• Vol. 07
  • Chapter 02
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Pastel

I couldn’t open the containers we had a house full of plastic, white bottles, red twist-off lids. I couldn’t move. I was Gulliver in sun-glasses, pinned to the blue sky. Too bright. Another migraine. I needed to close the sky. The windows had no curtains. And I was a mannequin suspended. I was a marionette on wheels. Blue sky blue sky blue sky. Where else but in the magazine – caching – would you see such a blue sky. Smell and touch of bliss. Smell and touch. Of perfumed pulp and paper. But it's dark here. It rains. The sky is perpetually grey. Swollen and low. A room full of beds. Bunk beds for those who do not mind sleeping one above, one below. We are on a ship. We are rooms at a harbour. We are an old city. I stand shivering and shaking coughing in the foyer of a bank draft. I stand in the bank draft foyer smell a breakfast nook. There is a breakfast nook. I open containers of Kefir. Milk. Harmonious sky decorations falling down like a victory parade. I manage my way into the tablecloth arena. I manage myself instead of hiring you to do it for me. I arrange and manage the mangled array of possibilities for illusion. The illusion is the lesion issue. Bone white no whiter. Pure blue white red. The red white and blue seeping, bleeding suppurating burning eyelets on buttons of tranquility. The buttons of tranquility. The waterfall of purpose. Purloined letter text and cache we kept in store to stoke the flames of glory. Crawling on the laminate floor. Such illusions. Such illustrative purposeful wonder. Like dipping our hands inside the mirror. The water mirror. Lake mirror. So Victorian. Lake of sunlight. Paddling too brightly oars into weapons. Tossed to the side of the road. Tossed away. Knock offs. Beautifully photographed harbours of the obscene. Coughing into obsession. Obsessive renunciation of repetition and the ardour of order. Stop. Point and shoot. Aviaries. Airplane hangers. To play heaven strings. 100 musicians syrupy sweet. All taut entertainers. This ground-zero of contradictions. Behind the scrim. Behind the rolodex. Behind the Timex watches. Behind the hairy wrists. Behind corporate.

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Pastel

Behind the teething teetering billboard. Behind the yard. Beyond the highway. Beyond the forest. Beyond the foraging. Beyond the fire. Beyond the rusted automobiles. Beyond the fields. Beyond the chocolate bar wrappers. Beyond the lute. Beyond the loot. Beyond the paste. Beyond the super glue. Maggots at the back of the cafeteria. Out there in the rust. Dusting for clues. Fingerprints. Cleft Palate. Half-glued on mustaches. Everything you could ever wish for. More. More. More. So much more. Just get to it. Just get down to it. Just get down there on hands and knees. Eventually you will find your way to the other side. Will. The many expediencies. So many so many. S. O. S. Where there's smoke there are mirrors.

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