The Dead Desk

Black, halogen, cold table-lamp on the far-left corner, heating, enlightening ordered pages. White, ink-jet, Lilliputian printer on the far-right corner, weakly whispering poetic outputs. Grey, greyscale, baby scanner exquisitely centred between black and white. Pen-holder with one pen, though it could fit a hand in its holes, carved in white onyx, lying in proximity of the page spitter. Black, sleek notebook computer, conveniently placed, activated even when the pen is full of black ink. White paper with clear scribblings of tasty ideas:

Salivating salad sensation

Picturesque potato purée

Basting beef benediction

Canonizing cake carré

Titillating tisane treat

Melting mint maneuvers

Packing pasta primavera

impending similes:

As orange as orgasm

As barren as the moon

As fragile as our sanity

As arrogant as our species

As rough as a rainbow

As tentative as suicide

As pliant as a picture

As eloquent as a dead poet

As reliable as insurance

As restless as the unconscious

As confining as our shoes

As pale as a convict being led to the chair

two poems:

To A.M. Klein

My life lacks your shady shadow

My house is a little ghetto

I’m a klein footstep without you

With you I was a good old Jew

I have your love: The Second Scroll

I live the life of your withdrawal

Fundamentally Wrong

Kill your neighbour with noise

Steal money from your bank

Please her in order to please her

Caress your pet before the vet

Fasten your seat belt because your back hurts

Have your doctor meet a statistician

Avoid office parties

A rerun is a rerun

Once upon a time in the South

Paternity leave don’t leave me

Resell your second soul to the sunshine

Testing one two three testing one two three

Thirteen years ago to go no

Kill your neighbour with your silence

and two short stories, one of them typed:

Will the Sun Rise Today?

It’s a little after midnight. Sleeplessness is taking shape, and its dominance over me becomes similar to that of the master over the slave. I should be sleepy, but tonight I’m not. Perhaps it’s a premonition of some kind, insomnia, or my unconscious giving me a foretaste of immortality.

The sky offers many stars to the eye, but my eyes cannot perceive my star, my sunshine. Only the dawn will reveal a glimpse of her, and later the day will display all of her. She’s the dawn and the day, since without her they are nonexistent. A well-known song emerges in my head: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy…. I sing it to myself, and I’m so sad.

Midnight gives its blessings to all the lovers, burglars, night-shift workers, night enthusiasts, and sleepers, but I’m blessed with the thoughts of the sleepless, intimations of the fearful, and the power of induction.

It’s just before one a.m., and I’m still awake, observing the sky. Myriad stars brighten it, and a full moon enlightens it. Each star possesses planets, and most planets have satellites, but the only satellite I can see is the moon. Cold and beautiful, she presents her full face, which illuminates the obscurity with a light that originates in my sunshine.

It’s almost two a.m., and I yearn for her. I need her to warm my bones and dissipate the darkness. I desire her rays to embrace me, her face to undress me. However, my sunshine still lights the other side of the world and leaves me with her smile, the moon, which proves to me that my sunshine still exists.

It’s close to three a.m., and my eyes are wide open. I begin to lose control, my fear grows, and I start to tremble. I ask myself a question, which triggers much perspiration: Will the sun rise today? With the help of induction, I admit to myself that she rose yesterday and throughout the past, but it isn’t proof that she will rise today. My mind introduces a few possible reasons. If some insane creature of our kind decides to press the red button, it’s very probable that I will cease to exist, and if I survive, my sunshine will disappear from the observing eye for at least a year. Another prospect is the sun going nova: a nearly total annihilation of my sunshine, and death to every living thing. A comet colliding with Earth or the crushing of a huge meteorite can also bring forth oblivion and the impossibility of seeing my sunshine.

It’s nearly four a.m., and I’m still awake, afraid and searching for other possibilities of sunlessness. Suddenly, I realize that my initial induction was true: the sun will rise today, will appear in less than an hour. Still, remains the slightest possibility that it will not. The idea of not seeing my sunshine while being still alive activates in my mind the function of self-destruction.

It’s a quarter to five, and dawn will awake very shortly. I hold the blade in a trembling hand, prepared to make the final cut, but exactly in that instant — the moment that separates life from death — dawn makes an entrance. I see a gleam of light — the coming of my sunshine is real.

It’s a little before midnight, and the sun rose today. Yet a question persists in my mind: Will the sun rise tomorrow?

Wishes of the Catless

Mitzi was looking at me with curious eyes: what was I going to do with that string creature? As I laid it on the floor, moving it ever so slowly, Mitzi was preparing the assault. Ears straightened, whiskers erect, eyes transfixed, body motionless, tail tip moving to a mute music, she attacked with her previously sharpened claws and her meat-devouring teeth. The string had no chance of escape.

Following long minutes of destringness, Mitzi lay upon her victim triumphant with heavy eyes — victory-drunk. She began to lick her left paw with her tongue going to and fro in catlike concord. Then, she languidly proceeded to the right paw. Eventually, she went on to her upper back. She seemed to enjoy grooming herself following a confrontation; her way of preparing for a new one, or just erasing any trace of the previous clash. Next, Mitzi stretched a bit, yawned with jaws wide open, put her head on her paws, and began to slumber. Wait! I thought. Tired already? Not so fast! How about this finger creature? I moved my index finger near her very slowly, and before I could even think of reacting, she had it under her paws. I screamed. That will teach me not to tease her in the future. But that is what I always thought following Mitzi’s swift clawings. I guess that it is difficult to resist a cat’s attack. You get to watch the workings of a predator’s purpose.

I started to prepare some food for the victorious: Miss Mew for Miss Mitzi. She swallowed the meat with her velvet tongue, taking her time. After all, time has a different meaning for a cat: a time to sleep, a time to eat, a time to groom, a time to play, and a time to purr, followed surely by a You’re so cute, Mitzi.

This circle of cattish events seems to repeat itself until the day the cat drops dead. Now, I wonder: should I actually get a cat?

All these lifeless objects were reposing on a brownish melamine surface covered with particles of death.