasped. He grabbed the attention of a waitress and then darted into the bathroom at the back of the room, his knees buckling beneath him. I looked outside again at the man in biker's spandex again. There were two of them now and they were both smoking pot. His friend was shorter than him and had chosen to sit down on the bench in front of the bistro. Their faces were blotchy and dry. The one on the bench was eating a candy bar; Snickers, I thought, or Milky Way. Food would be good right now. I haven't eaten all day. I can smell lemon wedges bursting into glasses of iced tea between nimble finger tips around the room. Bitter. Sweet. The person with the big, round glasses is coming back to drop off the newspaper onto the coffee table. He looks unenthused. I'm standing up now. And walking. Towards. The water fountain. Blood rushes to my head. I feel numb for a moment, and my arms get that itchy sensation that spreads to my neck and toes. The water fountain in the back of the room stands like a silver altar. It mocks my arrival and seems to slouch away as I approach it. It has rusted arteries that spring leaks in the basement that no plumber can comprehend. The jig-saw faces glance up at me dubiously as I pass them. They cascade into the shadows like wolves of the night, hiding their gloomy, guilty faces. To the left of me is the men's bathroom. All the sinks are running and water is pooling out from underneath the door. I can smell cold sweat and must rising up from the ground. I open the door and a cloud of steam billows out around me like snake coils, stealing my air, weighing me down. My clothing becomes damp. My skin is clammy. I can taste salt perspiring on my lips. The room is like a sauna. I walk over to the sinks and turn them off. The word "Fuck" is written on one of the walls in permanent marker. "You" is written beneath it in blue pen in small letters with a scribbled smiley face with X's in its eyes. I hear a voice. I look across the bathroom and in the corner, curled up beneath a urinal is the elephant, clutching at his chest, gasping for words. He mutters something about his heart, spitting words violently beneath fiery red eyes. Ticks of sweat leap off of his face, cascading onto the tile floor. He's mouthing the word, "Bruce!" I feel like asking him why the sinks were running. I can only guess that it was a method for getting someone's attention before his legs became heavy and gravity pulled him to the ground I try not to smile as I watch sweet karma consume him. O, sweet karma, how it has a way with cruel people. Come to save me from evil hands. Come to take me to better lands. A sense of control overcomes me. I feel fear no more. In his shirt pocket is a Slim Jim. It hangs out from his pocket like a nimble thorn. I lean forward and pull it from his pocket. As I pull my hand away he attempts to grab it with his shaky hands. He's beginning to lose color, turning into oatmeal. He looks confused. "These aren't very good for you," I tell him. "This is probably why you don't feel good." A drop of water from the ceiling falls onto my nose. I look over at the mirror. It's too fogged up to see my reflection. I look over at the elephant again. He's sleeping. His skin is silver and blue. I throw the Slim Jim into a trash can beneath the sink. I walk out of the bathroom and look once more onto the ugly diner; it squalors in misunderstanding, confusion. I scan ribbons of smoke that dance up into the air and catch the eye of a waitress. "Someone spilled water all over the bathroom," I tell her. Pathetic. There's a pay phone outside, next to the bench where the blokes in biker's spandex smoke their pot and laugh at scattered crowds and dogs on leashes. I step outside into the placid sun and my body swims with ecstasy all over the sidewalk. The blood rushes to my head. I take a deep breath, look around. Ten men in biker's spandex are all smoking pot around the bench now. It's like a giant pot-smoking bikers' club. They're all laughing and bouncing around like a bunch of rabbits. One of the blokes is staring at me with sunken, red eyes. He looks like he's on the verge of exploding with emotion; like a big puffer fish. One of them is eating a blueberry scone that keeps crumbling in his hands and falling onto the ground. Another is off in a different world, staring at the clouds passing by, humming thoughts out loud. I see birds in the trees. The soft hum of the highway can be heard in the distance. I look over at a pot of flowers next to the door. There is a silver and blue dragonfly nestled beneath one of the flowers. The colors of its wings are reflecting sunlight onto the petals, making it glow with lucid color. I try to outstretch my hand to touch it but it flies away. As I walk away I can hear the biker's in spandex laughing about something, something about scooping my eyeballs out with a shovel and feeding them to the dogs.
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