The Next World is Here

by Rudolfo Carrillo

If I was standing in front of mi chante, in the midst of the infinitely repeated and truncated nights this season and the next generate as a matter of natural processes - which I ain't - then I'd more than likely hurl this sorta conversational discourse into air with my tongue, just so I could watch it sparkle and move around in a million directions.

Maybe those vocalized thoughts would climb through the hot, dry wind that has come to distinguish this place, carrying the lot into space, chariot-like and roaring.  There'd be vowels bouncing off satellites and hooking up with this or that noun just for the sake of meaning and the promotion of order against the backdrop of a yawning void that goes on and on forever.

It could turn out that a sentient liquid on venus or a robot investigating the dust clouds of the andromeda galaxy would receive my howling transmission someday, come to believe they have a decent, if abstract, grasp on what the hell was going on amongst the momentarily beautiful bundles of flesh, electricity, and smoke-like souls that crawl and walk and wander through Burque.

I'd look up into the sky and pick out a familiar star or constellation; I'd speak to the dead like they were alive and happily dangling their wings angel-like off of the edges of a billion earth-covering clouds.

This is what I did between the horns of the day, but just some of it, I'd tell all those entities briefly described in the previous paragraphs of this transcription.

It still hasn't rained and even the weeds are getting brown, so I gave up on pulling them out of the garden. I figured they'd appreciate the gesture; maybe the monsoon would get here in time and they'd get to flower one more time.

After contemplating the implications of that command decision, I drove down to the student ghetto for chinese takeaway. They have a great lunch special at Kai's. I waited in the dining room and eavesdropped on two young blonde women. One of them had a tattoo of fancy letters on her right foot. The other had a pair of big white plastic sunglasses perched on her head, sorta like an ersatz alabaster temple to blindness setting upon an impossible flaxen sea.

They talked about infections caused by jacuzzi water and how they were both anxious yet intrigued about going to a cocaine and booze party. They seemed mostly flummoxed and laughed nervously. The one with the painted foot said you'll like the buzz but the other figured those sorts of activities encouraged infidelity and unexpected trips to the student health center. The hostess brought out the takeaway and I hobbled out of there just as the conversation turned to the subject of body hair.

When I got back to the car I noticed plenty of parking on Harvard Street. The asphalt lined corridor there, between Central and Silver was quiet except for a coffee house down the street, where all sorts of humans were drinking caffeinated beverages and carrying on like it was already summer. One fellow was juggling, tossing bright red spheres around and around while a dog wearing a blue bandana barked and jumped, turning circles around the man.

A pair of bearded dudes, dressed for Seattle or Portland, in flannel shirts and leather shoes, were playing a game of chess; one of them grabbed at the hound's tail as it spun past. A young couple gamboled out the front door, tossed their sandals into the street spontaneously and, with synchronous smiles flaring sunward, began dancing.

On the way home, I tuned the radio to a baseball game broadcast. The home team was winning.