drabbles | Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost

3/Jul/2013

We Will Never Forget the Tyranny of Genghis Khan

We made the world a smaller place, and we are still seeing the effects, 60 years later. Dr. B argues that an equilibrium can never be attained in a system with more than one growing part, and we will never see the end of the consequences. They will continue to grow, to multiply.

The machines let you project yourself fully to up to three other places simultaneously, which was great for both presidential candidates holding speeches and protesters clamouring for social justice.

B points out that we still have not, indeed we will never, forget the tyranny of Genghis Khan.

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2/Jul/2013

Grease and Mud and Hair

There is a thin coat, a layer of grease and mud and hair separating everyone else from me, and I am getting lonely. I will hug someone and they will not want to let go but it is not enough, there is this film that keeps me from touching them. It keeps me from feeling their actual touch. What I feel is ghostly compared to how it is supposed to feel. I looked in the burn ward, where the film has been scorched off, but I was escorted off the premises. Maybe I need to peel it off by hand.

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1/Jul/2013

Do Not Enter

You come into our family like a tumour, growing viciously. Five years ago she had cancer, this feels exactly the same. I’m 14 now, you shouldn’t be here. They will forget me. The librarian gives me that look that people give me sometimes, when I ask her what section I should trawl through. I tell her you asked me to, she asks for your phone number. I give her my own number and hope that she won’t hear my pocket buzz. This is the first time I am put on a watchlist because of you. It won’t be the last.

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30/Jun/2013

A Lighthouse on the Tallest Hill

There is a lighthouse on the tallest hill, but no sea for miles. Sometimes I go inside and climb the stairs and crank the machine, and there are little sparks and the lamp makes as if to turn more, but it’s stuck. It’s creaking. I start digging, and reading up on ships, and I think our houses are all things that used to be ships. I dig in the sand, and find the skeletons of big, shapeless things. They break when I try to lift them up. I think perhaps long ago this place was the bottom of the ocean.

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29/Jun/2013

Home/Sick

Alien psychologists seeing diseases that just aren’t there in your precious human mind. They like you. In your head, one terrapsychologist has decided, there is the feeling of belonging anywhere. The yearning for a specific location, it is so strange and causing you so much pain. You are not, you need not long for Earth, they tell you, you will be okay without it.

“I already have a word for it,” you tell them. “Homesickness. But it’s no sickness.”

There is an expression on her face that you cannot read. Maybe it’s a smile. “And it is not your home.”

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28/Jun/2013

Green

It is night. The cover of clouds is thick enough that perhaps the sun has given up trying to get through. The air is cool, the seabreeze has lost most of its brine. Manhole covers ooze with steam. Cars are driving, slowly, just following the path of least resistance, and most green lights. Underneath, clockwork ticks and clicks and hums.

Something gets bored. In turn, something else clicks.

It is night, and the buildings are made of cold, dead rocks and brittle clay. There are faces in the windows, but not behind them.

All the lights turn green and shine.

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27/Jun/2013

Grillade

Anonymous desert. Night. The chest roasted slowly over the fire. It had to be hand-rotated, and that was Will’s job. The meat was still glowing, embers flying about it, and the ribs were starting to show. Every now and then, the doctor would cut off another slice of meat.

“This is a stupid vacation,” Abigail said, accepting the slice of meat and putting it on a plate.

“Now stop.”

Will stopped rotating. The chest pointed upwards and the doctor opened it up to the night sky, removing its contents carefully.

Will said, “What kind of an animal has two hearts?”

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26/Jun/2013

We All Died

A few weeks ago, every citizen died. Lungs caved in, brains spilled out. Office hours remained unchanged. Stiff corpses kept moving through crowded streets, dry mouths kept talking in raspy voices. Their rotten bodies are making the city putrid; the aftershaves and perfumes have long since become ineffective, now simply an overtone of bergamot and pine. Muscles are starting to fall off, eyes are melting from faces. I’m staying in my bed, not daring to breathe but with a gas mask on my face, hoping that the electricity inside my cracked skull will go away if I keep completely still.

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25/Jun/2013

Thunder across Deck

Rain! Thunder across deck, woman the harpoons! The night this is, this is. This is the night, the night. Toss and turn all you want, vengeful sea, but you will never sink this ship. There he is, the whale, the whale! Take aim, breathe out, draw tight, release. Wrap the lace around the bait, sink the net into the ocean. Dip it in, pull it out, dip it in, scream. The rope won’t hold, won’t hold. Do you think he’ll take us back, us back? We don’t want his meat, his meat, we just want to sink him, sink him.

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24/Jun/2013

Fairies’ Feet

You have fairies’ feet but you hide them in hideous white sneakers. The concrete seeps into our souls, dulling the red, and every now and then you try to cheer me up with a barefoot little jig. The circles grow green and pink and you get a smile from me, before we hurry away. There is nothing more depressing than watching the grey concrete eat a living thing.

I have to take you to the heart of the city. You must get rid of your shoes, and dance inside the concrete ribcage, where the grey is still soft, wet, vulnerable.

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