12/19/2020 2 Comments The ActIt’s imperative that you get in the water this instant Janet. Look! Look at that. He’s furious. I can’t even believe you’re hesitating on this. Get in and everything will be fine. He likes you remember.
It doesn’t appear he likes much of anything at this moment. You’re being dramatic. Come on Janny look at all these people, they all came here looking for a good time. Something to take their minds off the doldrums of their haphazard lives. Are you really going to deny them that? Fuck Roger! I’m not being withholding on Prom night, I could lose an arm! Look at this situation from my perspective and tell me you would really want to swim out there right now for this group of idiots. Oh I see. We’re going to get all formal now, you’ll call me Roger because you’re upset with me and you want to make me feel like we don’t know each other as well as you know we do. Like we are some fly-by-night-strangers that haven’t spent years carefully curating this muddle we have found ourselves in. Well if that’s how you want to be Janet Brinley then two can play at that game. Honestly I… Jesus! I’m sorry! Felix! Fee! Whatever your goddamn name is, I can’t keep track anymore. Are we doing this or not? Everybody is getting antsy just tie the rope around me and let’s do this. Felix’s face lit up like Christmas morning, and he began frantically adhering a crude rope to Janet’s waist. Suddenly his hands were vibrating violently, and he kept dropping the knots. He glanced up to see beads of nervous sweat forming at the apex of Janet’s neck. Janet. Janny. His love, why was he doing this to her... She really could die. Okay, you’re all set Took you long enough Don’t chastise me, I’m doing you a favor. Oh, that’s funny. That’s hilarious Fee, really, I’m rolling on the ground positively balled up with amusement. You’re really incorrigible aren’t you. Will you do something for me before you go Janny? What Will you kiss me? Roger! I’m sorry… just--good luck out there. I know you’ll be great. I’ll see you soon, hold onto me tight. She softened her gaze and handed the other end of the rope to him. He clasped a clammy palm around it and watched her descend into the steady waves of the alcove. The crowd tittered and gathered closer to the shore break. Somewhere on the other end of the beach a baby was screaming to be put down. The wind was picking up, but it was a pleasantly warm day, warmer than it usually gets that far north. The sun beamed off the water in a crescendo as Janet journeyed methodically to the approximate center of the little inlet. The gang was already waiting for her there. They never had any qualms about the act. They dove right into the water the second the group arrived at Devil’s Elbow-- tearing off unnecessary articles of clothing, shouting and whooping as they went. The commotion was always useful in drawing a healthy crowd. Bonnie and Walter and Judith and Steven, the whole crazy lot of them. Mira was always a little more timid, but even today she had screeched and giggled with the ensemble as they led Midas into the icy waters. But Midas was in a mood today. They were all aware of it. Painfully aware, especially Janet who was always so annoyingly in sync with him. Maybe he hadn’t slept well, or had eaten something questionable that was upsetting his temperamental stomach. Whatever it was had him growling at the group all morning. Felix was decidedly fed up with the anxiety Midas contributed to their every waking hour. He thought the act was swell without Midas’ punitive contribution, but the group wholeheartedly disagreed. So, whatever his mood, the group would grin and usher him to the center of their little water stage anyhow, full and well knowing the disasters that could befall them. Felix exhaled his anxious energy and nodded to Sergey that he could begin warming up the crowd. The wind was picking up a little now, but the sun was still as kind as ever to the little group of misfits treading water some forty yards away. Janny had reached them now, she was sidled up next to Midas and the rest had begun to assume their starting positions. Ladies and Gentlemen, you have all been incredibly patient with us as we assemble this glorious event for you all. We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting this little experiment of ours. And now, the moment you have all been waiting for, I give to you, the one, the only, THE LION TAMERS! Felix hit play on the pitiful boombox. The music served no real purpose in their act other than dramatic flair. The performers couldn’t hear it over the crashing waves and viscous diatribe of Midas during the whole affair. But the audience seemed to go nuts for it. So, he hit play and grasped Janet’s rope tighter, ready to yank at a moment’s falter. The first stage of the little act was fairly simplistic. The group would part ways to reveal Midas huddled at the center. Women would shriek and men would shout, usually a child or two would start crying. Janet looked like an angel in her little white gown, sopping wet and clinging to her malnourished frame. When was the last time they’d had a decent meal? Felix shook his head and focused on the next trick. Midas was already misbehaving. He had clasped Janet’s arm in his mouth twice now, to which she had only smiled and shaken free, trying to continue to the next trick. Sergey and Felix made nervous eye contact from across the beach. This show was getting harder and harder to put on by the day. Were things finally coming to a close? Next was Bonnie’s big moment. With the help of Janet and Steven, she hopped onto Midas’ back, and began her interpretive piece. Midas let out an ungodly roar at this, and Janet began crooning into his ear, dodging his malicious advances all the time. Bonnie was clearly getting nervous and cut her act short, flying off Midas’ haunches to land in Walter’s arms, graceful as a lamb. The next trick might prove near impossible, as Janny was supposed to play act ballroom dancing with Midas, his great paws upon her bony shoulders only making him appear more ferocious and her more delicate. This was a crowd favourite and Janny knew it, she couldn’t skip this trick, but Midas was getting visibly restless now, his claws outstretched, as they dangled over Janny’s back. Mira was swimming behind her, ready to break her free at a moment’s duress. But Janet was the resident expert at mitigating Midas’ mood swings, she hardly ever needed real help. His heart rate slowed as the dancing trick came to a close and Janny was left for the most part unscathed. The rest of the tricks required minimum contact between the actors and Midas, but Janet was still very much in danger. He watched her sink below the great beast’s weight as he placed his enormous paws upon her head, or her face scrunch up as his mouth firmly encapsulated her bare arm and he attempted to bite down. He wasn’t trying to kill her, just to taunt her, to let her know he was mad, tired, hungry, whatever. They communicated without words, without anything but these knowing glances, and of course there was Midas’ more physical outbursts which Janet was uniquely capable of handling. Still, the group was never entirely sure how far Midas might be willing to take his little charade. They thought it best not to test the limits. Midas was being led in figure eights now by the actors who were bobbing and weaving out of his line of vision as if they were actually creatures of the sea. Off to the side, Walter and Bonnie were busy climbing on top of one another’s shoulders and swan diving back into the waves. Judith was ducking under the water, surfacing with only her lean legs in slow motion upside-down moon walk style, like a synchronized swimmer. The crowd is teeming with excitement at this point. Sergey is narrating the scene to them, vivifying the danger and peril the actors are in. The irony of the situation being that they weren’t in any danger at all. It was only Janet that need be concerned. The whole act essentially surrounded trying to keep Janet alive, they had choreographed it to look like Janet was the trusty handler and the rest the faceless mermaiden bait, but truly it was the other way around. Midas cared for no one but Janny, and he would growl and chase her as long as they asked him to. He never got tired of loving her, and of hating her too. She had the scars to prove both. The final trick was coming to a close. Sergey and Felix were noticeably more relaxed as the group lined up and took truncated aquatic bows, all the time still keeping one eye on the Janet/Midas situation. A few grey clouds had covered the sun, and those in the crowd that were not still cheering were holding their coats close and corralling whiny children back to the beach parking lot to beat the rain and the traffic home. Sergey thanked the crowd for coming, invited them to join them next week for an entirely new routine (it was always the same) and bid them all a pleasant afternoon. Midas let out another soul shattering roar and Felix instinctively tugged at the worn-out rope. Janet shot him an eye roll and began swimming towards shore. The group at the center was harnessing Midas, who had begun to grow even more restless as Janet left his side. Sergey was sauntering over to Felix, pleased with the success of the show. Icy wind whipped his sport coat around his thin body. They all needed a good hearty meal. How much today Serg? Buckets man buckets, we are eating good tonight let me tell you! How many more of these shows do you think we can pull off before something goes horribly wrong? What do you mean? It was at that ironic turn, that something went horribly wrong. From behind the actors, a monstrous wave gathered-- one unlike they had ever seen on this part of the coast. It towered over them. Judith noticed it first, and let out a hearty scream, Felix and Sergey whipped their heads around to see the thirty-foot-tsunami-style-imposition casting it’s great shadow over the group’s tiny human and grouchy lion bodies. Janny’s head was turned too, in awe, but before the group could even begin to swim towards an escape, the thing had crashed and sent everyone flying. Sergey and Felix cowered behind some nearby rocks and the spray engorged them. They looked up to see everyone gone, scattered far and wide, pulled under by the enormous current. No bodies, no leashes, no tails. Oh my God! Janet! Scrambling over to the main beach, they frantically searched for the remains of their friends. Mira and Steven were coughing by a cluster of jagged rocks. They were bloody and bruised from head to toe, but they were conscious, helping one another stand amid another crash of waves. Bonnie! Walter! Janny! Fuck where is Midas!!! Judith! Bonnie! The rest were nowhere to be found. Mira and Steven got their bearings and joined the boys’ frantic screams. Felix’s heart was in his throat as he tried to shout her name. He felt like he could collapse on this beach, he never wanted to get up again. Janet! The sky was growing darker and more dreary by the minute. Everyone was shivering with sea water in the wind’s chill. Steven fell to his knees and started crying. There were no bodies in site. No lions. Nothing. Nobody. Where could they have gone. I don’t understand. What if they got pulled back out to sea… Mira, why do you say shit like that. That’s so unhelpful right now. And goddamn it Steven will you stand up! We all feel like crying, but we have to find them, we can’t just give up okay? Fee, I know you loved her, we are going to find her I promise, we… This isn’t about her! Everybody just shut up and keep looking! They are here somewhere! The beach fell silent after that. But they knew Mira was right, there wasn’t anywhere else to look, the alcove wasn’t that big, there were only so many clusters of sharp boulders that their friends could be lying behind, they had already searched them all. Felix still had half a piece of the dingy brown rope in his hand. He had never let it go, but the rogue wave had snapped it finally apart. His remaining half was short and frayed, it shook with his hands, his whole body really. Sergey tried to put his arm around him, but Felix wouldn’t slow his search-- he ran frantically from one side of the beach to the other, calling her name. Felix! We have to get these two to shelter, they’re hurt. We will come back with a boat and search for the rest. They’re okay, I’m sure of it, they are probably just a little further south by now, the next beach over or something. We will come back for them. I’m not going anywhere. You can go get help or a boat or whatever you want. We dragged her out here every goddamn day these past five years, I’m not leaving without her. She’s here, she has to be here, she has to be okay. His insistence that she was okay only solidified the growing suspicion that she really was not. They were all gravely aware of Midas’ lust for her, what he might do if he found himself unsupervised in the middle of the ocean with her-- without the menagerie of disguised handlers and harnesses and safety ropes. All the things necessary to make sure that Midas never truly got what it was he was after. To eat her whole, to swallow her up, have her be his and his only-- forever. That fucking beast. That god damned animal. This was a stupid idea. A stupid, stupid thing to do. This was bound to happen eventually. Do you all realize that? Why couldn’t we just quit while we were ahead? Why did we have to wait… wait for THIS to happen! And you all know what I’m talking about, I know we all try to pretend like we have all this under control and it’s not that dangerous and that she is just going to be O.K. because she is quick and strong and knows how to HANDLE him. But fuck you guys! Who do we think we are! We’re fucking children for god’s sake! Mira, you’re what, 18? Where does your family think you are? Don’t they wonder about you? Did they ever come looking for you?? Why don’t we ever talk about this stuff! Fee, Fee, calm down man okay? We’re going to find them. All of them. We can talk about all this later, let’s get these two to a hospital though, I think I see a bone sticking out of Steven’s leg. Everybody looked down at Steven, who was still curled up on the sand crying. Not for his lost friends as they had all assumed, but for a very protruding piece of bone that was attempting to exit his leg. Mira gasped and rushed to his side. Sergey gave Felix one last look of contempt and went to help Steven up and, along with Mira, carried him off death’s beach. Felix tightened his lips and turned to face the violent waves, now crashing faster and closer to where he stood. He scanned the wavering horizon. Janet! ...Janet! .... JANET! It was hopeless. She was gone.
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She sat.
She sat and contemplated how for every thing that is born, something else must first die. She contemplated the sheer indulgence of her current state, a soft whisper from a long ago girl that used indulgence to justify her cruelty. She watched light dance across the succulents— cars bobbing on to their respective nestlings. She gulped more fog than she felt she could stomach. How nice to be selfish. How exhilaratingly unhinged, to get in the car to go to the store and find oneself instead at the coast, gazing deeply into nothing. These are not the actions of a kept women, a women kept within someone else— someone who loves her, who means well, but who wants her all the same. She is alone. Nobody loves her. How gently she can call herself names now, can define her bones without fear of someone asking to share in those definitions, share with her what she is. She does not feel like sharing. “No body troubles my body.” How the waves move like the blood in her veins. Is this why she loves them so? Is this what draws her to study them for hours on end? Is it the syncopation of blood and water? Maybe we were not made in God’s image. Maybe we were made in the Earth’s image. For don’t we humans encapsulate so beautifully all that the Earth contains?? Do we not spin and trip and grow and destroy and laugh and dance and surprise and sleep and run and falter and love... just as the Earth does? Are we not more closely matched to the hillside with it’s rocks and trees than the phantom in the sky casting rules and judgements? Do we not belong solely to the land on which we walk? She sat. And she soon left. She belonged to no one. 12/14/2020 1 Comment Dear RalphieDear Ralphie,
Every once in a while, I get on this unexplained jag where I find large groups of people and their interactions and jokes and general habits so utterly vomit-worthy that I simply must remove myself from their presence at once and retreat to some secluded place of my own. I sit tormented by the groupie mentality: the way girls obsess about the same idiotic subjects together in loud, shrieking tones and how men feel the need to not literally but almost literally parade their nut sacks around the confined area with said women until every one of us wreaks of dick sweat and pheromones. It’s a disgusting ritual. Group meals and conversations. Anytime a joke of any sort is uttered, and especially if the joke is of a degrading manner towards any person trapped in said group, the group's members will explode in an uproarious and nerve splicing laughter—not out of enjoyment, but out of a need to prove to everyone involved (including themselves) that they are happy and they are whole and a part of this dumbfoundingly dull group of humans. You can watch it happen, it applies to groups of all sizes (numbering more than three) and to people of all backgrounds, statuses, and interests. Watch their eyes dart from person to person, both judging and learning the habits of the collective. It is a sort of pointed and unconscious study in human behavior that will happen—in which the observer will both learn the actions and habits that they are to adopt should they continue to be welcomed in this mold, and learn which actions and behaviors are repelling to this nauseating republic of idiots, so as to avoid them at all costs. It is not hard to spot everyone’s position in these coagulations of the human breed. The leaders speak loudly and with conviction. They hold a certain unmistakable confidence and composure, aware that everything they say and do is law while they hold these people’s court. The usurpers are always close behind, they have almost mastered the curious attributes of the leaders and believe that they practice them flawlessly, but upon careful study, it isn’t hard to point out at least several chinks in the proverbial armor--clear and apparent slip ups in their performance that render them subconsciously to the rest of the group worth of only half of their attention and respect. Then we come to the largest and least interesting faction in these groups: the herd. The herd does little else besides fill empty space, following the leaders blindly and unflinchingly, laughing at all the right jokes, responding with all the ooh and ahhs that can be expected of them. They hold all of the correct opinions at the correct time, knowing exactly when to reverse and modify them under a new regime, as well as when to hold fast in favor of a leader that warrants loyalty even in their absence. There are many smaller factions of herd members within its realms: The brainless, the wannabes, the jokesters, et cetera. However they are so fluid and irrelevant to this rant that I won’t even bore you with any more detail on their ultimately meaningless attributes and quirks. At the very bottom of this sickening totem pole lies possibly one of the most important categories in any group, and that is the faction of outcasts. The outcasts serve to strengthen the bond of the other group members, as they unite in jokes and disgusted or annoyed opinions of whomever their chosen victims are. The outcasts are usually uncomfortably aware of their status or even more uncomfortably (for those of the higher castes)--unaware. Unknowingly walking straight into jokes, or ill-tempered rants that will be carried on at later times behind closed doors, always in a clinically prescribed effort to assert themselves in said-group and gain acceptance and respect, something that almost never materializes out of said-efforts. Of course, if a group forms and no easy targets for an outcast are present, the group will resort to extracting one of its more liked members and proceed to perform the tradition of degradation at their unwilling expense. This is not often a malicious practice, but simply one to keep up the methods of group think that have become so popular and well respected by all group attendees. This is an incredibly important tenet to the survival of these pitiful schools of drones, for if protocol is broken even for a moment--the results could lead to anarchy. When no clear leaders are present in a certain group function, an interesting and often amusing battle begins to take place between the group's usurpers for a hold on the fleeting and meaningless power of the moment. Much of this struggle is created not by the self-aware usurper, but by troubled and unselfconscious usurpers who believe themselves the natural and witty leaders of the group anyways, never fully grasping how little power they actually possess. But anyways, here I lie in my bunk chuckling at my own clever analyzation of these idiots while not fully knowing which category of these I fall into when not riddled with such sour distaste for the entire practice in itself. I probably fall amongst the mindless herd of followers not caring where their loyalties lie either way, just trying to make it to tomorrow without falling into the dark realms of the outcast. You probably find yourself in the leader category, or at least amongst a decent usurper. I seem to remember you always well liked at parties, extracting a laugh from your audience without much trouble. I don’t know when the last time I made someone laugh was, or even the last time I laughed at myself—not to avoid ostracization--but for pure and simple joy. Strange. Sincerely yours, Max |
AuthorAvery Atlas is the author of all posted pieces. Archives
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