Blockbuster

Here is the pitch for a new blockbuster film I am writing.*

A left hand, pitted for his entire life in a silent rivalry that leaves it forever in the shadow of his brother, draws a line in the sand. He yearns throw instead of catch, to shake hands without apology, to carry the heavier bag of groceries. Now he must struggle against the hand that has dominated him since the day he was born in a fight that no one dares think he can win. And even if he does, it could tear them both apart.

Vin Diesel plays the right hand. Cuba Gooding Jr. will star as the left. Nicole Kidman will be the forbidden romantic lead as the right foot and Whoopie Goldberg will play the brain (hemisphere undecided). Finally, (and I should add:SPOILER ALERT!) Sean Connery will be making a cameo appearance as the penis.


*Based on true events.**


** My left hand.

More dangerous than yesterday

Today a pudgy man unlocked my hidden potential. One free knife fighting lesson. How could I pass it up? He moved fast for a man with such a gut. He zigged right and he zagged left and he slapped past desperate lunges and he slit throats. His eyes twinkled when he talked about his time choriagraphing "Highlander: The Series". He has very strong opinions on the industry. I'd grab my attackers knife hand as he came at me, right around the thumb and at least one finger was his rule. I'd pull him close and he'd say "now you might get an elbow smash in the nose, but you don't care! Look, you can stab him in the neck." When I disarmed a man and ended gripping the blade for a nasty cut he said "but you don't care! Look you're already opened his bowels." This was his favorite joke and we would both laugh. It was funny because they were dead or because he had such a gut. Such a killer gut.

I dream of loose teeth

I asked the most interesting man I talked to today why he was here. He had a small mouth. His mouth ought to have housed ten teeth, (six on the top and four on the bottom as it was smaller still. Nearly not even there), but instead there was a crowd. Writhing and mashing as he talked, they shoved and elbowed to get their bellies to his lips. The late comers stuck out at all angles, their heads poking between the gaps and above the heads of the more fortunate front row. And noticing this, I realized they weren't mashing but moshing. For me? I felt like a rockstar. I smiled, wide, all my teeth out in full array. It was a show.

He gestured to the piles of sabers, longswords, daggers, staves, rapiers etc. splayed over the floor and said, "I've been training with the master of this academy for twenty years now."

I left the recreation hall over which I preside in a hurry. Before he caught me looking at his mouth.

impotent decision

I've been struggling over what to do first when I get powers.

Maybe I could retaliate. Maybe I could take acception to some small slight on a friend or even a stranger. The offender would call me a fagot and ask just who the hell I was and I'd throw him through a table. I bet that breaks bones, not like in the movies. It would be overkill, but then I'll be the first one with powers so I suppose it will be up to me to set the new standards.

I could go to Wendys and order an icecream. I'd tell her "big, extra big, the biggest. And I'm serious, big." I could give her six dollars on three-thirty and tell her "keep the change". I could lean against the counter, smug, unneccessary sunglasses on an hour before they close for the night, and look back at the people behind me in line - I mean really just stare. I could wait until she tapped me on the shoulder to turn. Sunglasses now off, I could take my icream and tell her to remember me. I could wink like a jackass.

I could quickly forget what life was like being human and, judgmental and vindictive after being so often disapointed by my own skewered expectations, I could sit at home alone with my sense of superiority. I could watch the news and ease my guilt by telling myself that you all deserved it.

Treck Log: Day 80

I’m sorry for the length of my silence. My pen was at the bottom of my backpack.

Today we made it to the moon. You heard me right baby: The Moon.

My elation is tempered with deep, limitless sorrow. Herb.

The signs were all there except for the incubation period. I realize now that the space-air must have retarded the growth of the squirrel larvae. Herb had been growing steadily worst over the past two months, but he was so stoic I think we all just thought he’d keep putting one foot in front of the other forever. He never showed anyone his thumb. Yesterday he doubled over in the inky blackness of space. I waded back down to him (hiking to the moon as it turns out, is roughly like walking up stairs made of quicksand.) “Wu Tang Clan”, he said, “ain’t nothing to fuck with” which was unsurprising as he’d been talking in only rap lyrics for the past fifteen days or so. Then his head burst like a chestnut roasted on an open fire and hundreds of larva - gaunt, opaque, luminescent squirrel babies with bushy tails and pincers, fell out. Lucky for us they were disoriented and had no natural affinity or instinct for space hiking.

God damn it Herb, I miss you already. Your endless string of disjointed lyrics kept my spirits up. And even though I now realize that they were simply a product of the last piece of your brain not eaten by the squirrels, they meant the world to me.

I’m sorry baby, I know I’m wandering here.

When we got to the moon the first thing I did was take Paul off my back and lay him down the on ground. He lost that first foot after the blister under that fuzzy warmer turned infectious. We all told him to throw it away, let it drift, but he wouldn’t have it. He put it on his left ankle nearly the minute after Doc Ringles cut his right one off. Well the pus had seeped into those fuzzy wisps and pretty soon they seeped back into his good leg. Doc Ringles had to take that one off with a tent stake and a hammer because his bone saw had drifted away in the night, or at least that’s what he told us. I don’t trust anybody who laughs like that during an amputation.

Paul wears it around his head now like a dead man, and it isn’t white but green with pus. I can’t explain him, just can’t fucking explain him.

My only regret Jilly is that I can’t come home to you. I know we talked about the skeleton transplant and the speed boat wedding, but Jilly it’s taken too long to get here. I’ve walked too far. I’m a moon man now Jilly, and in a way this moon’s my only bride. In another way the girl I married two weeks ago is my bride. Forgive me Jilly, I was drunk off stardust. We’ve decided to build a perfect society on the moon, and that means no lying, slavery or divorces. If it makes you feel any better, I do love her. We’ll name our first girl after you, the momma she almost had. You can have my NASA money, I won’t be needing it here. Good luck with your new skeleton. Look up at the sky at me.

-Barker