I have a rock I like to hide under when I’m feeling overwhelmed. It’s in my backyard, next to the birch tree. For instance this morning I woke up, thought about all the things I needed to do, and said, “Nope.” I got out of bed, went out to the rock, lifted it and got underneath. I felt peaceful again and had a nice conversation with a worm. We talked about how when there’s no light, things are much simpler.
I was being pestered by memories of all the dumb, embarrassing and ridiculous things I’d ever done. I had enough and put them in a crusted pie dish, and baked it in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. I took it out and let it cool. I just had a slice. It was delicious!
I’ve always been around. Well, not always. Mostly always. I wasn’t around for the Big Bang. Nor a little while after that. But then I was. And I found myself naturally wandering around the planet every day. When it got dark, I’d sit and wait for the lights to come back on so I could see the things.
There were no other people, or animals yet. I did however talk with mountains, trees, and rocks. When I say talk, it wasn’t like this. It was grunts, tones, and hums. They were an expression of my emotions in the moment.
I was naked. I didn’t wear shoes. The bottoms of my feet were like rawhide. I never got sick. Except occasionally I’d get a headache. But even that was another thing to talk to. I assumed that the pain in my head was a visitor.
I’ve been asked if I had a mom or dad. Not in the traditional sense. I think I might have previously been split off an amoeba, and then developed into bacteria, and then some other things until I became the person. This is conjecture because I have no memories of the befores.
Way back when, it was easy to walk over the land of the Earth because there was only one continent. They hadn’t split off yet. The thing is, I didn’t know the Earth was round. I thought it was one continuous plain that never ended.
I had no concept of time. There was dark then light then back to dark again, and so on. But I didn’t think of minutes burning off of my life till it was used up. It guess you could say it seemed like always.
I remember when I first saw a reptile. It was tiny. I thought it was a rock that was being blown by the wind. But then I noticed it wasn’t windy. I got curious and lay down on the ground to watch it more closely. I saw that it had orbs on its face that moved around a lot like mine. I got so close that it bit my nose.
Eventually the lizards got really big. I remember one of the big lizards ran up to me and tried to eat my foot. That hurt a lot and I ran away. A bunch of lizards ran after me. I climbed a tree and waited a long time. That was a shitty period. Until the asteroid hit and things got easier again.
I woke up in the middle of the night to vibrations in the air. I know, that sounds weird. The air around me was warbling. I must have picked up the sensations on my skin. Since I didn’t know what it was, I couldn’t do anything about it, and got up and went to the living room. I lay down on the couch and fell asleep.
I woke up again to the vibrations. They had followed me. I don’t like to be followed. I feel like prey.
Since I didn’t know what it was, I spoke to it. I said things like, “Why are you here? What do you want from me?” Maybe that sounds dumb, talking to a quiver. I do a lot of what are probably dumb things. The soap I use when taking a shower, I use it until there’s nothing left. Towards the end, I wash my body with a transparent sliver of soap. I apply it until it disappears into my skin. It’s frustrating. It doubles my time in the shower, time I can’t spare.
So, I was half certain the air-borne pulse would talk back to me. Maybe because it was late at night and I was frazzled. Or maybe because I’m lonely and crave connection with things not human because it seems like it would be so much simpler. Or I am cursed with a child’s reasoning. The other half of me was embarrassed with certainty that someone would see me talking with nothing. Who? I figured a neighbor looking from outside through a slit in the blinds.
The shaking air continued without a vocal response. But it seemed there were fluctuations in its oscillations. I tried to interpret them. I got the feeling the space waves were saying, “Would you please pet my unders?” So I held my right hand palm up under the reverberations and lightly stroked in circles.
The air tremblings got thicker and I thought…”Oh, my God, I’m having sex with a current.” And then with a wave of shame I thought, “It knows what you just thought, and is repulsed because what’s happening is no where near the vicinity of sex.”
So I picked up the remote and turned on the TV, my turn to balm for anything uncomfortable. My Favorite Martian was on. I was happy because I like that show. It was the episode where Uncle Martin, the Martian, has a malfunction and becomes a baby. His human friend Tim has to bathe, feed, and diaper him. Tim is terrible in his attempts. It’s funny because it supports my great fears of ever being a dad.
I realized the vibrations were watching along with me. Whenever there were some crazy antics on the show, the vibrations got bigger. It was laughing. It turned out we were in the middle of a My Favorite Martian marathon. We watched back-to-back episodes till noon!
Frax the armadillo and I took the red eye to Paris. We arrived early in the morning. We hadn’t slept on the flight because we played Monopoly the whole way and still hadn’t finished. We were tired and distracted. We attempted to carry the Monopoly board and all the pieces intact through the airport and in the cab. When we got out, we walked around the city in an attempt to find a place to set the board down and finish the game. We found an outdoor cafe with plenty of tables. We sat at one and continued to play.
The waiter came up and we think he asked what we would like to order. Neither of us speak French, so we ignored him. But if you ignore people in France, they get upset, because it’s what they are supposed to be good at. The waiter kept talking, so we mumble hummed and kept playing. Mumble humming is a great way to cover for not being able to speak a person’s language because they feel embarrassed that they don’t know what you are saying and they leave you alone. This waiter though must have known what we were doing and kept trying to get our order. We figured this was because he’d read our book, The Power of Mumble Humming: Bmbmdombm Mmmmemm Wmmommmom, (There’s a French translation.)
The waiter continued asking for our order, while we ignored him, mumble hummed, and played for another two hours. By this time, sleep deprivation collided with my manic need to defeat Frax the Armadillo, and I began to hallucinate. I thought the game pieces were candy pieces on a cake. I ate Frax’s top hat, and he reacted by starting to spit chew. Spit chewing is an armadillo’s precursor expression of anger. Once they begin, you better start running, because they’re about to unfurl their claws, and make you their scratching post.
I picked up the game board and began to sprint down Avenue Victor Hugo. Mere steps away were the waiter still asking, and Frax with the spitting. My hallucinations had now become characters from Lewis Carroll’s poem, The Hunting of the Snark. There were the nine tradesmen and the beaver, cheering me on, “Boojum, boojum, boojum, hiding, hid, found!!” And then I fell into a mound of whipped cream, which was real. I had run into a bakery, and then into a vat of crème fraiche.
The game and all the pieces rested properly boat like on the whipped buttermilk sea. I was saved a tearing from Frax due to his phobia of any form of cream. Meanwhile the waiter continued with the asking as I rolled the dice. I moved the boot and landed on Broadway and Frax’s two hotels. Frax let out a holler since I only had $50 and no more property’s to mortgage.
I got out of the vat, put myself through a cycle in the bakery’s dishwasher, folded up the game, and put away the pieces. I ended up unscathed from Frax because he’d forgiven me since I’d lost. We went to our hotel and room. We lay in the bed, wearing matching eye pillows, as the waiter continued. When I awoke that night, the waiter lay sleeping between us, still holding his order pad, pencil point on the paper.
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