Typical Soup and Toes: Four Stories
Mark McLaren
5 Lessons in Absolutely
Free
1. Grow
Your Own Phantom Limbs.
There’s
not so much difference between pins in the garden and the
sparkle of a dead man. Take his hand and wave at the telly, shake a
leg and hop under the stars. Did he ever smell like horses? I mean,
back in the old days when not so much was so unreal. Over and over
and all. It’s just much more useless.
2. Oh Mighty List Maker.
Draw up your arms and
suck in the hairs. Sounds should not taste of fire. Beware of the toilet.
Stand on the review section and pray for
two stars. Look ahead. The first question you may be asked is:
How’d you do it? You must NEVER give away the recipe. Learn how to spell
“adjustments.” Don’t budge for liars, especially if
they flutter. It may be a fit, is my experience.
3. Love in the Incinerator.
It says here that most thirty-five-year-old men are only trustworthy
from the elbows down. I am reading this: “Looking for
personal growth and
power exchange.” Light more fuses by maintaining eye contact. Did that
Short Guide to Writing Your Will ever arrive?
4. What to Expect from
Death.
For sex workers, it is never too early to start plans for your
uninvestigated death. But who will look after the diseases?
I will donate, divide, and salute when you are gone. I can see them dropping
the charges like that.
5. What If Your Dog?
Not all dogs raise a leg. It’s also true that not all Germans
live
in Munich. You know what I’m saying. There’s a small twist of science
to get through here, before we come to the boink and pig-sticking.
Have a peek for yourself. The diagram next to Abraham shows you how to
tell
for sure. Logging in won’t help. All loans look suspect now.
You and
your family need to be safe. Guesswork and hatred is the
only way to be sure. Avoid all libraries.
Many Darrens in One
Munich
Watch these boys roll
up their sleeves like gentlemen. The arms fill up with cheap, red wine. They
kneel and choke down our tepid
soup. Inflexible with panic and in five crystal clear formats, you
can hear them breaking all gods’ laws in one weekend: banal coughs,
the
spit-swallow, the hard hair ball. The smell of their
bones cindering
in our spin cycle and the trouble we took to make the small
print unsquintable will all make sense ends, by Frank and me.
And Darrens were no different.
I had my arms around a
belt, tight inside his dreams as we pounded the ocean looking for broken
teeth. The funny thing was,
after a while
they really seemed to enjoy it. They were as stiff
and sharp
as credit cards as Frank and me gave them a nice taste of what
it’s all about. We started by choking the brother and folding him over some
soup. Then
Frank cracked open all the really bad ideas.
It’s an awesome feeling
to drive your homework down Darren’s throat and check his reaction.
Sometimes it’s shock, sometimes
it’s
butterflies, but rarely is it pleasure. Darren
is brand new,
unsuspecting, and about to get filled. Although he wasn’t
ready to get his backbone popped, he gets a clout, a poke
and is lifted up towards God for the first time in his life.
You can see by the look
on his face that he has no idea what he got himself
into. I turn my attention
to stomping his dreams into a cold, soft soup. I
unload all those jaw-breakers into the ocean and make Darren swallow the
sums
with his
broken teeth.
I know I have said it
before and I have no problem saying
it
again, these two go by the name of Darren and they are pretty
new to the scene, so we took them in for a little soup and softening.
They weren’t laughing after we explained. Anyway,
me and Frank
just plugged
and plugged at their cobwebs and little dreams.
Their names were Darren (the blond) and Darren (the other one). Neither
of them
had ever drowned before, they were both curious. And what
they
didn’t
know we made them eat. Time and again you can
pick at the skin of a
dream and watch the scabs form brown. The boys’ eyes open
wide as the small
print spills out of their gums. A helpless situation
spelt out in pus and legalese.
I love the shocked look
on Darren’s face when
I grab his soup or pull his ideas hard . . . very hard. He looks at me
as if he
wants to say “Holy shit, are you nuts?” He
wants to say this, but alas his tongue is dancing
in my pocket next to these waxy
crayons. Me and my Frank smack loose teeth right into the sky, like accountants
at the
driving
range. We took turns pounding away, pulling their skin into purple
flowers and spitting right home, there into the flames just
to get
some action going. The Darrens couldn’t even taste tomorrow.
I’ll say it: I prefer
Darrens to any other, and I love the natural
type best. Dead is fine but Deceased is my thing. Me and
Frank slipped on the soup and broken teeth. I was beginning to wonder
if time would tell . . . the funny thing was, these two Darrens
kept retching up dreams
one after the other, I have no doubt in mind
this was staged. When I
asked Darren to eat all Frank’s crayons,
he wasn’t so into it, but after a while we shot them all into the sky
and fed
them to
a
huge
animal, just to make sure they wouldn’t ever forget this or
that afternoon.
Darren is from a place
called. And we all know about people from there. Not too bright and inconsistent
with their
soups.
Darren
is no
different. When we started, he was always blabbing something
about “please . . . sopp in gesichten, I very like.” Well,
it took like five minutes till we like had
a clue what he
was talking about. Frank snapped his dreams in two and made him swallow all
of
my
ideas. I’m
starting to like Germany.
Next Week’s
a Bit Hit and Miss
“Never Give Anything
Away for Free.” That’s not advice, it’s the last
sign you can see before you enter the men’s block. I
have a problem though: the ghosts enjoy head just as much as the
guards, but how will they ever pay me back? Only the lucky ones get
to squirm around
the governor’s glasses. Rewards may come later.
Makes me wonder about
the
Dharma and its repayment schemes. Next week
is a beauty contest. Last year I came 3rd. Now numbers 1 and 2 are dead,
and my
hair
is so long. Wish me lucky. Grandma should be visiting soon, though
I hope she
only
brings powder and no boyfriend. He
creeps me, knows too
many Queen lyrics. Today I would rather do nothing than
fight with the rats. No
one can pluck and shave when they are
this hungry. During the
day I’ll dream a lot, wondering what will happen
after my execution. Will I
make a good ghost? Write to me soon.
* * *
Loosen
up. It’s only standardised housing and long lines of waiting. And what’s
the difference, whether
it’s by
thumb or
claw?
One
thing
is
certain, I’m swollen with credit
and it’s difficult
to stand. On any podiums. Tape and start and tape again.
Who will remember your
strangled smile? I’ve tried to shave, but it keeps
growing back. It’s a thick kilo of mystique, like seven hats
incontinent. Seven built
bridges across the river, they’ll fall
like thieves into an inky soup. I have never been a fan of slippery machines,
legs
spinning.
Think of
all the cigarettes investigated with a shoe. Cracked lips will
all add up one day. You will deliver and someone
else will pick
up and not
know why. Collecting slowness, just wait.
Step Ladder
Although
this road goes all the way to Wonderland, it also runs from
Wonderland to here.
Everyone agrees that
when good advice comes, it’s
usually in the shape
of a forest. The larger the bird, the slower
the
flap. Pinewood. Don’t
look. Don’t twist. Concentrate
on the woman who fell on her head, now resting on someone
else’s
bag. There’s
a trick to staying
neat. They
all know not to help
until help comes. Into the gutter because of song, becoming both
swallower and swallowee.
If they could just
keep talking and talking it
would fill up
the world. Topsy,
don’t listen to the gossip in the trees. (I’m
missing
the part where she
rids herself of the torturous beings. After her execution she comes back
to haunt the circus and kill
Edison’s son)
The crowd could be
swapped
for a dialogue with ghosts; circulated by the ones
who fed her
cigarettes. No, those
people are dead.
Look at your clothes,
the broken door and
ledge. Take a step
on the
bottom rung. It
penetrates. Light will slip from heaven. Speak out from
the fire,
not of secrets
or experience.
There isn’t
any living
creature who can
prevent my song.
On high is on head, another
hand is right here
by the
throne.
We are ready
with the firmament,
broken into
three wide lines.
She who sees, shall not
be saved. The interrogator
stands as fissure
and well.
Tearing the
world into a thousand
strips.
