“Constructing a wall takes planning. First, examine the conditions where the wall will be built. Layout the wall in advance. Most importantly, a solid foundation is required to ensure longevity.”
When I am old and senile and standing in a corner, I will be okay.
“When building a wall, you must start at the corners and work your way out, backwards and away from the corner.”
The channel landed on ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ I was not sure if it was at the beginning or the end.
“A corner is the convergence of two lines. An end point.”
Another channel. The protagonist is told that Zombies cannot go into corners. When the zombie apocalypse comes, I will be okay.
“When constructing a wall, a corner, tolerances must be followed.
Lolita, the killer whale living in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium, has died. Lolita was set to be released into her native waters in the Pacific Northwest the following month, but she never made it.
Like me, Lolita was brought to South Florida at an early age from the Pacific Northwest. I never knew that when I was a child. When I was a child, Lolita and her partner Hugo were star attractions at the Seaquarium. Every year, students would go on field trips to the Key Biscayne attraction to see them. Sitting in rows close to the water, getting soaked by the splashes created from Hugo and Lolita’s high-flying acts.
Like rockets, they would shoot up high above the water, landing on their backs or sides, one jump after another, causing the water to splash way up into the stands.
This was always the highlight of the field trip for any child. Hugo was much older than Lolita. They lived together for over ten years. Performing, mating, playing. Hugo died in 1980. He suffered from psychosis. He would ram his head against the tank walls, which ultimately caused the brain aneurysm that killed him. Lolita would share her tank with other mammals, but it wasn’t the same. She was never the same.
Lolita suffered from various illness while the planning was underway to send her back to the Pacific Northwest. Her health was in decline. Not much before her relocation, her kidneys stopped working and she died. Lolita and I were nearly the same age.
“During construction, horizontal and vertical lines must be straight and true. This requires special care.”
My corner is built from cases of beer and cheetos. I will be okay. My corner was started many years ago.
Who am I kidding. My corner is built from bourbon and vodka and gin and bourbon, salami and hunks of cheese, eaten while standing quietly in front of an open fridge in the middle of the night.
My world has gotten smaller. Couch to liquor cabinet to refrigerator to couch.
“At the corners, you must interlock the coursing to maintain continuity.”
The soundtrack from ‘Dazed and Confused’ always brings me back to classic rock. Coming from my car radio during those high school years, barreling towards something.
‘The Weight’
‘One Toke Over the Line’
Casey Jones, driving that train…
‘Black Betty’ Bam-ba-lam
‘That Smell’
This is the end
And in The End…(My Father. My Dear Father)
“Many stresses occur at corners. The stresses act separately and come from either side. Gravity. Movement. Time.”
Looking back into the blue glow, listening to The Scene unfold. Passing a shelf with dozens of cork bottle stoppers lined up in rows, before making it to the freezer door. The Scene has unfolded many times over the years. The Scene takes place in the middle of the night.
Robert and Richard are sitting at a table, drinking. They begin to compare scars as they drink. Each scar getting bigger and bigger. Finally, the winner pulls open his shirt revealing his chest, the victim of a broken heart.
It always comes down to a broken heart.
At the freezer door, I recall a conversation I had in which a friend told me that my house was haunted. I replied, ‘yes, by a fifty-four-year-old drunk guy. The rattling in the night does not come from ghostly bones, but from the tumbling of ice, gathered from tray to glass.’
~~~
The narrator recites facts about time and the universe:
Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago. Life on Earth began 3.85 billion years ago as bacteria in water. The large single continent, Rodinia, which would separate over time, formed 850 million years ago. Homo Sapiens first walked the Earth 300,000 years ago.
I did some calculating of my own:
3 hours a day. 7 days a week. 21 hours times 52 weeks. 1092 hours times 50 years. 54,600 hours of my life spent on this goddamn couch.
~~~
I wanted it to be better than this.
~~~
The protagonist is walking down a long corridor. Subtle, indistinct music is playing. There are many turns along the way. Elderly people are parked in wheelchairs in random places. They do not acknowledge the protagonist.
Glancing inside rooms, there are more elderly people asleep in beds or in wheelchairs. Televisions are loud and drown out the corridor music as he passes.
At the end of the corridor, there is an empty room with an empty bed and an empty wheelchair.
The protagonist turns and looks back from where he came.
