Provided there's no hair gunk
in it, your sink drain is just as fast as the internet and has super reception.
In fact, visiting Earthmom via sink drains soon could be the ultimate connection
for travel boomers trading futures fifty months of the year who long for
two weeks of Galapagos tortoises and six-foot Amazonian fruit bats.
One thought that goes into the child's mind
as he holds his pet lizard by the tail and drops it down the drain is: "Gee,
I wonder if it'll grow into a man-eating crocodile." Most of the time it
doesn't. But once in awhile Earthmom has a craving for Jurassic and rescues
it for her compound.
Follow The Girl With The Cloak's example and
you're sure to have a clear link to the underworld when itsy bitsy spider
crawls up the water spout and the sun comes out.
"Hi Earth Mom. How are you? " After all, life
on the other end of a drain pipe isn't totally glittery diamond rings and
small plastic baggies of dreamstuff.
"They just filled my yard in New Mexico with
more obsolete radio-active missiles," Earthmom kevetches. "And I can barely
move for the deleted trash. I've got the moles working night and night.
I've been with drains now since Bath, but these deleted files and folders
create a clog worse than a sinus infection, let me tell you. They aren't
biodegradable so forget Draino and. . .
"Well the other day a mouse showed me five
perfectly good chapters of a novel, mind you. He salvaged it from one of
the millions of black trash barrels they empty down here nonstop. A 17th-century
sea adventure. Not bad. I could hardly put it down. Say! May-be I could
start my own publishing company with all this stuff!"
"You
could call it Earthworks, Mom."
"Yeah, Earthworks."
"Are you ok, Mom?"
"Oh, I guess. And what about you, Dear?"
"All right. When there isn't an ozone alert
I still spin over the Oceans."
"At least you have the option to move. I'm
pretty much stuck in. . ."
The drain gurgles to indicate time is up and
switches on the reverb.
"Earthmom?"
"Yes, Sweetie, I'm here. But I don't know
for how long
ong
ngggggggg."
s i g h t i n g s
The Danish philosopher SÒren Kierkegarrd
saw The Girl With The Cloak at the K‡nigst‚ter Theatre in 1843. If you argue
this was way before her time, you are forgetting that The Girl With The
Cloak is timeless, and that Kierkegaard was way ahead of his time.
As with everything else, he has documented
the occasion of his sightings so that you may judge for yourself:
"She sat in the third row. She was not wrapped in sable and marten, but
was enveloped in a big cloak, and projecting from its folds her head was
graciously bowed, as the topmost bell of the lily-of-the-valley is bowed
about great enveloping leaves."
The blooming of Lilies-of-the-Valley in May
coincided with the young man's break-up with his fiancée Regina.
Some think The Girl With The Cloak had something to do with this rupture,
and Kierkegaard's subsequent conversion as a Witness of God.
If you are of the same opinion, you might
want to reflect on what you' ve heard about The Girl With The Cloak. Ask
yourself if WHAT THE HELL,
DANTE, SHE'S NOBODY 'S BEATRICE has
a familiar ring to it before mixing yourself up in this theory. Surely by
now you must have figured out that The Girl With The Cloak is totally elusive.
We're talking here about someone of whom the poets write: "spokes of light
revolve the slow stars through her bright ephemerides."
SÒren liked Berlin. He had a limp, and nobody
bothered about his appearance like they did in Copenhagen. From an apartment
on the square he could watch theatre--and church-goers--realizing there
was little difference between them. He dined alone ensconced in a favorite
red velvet chair--reading, and writing, and chewing a thought until it came
out the other end.
One thing is certain. Already, the poor man
was driven to distraction by the eithers and ors of existence.
This is nowhere more apparent than in the final description of his sighting:
"For an instant it seemed to me she might be a girl who had suffered much
and now wrapped herself closely in her shawl, and would have nothing to
do with the world-until her expression convinced me she was a happy child
who hugged herself in her cloak to enjoy herself thoroughly."
Unable to forget her, a few years later, Kierkegaard
once more traveled to Berlin; ostensibly he wished to test his theory that
repetition produces felicity. Filled with ex-pectation, he returned to the
K‡nigst‚ten Theatre-only to find the loge he favored taken, every seat occupied,
and The Girl With The Cloak nowhere in sight.
Not even SÒren's favorite coffee house revived
his spirits. True, the coffee beans were not shade-grown beneath trees of
songbirds as in our day. But as the German poet Ewald wrote in his Coffee-urn
Verses, the brew was "pure and warm and strong and not abused." Unfortunately,
the same could not be said for Kierkegaard. Disappointed that he could not
repeat his sighting of The Girl With The Cloak, he returned to Copenhagen
where, for the time being, he shelved his theory on repetitions.
Of course in the 21st century we know a thing
or two about repetition. Five minutes of Philip Glass's music would have
saved Kierkegaard the trip. And Thomas Wolfe, ditto. You can't go home again,
but what can I say? Sometimes the greatest thinkers in the world are befuddled
when they see The Girl With The Cloak.
G s p o t
1
The Girl with the Cloak is the
Venus of the Vulva, a triangular fat-hipped terra cotta cave woman to be
reckoned with.
They pick up the cloak hem and lift it high,
higher. They push her to the ground and roll on top, pulling it up. Where
her legs should be is a black cloth chest and arms. An embroidered grin
in red cotton thread mocks them from a black face with wide white eyes.
They leave her in the dirt, corn rows and pigtails where they'd expected
golden fluff.
Turned inside out The Girl With The Cloak
has no private parts. Still, they bet a ten spot that given half a chance,
they'll find her G spot. One of them holds her down while the other shimmies.
"I got plenty of nothin, and nothin's plenty
for me," she moans.
Another cuts a peep hole in the cloak and
places his eye to it. His buddy orders them drinks with little umbrellas
in them. It begins to rain. They're soaked to the skin and enveloped in
swaying darkness. Her hem undulates and encircles them. They sink to the
ground, sprinkling the earth with seminal euphoria.
2
A gynecologist arrives on his yacht. They want him to give her an exploratory.
But he already knows what he'll give her--a blue plate special, the eggs,
the tubes, the works.
"This won't hurt at all, " he says. "After
all, it's of no use to you anymore. We'll just take it out."
He reaches deep and grasps the cervix with
the tenaculum. He reaches deeper and grasps the umbilicus with Allis clamps.
Up to his elbow now, he attaches the obturator to the scope. His shoulders
and head disappear into the draping.
Sunlight shimmers on her colorful scales
as she winds up a tree to digest the body; after all, it's of no use to
him anymore.
the littlx
princx
looks into
the blux
holx
The Girl With The Cloak lands
on the Mojave Desert near an ocotillo feather dancer. Beneath the creosote
a tortoise yawns and retreats into the shade while the sun beats down on
green alfalfa fields. Jack rabbits browse under their cool cover, leaping
from time to time into the liquid light.
In the distance, a gold banner sporadically
waves above the rim of a stone trough and disappears. The Girl With the
Cloak approaches a boy sitting on the trough. He wears a golden muffler
and ten gallon hat.
"Come no closer!" he warns, pointing to a
small red white and blues snake coiled in the rubbled limestone.
"Down and down I go, round and round I
go, " croons the side-winder. "Love is a spin, love is a spin I'm
in. . ."
A Dust Devil consorting with a tumble-weed
lets go of her to pick up The Girl With The Cloak and set her down beside
the boy. His small uncertain smile floats in the shadow of the ridiculous
hat. "I am the Little Prince," he says. "I will give you my magic muffler
if you rescue me. She will keep sirens from singing in your ears and flowers
from flying in your face. She will play blind man's bluff any time you wish.
And you'll never have to use sunscreen or wrinkle remover."
"If your muffler is so magical," taunts the
devil, why doesn't she rescue you?" He tries to get a rise out of
the golden muffler hanging limp as a string tie on a corpse at high noon.
"Temptation, you are the one ," croons
the snake.
The Dust Devil swirls like smoke before the
Little Prince. "The Girl With The Cloak might be persuaded to take you to
the Blue Hole. But if I were you and she were me, we'd make you promise
not to tell such pathetic stories."
"I'm not telling stories," the Little Prince
flashes. "My muffler has had a breakdown. It's depressing to travel with
an exhausted muffler--and highly improbable that a night club called the
Blue Hole will revive her."
"A night club! Ooo baby, ooo baby shoobie
doobie do," croons the snake moving along the side of the trough.
"Give me one for my baby, and one more for the road. "
The Dust Devil grabs the ten-gallon hat and
bucks down a dry gulch, tossing it playfully into the air.
"Put that down immediately!" the Little Prince
orders. "Or the elephant inside will get so angry he'll suck you to oblivion
with his trunk."
The Dust Devil dies down to a line in the
sand. "You've been in the desert too long. Now I'm convinced I have to take
you to the Blue Hole whether you like it or not." He riffles, picks up speed,
and lifts the Little Prince into the air.
The snake croons mournfully, "My Mama done
tol' me, a man is a two-face. He'll up and he'll leave you."
The capricious Dust Devil tosses the side-winding
snake at The Girl With The Cloak. Contrary to his expectations, she spins
the snake securely around her, and flies due east.
The Blue Hole beckons like a wet blue corn
tortilla in the desert sun. The Girl With The Cloak lands on the limestone
step into its depth, letting the snake slither down her cloak to dip the
red tip of its tail into the cold water. "I ain't been blue. Oooo, Blue
indigo, " it croons.
Wearied by several detours made by the Dust
Devil to flirt with tumbleweeds along the way, the Little Prince belly flops
onto the rim. When he looks way down he can see infinity--not far from his
place of origin. The Prince takes off the sagging muffler and lets her float
lazily on the surface. She sinks in a slow spiral. Tantalized by her beauty,
the snake slides in after her.
At 80 feet the muffler brushes against a blind
fish.
"Ah, that feels good," says the fish."Is she
a blonde or brunette?"
The snake curls around the fish, humming a
bridge of Jalousie. The muffler flutters in the current, reinvigorated
by the cold fresh water pouring into the Blue Hole at 3000 gallons per minute.
"I'd give anything to show you my tunnel,
Sweetie," the blind fish tells her. "But the blind vampire bats might find
you irresistible. Oh Baby, I may be blind but I sure can feel you move with
the earth tides. Still I. . ." The blind fish suddenly darts under a shelf
of limestone. "Oh oh! Call waiting, Sweetheart. Someone from above. But
before you go, remember what a wise blind fish once told you: it's better
not to see the dream you can't live, the life you can't be."
Reinforced by the fish's poetic license, the
muffler floats into the sunlight, buoyed upward by the water-amplified voice
and magnified disheveled locks of the Little Prince.
The snake takes his time, doing a riff of
scat as he ascends, "Shoobie doobie oooah. Bebopalua, oooie ooooie, ooooie."
The muffler sighs with satisfaction as
the Prince throttles her and wraps her once with ªlan around his neck. Having
turned up at the Blue Hole, she hums farewell to the red, white and blue
snake, and glinting gold, they blast off without a glance.
Peeved by their sudden departure, the Dust
Devil whistles under his breath. "Whew-ee. The royal bastard thinks he can
treat me like dirt. He's already at the border between Earth and Space without
so much as a thank-you for my trouble. He may be a Little Prince God knows
where, but I reign here." To prove the extent of his dominion,
the Dust Devil tumbles a weed until there's nothing left of her but a pile
of sticks.
You may have noticed the Girl With The Cloak
and Little Prince never seem to speak. Lest they leave you with the impression
they don't care for each other, they do. Very much. But those who prefer
mufflers to cloaks live in different worlds. Not to mention on different
planets.
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