cosmos: part 1

The Universe was humming. The humming, a result of the Universe. The Universe, a result of the humming. So she lay in the bathtub. Her massive, amorphous body swimming, and swishing, as the melodic utterances, resonating from her core, resulted in matter. She grew. And as she grew, the humming grew louder. And as the humming grew louder, she grew.
He knocked on her bathroom door. His knocks inconsequential waves in the porcelain void. Poor, wretched, little creature of a beast. His nose drooping sluggishly below his chin. He knew it was the Universe behind that door. The Universe, naked and gorgeous. Naked and foul. And he had a question.
Don Barginear, aged 48, from Waukesha. He let the stubble on his chin, just beside his droopy nose, dig into his fingertips. Clearing his throat, he reached for the brass doorknob.

-

“Shh! Quiet! Quiet!”

The cosmic deities, dancing in slender slipperiness seemed to have forgotten themselves.

“Shh! Quiet! Hush!” The Wisest one proclaimed.

Still they buzzed, in and out of themselves, embracing, kissing, colliding, moving as sound and light.

“No! No! No!” The Wisest one had grown impatient.

“Listen! Something is happening on Earth!”

Oh, Earth. What a cute little planet, a reliable source of entertainment.

The deities surrounded the Wisest one.

“Earth? Tell us more. What is happening?” They sang at the Wisest.

-

Mellie was at it again.

“So which one of youse is gonna go after it?”

“Wuh- well, well, Mellie, how come we have to go?”

Jeremy had a way of asking just the right question in just the wrong way.

“Jeremy does have a point. You were the one who kicked the ball, so it really should be you to go after it.”

“You gonna get sassy, Hugo?” Mellie stretched her neck out threateningly. And, already being a few inches taller than either of them, Hugo and Jeremy knew this was a fight they could not win.

“Nah. Don’t get started on Hugo like that, Mellie. I was just thinking maybe it should be all of us to do it.”

Hugo twisted the watch on his wrist, assessing the situation.

It was the abandoned dollar store. The ball had managed to get in through one of the back windows. And how were they supposed to get in there?

“Well, the real issue is that we haven’t yet a plan for getting in there. It seems like an impossible task for just one of us,” said Hugo, still staring at his watch.

Mellie’s neck had relaxed and her eyes were now sparkling as she was beginning to realize that-

“An adventure! This could be an adventure! Hugo, a plan! We need a plan!”

“Yes, that’s what I—“

“Shh! Hugo, let me think… How the hell we gettin in there?”

-

Why was the Universe bathing? And who could dare to dream such nonsense? Only poor, Don Barginear. Don from Waukesha.  And of all the countless fools and wise men wondering at midnight,  only a simpleton might think to just ask the Universe directly.

And maybe it was Don’s frequent, unexpected urgency to pee that made a bathroom scene appropriate.

“Hey, Universe, if yer not opening the door fer me, Imma just walk in there, anyway, cuz I gotta pee.”

What was he expecting to see through that squeaky door? Certainly not what he found, no, not our Don. He couldn’t possibly have imagined, well…

-

“Oh! What Joy! What love!”

The deities were swooning. They were so easily entertained, so easily enamored by every little Earth thing. An old man laughing, a cat stretching its hind legs, three children retrieving a ball from an abandoned dollar store. Things were happening. Things were always happening on Earth. They danced and sang and shone.

“See how they live, the Earthlings?”

“Oh, yes. Day after day.”

“Oh, what it would be to live and die.”

“A full life.”

“To wonder.”

“To see only a moment at a time.”

“Shh!” said the Wisest, “They’re not finished.”

sunday doodle

Turismo

Plea for Summer

Sending out sparrow signals
in the city
amid trumpets, trucks and
sonic trash
in the naïve hope that some
universal force
-with a keen ear or satellite dish-
will take my squeaks seriously.

“Bring me to the cricket stars, the fireflies,
the muddy stains, and sunshine pecks.
The silhouettes of wilderness,
off the interstate at midnight.
Let me speak to orange tree bark,
Ice cream trucks and water fights.
And after all is said and done,
my warmest regards to the blood-sucking mosquitoes.”

I let my yearnings rise and fade with distant sirens,
car alarms.
But hope. And wait. And wish. And dream.
Hope. And Wait. And Wish. And Dream.
Hope. Wait. Wish. Dream.
Until-

Three Little Pigs

Mellie's Account

When there’s an adventure coming, my fingernails get really itchy like there’s something crawling through them. My mom’s always telling me that I shouldn’t go looking for trouble, but it’s just like I said, the trouble comes to me. It walks right up to me.

And sometimes it walks like a funny-looking old man, and what am I supposed to do, then? I mean, you get it. If you only saw this guy, I’m talking about Ole Man Grody, if you only saw this man, you’d have followed him to the bakery shop, too.

Of course I didn’t follow him, alone. I mean, of course I had my crew with me. I’m talking about Jemmy and Hugo, of course. But you know them. And Hugo never really liked Ole Man Grody, on account of his appearances. But that was the best of it, and that’s what I told Hugo, too, his looks was the best of it. Because how do you go on looking like that in Plankton, of all places, and stink and not even care, anyway? It was because he had a treasure. There was something he had that none of Plankton knew about.

And we found it at the duck pond. Hugo didn’t get it. He thinks he’s so smart sometimes, it’s dumb. And Jemmy… well, yeah, that’s Jemmy. He had two kids with him. Ole Man Grody, at the duck pond. Keep up with me here. Two kids that none of us knew, not even Jemmy. And they were all friendly. No… more than friendly. They were family. Can you believe it? Ole Man Grody had a family, a real family, of all things.

Hugo says Jemmy was the one to see him first. Jemmy! Does that even sound like Jemmy to you? No, it was me. I saw him first. I saw him first after I fell off that big twisty tree on Grove Street. I meant to jump off, but falling’s close enough to jumping sometimes. Just as I was falling, well, Ole Man Grody, I swear, he was walking by. He caught me, mid-air.  It was like some dorky movie scene. Man, did he stink, but I kept my manners, I said thanks, anyway. And he just set me down and kept walking that funny walk of his. So, yeah. That’s when I had noticed him and a few days later I told the crew we should follow him.

I’m always falling off stuff like that, but I never get more than a scrape or two, anyway. My mom, she freaks out really bad sometimes. But I never see her much, anyway because she works the late shift and sleeps during the day time. Huh? No, I don’t got any brothers or sisters or anything like that. Anyway, I got my crew and that’s gotta count for something.

Let’s see, how I met my crew… Well, Jemmy, I met him since we was both in Ms. Kishta’s class. But the funny one is really Hugo. I didn’t meet him that much ago, actually, well… just this summer. I was running to the train tracks to wait for the train that goes to Penn Station to go by. It’s always packed with people and I like to wave at them and make funny faces and sometimes they wave back. So I was running to the train tracks and there’s Hugo, reading, actually reading and it’s summer. And he’s not even in summer school! I thought that was really funny. The way he talked too. So I knew he had to join my crew.  He said, “Ok. But I must be home by 2:45pm, not a minute later.” Oh, Hugo.

Jeremy's Account

My name is Jeremy Barnes and I am 10 years old. Soon I will be 11 years old. I am supposed to tell you about ole man grodey. He is a homeless man. That means he doesn’t have a bathtub, or a bedroom or even a dining room. We have a dining room and a china cabinet. Except I’m not allowed to touch the china cabinet. I don’t ever go in the dining room, anyway, except like on Christmas, so I guess it is okay that he doesn’t have one. But maybe he should have a bathtub because he looks really dirty, like he could use a bath.

Anyway, I have a bouncy ball collection. I started it when I was 9 years old and have had it ever since. I like bouncy balls because, if you throw them against like a wall, they can bounce back to you and then it doesn’t matter like if Mellie, or even Hugo, is busy because I can have fun, anyway. The wall of that store on main street is really good because when the ball bounces it makes this funny sound like a space ship and the ball goes straight back to you. Really cool. So I play there a lot and sometimes Mellie and Hugo come and then we all play things. Well, now we don’t do that so much because we are in grade 4. And when you are in grade 4 you get more homework and that means we don’t get to play so much like when we were on break.

So one time, when I was playing with the bouncy ball and Mellie was talking to Hugo about something, that time, I saw ole man grodey. Only he wasn’t ole man grodey, yet. I said something like, “That man’s legs are funny”. And Hugo had his notebook with him, like he always does and he made a scrunchy face and scribbled something. And then, like a few days after that, Mellie told us to go follow that guy, only she called him ole man grodey. So we did.

I like Mellie a whole lot because she always has these really good ideas. Only she goes missing for days sometimes, and I know it’s because she gets in trouble but she always says it’s because she goes to visit some aunt. I don’t think Mellie has any aunts because I don’t think she has much family, at all. And I don’t think she even has a china cabinet or a dining room. But I like her a whole lot and I knew her since I was 5, which means we are best friends. But I don’t know Hugo that much, but I guess he is okay. Mellie says she saw him looking really hard at something, when she first saw him. And she thought he was maybe doing homework, only it was summer. And now we are all friends.

When we first followed ole man grodey, we thought it was going to be a real sort of adventure. Only it wasn’t really an adventure at all. In adventures, people find treasures or someone dies, but never the hero. But none of that happened. We just watched him buy bread and then he took it to some kids at the duck pond. And Mellie asked me if I knew those kids, but I never did see them around and I have lived in Plankton since the day I was born. But Mellie seemed to think there was something special about ole man grodey, and his bread, and those kids at the duck pond, so we kept following that man all summer long.