Chernobyl

I’m standing in line at a McDonald’s, it’s close to eight on a rainy Tuesday night in Autumn. There’s this air-conditioner maintenance thing I’m supposed to manage at the office tonight, hence my punching in at the Bernie Goetz shift. And I have a sore throat.

There’s a family of eight before me, about to get serviced by the clerk. Odin the Allfather is scolding the hyperactive Loki and Thor, both about age seven to eight. The elder tells his sibling of this four-armed witch, wearing for an unspecified reason, a T-shirt with Souvenir from Chernobyl written on it. For the oddest of reasons the kid knows Chernobyl but can’t for the life of him get the pronunciation right on “McTasty”.

He should be talking of Fukushima instead. He should be having the Quarter Pound.

The twentieth century continues to haunt us like a dire wraith but it kinda doesn’t change a thing tonight. I haven’t even started yet and I so wanna go home and sleep tight under the comforter with Cybill by my side.

Vice (for Supergirl's girlfriend, L.L.)

Dear Lyla, what can I say?
I have just finished reading Ex Machina yes, after all those years.

You told me of it in 2006 with our skins painted in a watercolor of moonlight and sweat the very same night you changed my life forever. I started reading it a few months later. In fact, I read the first chapter the day I moved in to my new-slash-own apartment.
Six years later I have finally made to the last part. I wish I could talk to you, I so dearly wish you could hear me now, read this, this is the ONE post I'd actually walk a thousand miles over boiling lava just to make sure you'd read. I wish I could e-mail you right now, friend you on Facebook. But I can't, there's no sense in that, too many rules have changed, the three of us have changed: Mitchell Hundred, the protagonist, has changed. You have changed. God only knows the directions I chose to walk my hundred miles.

Still, you changed my life forever six years ago. I wish I could go back, just for a split second, to feel your skin against mine, to taste that very last drop of your sweat and what it will always smell of to me, just to tell you this one thing that will remain unsaid for eternity, that has perhaps long lost its meaning.

But everything's so different now. Everything's changed. We've all changed so much, the mere intention of ever going back sounds ludicrous at its best, like lucid dreaming at its worst.

In my vain pretense of looking back tonight, Lyla, I expected to see you, but the only thing I found was myself, six years ago, drenched alone in moonlight and sweat, waiting for the Monday morning Sun to finally come up past the skyline of derelict old apartment buildings, over the city, and towards a tomorrow I could never have planned ahead.

Old Books (a poem)

The perfume of getting

soaked wet by Summer rain

drying you up like dusty

parchment, crackling you

up like ancient leather,

murdering you in baby steps

like a lover's rose,

the aftertaste of a smile

or the consequence of an

open window

-- before fading to brown.

Joss Whedon loves comic books more than I do

And in a surprising turn of events, it turns out Joss Whedon loves comic books even more than I do. Wow.
#AvengersAssemble!

In time, '12

You'd worn out to the very last lie we'd ever told you, then packed up and left the building for good, leaving us to our own devices, whatever those might be. Which sort of translates to myself, ten years later, having advance tickets to see The Avengers next Saturday.

(Or maybe he should try watercolor painting instead)

I have... I have Roger Daltrey singing Townshends’s After the Fire endlessly in the back of my head, in a kind of eternal loop that should come off as barely annoying at best but as it’s always the case with the likes of us it ends up sounding like the wail of a glam-rock, new-wave banshee first conjured so long ago, very likely during maiden screenings of a Miami Vice episode or another.

Hence the same old ghost of Sonny Crockett, ever present, always here, dragging the same old shackles over the tiles, the linoleum, the parquets, no, over the brand-new
laminate which replaced the bughaunted carpet you never got to see, clogged and coagulated for the posterity of eternity with its bleached out, dried up nonfat yogurt drippings or maybe, lord forbids, assorted body fluids.

It’s that same old ghost of Sonny Crocket, see, the patron saint of brokenhearts, his shield up, plenty dented, the toothmarks on metal invoking names long forgotten-- Kirsten, Franny, Gwen, Heather, Susan, Tess, the foreign chick from Norway, whasshername, yours of course, and the names piling on and on and on-- mostly 2007-2008 to blame, go figure the sheer promiscuity of those years-- but dating back, backdating in fact, reaching all the way to a select, almost virginal list of refugees from the 20th century-- but that’s not even the point, Lyla.

The point is, if could make it all rhyme, would that turn it into a poem?

Wednesday morning, early Autumn, 2012 (a haiku)

Sunlight on pillow

floorboard creaks as I step down,

then all that ensues...

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Dear Lyla,

I... uhnn, I’ve just filed my tax returns tonight and by this far into the future it is with a somewhat heavy heart that I realize I’ve started getting the hang of it, even though what we should be doing right now, all of us, is hanging out at Luke’s listening to his Gin Blossoms albums while he doused the pot in the refrigerator with water to keep it fresh for prospective buyers after the street party over the weekend. Idyllically so.

There was this comedy-slash-variety show on TV the other day-- late at night, in fact-- and I could swear over a stack of bibles it was Paola the reporter was interviewing, half-buzzed outside this bar, Paola of all people. Luke’s Paola, yours and mine in a sense, as well, and she was telling the reporter she liked her men hairy, scraggy, downright manly, like a lumberjack or a truck driver. It was the familiar drunken slurring in her voice that made me smile.

What I want to tell you by that is... It seems I’m done with the nightmares and night terrors, Lyla. I think I’ve finally made my peace with those years and tears from back in College. And I have no idea just how it came about but it happened just like that. I’m chalking it up to the serenity of getting older. I haven’t got a clue, really.

And I haven’t heard from Luke in years, either, though I sometimes do dream about him but seldom of you.

Then meanwhile, on the homefront, the latter-day characters of this story...

I haven’t seen much of Dennis anymore, even though we do manage to get together from a drink every now and then as if in a danse macabre, as if rehearsing for the next death in the family. Kay on the other hand has gone corporate big-time with no time left for these juvenile antics of the gang. And Johnny seems to have struck the motherload and is making a buck out of it if you’ll believe Martha, who’s been drifting off in her own way, slowly, whereas Jimmy’s finding himself enmeshed in the drudgeries of grown-up life, caught in-between his company, the teaching, his Master’s paper and caring for his mother. Then there’s Bryce, good old Bryce whom has taken up redecorating the apartment as of late and now spends his days like a Grail crusader after the perfect Missoni for the living room. And of Cindy I haven’t heard in ages and I think she must have returned to that no-good boyfriend of hers.

Then there’s me and Cybill-- Cybill and I-- and we’re doing all right ourselves, actually. In a small way, baby steps, but I’ve changed jobs, she did too, and now we’ve even started talking about moving in together. Who knows. And we’re so much in love with one another.

Still earlier tonight as I was doing my taxes I couldn’t help but whistle Lost Horizons and think back, think of Luke and Paola and yourself-- And there came about this urge to write you once again even though each passing year makes thinking of you more and more like attempting to bring something back from lucid dreaming, and that’s just something you can’t do after you grow up.

A tentative bookend

Standing atop that selfsame lookout post

from yesteryear,

near the edge of this big cliff

off to nowhere,

from where this all began.

But lightly now.

(What burdens? Why bother?)

Softly.

Previously engineering... something I can't quite remember now.

Currently -- and quite comfortably -- sitting back with my beach chair up on Moab, with a book to read, and none to write.

A thousand miles to go in any direction, true that, but still aiming at post #500!

After the Somme

We're no longer sitting

behind our foxholes,

yet our hands do not touch.

These trenches have gone

silent for aeons now,

but you just don't seem to mind it too much.

And you sent me your verses in Latin

the day the world started speaking in tongues.

You told me if the truth ain't broken why fix it,

but tomorrow, those Telstar pulses will take

too

damn

long.

They will tell of me, the nowhere kid,

whereas we'll be sure to paint you as the nonesuch,

But don't you mind tomorrow, dear, don't mind the smoke,

'cause in the end we'll figure out where we belong.

The Adventures of the Batwoman, pg. 131

I have been re-rewriting my 132-page "The Adventures of the Batwoman" comic script these past few months, just for kicks.

It was a very crude script from 2005 that I'd left pretty much unfinished until now.

This is the next-to-last page (pg. 131), which I've just finished and that I'm particularly proud of:

----------------

PAGE 131.

Panel 1.

Sunset: At the courtyard outside Eclipso’s fortress, Batman and the Batwoman talk, as in the background the remaining superheroes wrap up their business for the day. Batwoman looks unsettled, uneasy, not sure what to expect from the grim, tight-lipped Batman.

BATMAN: I was talking to the elder Green Lantern and… the Justice Society has recently begun their Super-Squad training program…

BATMAN: It’s the same program they have Power Girl and Sylvester Permberton in…

CAPTION: --says the Batman brooding under the last rays of the sun, a psychopomp of sorts, sentenced to guard the borders of the night like a herald of things to come--

BATMAN: Lantern wants you in, Kathy.

CAPTION: --a Faustian bargain if any, thinks Kathy Kane AKA the Batwoman, expecting a barter or trade-off that never comes.

Panel 2.

The Batwoman takes off her mask, holds it in her hand and stares at the Batman right in the eye. She’s holding back her tears.

BATWOMAN: I thought you didn’t approve of me.

BATWOMAN: I mean for chrissakes, isn’t my costume too bright? Or don’t I punch too lightly? Do I keep myself in your top-notch übermensch physical condition?

BATWOMAN: Don’t I smile all too often?

CAPTION: She puts on her best brave face and stares Batman in the eye: if there’s any emotion on his, the mirrored eyepieces from his cowl do not let it show.

Panel 3.

A half-smiling Batman (!) puts his hand on her shoulder, in an older brother kind of way. Batwoman smiles nervously.

BATMAN: Kathy. Batwoman. I recommended you myself.

BATWOMAN: Well, I… Well to be quite frank with you, I was positive you were going to throttle me for that parachute stunt, and now you come from out of the blue and offer me club membership?

BATMAN: I’ll throttle you during debriefing. Then it’s on to the JSA with you.

CAPTION: But there is a catch to this game, of course: That curve ball you never see coming, that car coming up your blind side.

Panel 4.

Continuing: Holding back her tears, she stares deeply into Batman’s eyes. This is a very touching, tender moment for Kathy.

BATWOMAN: Batman, I…

CAPTION: That last syllable lingers in the air for the months to come.

Panel 5.

Cut to: A flashback panel of the Batwoman, in a tattered uniform, hanging from a rope as if it were a trapeze, in the rocky runnels of the League of Assassins’ headquarters in Tibet (from #04).

CAPTION: The bat has completed its cycle. A circle has been closed and a purpose in life fulfilled.

CAPTION: And now it’s time to fly home.

Panel 6.

Cut to: Kathy Kane, dressed in a circus outfit, hangs from a trapeze under the big top, above applauses from the crowded bleachers below. Kathy in this shot is positioned exactly like in the previous panel, so as draw a parallel between both.

CAPTION: She will follow her heart.

CAPTION: She will go back to the circus.

CAPTION: She will know peace and joy.

Panel 7.

Cut to: Kathy Kane lies dead in the darkness on the sawdust of an empty circus tent. There’s blood coming from her side, and also a dagger smeared in blood (the discarded murder weapon).

CAPTION: She will die within the year, murdered, caught in the crossfire of a bloody game of vengeance between Ra’s Al Ghul and the Sensei for control of the League of Assassins.

Galactus beckons, tomorrow beckons...

Say, there's 2012 up ahead. Isn't the world supposed to end or something?

Typical: I finally get a girlfriend, the world ends.

Tamagotchi

I have never really told anyone about this, but I've always wanted a Tamagotchi...

Waiting for the rain

The sky is overcast up there far in the distance past the Interstate where you can’t touch the clouds, always out of reach, thick damp gray like cotton candy soaked in whitewash hovering above green hills on the horizon line like a bad omen open for divination, about to unload, discharge, pour down its truths elsewhere.

It’s closer to sunny here though, with large empty patches overhead, torn free from thinning mist-like cloud banks scattered all over by the wind. Those empty patches project intermittent circles of light down on the ground, over the tall buildings, wading erratically along jammed thoroughfares. Moving shadows are cast without rhyme or reason and go mostly unnoticed by the thronging crowds. Some of them brought along their umbrellas, just in case, when they left home for work.

There’s an overall melancholy in the air today, not really a sorrowful mood but instead a general slowness to everything, for action, attitude, buffering the self against volition or initiative: There should be lightning soon over there and with it the smell of ozone, the smell of wet, and the growing pervasive feeling one should have stayed home reading a book instead. But then, almost no one reads books anymore, so it’s a feeling devoid of purpose.

I remember one particular rainy afternoon at my grandmother’s house many years ago, going over the old books in the cabinet above her ancient armoire and coming up with, among several others, a copy of Through the Looking Glass that belonged either to my mother or to her siblings, complete with the ghostly Tenniel illustrations. I remember sitting down on the white plush couch with my back to the open window and the dark gray sky above, and devouring that book with a glass of chocolate milk, maybe cookies or freshly-baked cake as well.

I’m not the one to say that back then was necessarily better in any absolute sense, it did have its highs and lows just as everything else does except on rainy days candyglazing the past seems so much more tempting, easier to do and to come by, either by fantasy or force.