"Poetry, art, metaphor; these things felt stupid and self-indulgent in the context of Geneviève dying. They seemed like small potatoes."
"During that time, all the things that used to bring me a sense of meaning and depth and comfort, all these books in the house of poetry, philosophy and everything — all of it was just empty and useless, none of it felt relevant and the only thing that did feel soothing was human accounts of everyday, nothing happening, just life or people having legitimate and authentic human experiences with no interpretation or metaphor."
-Phil Elverum
Today, I cried about my dead mom. She is an angel, and I felt her love and cried.
Of woeful fears of future ill
That earth-folk haunt,
Let me, as radiant meadow rill,
Be ignorant.
Aye, though a sorry dunce I be
In learning's school,
Lord, marvellously make of me
Your Happy Fool!
An individual - not male or female; or maybe one or the other, or both - stands over a bathtub, holding a bottle of vegetable oil.
Eagerly, they squeeze the plastic bottle into the tub, ensuring the oil covers as much surface area as possible. A stage lamp is set behind the individual on a tripod such that their figure becomes a silhouette. The oil glistens iridescent as the lamp whirs.
An ambiguous age, but certainly an adult, the individual takes a seat on the rim of the bathtub, facing the stage lamp directly.
They peer directly into the light, even if for just a moment, with intent. And with a blindspot sparing only their peripheral vision, they turn and set their feet into the oil-soaked tub.The individual grabs the sides of the tub and slowly lowers themself down. The oil coats their back and their sides.
They soak.
They begin to propulse themselves rapidly by pushing off of the front of the tub with their feet, and pulling themselves forward with the sides of the tub - back-and-forth, back-and- forth. Schlock - squee, schlock - squee. Their body makes slapping sounds as the ridge of their back creates and alleviates a suction to the base of the tub.
The whirring of the stage lamp fades out as the individual slides forward and backwards.
Already soaked in the iridescent oil, the person begins to rotate laterally and coats their front side and genitals, all while maintaining their momentum - back-and-forth, back-and-forth. Schlock - squee, schlock - squee.
After many hours of sliding, it feels as if only seconds have passed. The squishing and schlocking sounds created by the motions have become so rhythmic and consistent that one could transcribe them easily into sheet music. Their propulsion speed combined with the duration of the event has caused a near-complete emulsion to form, consisting of the oil and the individual’s sweat; as the chemical bond strengthens, the mixture of sweat and vegetable oil thicken further into a yellow cream.
The individual begins to notice soreness - a fatigue - in their thighs and core.
They slowly realize that they are simply unable to push and pull - unable to slide. Even so, the person persists; in spite of excruciating weakness and soreness, the opium of this moment is too difficult to abandon.
The person begins to thrash their neck, banging their head on the back of the tub to try and push their body weight forward to keep sliding, but to no avail.
Their thrashing turns into an inconsolable outrage - they slam their head on either side of the ceramic tub with the speed and consistency of their initial sliding propulsions.
BANGBANGBANGBANG
Wailing, the individual continues to pummel their skull until their neck no longer possesses the strength.
It is silent for a moment until the whirring of the stage lamp resumes, and its light’s heat washes over their body as it rots to carrion.
The depth of folly, I aver,
Is to fish deep
In that dark pool of science where
Truth-demons sleep.
Poem by Robert William Service
Story by Caleb Cooper