There's a needle.

Bernard stands outside a hotel room, trying to figure out what city he's in. There's a big needle in the distance, but it's not really that big. Is it Seattle that has the needle? I mean, that needle isn't that big. Is it like a fake needle? Bernie's gotten so good at tripping acid at work that he can't even care what city he's in. He says to the taxi driver, "Take me to the Holiday Inn," after he gets off work. When he's supposed to go back to work, he says, "Take me to the airport."

Everything is automated. When he shows up on the plane, the people all go to the same places, and he stands off to the side while the prettiest flight attendant talks about how to fasten a seat belt or properly die. When he opens the fridge at the back of the plane, it's filled up again with juice and soda. All the meals, whether vegetarian or kosher or halal, are arranged by seat number. It doesn't really matter if Bernie's tripping. It just makes everything much more interesting, yet also more predictable.

So Bernie's still tripping pretty decently once he gets to his hotel. He smokes his Lucky Strikes and thinks to himself, The name of the city should at least be written on a fuckin' bus or a taxi. There are probably maps or something in the lobby. He smokes another cigarette, and then another, etc. The sun sets enough that the needle isn't so interesting anymore and he stops looking at it.

He goes over his daily checklist:

1. 8 months and 4 days since I last drank alcohol.
2. 3 months and 3 days since I last drank soda.
3. 9 months and 6 days since I last ate meat.
4. 1 year, 2 months, and 9 days since I last had sex.

He briefly wonders how Sal is doing, and immediately regrets asking himself that question. I wonder if this is the city we met in and the city where I grew up. A strange thought, but even stranger that it's true. Who knows if the city decided to install a needle somewhere downtown to revitalize the city. He hasn't paid attention for at least two years. He realizes that someone is sitting on the bench next to where he's standing and decides to ask him, "What's in that needle?"
He gets a blank answer of, "Umm, there's nothing in it. You just go up and look at the city"
"What's it called?"
The guy scratches his head and answers, "The Panoptacle?"
Bernard laughs until he starts dry heaving.

AMENSIA

The ease with which I forget certain characters
In the telling of my story is a sorry mistake.

It is, however, a ubiquitous ritual among humans,
to casually and chronically forget each other.

But every person is sentient and deserves to
Be remembered by someone, sometime;

The curly haired, obese woman met in the grocery
Store line who said, “I just found out I have cancer;”

A child in her bedroom with the lights still on
Listening to muffled shouts and screams, weeping;

The mustached man whose smile reminds me
That I am still an innocent child, deep down inside.

An entire race of beings and their plights are
Constantly forgotten, saved for another day.

I am sorry now, too, to have forgotten those who
In naïve, desperate teenage sobs suddenly become

Missed – sorry to think of all the promises I made
To myself in many somber, inebriated ceremonies

Which later, in the future, are broken and shattered,
When I would beg of myself,

Do not forget them.

VIOLENT AIMS

The he- or she-bat swoops in and shrieks and flies past our fancy crème candlesticks which are not lit with flames that dance, and knocks them onto the hardwood floor, snapping them in half like broken tibias and fibula’s. The bat is confused and scared and does not know what to do – and neither do we. With the windows shut, with the bat blind loose in our living room, with Joan and I locked in a damp and dark closet all disoriented, the world upside down, we clutch each other and are in between laughs and sobs. I become slightly aroused as Joan brushes her hand against my thigh, but immediately after I imagine this dark, black ‘other,’ this creature of the night, a creature without sight who mostly, from what I’ve seen, is never kept as a pet, with all these intentions to infect me with terrible disease, I begin to feel less like a sexual being and more like an object for its pleasure. I am a bit scared in the closet with Joan, and feel some need to be “the man” in this situation and “take care of business” but she knows me too well. And besides, she let go of me more than a few seconds ago: I’m still clutching her sweatshirt, shaking (just a little bit). And then she, of all the two of us, is the one who surprisingly dispels the fear exclaiming, it’s cute! Joan busts out of the closet and I am frozen in terror with the door flapping open and screams and shrieks and calamity melting into one loud sound. I am frightened of a rodent with wings, and a bit ashamed and guilty of fear. In this house, where we make ourselves masters of nature, I am scared of that which crept in from the outside and came inside and has taken over my serene surroundings. Once I hear Joan scream I got it out! I walk out of the closet, ashamed and saddened at the thought that I cannot recognize the beauty in such natural things – that I was scared of what is also myself. And I stand there in the living room with Gone With the Wind paused, the frankly my dear I don’t give a damn scene, with a tremendously cool October breeze sneaking in through one open window, while the leaves rustle outside on the sidewalk, and the scent of carved pumpkins and burning wax seeps in, and the children with dirt on their hands hold them open for their favorite treats and giggle and smile and I smile at the thought of such a creature, stigmatized, marginalized, this bat with his leathery wings entering down through our chimney to remind this animal, this man, me: you have absolutely nothing and everything to fear.