drabbles | Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost

3/Apr/2013

Symphony

I sat down at the piano with no plan in mind and sad things started pouring out of it. I tried to catch them, but I had to keep playing. The things fluttered and screeched like animals who know they are about to become extinct. My bookshelves vibrated like hesitant trigger fingers. And a song started to rise in my throat, like the sea, just as wordless. I wondered whether the sad things came from the piano or me, and then the song ended. Perched on my shoulder, one of the sad things tilted its head and stared at me.

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2/Apr/2013

Ready, Aim, Fire

Lights, camera, action.

Lights. His pupils shrink and sweat beads start forming on his forehead, crawling their way out of all the make-up. Camera. He’s aware that this will be shown on every TV-screen for hundreds of miles, even if, especially if, he fucks up. They’ve only got one take. Lights, camera – people are making gestures, getting everything in order. There are millions in this for him. He’s holding his breath even though that’s a bad habit. Lights. His fingers drum on the AK47 held behind his back. Camera. He’s wearing someone else’s face. What is taking so long?

Action.

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1/Apr/2013

Red Rotary Phone

It’s a pretty tall building, isn’t it? And aerodynamic.

If you go down deep enough, to the fundaments, you will find the rocket fuel, and under that you will find the thrusters. The metal canisters have been there since the 50’s, so there is no guarantee that anything will work, but it’s there. If you pound them you can hear it sloshing. Cobwebs galore, all over, and the displays are stuck, in all likelihood. Search enough and you will find the manual with all the telephone numbers and launch codes.

There is a red rotary phone on a rickety table.

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31/Mar/2013

Pareidolia

You ignore your friends’ cheerful jeering. You climb down into the well, past the point where brick turns into mud and rock, realizing that claustrophobia is not the crippling fear of the malevolence inherent in enclosed spaces, but the much more reasonable, more crippling, fear of never ever getting out of them. You wish you had come to that conclusion earlier because now everything itches and you keep seeing sinister faces in the light of your still wristwatch. You can no longer hear your friends’ jeering. Has it been five minutes? The bet was five minutes. Your throat stops working.

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30/Mar/2013

Hypnopomp

Wake up with something warm beside me in my bed, fumble for my glasses. I can feel the weight of a woman in the bed next to me and at the same time I know that is impossible. Hold both thoughts in my mind, waiting for one of them to cancel the other out. Realize that I’m holding my breath and gasp for air. The warmth does not stir. The scent of mandarins finds its way into my nostrils, and I can’t remember yesterday. Find my glasses. Feel shame.

For a few moments there I actually believed it was you.

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29/Mar/2013

Ceremony and Celebration

They spoke an Old Earth language: a dialect of Mandarin. It was forcefully injected into his brains moments before he was given the honour. It pushed his name out of his head.

“It is a great honour,” Kannyo Madita said, though the man only heard every other word, “to reopen this position, and make that your new and only name.” She repeated his new name in the Old Earth tongue, and he understood it as Prisoner-Ambassador.

The language was still establishing itself in his skull when he was pushed into the cubicle and saw the door melt into the wall.

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28/Mar/2013

Ethanol

The first drink is to forget; the second is to remember again. The third drink is to focus on what’s here and now. A fourth drink – a fifth? – is to cancel out the last few drinks and start afresh. The first drink, the first drink is to sever all the nerves in order to go numb; the second is to lose vision and to blacken out the room and really listen for the first time. The next drink is to hear the bartender’s bad heart beat. The eighth drink is a test of courage, the ninth a test of faith.

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27/Mar/2013

Gestures

Mathilda spent half her life trying to publish her dead father’s plagiarized poetry collection.

Emil tracked down 300 people with the name Jansson because of a typo in his mother’s last will and testament.

Yuko stood serenading for three weeks, every night, outside an abandoned apartment building because no-one had told her we had moved away. I heard about it too late.

Gary only smoked when it rained, but everybody knew.

Dad washed his hands with soap.

I called the police pretending to be our neighbours’ kids who were starting to get concerned about us. The operator always played along.

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26/Mar/2013

Ink

One tattoo for every person whose life you have ended; they creep closer to places where it really hurts. One piercing for everyone you’ve damaged; three pills for everyone who hurt you. A little red blemish for every time you are misunderstood and a new wrinkle for wasted kindness. And after 35 years, you are already running out of skin. You say to yourself like you say every year, that this time there’ll be fewer mistakes. But next week you are back at the parlour, asking the man who asks no questions to draw a blue crow on your thigh.

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25/Mar/2013

Hypnolepidopteromorphism

I had a dream that you kept telling me you were just a dream. You explained it would be a crapshoot whether I would even remember it in the morning, and while you talked you stroked my hair back behind my ear the way you do. You kissed my forehead and kept your mouth there so I could feel your smile. You turned my head and you whispered, “This is not important. This is nothing but impressions gathered during the day, arranged in sequence by your subconscious. This is weakness entering your body. Just enjoy it. Don’t think too much.”

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