katrina's fodder

**from the archive ...

screw the baby
(with migraine as muse)

NEW ORLEANS-
LOWER GARDEN DISTRICT
1980

--by jezebel

CHAPTER I

The following is a true-to-life account of a person's sanity slowly seeping into a cesspool of oblivion:

Silently sitting and studying Saturday's superfluous edition of the daily crossword puzzle, grabbing and grasping for any knowledgeable piece of vocabulary that possibly might fit, or come close to fitting inside those geometrically-grotesque cuboidal designs, he struggled while the radio blared the latest contemporary country and western. The words were slowly emerging and fitting into place--but not quite fast enough. The paper started pulsating, the perfectly-square squares were mutating into rectangles of horrific proportions, building pyramids of tiny people. Parading up and down, in and out, right and left, north and south.

The pain was unbearable, but tolerable as long as he payed attention to the radio and concentrated on the lyrics of Dolly Parton.

He remembers blacking out ten times over, then awakening to a completed puzzle full of words and senseless phrases like ipso-tipso, screwthebaby and kissthelight socket.

Has Jesus returned? Is Gabreil tooting? No, I just wanna know that word.....shasher, skasher, stasher, smasher, SMasher, that's it!

Probably not another living soul will have an experience as filthy and sickening as his, no way could any American-born, bourbon-belching citizen survive as hideous an experience. And what comes next? Silver padded cells reeking of last night's wet dreams and purple fantasies? Straight jackets laced and knitted by wrinkled old women reliving years and years of drug-induced euphoria? Shock treatments prescribed in wards of screaming/yelling shaven-headed imbeciles patiently mopping up their own vomit? What a future....
The future is there to be dreamt of with the realization that one more day might never come. Planning and saving with fervor and excitement in the idea of tomorrow and the next hour. Snakes don't have it so good, they just writhe and wither in the dust of yesterday.

His sanity fades with the daylight and seeps away into the darkness of tonight, the rising moon glares brighter than the noonday sun of August. Shortly there will be no more flesh, just bones and skeletons passionately crashing together with the raucous rattle of loose teeth in broken jawbones. Hair is no longer a problem since it fell out months ago. There is nothing left to cut--except maybe his own throat--a vessel gorged to the top by life's uncertainties and death's endless possibilities. Dreams of execution and unbearable tortures racked his brain throughout the long night, too many sleepless days have led to the complete and total disintegration of rational thought. The only reality now is the one of the rat-infested alleyways and black, stinking garbage piles next door. The only escape is sleep and that is a horrible nightmare of wretchedness. There is no escape, only acceptance. ####

toilet-water gumbo

perhaps my most recent place of habitation in new orleans, twenty-five years ago, a basement apartment/refurbished schoolhouse, in the lower garden district off st. charles street, is no longer there now. but it served me well when i needed it.

those were the days, now probably underwater, for the moment at least, thanks to katrina.

it's just as well after all, everyone needs their toilet bowls flushed once in a while.

intelligence

Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses.

This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's tsunami, when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills.

-B.R. Myers, author (1963- )

hiroshima

sixty years ago the u.s. grew into a much larger terrorist government than it ever was before. it dropped a nuclear weapon of mass destruction on a large city full of civilians.

and then it blackmailed the rest of the world with nuclear power for the next half-century, threatening to use it on them if they don’t behave. but now the tables are turned. the u.s. is not the only holder of the power.

now any tom, dick or terrorist can acquire a nuke and pack it in a suitcase. no b-24 bomber required for delivery.

one civilian is now able to bring the u.s. or any other government to it’s knees, possibly it’s demise.

what goes around comes around.