Sunday, November 2, 2008

when the future looked like a cartoon, the bellowing was faint, but now that the future is a fist inside an anthill, the bellowing is an empty belly

when the dust settled, our guns were rusted over. the man at the bar crumbled into a pile of dirt with daisies where his grin had been. the arriving twelve o'clock train sounded like a mother in hard labor. we didn't move at all. for three hundred years we stood there. the time felt like sand on the back of my neck, grains shifting, moving, blowing in the wind. the building collapsed around us. they built an enormous city where the town used to be. we were statues in a park. everyone was under the impression that we were great works of art. but at some point i decided to move again. the people around me seemed pretty alarmed. my mouth tasted like cactus death. i sure could have used a beer. but out of nowhere a massive snarling mechanical beast came roaring by. "what in the hell is that?" i said. "it's a car," said one of the funny dressed people. well, i didn't know what a "car" was. "aren't you a statue?" said another one. "son," i said "i've ripped off a man's hand and fed it to him for less than what you just said to me." and that was the last he said about that.