Today was unit’s first visit to Packard Public Repair Center. The primary  complaint was subjective dysfunction in the left arm.  

In unit’s words: “There’s like, a pain shooting up to my shoulder when I move it.” Standard cyborg mechanical testing was conducted. Functional flexibility was  achieved, though there was a clicking sound at full extension.  

From the transcript: “clack-clack-clackclackclack.” 

Unit made expressions of discomfort throughout but was compliant—thus, it was  concluded that the unit’s dysfunction is merely subjective. Follow-up visit was scheduled  at unit’s request, and unit was instructed to monitor subjective pain.  

3/15 

In today’s follow-up, unit insisted on being given a replacement arm. In unit’s  words: “You’re a repairhuman, you’re supposed to help me, aren’t you?” Standard mechanical testing was conducted. Functional results were the same,  though unit was agitated throughout assessment. To report unit’s words: “Believe me when I say it’s getting worse. I can’t even cook dinner anymore without it acting up.” Unit was asked to elaborate on the significance of cooking, specifically whether it  was a component of unit’s work responsibilities. In unit’s words: “No, it’s just for fun.

I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, so like, helping my dad. Pork chops and garlic fried  rice and all that. I try to do it every day.” 

No further action was taken. 

Supervisor.auto: Good work dissuading unit from requesting new  arm, in accordance with Cost Saving for Public Centers. 

5/10 

Unit reported experiencing arm dysfunction while at work. As such, the  Occupational Questionnaire was administered. 

Unit selected both “exclusively monitor-based” and “does not require heavy  lifting” in Q5 and Q6 respectively. Unit listed occupation as “part-time Facer for  Finerone Manufacturing.” Because repairhuman was unfamiliar with this line of work,  unit was asked to explain. 

From unit’s transcript: “So being a Facer means I sit in on these really gnarly cases where Finerone is being sued because one of their products failed. Like today, we  had a case where a cyby tried to use Finerone’s Super Duper Oil and choked to death on  it because the safety nozzle on the can was defective. Then the cyby’s kids came home  and found him that way. So yeah, gruesome.  

Anyways, my job is pretty much to listen to these cases while they film my  reaction. If I smile while hearing about a case, then like, I guess that legally means  Finerone can say that cyborgs aren’t affected by the issue because otherwise I would be  visibly upset. So yeah, that’s Facework in a nutshell. Couldn’t do it for more than 4 hours straight, which is why I’m part time. And yeah, I know I would get private  documentation through Finerone if I was staff, but you couldn’t make me do that unless  you like, took my brain out.”  

Supervisor.auto: Unnecessarily long and detailed transcript excerpt detected. Q5 and Q6 already provide adequate info for cross-checking documentation coverage. Cyborg repairwork should be thorough, but not thorough to the extent of wasting time.

During interview, unit verbally confirmed that the work was exclusively monitor based. Because the function of unit’s arm is objectively irrelevant for the completion of  their work tasks, no further action was taken. Follow-up visit was rescheduled. 

9/8 

Unit checked in to the Center at 5:24pm for a scheduled appointment at 6:00pm.  Due to a shortage of staff, wait times were longer than usual. 

Supervisor.auto: Disgruntled language detected. Avoid making written reference to “short-staffedness.” Remain productive and optimistic, Repairhuman Jess. 

Unit was finally seen at 8:42pm. Unit’s disposition was irritable, and they  reported worsening dysfunction. In unit’s words: “Nowadays, it’s not just that it hurts to move, but to hold still. I was glad they finally called my name back there because  seriously!”

Standard mechanical testing was conducted. Functional flexibility was impeded:  unit’s arm locked up involuntarily upon full 180 degree extension, followed by loud  electrical sounds. From the transcript: “snapSNAPsnap-SNAPSNAP.” Unit expressed audible discomfort throughout assessment. 

Functional impediment was graded as Level 1. As such, Rehabilitation Plan was  initiated, consisting of 10mL Finerone Canned Joint Fluid daily intake for 100 days. Unit initially disagreed with Rehabilitation Plan. In unit’s words: “Sorry, it’s just… It’s made by Finerone, and you know… Isn’t there anything else?” Unit was made aware that no alternatives were covered in unit’s documentation.  Because unit seemed unfamiliar with the implications of documentation coverage, it was  explained in simple terms that alternatives would have to be paid with unit’s own  money. 

After initial hesitation, unit provided written consent for Rehabilitation Plan. 1L  of Finerone Canned Joint Fluid was dispatched to the Supply Center in unit’s vicinity. Throughout visit, unit’s general affect was tired, likely due to the 3 hour wait  time.  

Supervisor.auto: Second instance of disgruntled language detected! Avoid making negative reference to “3 hour wait time.” It is expected of cyborg units to wait patiently and agreeably for service at Public Centers. 

Follow-up visit was scheduled after 60 days of Rehabilitation Plan. 

11/7 

Unit confirmed adherence with Rehabilitation Plan but reported new concern. In  unit’s words: “Yeah, so the fluid’s been making my whole arm feel numb, which I guess isn’t like, technically pain? But I’m not sure if it’s better to feel numb than painful,  right?” 

Standard mechanical testing was conducted. Full functional flexibility was  achieved, and the previous clicking and snapping sounds were absent upon extension.  Unit’s disposition was cautiously optimistic. In unit’s words: “I guess I’ll have to wait and see if the numbness goes away. But anyways, thanks for seeing me again,  Repairhuman Jess. I know you’re busy, but I feel like you sincerely care about me.” Unit brought a thank you gift. From unit’s transcript: “It’s homemade coconut  yam cake. I spent all night making it, so there’s that.”  

Objective measures indicated Finerone Canned Joint Fluid have provided an  improvement in arm function. No further action at this time. 

Supervisor.auto: Self-congratulatory language detected, specifically the mention of “thank you gift” and inclusion of the transcript excerpt in which unit describes feelings about repairhuman. Avoid reporting irrelevant (ie., not outcomes-based)  elements, as your time could spent better elsewhere. 

11/27

Unit showed up to the Center on own accord. Visit was unauthorized. Unit’s  disposition was confrontational, and they refused to wait to be seen. From unit’s  transcript: “So yeah, the numbness went away but then like, the pain came back worse than ever. The pain’s so bad, I’ve had to drop out of like, 11 cases just last week, and  that’s when Finerone put me on probation. You have to do something.” 

Unit was probed about the timeline of dysfunction recurrence. To report unit’s  words: “I mean, it started when I ran out of joint fluid last week.” 

Repairhuman revisited the Rehabilitation Plan, and it was deemed that unit  should not have run out of Canned Joint Fluid until 32 days later. When probed about  the discrepancy, unit admitted to taking >10mL/day Canned Joint Fluid for the last  several days. From unit’s transcript: “I found that if I took enough, the numbness spread from my arm to everywhere, and being numb made it easier to get through the day. It  was like, I no longer was really thinking about what I was seeing in my cases or what it  all meant, so I was able to do back-to-back shifts like nothing. Taking the fluid makes it  possible to cook again too! I mean, the flavor of the food doesn’t really come through to  me anymore so I don’t eat what I make these days… But my housemates do! Anyhow, all  in all everything was good and productive until I ran out of the stuff. Then things got  really bad. So can you please just get some more sent over to the Supply Center? They  can’t give me anymore without your approval.” 

Unit was informed that because of their misuse, no additional Canned Joint Fluid  would be provided to the Supply Center, as per the terms of unit’s documentation.  Unit began to cry. This became open weeping, which was disruptive to the  Center. As such, the unit had to be subdued. 

Rehabilitation Plan to be reassessed at a later date. 

11/30 

After review, it was deemed that unit’s issue with Canned Joint Fluid was one of a behavioral nature. Because Repair Center does not handle behavioral dysfunction, repairhuman sent recommendations for Behavioral Reprogramming Specialists via  remote correspondence. 

Unit replied to the message: I reached out to your recommended specialists, but  none of them are covered in my documentation, and they’re too expensive to pay for  with my own money. With all due respect, I don’t have the fucking time to go searching  the city for a specialist that’s covered. I need Joint Fluid now. My probation just ended  SO I HAVE TO DO CASES 24/7 OR I WILL LOSE MY JOB AND I AM IN PAIN. Do you  understand? I thought you were on my side, Repairhuman Jess! 

The unit’s message was deleted, due to incendiary language, and no reply was  sent. 

Supervisor.auto: Negative facial expressions were detected when  you checked unit’s message today. Remember to avoid unnecessary outbursts such as crying, as it puts a strain on staff and leads to delays. 

A follow-up visit was scheduled to re-assess unit’s arm dysfunction.

12/28

Unit informed Center that this would be their final visit, due to a change in documentation coverage. 

To report unit’s words: “Being put on probation scared me. Like I knew I had to make things work, no matter what. So anyways, I found some knock-off Joint Fluid  online and started taking it round-the-clock. My Facework performance went up once I  was numb again, and soon I went from barely managing 1 case a day to doing 30-40 no  problem. My manager saw and promoted me to full-time staff. So yeah, now I have  private documentation, courtesy of Finerone. Anyhow, they need me to close out my file  with the Center. So let’s do that?” 

Standard mechanical testing was conducted. Functional flexibility was achieved,  but upon completion of assessment, unit’s left arm fell off.  

Reattachment failed, though unit did not seem concerned. In fact, unit laughed. In unit’s words: “Well, I mean, I just don’t need it anymore. At this point, my life is pretty much round-the-clock Facework, then taking Canned Joint Fluid. Neither of  which require a left arm, really.” 

Unit was asked about cooking. 

Unit did not answer. After not saying anything for a marked period of time, unit finally commented on the fallen arm.  

From transcript: “Keep it. Maybe someone else could use it.” 

Unit left the arm behind at the Center. It was subjected to standard detached part testing, deemed to be unusable old tech, and marked for disposal. 

The post Case Study: Left Arm Dysfunction appeared first on The New Absurdist.

“It?” is all I can muster. 

The short man trembles with some strange, almost religious conviction. 

I feel as though I’ve forgotten something important. 

“You know very well what I’m talking about,” he growls, snapping me back into the moment. 

“I honestly have no clue,” I mutter, sitting down. I’ve been here one minute and I’m accused of a crime. 

The short man balls his fists, two small hams quivering with anger, and slams them on my desk with a sharp bang! 

“Don’t play dumb with me. I know you’re responsible. Thief! That is my property. That whiteboard defines my work, my legacy, and I will not be disrespected.” 

A whiteboard? There are dozens scattered throughout the office. What makes this particular whiteboard sacred? 

“I just got here. Is it possible you misplaced it?” 

“Misplaced a five-foot-tall whiteboard?” he snarls, eyes wild. “That board contains the sum total of my thinking, my diagrams, my very soul!” 

I glance around my cubicle, my desk, computer, and walls. No whiteboard. It must be exceptionally important for him to lash out like this. 

“All the information I need is on that whiteboard. It’s irreplaceable,” he says. 

“You didn’t keep copies on your computer?” I ask.

“So anyone could access my ideas on the shared drive? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No. I won’t make it easy for you to steal everything I cherish.” 

He buries his face in his hands and exhales sharply. 

My stomach drops. Did I move a whiteboard? Maybe I touched it? Maybe I rolled it away without even realizing? I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember? 

“Pay attention! Where is your shame? You will show me respect!” he snaps. 

I look at him, puzzled. Maybe he’s confusing me with someone else. Or maybe I’ve been demoted to the office scapegoat. 

“Give it back, or I’ll escalate this to the supervisor.” 

“Go ahead! But unless I’ve been rolling whiteboards around in my sleep, I’m not your guy.” 

The short man’s face crumples like a wrinkled mask. Sweat beads on his forehead, dripping down as if he’s standing under a spotlight. 

“Disrespectful thief!” he bellows, spittle spraying. His finger shakes, a trembling spear of accusation. 

“You’ve robbed me, and you sit there, like a fool. That board is everything, it’s my life’s work, my proof of existence. Where I’m from, rules are sacred. Break one, and the universe splits at the seams, vomiting a hell so fierce even devils scramble for shelter.” 

Turning quickly, he storms out toward the supervisor’s office. 

I stand and peer over my cubicle wall. One by one, heads poke out like meerkats on the savanna, watching for predators. 

The short man gestures wildly in the supervisor’s office. The supervisor leans forward, locking eyes with me. His sharp stare pierces my chest. I shiver. I don’t think he likes me.

The door creaks open. 

“We will get to the bottom of this,” the supervisor says gravely. 

His eyes fix on mine and they say: Here. Now. 

As I walk toward the office, the short man stomps past me, possessed by all the devils in hell. I catch a glimpse of my face in the window of the supervisor’s office and see the face of an unkempt stranger staring back. The meerkats watch silently, eyes wide, as I enter the lion’s den. 

“Please sit,” the supervisor says. His tone is flat but firm. 

I sit. His desk towers over me, littered with coffee mugs. The one facing me says: But first, coffee. 

The walls are lined with diplomas and a single photograph, a tree on a hill, barren and dead. As if a skeletal hand is reaching from the grave. A family photo sits on his desk: his wife in an orange sundress, her smile strained. His two daughters wear identical expressions, solemn and heavy, as if they understand the weight of existence. 

“Do you know why I’ve called you here?” he asks dryly. 

“It seems a whiteboard has been misplaced,” I reply in the same tone. The nagging feeling I’d forgotten something swells into a full wave of fear. 

“Misplaced? How does one misplace a whiteboard? Can you misplace a desk? A chair? How about the office itself?” 

“Of course you can,” I say. 

“Nothing happens in this office without my approval. I control the very air you breathe. Are you suggesting I authorized the removal of company property?” 

I stare. Is he serious? 

“Everything in this office is as it should be. I work day and night to maintain order in a world of chaos. Every person in my machine is meant to do one thing: produce. Until today, we held a perfect balance. Now the balance is disturbed. Disturbed balance is like a disease, leave it untreated, and the organism dies.” 

In this moment, I realize. I forgot to brush my hair this morning. What an oversight. If I can’t manage that, what else have I done without realizing? 

“All I ask is that you prove you didn’t steal the whiteboard. Simple, right? If you can prove your innocence, the matter is closed. If not, we are talking about disciplinary action. Perhaps termination.” 

I nod reluctantly. 

“Everything from this point on will determine how we proceed. Do you understand?” 

I nod again. 

“Do you know what happened to the whiteboard?” 

I shake my head. 

“Have you ever touched office equipment that didn’t belong to your section?” 

I hesitate. Of course I have. I nod. 

“So you admit it,” he snaps. 

“Admit what?” I ask, confused. 

“You admit to tampering with company property in direct violation of policy.” 

“I admit I’ve touched office equipment,” I protest. The phone rings. 

“Return to your desk,” he says, turning away. 

What just happened?

I stand, dazed, both fists clenched as I walk back to my desk. 

“Oh, and take some pride in your appearance. Coming to work disheveled reflects poorly on the company.” 

As I sink into my chair, the office is silent. Everyone stands, watching. The meerkats are on guard. The lions have caught the scent of prey. 

I stare at the blank glow of my computer screen. 

The weight of sins I never committed crushes my chest. I wish I was the culprit. At least then I could control my fate. I’d strangle this farce in its crib. 

Instead, I sit here. Innocent and guilty all at once. Schrödinger’s employee. 

A tall man appears at the edge of my cubicle. Menacing and brutal. His hands look as though they could crush the life out of me. 

“Come with me,” he says sternly. 

“Where are we going?” I manage as I grab my bag. 

“This way.” He walks with purpose, but slowly. 

We move to the back of the office. The lights are dimmer here. A dying bulb flickers; it’s near death. 

A row of doors greets us in the growing darkness. 

“Here,” the tall man gestures to an open room. “Continue your work. Someone will be along shortly to collect you.” 

The room is barren. Four walls. No window. The desk is empty except for a single chair. 

The door slams shut. 

I sit. The chair groans under me. As I lean back, its spine gives way, and I nearly topple over.

How can I work without a computer? They want me to stew in guilt. A guilt I shouldn’t feel, but it’s flooding me all the same. Did I do this? No. Of course not. I would remember. Wouldn’t I? 

I should shout at the top of my lungs, “I am innocent! I’ve done nothing!” 

Instead, I sit in silence, judged and exiled. 

Time dissolves. Minutes, hours? I can’t tell. Humans spent centuries mastering time, measuring it to feel in control. Yet here, time is meaningless. 

Soon they’ll come to walk me out like a criminal on his final march to the gas chamber. 

Will the meerkats avert their eyes when I pass? Or will they jeer and chant in unison: 

“You’ve earned this! No mercy for the wicked! Finally, his reign of terror is over!” 

The chair screeches. The walls close in. 

How much longer will I wait? 

I should storm out. Seize my fate. Preach hellfire like a Baptist minister: Sinners! Every one of you is a sinner, and only through fire can you be forgiven! 

But I don’t move. 

I lean back in the broken chair, staring at the ceiling lights. I close my eyes, letting the glow filter through my lids. I imagine golden light washing over me, purifying me. 

Grace. 

“Sleeping on the job?” 

The tall man’s voice cuts through my baptism. He stares down at me with cold contempt. Those hands balled into fists.

“He’s ready for you,” he says. 

Here we go. 

I stand and follow him. Thoughts of thick crowds, gallows, and a swinging noose swirl in my mind. 

But the office is silent. No faces. No jeers. Of course, it’s not a public execution. It’s a purge. Silent. Efficient. 

The supervisor stands with arms crossed, fire burning in his eyes. The meerkats are gone, burrowed deep underground. 

“Sit,” he commands. 

I sit, my stomach in my throat. 

“Sir, I would like to say…” 

“No.” He raises a hand. “No need to apologize to me. It is the people you should be apologizing to. The group is more important than the individual.” 

I shift unsteadily in my chair. 

“You’ll give a formal apology to the entire office,” he continues. “Additionally, you will be docked a day’s pay. You’ve been here all day and failed to even log in. You have cost this company enough with your disruptions. Any more inappropriate conduct from you, and I will replace you. Understand?” 

My face burns. Rage coils tight beneath my skin. I nod once, stiffly. 

“Good.” 

He smacks his hands together sharply. CLAP. “You’re ready, I hope.” 

We exit the office into a sea of faces. 

“Attention, everyone!” the supervisor shouts. “We don’t allow unprofessional conduct here. When a cog is out of sync, the whole machine breaks down. Now it is time to set the cog on this machine back into place.” 

He turns to me. 

“Well?” 

Blood drains from my face. Every eye pierces me like a blade. 

I should shout my innocence. Condemn the system that crushes us all. But the words won’t come. Why can’t I think of anything? 

“I apologize,” I whisper. 

The supervisor cuts me off. 

“There. The affair is over. No more interruptions, back to work.” 

He faces me. 

“No more screw-ups. And please, catch up on your hours before you leave.” 

I walk towards my cubicle and pause a moment when a familiar figure catches my eye. The short man sits at his desk, typing away, oblivious to me. 

I glance at the printer as it hums to life. A single sheet slides out: a comic strip. 

With a smug satisfaction he reaches over and clips it to a whiteboard. 

I hadn’t noticed it at first. The whiteboard stands there, whole and unremarkable, a monolith to this short man’s whole belief system. 

Multiple comic strips are clipped across its surface. I stare at the back of his head. 

“I see it’s been returned,” I say quietly.

“What? What are you talking about?” he replies, not turning around. 

“The whiteboard. It’s back.” 

He pauses. 

“Hmm… So it is,” he mutters, still turned away. 

I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. He’s already forgotten me.

The post The Idol appeared first on The New Absurdist.

On the 11^th May 2024 a temporary forest sprouted in a theatre in Tartu, Estonia. The trees  were a gathering of around 50 tattooed Estonians, and the ink on their skin spoke of personal  stories of triumph and heartache, pride and resilience, celebration and change. We instructed  them to show as many of their tattoos as possible while dwelling silently in the darkened  performance space. 

I was positioned in the centre. I’d written a sequence of eight stories inspired by the same  tattoos that now surrounded me. I’d also spent time reading Estonian folktales and  mythology, I’d explored the edgelands of Tartu, and I’d visited the ancient mires and forests  of the nearby countryside. The stories attempted to respond to these various nodes while  staying rooted in the narrative traditions of folklore. The tattoos offered an obvious theme of  ‘permanence & change’ which I soon found reflected in the Estonian landscapes and their  accompanying mythologies. The resulting story sequence told new folktales of forests and  their people who contend with nebulous technologies, eternal conflicts, and fragile  interpersonal relationships. One of the stories, ‘The Artist’, is interwoven throughout this  essay, like ivy embracing a tree trunk. 

Back in the theatre, I’d fanned out the stories around me in an eight-pointed mandala.  This is a pattern often found in Estonian folk cultures and was also to be discovered inked  across the shoulders of one of our trees, somewhere in the shadows. At fifteen-minute  intervals, small groups of audience entered the space with torches. They were told to roam the forest, shining their lights on the tattoos while I read out one of the tales. At the end of the  story, that audience group would exit, and the next would enter soon after for the next  reading. 

Beneath it all looped a soundscape composed by UK electronica artist Rickerly that featured birdsong, the swish of the wind in the canopy, long-held drone tones, and sonic hints  of distant machinery. A chasing sequence of lights pulsated overhead, and a thin haze of  smoke filled the air. The tattooed trees would sway and shift, a few fell gently to the ground,  others crouched like stumps, one did a handstand as if uprooted, her roots turned upwards to  the sky. Sometimes I would roam towards particular tattoos, other times I would stay seated  in the centre and let the audience make their own connections.

We cycled this for four hours so that each story would be read twice. Two full turns of the  mandala.  

This was The Forest of Ink & Skin. 

The Artist: Part 1 

On the edge of a mighty forest lived a woman who was all alone in all the world.  No-one knew why she lived alone. Some from the town say that she was left in the forest as  a baby and raised by bears. Some say she had a husband once, but he was so cruel to her that  she killed him and burned his body in the fire she uses to heat her sauna. Some say she’s not a  woman at all, but a witch who is also a werewolf. But she kept herself to herself and was no  trouble, so the townsfolk let her be. 

But the world turned, as it does, and the times changed, as they do, and the town swelled  and became a city, bursting at the seams.  

And from that city came a man.  

He had silver hair, a golden suit, and bronze shoes, and he ate dry food from boxes instead  of the plentiful food offered by the forest. He walked with great confidence, his head high and  his arms swinging, as if pretending he were a giant taller than all the trees. He thumped a fist  on the door of the woman’s house. Against her better judgement, she let him in. 

“Why do you live here all on your own?” he asked. “No husband, no lover, no children, not  even a dog or a cat. Aren’t you lonely?” 

It took some persuasion to make the woman speak, but the man had a silver tongue and lots  of patience. Soon enough, the woman was telling the tragic tale of her life. She had not been  abandoned as a baby, she had never married nor killed a man, she was no werewolf or witch.  Her tale was much more complex, much more difficult to understand, and contained just as  much love as it did pain. Later, when the silver-haired man was questioned he could not  remember her story, for he had not really been listening. His mind was typical of the men from  the city: always busy thinking of other things. 

“There must be something that you want?” he said. “Something you desire most in all the  world?” 

She said that she had everything she needed right here in her house with her sauna, and the  forest. 

“That can’t be true,” he said. “You need a husband?” 

No.

“You need children?” 

No. 

“Then surely you must feel the need to travel beyond the forest and see the rest of the world?” 

She paused. She said no, but he heard her hesitation.  

“Aha,” he said. “You have wanderlust!” 

She had never heard this word.  

“No,” she said, more firmly. “True, I am curious about the world, but I have no desire to leave this place.” 

“Well, that’s easy,” he said, smiling a smile with no real smile inside it. From his pocket he produced a strange, glowing device and gave it to her. He showed her how to use it, and it  showed her the world.  

She was soon entranced. 

“You can keep this one,” he said. “But I want something in exchange. We’re building a harbour. Boats, ships, and docklands that look out over the sea. Our city needs to keep growing  and the ocean cannot stop us. Naturally, we need lots of wood. I will be taking the forest.” 

The woman nodded because she was not really listening. She was looking at pictures of  harbours and docklands and boats and ships, and she was looking at the sea and wondering  how far it stretched. 

“I will return for it in one year,” said the man, and strode out with his head high, his chest  up, and his arms swinging like axes. 

How it came to be: 

The core concept of The Forest of Ink & Skin had sprung from the head of my collaborator,  the Tallinn-based performance artist Henri Hütt. We had wandered Tartu together seeking  inspiration, and he’d struck upon the idea of an audience doing the same. He envisioned a  ‘rhizomatic story experience’ where an element of ‘soft participation’ might be created through  an audience actively rambling through tattoos. Perhaps, he suggested, my story might mention  an owl, and in that same moment the various torchbearers could be looking at a feather, or the mandala, or a mouse, or a skull, or the word ‘survive’, or, indeed, an owl. In this way, each  audience member makes their own symbolic associations between what is seen and what is  heard, perhaps enjoying thematic resonance or instead experiencing the disturbance of  dissonance, or something more nebulous in the hinterland between the two.

And while the tattoos had directly inspired the stories, that unity was eroded by the roaming  audience who encountered these alternative montages. A skull tattoo might portent a character  death that never happens, or a devil sparks a fear that proves misguided, or a heart suggests a  romance that is unfulfilled. In a sense we’d created a strange edgeland of narrative where  steadfast symbolic connections are put under strain and new uncanny linkages spring up in  their place. 

Of course, the audience had other alternatives. They were also free to switch off their torches  and turn away from the tattoos to focus entirely on me – and, indeed, some did exactly this. In  contrast, there were many others who roamed with determination from one inked body to  another as if this were an art exhibition (which, in a sense, it was), and seemed to completely  ignore the story being told. This too was a legitimate experience, especially for those few who  may have struggled with the language barrier (my stories were told in English). Whatever they  decided, our main intention had been to liberate the audience from their anonymous,  homogenous block of relative safety and instead let them loose to embrace a degree of chaos. 

To be rhizomatic, according to Deleuze & Guattari, is to resist the ‘arborescent’ and  hierarchical way of thinking, with branches sprouting from branches all derived from a central  trunk. Instead, we are to adopt a planar, horizontal network with no overall coherence or order,  where starting points and ending points are not so easily defined. In this sense, while our  tattooed participants became trees for the afternoon, the rhizomatic experience better evoked  the imagined mycorrhizal network beneath our feet; the ‘wood wide web’ of fungi fibres that  spread from tree roots to tree roots carrying messages and information. There was a visual  sense of this during the performance. We kept the experience on a horizontal plane, no one  person any higher or lower than anyone else, myself included. We had no riser stage to step  onto, and the audience were not in their raked seating. The traditional theatrical spatial hierarchy was eroded.  

This was partly how I was able to brush off those audience members who seemed not to be  listening to my stories. We had created a space of wandering freedoms rather than a constricted  focus, an almost neurodivergent theatrical expansion that accommodated the differing needs,  attitudes, and intentions of the non-homogenous visitors. I also came to realise that I did in fact  have a dedicated second audience in the form of the tattooed trees, many of whom reported  entering a heightened mindful state as they embodied the forests I repeatedly invoked in my  tales (especially the carved one included here in ‘The Artist’). By the second half of the four  hours, they were making links between the stories and showing me relevant tattoos that I had  not previously seen. I was most delighted to discover a hedgehog on someone’s arm given that the final story in the sequence ends with a hedgehog with ink in its spines. The rhizomatic  network was feeding messages back to me.  

I’ve deliberately invoked neurodiversity here as a rhizomatic offshoot from my previous project, where I studied the relationships between autism and fantastical narratives for a  Creative Writing PhD. I’d come across the work of radical French educator Fernand Deligny  who had, across the 1960s and 70s, fiercely resisted the institutionalisation of autistic children.  Instead, he’d developed a form of cartographic observation where young autistics are given  time and space to roam as they pleased while Deligny mapped their ‘wander lines’. These maps  were subsequently used as navigation aids during the therapeutic and socialisation activities of  his clinic. 

Deligny’s idea was to allow the world to bend around the autistic people, rather than forcing  the autistics to fight their instincts for the sake of fitting into a world constructed around  neurotypicality. Such thinking is a core tenet of the neurodiversity movement in the present  day, and this ‘neuroqueering’ of the world offers a fresh approach to the deconstruction of the  stubborn hierarchical structures of narrative and performance. I like to think we all left our  ‘wander lines’ on the floor of that theatre. Overlapping loops and circles of audience, trees, and  performer, each telling their own idiomatic tale of the desire to see and be seen. 

It would not be a wholly rhizomatic picture. Seen from above, it would be me at the core with the audience circling, and the trees drifting slowly around in the same orbit, like satellites. But I think also of the pattern of the torch beams, the ‘castlines’ perhaps, that tell a more  rhizomatic tale as they dart from tattoo to tattoo in a divergent quest for coincidence and  discordance. 

Something had been freed, I like to think, to run wild inside our forest. 

The Artist: Part 2  

Later, the woman was alone in her sauna.  

There was a great storm shaking the forest, and the branches of the nearest tree were tapping  furiously at her window. Soon enough, the strange device stopped working, so the woman had  to come back to her own mind. She remembered what the man had said, and it upset her  immensely. 

She ran from the sauna and sought out the wisest trees of the forest.  

First, she visited the eldest birch, the kindest and most understanding, and begged for its  forgiveness. A birch does not hold grudges, for it offers patches of its silver skin to write love songs and memories. The birch, in all its wisdom, could see she had been tricked by the silver haired man and his hypnotic device. 

The birch said: “You must take the device to the eldest oak and place it inside the hollow.  The oak will examine the device and it will soon know what to do.” And the birch gave her a  coat of its silver skin to protect her from the rain. 

She hurried to the oak and kneeled at the roots, begging again for forgiveness. While the  oak was grumpier than the birch, it was also the sturdiest and wisest of all the trees in the forest.  It took the device in its hollow and swallowed it. The oak began to understand new and  wonderous things. It learned about the strange age of glowing devices that had arrived so  suddenly in the last few rings of growth. It saw how they connected, and how the humans were  dragged along in an agonising cycle of high joys and deep pains. Most of all, it saw possibility.  Endless possibility. And soon it had a plan. 

The oak placed a crown of its leaves upon the woman’s head to grant her its wisdom. “I will keep hold of this device,” it said, “it is not for likes of you. Now go, to the eldest  pine, who will give you the items you will need.” 

With her cloak of silver skin, and her crown of leaves, she hurried on to meet the pine.  Again, she fell to her knees and begged for forgiveness. The pine was the most artful and  cheeriest of trees. It had long forgiven the woman even before she transgressed, knowing full  well that she would never harm a living soul. The pine knew of the oak’s plan, and happily  agreed. It bled out a barrel of its inky sap and gave her a sack full of its sharpest needles. 

“Well, well,” said the pine. “You’re going to create art, my dear. A picture, if you please,  upon every tree in the whole forest, but a different picture each time, of course. And then go  into the city and tell all the people to come see your work. It will be fabulous.” 

She was very scared, as she had never attempted to create art before, and she had not visited  the city for a long time. The pine laughed and gave her a cone to place beside her heart, because  a pinecone is a work of patience and pattern beloved by young and old.  

She spent a moment practicing on the trunk of the pine, drawing two stick figures fighting  with swords. It was crude but it was delightful, and for the first time since leaving the sauna,  the woman felt a glimmer of hope. 

What it meant: 

During my trip to Tartu in February 2024, just as the writing of the stories was starting in  earnest, I escaped the hard Estonian winter for a couple of hours and took to the cosy warmth of the Elektriteater cinema. The auditorium was packed, not a spare seat in the house, and the  Estonians were uncharacteristically fidgety and vocal. The film was Vara Küps (‘Vertical  Money’), a documentary by Martti Helde concerning the current management (most would say  mismanagement) of Estonian forests. Slick businessmen would appear on screen to justify the  excessive logging and the unhealthy cutting methods, raising incredulous laughter and barbed  comments from the auditorium. The tension in the room was palpable.  

Estonians have been known as ‘forest-people’. Around 60% of the Estonian landscape is  forest (compared to around 12% of the UK), and their histories, religions and mythologies are  deeply intertwined with woodland. For philosopher and semiotician Valdur Mikita forest covered landscapes are ‘an essential part of the sense of home for Estonians’, and he suggests  that forests have been ‘an accelerator of consciousness’ for the nation. He argues that forests  are where ‘periphery accumulates’ and spending quiet, meditative time within them ‘supply a culture with the unusual and keep it alive’ (Forestonia, Estonian Literature Centre, 2020).  

He also tells of the importance of the ‘home forest’; the area of woodland closest to your  home which is adopted as a sacred and treasured place. You’ll go there to forage for berries  and firewood, you may build your smoke sauna within those trees, you may even find yourself  a warden of an ancient and sacred pagan site. Historically, Estonia was one of the last holdouts  on Christianity, abiding for hundreds of years as a stubborn pagan pocket, and there are signs  throughout the country that these earth-beliefs never fully went away. This may have been in  large part due to these forests, where sacred spaces could stay more easily hidden and  preserved. And while Estonia is today considered one of the most atheist countries in the world,  there is a clear spiritual intensity for nature within Estonian hearts, with forests as a central  pillar of the pantheon. 

Estonian trees have persisted as protectors and providers of sanctuary. During World War  II, when Estonia and the other Baltic states were tossed between Soviet and Nazi control, the  forests became the fertile arena of resistance. The ‘Forest Brothers’ freedom fighters took  advantage of the generational knowledge of the woodlands and became a persistent thorn in  the side of the oppressors. While the Stalinist regime eventually quashed these efforts, the  legacy of this woodland brotherhood echoes down and can be felt today in the proud and  unwavering Estonian support for Ukraine. 

Today, many of the urbanised Estonians will retain a modest ‘country house’ at the edge of  a forest to decamp to during summer – locations that proved vital during the COVID pandemic.  Wood is everywhere in Tartu; most of the houses are made of wood, their tourist nick-nacks  are wooden kitchen utensils, and in the colder evenings the streets fill with the heady scent of woodsmoke. It was no small thing to choose the forest as our creative setting; the trees  intertwine with Estonian existence as if their blood were sap and their skin, bark.

And yet, despite all this, Vara Küps reveals a governmental distain for the preservation of  woodland heritage. Forest felling has accelerated in recent years, and large swathes of ancient  woodland are being aggressively cut in pursuit of profits. Wood, of course, is one of Estonia’s  key exports, and the forestry commission argue that harder winters and growing populations,  both within and outside Estonia, require more wood as a source of fuel. But activists contend  that protected forests are being shadily re-categorised and felling stats are being fudged to  accommodate aggressive expansion. Environmental concerns are also being ignored as  monoculture pseudo-forests are cultivated for the purposes of logging, resulting in unhealthy,  lifeless woodlands with little other flora or fauna. The pointed use of drone shots throughout  Vara Küps show the devastation wrought on the landscape. Bare and boggy arenas scratched  with the black track lines of the harvesting machines, the scarring wander lines of ecocide.

The story sequence of ‘The Forest of Ink & Skin’ makes regular contact with these fragilities. In one tale, a future city has carefully constructed sanitised ‘zones’ of nature,  including the most extreme version of a monoculture forest, and has embedded folkloric fears  among the people to stop them straying beyond the boundaries and into the wilds. The girl who  disobeys is reunited with animal life and transformed into a witchy figure more radical than  the city folk have been allowed to imagine. In another, a family collectively loses their memory  after one member, the youngest, is cursed for neglecting the home forest. Returning to the trees  restores a fragile form of harmony, but the ancient forces of the woodland fade into an unheard  distance, doomed to be forever out of sync with human modernities. I hope ‘The Artist’,  included here, speaks for itself. 

Like our audience, the stories meander and drift and make unexpected turns. They are  pointedly self-aware, asking questions of the narratives we construct for ourselves when we  use them to justify inharmonious actions. Obvious conclusions are resisted, questions are posed  and left unanswered, and throughout the sequence the forest abides as a ‘bewitching landscape’  (Mikita, Forestonia). It persists as often as it falls, it outlasts and outlives, sometimes shunning  our fairytale foibles, sometimes embracing them wholeheartedly. Much like our tattooed trees,  the forests in the stories are temporary, private, mysterious, and lead their own lives away from  the glare and the torch beams of visitors. 

Vara Küps unveiled to me a febrile debate that I was wholly unaware of, reminding me of  the similar debates we’re having in the UK concerning the poisoning of our bodies of water. It  also helped to reveal the cultural importance of asking a group of Estonians to embody a living forest of temporary trees and inviting another group to explore it. The rhizomatic experience  within the theatre space extended far beyond those darkened walls, reaching into the depths of  the home forests, ancient forests, and sickly forests just beyond the city limits.  

The central presence of the tattoos, I hope, emphasised a theme of defiant permanence that  helped strengthen these mycorrhizal narrative lines. Here, carved on the skin-bark of our sturdy  oak-humans were hieroglyphics of hope, icons of inspiration, and runes of resilience, the exact  details and reasons for their origins deliberately obscured. Instead, the mere existence of the  tattoos urged us forward by showing that change will happen, but our destinies are shaped by  what we choose to do. 

The Artist: Part 3 

Every day of that year from dawn to dusk, she went from tree to tree sketching and etching,  wearing her cloak of birch and her crown of oak, with the cone of pine snug beside her heart.  On the tree closest to the city, she drew an eight-pointed mandala with a butterfly at the  centre. It would tell the townsfolk that there was a transformation underway.  On the tree furthest from the city, she drew herself, her arms crossed over her chest, and her  head replaced with blooming flowers and stretching leaves, so that she could always remind  herself that there are ways out of every difficult situation. 

And on the tree at the very centre of the forest, not far from the eldest birch, she drew a great  dragon, borrowing all the colours of the forest, from the berries to the beetles, and the tree  responded by growing twice as tall so that the dragon could look out across the canopy, ready  to spring to life should any felling begin. 

It took her almost the whole year but with one day to spare, and only one needle from the  pine remaining, and just one single drop of its sap, she had etched pictures on every trunk of  every tree throughout the whole of the mighty forest.  

There was but one task remaining, and she barely had the energy to do it. But the dragon  roared from above the canopy, roses bloomed from her cheeks, and the mandala swirled  through her mind and drew her to the edge of the city. 

With the final needle and the last drop of sap, she fell upon the door of the house closest to  the forest and wrote the words: ‘Come and See’. Then she turned and walked back towards the  forest, knowing full well that this journey would be her last. 

When she reached the mandala, she just had enough energy to look behind. There was a vast  crowd of people following her and they all had the same strange device as the man who had  visited her almost a year ago. 

And the great tragedy of this tale is that our artist died on that spot thinking that she had  failed. Her final thoughts were these: that all those people had been hypnotised by the silver haired man just as she had been, and they were going to use those devices to destroy the trees  and build the wooden city to choke the distant sea. 

But the trees knew differently. She had not failed. The oak’s plan had worked perfectly. The people came with their devices, but they did not cut down the trees. They explored the  forest to every corner and every inch, and they marvelled at the work our artist had done. And  with their strange devices, they showed her work to the rest of the world and within the space  of just a few brief hours, the plans of the silver-haired man were stopped.  As for that man, he was driven out of the city and told to go elsewhere. As for her house, it  became a shrine for her mighty work.  

As for the forest, it lived on, the trees aching in the pain of bearing her art, but they stayed  standing for as long as they could manage, which was many, many years.  And by the time the last painted tree had fallen, there were already many new trees in place.

The post The Forest of Ink & Skin appeared first on The New Absurdist.

We all know why we’re here: our country is being stolen. They’re here to take our food, they’re  here to take our jobs, and they’re here to take our homes. They think they’re entitled to our  healthcare. They think they’re entitled to our wealth. They think they’re entitled to our possessions.  We know what’s going on: they think they can be the new us. 

For too long, we have suffered this injustice. I say, no more! No more to their lack of morals! No  more to their terrible English! No more to their sucking on our women’s breasts! It’s time to act.  Babies will not replace us! 

Look around! Babies are everywhere: in our pre-schools, in our playgrounds, even in our maternity  wards! And they’re disgusting. They don’t even look like people. Their heads are gigantic, their  hair doesn’t grow right, and — and — Excuse me. It’s just so unnatural — no real human is that  short. We should not have to share our air with these aberrations.  

And have you ever talked to one of these monstrosities? It’s impossible. Many of them just make  noises. Not a word of English! And the rest are even worse. They need you to read to them. Can’t  do it themselves! No education! And they don’t even listen if you try. They refuse to understand.  You read about green eggs and ham and they talk about “gween eggs anam.” You read about three  little pigs and they go on about “free yidduw bigs.” And don’t get me started on Peter Piper picking  peppers! If they won’t hear us, why should we tolerate their presence? They have to go! 

Now, I know some say we should love babies. “Babies are God’s creatures,” they say. But I’ve  read the Bible. Look at Genesis! It’s right there. God created one man and one woman. Where are  the babies? Nowhere. It’s Adam and Eve, not Mommy and me. “We were all babies once,” they  say. But we’re not anymore. We left that behind. We’re better than them. “We need babies to keep  the population up,” they say. But what about the immigrants? Our beautiful immigrants need space  to live. Their accents are so musical and their cultures are so vibrant. We don’t need babies and  they don’t deserve our compassion! 

So what can we do? Well, first, deportations. The babies have to go. All of them. Back to where  they came from. Back to women’s bellies. It will take determination, but if we do enough chopping,  and grinding, and maybe seasoning, our women, our capable, capable women, can eat all the babies  within a year. Then they’ll be gone. And then? Then we make sure no more of those minuscule  abominations enter our great country ever again: We need new laws to defend ourselves. Our  schools must teach the dangers of heterosexual sex. Free contraception must be available to the entire population. And abortions — abortions, our God-sent panacea! — abortions must be  mandatory. Everywhere. For everyone. The character of our country is at stake.  

We can’t wait any longer to save ourselves from being replaced. We must act. And we must act  now! Vote for me and I promise to do everything in my power to save our way of life. Down with  the babies and up with the flag! Make our country grown again! Now is our time! 

Thank you. God bless you and God bless our great nation. 

The post The Growth of a Nation appeared first on The New Absurdist.

His prisoner’s fire dissipated and that slight smile, sly, and maybe a little flirtatious, returned to his countenance. “Five days of walking and you’re running low on my rations,” he said. “Can’t blame a rascal for trying to cut and run.” 

“If the fugitive makes two or more attempts to escape custody during transit, Marshals are within their rights to use lethal force to subdue them, provided their remains are turned over to the Washington Burst Survivor Community Council,” Albert said.

“Who will lethally subdue me anyway,” the prisoner said, chuckling. 

Albert didn’t argue with this criminal. He reached up with his wrinkled hand and pulled on the nylon shade of his tent. It furled to the plastic rod holding it up, and revealed the gray waste of northern Ohio, painted by scattered light throwing sour pinks and deadly reds over a once-green-and-lush countryside, reduced to ash and death by a random and unpredictable cosmic event. Nothing in the sky but the bleak sun, and all that remained of the wavy midwestern meadows, bountiful corn fields, and flocculent forests were bare, stripped trees and bushes stuck in the white ground like burnt candles in a birthday cake. 

He hadn’t been this far from DC in thirty years, but he still had memories of driving I-90 with his wife and daughter, stopping at a rest stop, where his wife would delay them further by sitting on a bench and staring at the corn fields and blue skies, and singing hymns low and sweet so his heart rate would fall and the hairs on his arms would stand up. This place had changed so much. 

The whole country had changed so much. Many people died during the Burst, many right after in the ensuing breakdown. Within a couple months the cancers began to kill the bulk of the world’s population, then the starvation and suicides took their toll. Now there was no United States, nor any other country. There was nothing passing for civilization, Albert thought, except for the Washington Burst Survivor Community. They had codified laws, elected representatives, those who administered those representatives’ authority, like him, and they had order. People could get food and shelter, most of the time, without resorting to murder or cannibalism. A man could sit in his dwelling and eat dinner with his wife and daughter, without fear.

Albert had changed very much as well. Thirty years ago he was a bookkeeper, aspiring to no higher ideal than to be home for dinner with his wife and daughter. What aspirations did he need before the Burst? Justice was not a myth. They were good times because an enlightened justice was served by strong men. Now Albert had to be one of those strong men. He had to be the Council’s justice, and the Council’s justice had to extend to Chicago, where his current prisoner had murdered a Council diplomat. The farther justice traveled, the more people would believe in it. 

At nearly sixty, such a trek had made him weaker than he’d hoped. And his prisoner was correct that rations were running low. This potential failure disenchanted Albert. He’d been doing this job for years, but since the world had fallen so low, it would perhaps take men much stronger than him to elevate it back to the necessary heights. 

Albert reached into his canvas backpack and pulled out two small measuring cups, one marked “M” for Marshal and one marked “F” for fugitive. Then he pulled out a dirty glass cylinder, one quarter full of dead American cockroaches. He dumped all that remained in the cylinder into the cups. 

“Eat now,” Albert said, and placed the “F” cup in front of his prisoner. 

The prisoner stared at him. His prisoner seemed remarkably shrewd for someone who, by all witness reports, spent nearly all of his time alone. “Why?” the prisoner asked. “Fugitive rations must be administered at a minimum frequency of every forty-eight hours.” 

“But these are our last. We should take greater care.”

“It is not the practice of the Marshal service of the Washington Burst Survivor Community to ration food for fugitives to this extent, and we apologize,” Albert replied. “Your council should apologize to you as well, Albert,” the prisoner remarked. “You look worse than I.” He sipped on his roaches and chewed slowly. “In fact, unless you are completely captivated by the prospect of giving your own life for the chance to take mine, I would say your best chance at survival would be to release me from this strange contraption.” He grabbed and shook the pole lightly. 

Albert ignored his prisoner and didn’t bother to inform him that that contraption developed by the Burst Community’s engineers only detached using a special key held by an officer in DC. It could be forced open, but any human capable of producing two thousand pounds of force who didn’t die in the Burst was surely too poorly nourished to do so now. 

“Unsanctioned detours may be taken to remedy such shortages. In this case, to Cleveland, to seek arthropod colonies along Lake Erie.” 

“Ah, Cleveland. The so-called Pasture of the Bright Horses,” the prisoner replied solemnly, but mockingly so. 

“The Bright Pasture,” Albert corrected, absentmindedly. 

“Oh, well forgive me, Albert. The Bright Pasture of the Bright Horses. The only horses to survive the gamma ray burst, by coming out of that cataclysmic event feeding on their own radiation, their manes full of fire, their spirits more wild and fiercer than any animal still alive, maybe even than any that ever existed. Even more impressive are their Riders, men strong of body and of will, capable of taming such fiery beasts. Men who don’t need to eat, but when they do, they subsist on the irradiated flesh of their own horses. Men who will save us, waiting for our resonant call for a return to order from the darkness.” 

“We need food,” Albert said. “There’s food at Lake Erie, everyone says so. Shut up.” Albert upended his cup and ingested his entire portion at once. He gagged severely as the flaky exoskeletons and slimy innards of these vermin hit the back of his throat. 

The prisoner guffawed. “You elders, living whole lives before the Burst. You still have your old weakness,” he said. “I don’t judge. I have my own. A weakness for vengeance. Look where that landed me. You’re lucky we’re still miles from the Bright Pasture. You don’t want your saviors to see you go green eating roaches. You might face culling.” 

Albert jabbed the prisoner with the pole. 

After they’d finished eating, Albert wasted no time taking down his tent, folding the nylon sheets into precise two-by-two squares, and collapsing the plastic rods into each other so they fit in one twelve-inch tube. He then slid the sheets and the tube into the proper outer compartments on his backpack. 

He had raised an objection with the Council’s subcommittee on the Marshal Service before over the fact that these materials were to be stored on the outside of the Marshals’ backpacks during transit. In a world where the ozone layer was decimated and would not replenish itself within a dozen lifetimes, shelter from UV radiation was worth more than anything that could be stored inside Alfred’s backpack. A gust of wind, a rambunctious prisoner, or a trip and fall could knock the sheets or tube out of their compartments and into a patch of irradiated sand or just a rock or stick that could tear them. Then, if Albert could find shelter, such as in a major urban ruin, the location and quality would not be of his choosing, and therefore not ideal for security or proper rest. The subcommittee said they take the input of Marshals very seriously, and would take this into consideration. That was nearly two years ago. 

Albert pushed the yellow button on the hilt of the pole, and it extended out to 15 feet in length, hurrying the prisoner along. They walked the road to Cleveland in silence for over an hour. Silence was best, especially so near to a major urban center where the BC didn’t have jurisdiction, and in fact no one had jurisdiction, so there was no one to reason with. 

The ruins of Walmarts, Targets, gas stations, urgent care clinics, and fast food joints were more frequent now. They needed to get closer to the water to make any stop worth it. Albert’s weary mind took these landmarks as signs of success, and his left eye drooped and his right leg buckled. 

The prisoner jerked to a halt and looked back, by which time Albert was already back upright and in motion. They walked on. “Don’t you dare go into darkness on me, Albert,” the prisoner said. He was a highly expressive man, and since his hands were bound and covered, he used his neck and his head to gesticulate. “You are as much my albatross as I am yours.” After saying this, he gesticulated with his behind, shaking the pole that connected them. 

Albert kept his head on a swivel, always watching the tree line, and the exits of any structures. He swiveled it past his prisoner and saw the man sulk. 

“Your community, your life, is shrouded in rules and regimentations,” he said. “You leave no room for humanity and emotion. How can such a person be so foolish as to believe in the Bright Horses?”

“I never said I believed,” Albert replied. 

“Do you?” 

“I’ve met a lot of people who’ve seen them,” Albert said. 

“Have you!” exclaimed the prisoner, again mockingly. “Good thing you didn’t actually see them yourself. You’d have abandoned your post and become their court jester.” “You don’t know shit,” Albert wheezed with a jab. “You were born after the burst, weened on these fucking bugs. We used to eat meat, fresh vegetables. When we were strong we were really something. Why wouldn’t the Burst change the horses? Why wouldn’t these Riders exist?” Albert let out a groan under the weight of his backpack and his words. “It made sense to believe. It made sense to have hope. In my book it still does.” 

“To hope that there are mystical, powerful men, strong enough to take the reins, as it were. Strong enough to build a better world, to give you back what your pathetic bureaucracy cannot.” “You’re just a fucking kid,” Albert said. “Nothing matters to you. No code, no sense of justice. You kill and spew poison worse than the sun.” Albert saw the prisoner tense his neck and seethe. “The world doesn’t matter to you because you have no home, no community, no family. You need the Riders of the Bright Horses to be a myth. Otherwise you’d be too scared of your own fucking weakness.” 

“I had a family!” The prisoner’s voice boomed over the desolate landscape. He turned abruptly and stared daggers at Albert, his eyes as powerful as the moonlight. Albert hovered his finger over the red button. “Go on,” the prisoner continued. “Get your shocks in. Show me hope, show me belief. Show me your justice!” He kicked at the dirt like a horse. Albert didn’t move. Not his feet, his thumb, or his eyes. 

“I had my lover. I had the woman I would lie next to under the shadows of great rocks. The woman who would shelter me when I was weak, who loved me enough to accept food when she was weak. Your men came to Chicago to talk this shit about law and order. One of them was lonely. She rebuffed him. So he broke her neck. So I killed him. Would you not do the same? What was this monster to you? A stranger. And yet you kill for him? Is that strength? Is that justice?” 

Albert fell silent and his eyes paused in their scan. They landed on a surprisingly tall and thick tree just off the road. It was decaying, but slower than the rest. It had several healthy, hearty branches whose bark looked, in the vibrant moonlight, to have the color of bark storing moisture. Albert saw a flit of a wasp’s wings landing on the largest branch. 

“What did they tell you?” his prisoner asked. “I assume you didn’t know.” 

Albert went back to scanning the area. He pushed the prisoner forward. “I don’t need to know. It doesn’t matter.” 

“It surely doesn’t,” the prisoner said. “You will try me, sentence me, and execute me, because you surely don’t have the resources to jail me like they did before the Burst. Just as I am not strong enough to resist vengeance, like you all were before the Burst.” 

Without proper rest and nutrition, the mind too fell weak to defend against invasive thoughts. Albert felt such contempt for this man. Not for the life he’d taken, but because in this moment, he’d reminded Albert of all the times he’d looked at his wife and been certain of what his love for her had made him capable of. He didn’t want to think of his wife in the presence of this man. 

“So your man killed my family, I killed him, you kill me,” the prisoner continued. “My friends will come for you, Marshal Albert. Who will come kill my friends after that? I could find no closure, your Council provides no justice. There is no justice anymore. This is what life is now. If you have a family, or friends, when we reach DC you should prepare them for a lifetime of vengeance.” 

They took a few more steps, and perhaps out of an innate competition, not wanting this man to have the last word, Albert spoke, albeit feebly. 

“I still have hope we can make it better,” he said. 

The prisoner wouldn’t let that linger. “Oh, certainly. The Riders of your Bright Horses are probably such angels, none of them would ever take a shot at my wife!” He bellowed the last phrase as though he was shaming Albert in front of an audience. 

“Shut the fuck up!” Albert bellowed in return. 

As the last sound of the last syllable dissipated in the distance, another sound bounced back at them. They stopped dead in their tracks. A moment of adrenaline kicked in, and Albert’s senses were on high alert. There was a fifty-fifty shot it was just their own screams echoing off of the distant steel and concrete, and not something threatening. 

When he didn’t hear any other sounds, not words, not footsteps, not the flit of a wasp’s wings, for five more whole minutes, he said, “Continue in silence. Get off the main road when we can.”

Neither of them made another sound for hours as they approached Cleveland. As they made their way deep into the city and down to the shore, Albert felt that he was on high alert for no good reason. This place was so desolate. No signs of human life at all. He’d forgotten just how many people the Burst had killed. Cities became uncanny places. They inherently signified dense, bright, blazing, brilliant life, symbols of how far humanity had come, seen for miles around, but no more populated than the countryside, even despite being hotspots for arthropod colonies. Albert was reminded of what DC had looked like before the community had formed. Monuments were shelters, reminiscent of homeless encampments, or they were nothing. He felt a bit better about what they’d accomplished after seeing Cleveland. 

“Your Bright Pasture, Albert,” the prisoner said. 

The moon had reached its peak, but Cleveland was not brighter than any other moonlit metropolis. Many of its structures had crumbled into the dirt, but none had seemed to sprout a verdant pasture in their place. There was no life at all, much less great horses with blinding manes. Despite the human heart beating fifteen feet in front of him, Albert had the uncanny feeling of being completely alone in a city. 

They reached the shores of Erie without incident after several hours. Albert’s knees and ankles were sore. The sun was a couple of hours away, and the deepest cold of the night had arrived. He rubbed his arms and his chest with what little strength he had. He grabbed the hilt of the pole on his hip to steady himself, but the steel was cold, and his hand recoiled. The prisoner stopped, which he was not supposed to do with instruction, but Albert welcomed the respite.

He stared at the great lake. The moon poured down like milk and made steely honey of the wild water. Not a drop to drink, not a fish to catch, no croaking frogs or slithering snakes, no fowl silhouetted against the night sky. 

The process for gathering any extant arthropods, usually cockroaches and/or fruit flies, from areas adjacent to large bodies of water was a simple yet arduous one. Gatherers, or in this case Marshals, were to follow the shoreline, watching for any pipes or junctions still holding water, or concentrations of tree litter, such as leaves or mulch material. If they come across any of these that appeared to house nests, they sucked up what specimens they could using the glass storage cylinders’ vacuum function. 

Albert removed a cylinder from his backpack with an overtly belabored grunt. He and the night were both on their last legs. He remembered how long it could take to find food using this process, and was dispirited. He had not felt so nearly empty since the Burst. He felt as if this journey from DC to Chicago and back had filled those thirty years. He was tired of this process, tired of scouring the shore of a dead, poisoned lake for cockroaches to eat and share with a ragged stranger attached to him by some law he fought for. He was tired of not being warm, not being with his wife and daughter, of living at night and fearing the sun. He was tired of the way things were. 

After only a few minutes of scouring, his prisoner appeared to share that sentiment. The man fell to his knees in the sand, right next to a rather large irradiated patch, and then sat down. “Get up.” Albert’s voice cracked.

“I think not,” the prisoner said. “If you’re to lead me to my ultimate death, whether from starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, or execution, it might as well be here. It’s a nice spot. If your Bright Horses come along, ask them to save you.” He sighed loudly. 

The new angle of the pole pulled Albert down, and he fell to his knees. His eyelids gave way to gravity, and he noticed the sky getting brighter. His vision filled with myths. In place of an empty lake he saw one lit up with vibrant seaweed and shimmering scaly fish. In place of what was once Cleveland he beheld the Garden, all trees from palm to pine, fruits of precious pigment, and all animals, known and unknown, extant and extinct, performing a processional promenade with polite precision. He saw his wife and daughter running through streams and dancing. But they kept stopping to stare at Albert and point to the right. 

Albert opened his eyes. The colors faded except for one: red. There was a plastic trash can fifty feet in front of him on the beach, piled high with what looked like wood and bark. And leaves? He sprang up with renewed energy. He sprinted halfway there and then was tugged back by the prisoner’s stagnancy. He pressed the yellow button on the hilt of the pole, and the prisoner slid through the sand toward Albert, their distance reduced to five feet, but he never rose. Albert summoned all his remaining strength, like water from a stone. His legs felt as dead and burned as the countryside, but he pulled, never looking down at the man sliding across the sand, obstinate in his acquiescence. 

With strength of mind giving strength to his body, he made it to the trash can. It was mulch. Someone had gathered what leaves and healthy wood they could and made mulch, teaming with cockroaches and even a few ants! Albert knew there was something special about Cleveland!

“Here!” he shouted. He aimed the cylinder all around the pile and gathered as many specimens as he could as they scattered. Bits of wood and leaves got sucked up too. He didn’t care. He unscrewed the top and devoured the contents. His hunger didn’t stop him from gagging as his only chance at survival crawled across his tongue and squirmed in his esophagus. 

His prisoner appeared beside him, the very form of gaunt and haggard. Albert looked at him with a sense of shared triumph that the man did not return. He just held out his hands. Albert fed him, and he ate stoically. 

A screeching noise filled the air around them. A noise Albert had not heard since the Burst, and had heard only a handful of times before it. Metal skidding across metal, but metal made of flesh and blood. 

“What was that,” the prisoner slurred. 

Albert whispered, “A horse.” 

After a few seconds, they heard hooves on pavement, moving at a gallop. Albert closed his eyes and said a prayer. He opened them and saw a glow, its source shielded by the cracked cement sloping up toward the city. His prisoner started laughing. A low growl at first, then a heartier cackle. An absurd laugh. He’d heard the funniest joke, and he’d heard it before many times. 

The figure emerged all at once atop the cement embankment. The horse had no burning mane or glowing irradiated flesh, but Albert’s mind still worked fast enough to be astounded that such a healthy mammal was alive in this new world. A magnificent white steed, strong as any pre-Burst horse. Even its nostrils were so forceful that when it snorted its contentment, Albert felt knocked back a step.

And its Rider was no less surprising. While he didn’t resemble mythical figures like Achilles or Ajax, he had the strong physique and alert senses of a pre-Burst military leader. He’d adorned his fingers, wrists, arms, and neck in various gold rings, old Rolex watches, and gold bands and chains, all shining from the light of the burning torch he carried in his right hand. He was alert, but not frenetic. He wore a smug, collected look. 

“I’ve waited a long time for a chance at this glory,” the Rider said. He had a thick Mediterranean accent, Greek or Turkish. He rolled over his R’s and grunted his vowels like he spoke the language of human history and glory. The prisoner stopped laughing. “You are not mere vagabonds,” he stated, matter-of-factly. 

“My… my name…” Albert stuttered, hoarse. “My name, is Albert. I am a Marshal with the Washington Burst Survivor Community, and I am transporting-” 

“This gives you the right to steal from the Riders of the Bright Horses?” the Rider asked. Albert paused and looked away, shamefully. He should have realized this makeshift smorgasbord would have a vigilant owner. But his accuser was a man of justice, and Albert was on a mission of justice, so his appeal would be sound. 

“Sir, I have no excuse,” Albert said. “Like you said, we’re not just moochers or scavengers. I’m charged by my leaders with serving justice to a murderer. I hope you can understand how important it is that I keep my strength up. I hope you can show mercy.” 

The Rider casually looked from Albert to the prisoner and raised his eyebrows. “This man committed a murder? What will you do with him?” 

“He’ll be afforded a trial, and sentenced if found guilty.”

The Rider scoffed and shook his head. “Your Council is ridiculous. You travel hundreds of miles, bind this murderer to you, give him precious food and shelter, even stealing ours to do so?” The Rider dug his heels into the belly of his horse. The beast leapt down off the embankment and landed gracefully in the sand below, two or three yards from the prisoner. “Such practices would never keep your strength up,” he said. “And you ask me to show mercy for such weakness?” 

Albert looked at the prisoner. His smug, cynical scowl was evident even through his exhaustion. “Save us,” Albert whispered. Then, louder, “Save us.” The prisoner looked at him as though he was mad. Albert accepted the implicit accusation, then turned to the Rider. “We traveled the stars. Now we scrounge in the dirt. We’re not supposed to be like the roaches. I couldn’t face my wife in heaven if she knew I died without hope. We tried to build something bigger, but you’re right, we’re weak. So save us. Please.” Albert felt tears stream down his cheek. “That’s what we hear. The Riders of the Bright Horses will save us!” he shouted, accusatorily, angry at the Rider for not already turning the world to the Eden he saw in his haze and setting his wife back by his side. He looked at the prisoner. His eyes lacked their former light. He looked at Albert, and then they simultaneously lowered their heads, and it felt like solidarity to Albert. 

The Rider looked at him like an old dog needing to be put down. He and his horse exhaled, so heavy, like they were heaving fate into Lake Erie. 

“We will save you, when the time comes,” the Rider said, calmly. “But not with the creature comforts of the old world. Your hope is small. Human aspiration is forever changed. In this time of death, glory never dies. I am equipped with the spirits of the Riders and old world warriors before me.” He brandished his torch, and the jewelry on his fingers and wrist clinked together. “You are both insufferable fools,” croaked the prisoner. He kicked the ground and sand shot up into the air. Albert saw every grain. First light had come. 

The prisoner spoke with strength he had not displayed in days, with the volume to issue his challenge to all the Riders in the Bright Pasture. “Hope is not for your aspirations, it is for sustenance. When everything around you is blackness and perdition, to persist with poetry in your heart and to push back, to lift what is too heavy, and rise, and to hold each other through the fear of a bright, full sun. This world, any world, becomes sufficient. That is hope. When we cower at dawn, we do so together. When we cheer as twilight breaks, we do that together. Humanity doesn’t need glory or godhood. You old worlders raised humanity as high as we would go, and the cosmos slapped us down. Yet we still fight?” 

Albert had served only the Council, never himself, for years, and aside from lacking physical comfort and fulfillment in dogged pursuit of justice, he had also deprived himself of emotional comfort and fulfillment. In this moment he remembered who he’d been before the Burst. He looked at the prisoner, both of them still nearing death from starvation and exhaustion, and now saw a man to whom he would’ve shown mercy and understanding, a man he would’ve been happy to have a drink with, a complex man whose mind did not offend, but rather offered harmony, despite his transgressions in this hard time. Albert thought of the faces of those he’d turned in who had not bothered to speak as much as this man. He looked at the trash can piled high, and again saw a wasp flit down and land on the nutritious bounty of reddish leaves.

The prisoner hung his head. The Rider sighed and shook his head. “Marshal Albert,” the Rider said. “I have decided I will show mercy. You may eat and be on your way. Go in peace. I will show true justice to this cynical degenerate.” 

The prisoner’s head shot up and he locked fearful eyes with Albert. The Rider kicked his horse, which reared up and neighed fiercely. The horse then turned around and the Rider drove his heels into it once more. Albert could see what was coming, and moved his thumb to the yellow button on the hilt of the telescopic pole connecting him to the prisoner just in time. As the horse’s rear legs flashed through the morning mist at the prisoner’s chest, the pole extended, and the horse’s back hooves collided not with flesh, but with the steel joint of the pole. The prisoner and Albert were both knocked on their backs from the immense force of the kick. 

When Albert picked his head up, he saw the prisoner free of their forced connection, and frozen on his feet, his eyes alone in flight, moving between Albert and the Rider. Albert scrambled to his feet with great difficulty. The Rider turned his horse back around. Albert tried to grab the pole and lift it, but the cold steel felt like dry ice on his old, withered, weak hands, and his hand recoiled from the sting. The prisoner took note of what Albert was attempting, and shouted “Here!” He darted towards the pole and kicked it up into the air, so that the end that had been attached to him soared towards the Rider. As it arced over the magnificent mane of the white steed, Albert pressed the red button. The end of the pole crackled in the morning mist and then made contact with the Rider’s immense chest. The Rider seized up and shook, and tumbled down off of his Bright Horse.

The prisoner mustered a weak smile and nodded at Albert, then ran, as fast as his legs would carry him, to the east along the shore, most likely in search of shelter and a way to free his arms from the prison Albert had set them in. Albert pressed the yellow button again and the pole retracted totally, no longer than a kaleidoscope. Not wanting to cross near the writhing Rider, he ran off south. It was really more of a trudge. His shin bones felt like they were made of old particleboard, and could crumble at any moment. 

He ran two whole blocks into what was once Downtown Cleveland. He looked back and couldn’t see the Rider chasing him, so he stumbled over a fallen wall into a nearby building. There were faded shards of glass all over the floor, a couple of tables and chairs strewn about, and behind the counter at the far end of the room were dusty ovens and toasters. Albert chuckled at the fact that he was about to die of starvation in an old sandwich shop. 

The air was thick and he struggled to breathe. He heard two or three voices shouting down by the lake. He took off his backpack and lay down. When the Rider knocked him over he must have fallen into that patch of irradiated sand, because globs of black cesium mud dripped from his rolled-up nylon tent. The nylon material deteriorated and disappeared quickly. The Council delayed in addressing his suggestion, and now the failure of his mission was truly certain. 

Rather than being disenchanted by his potential failure, he was now content with his certain failure. He didn’t know justice and strength beyond what the Council told him, but if that Rider was a man of justice and strength, Albert wanted no part of it. There was no harmony in bringing that prisoner in. There was no harmony in bringing any of them in. Just like his prisoner, he had transgressed in these hard times. He was not himself. He was twilight rising and dawn falling. 

Still, his failure had been a success. The prisoner was free, and he was a true survivor. Albert hoped with all his heart that despite his transgressions in these hard times, he could still offer that harmony to a pained young man. 

Dawn broke. The deadly sun burst through the gray sky and filled the streets outside. Albert looked out the window and saw the sturdy brick wall of a church. How lucky he felt, to not have chosen this shelter, but to take what the city offered. 

His breath got shallow and his vision got blurry. The voices approached as he departed. He heard the church bells ringing, he heard his wife singing. He closed his eyes and stared into the blackness. 

Albert cast his heart into the past, with his wife and daughter, with good food and a peaceful life. With his last ounce of hope, he cast his mind into a future where he would stumble upon the true Bright Horses, prancing in their Bright Pasture, lit up by their fiery manes and wild spirits. The old world and the new would be set ablaze by the burning beasts of myth, and we could cast off the tired tasks of redeeming justice and serving aspirations, and persist with pleasant poetry in the paradise of a glorious dawn.

The post The Bright Horses appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Written Transcript

Last month, at a “die in” organized by local high schoolers against the Genocide in Gaza.

I’m sitting on the curb and all these 15 year olds are lying in the street in front of me. They start reading a  list of those killed over the PA.

I find I can’t stop thinking about the kids at my work at an afterschool– Their absolute aliveness.

—–

Sweet moments. Friendship. Terror. Beads spilled on the floor.

Head down on the table sobbing it’s time to stop playing video games.

Running as fast as you can.

—–

I can’t stop thinking about the joy, agony, and work of childhood.

The work!

Pretending over and over again that I know any of the rules.

Trying to convince either one of us that right and wrong exists.

That it matters!

—–

And not being able to provide that for a child:

That you will be safe,

That I will be here,

That no mistake is irreparable.

—–

As an adult, I’ve spent so many

Days watching all of it in the kids

I’ve worked with.

—–

The times you’re selfish.

The times you’re kind.

Cleaning up and starting over again and again.

Childhood is to be alive.

Childhood is incredibly difficult.

——-

The world that revolves around you 

And your best friend and the bracelet

Business you made isn’t a lesser one.

It isn’t a half-existence.

At least in my experience, childhood was overflowing, vibrant, and terrifying.

Learning the world and learning yourself is Perilous even under the best

CIRCUMSTANCES.

——

I can’t stop thinking about how real kids are. There’s so much focus on “What will you be when you grow up?” But here you are, a real, complete, and amazing person.

—-

Here you are, you’re an eye staring at the sun. The world is fast and big and often uncaring.

—–

I can’t stop thinking about your realness.

Your name as a name on that list.

Over and over.

The names on that list as you.

Real and perfect and in a rush and wanting the world to come.

The post On Working With Kids appeared first on The New Absurdist.

If you’re unfamiliar, Letterboxd is a social networking platform that allows people to rate, review, and catalog films. It pretty much functions exactly like Goodreads with a laughably bad search function to match.

When I was a more avid reader growing up, there was nothing more satisfying than slamming my latest book shut and immediately typing away on my Goodreads account to publish the most unfiltered, long-winded review.

A friend or two—someone I knew in real life or Tumblr—would like my update, prompting feelings of immense pride and accomplishment to rush in. I was doing a great service. I was a critic offering well-regarded opinions. People trusted my taste in storytelling, an honor and responsibility I did not take lightly.

When Goodreads rolled out its recommendation feature, I was emboldened to continue pushing my favorite books at the top of my friends’ feeds like an absolute menace.

Now I slip my one-sentence, tongue-in-cheek, anonymous Letterboxd reviews in quick, smooth, easy conversations in person or via text. My comments are just as unsolicited, but the validation I get from making myself chuckle alone is enough of a reason for me to keep doing it.

—

I watched Jane Schoenbrun’s A24-distributed film I Saw the TV Glow (2024) and finished New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020) in tandem. 

On the surface, both stories are pretty different. If they were the same medium, they wouldn’t be in the same genre section in Barnes & Noble or Netflix. Their intended audiences seem far apart as we follow a 35-year-old British woman in present day in The Midnight Library and two queer pubescents in American suburbia in the late 90s to early 2000’s in I Saw the TV Glow. 

Still, I came away from each story equal parts comforted and disturbed by the shared antagonistic passage of time, the mess of people and remnants of wasted potential lost or left behind, the fatigue of existence and repression in a stagnant world, and the life-saving, persisting art that emerges as a constant opposition for stragglers to build identities, homes, and whole communities around.

In The Midnight Library, Nora’s lifeline is the musings of old male philosophers and in I Saw the TV Glow, Owen and Maddy bond over a campy young adult show called The Pink Opaque.

Despite their respective outlets, we witness the nightmares of Nora and Owen actualize in real time: a dead-end, unfulfilled life haunted by what-ifs.

Nora’s what-ifs are a wide range of unrelated choices and passions. Owen dismisses and runs from gender dysphoria, or as it manifests in the film: the possibility that they are an unconscious Isabel, one of the two main characters in The Pink Opaque.

Nora lives out variations of her life through the purgatorial Midnight Library, each book a gateway to an alternate life she could have led. The Pink Opaque starts to bleed into Owen’s reality, but the harder they push this world away, the faster time skips ahead, leaving them with no memories of the past few years-turned-decades as they become more shell than human.

—

The metaphors these stories employ to make their points can be heavy-handed and blinding. (Though personally I enjoyed watching I Saw the TV Glow more than I did reading The Midnight Library.)

I’m aware this is a common crisis among 20-somethings and that other stories have dealt with disassociating from a life passing you by.

When I reminisce and look back on my life (as it’s beginning, thank you), my brain naturally visualizes my Goodreads account, specifically the annual reading challenges and year-end summaries in books. 

I can pick out a book and recall not only the year I read it in, but also the state of mind and circumstances I was in while reading.

If I go through my old rambling Goodreads reviews, skimming through the noticeable lack of punctuation and capitalization in some, and the ecstatic overuse in others, I can focus on the personal tidbits younger me threw in between the lines…as breadcrumbs, almost, leading to…I have no idea where exactly.

I can view my degression as an avid reader laid bare on screen. In 2015 and 2016, I read 53 books each year. In 2022 and 2023, I read a whopping total of 9 and 8.

Eleven months into 2024, I read 4 books including The Midnight Library and two of which being a manga volume and poetry collection. On the flip side, I logged 40 films in my Letterboxd diary.

One way or another, I’m getting my necessary fix of stories. As someone who has had difficulty being in touch with recognizing and feeling what’s real, media in its many forms has shaped and been shaped by how I’ve made sense of my life in that moment in time.

With an amorphous blob of a personality throughout my teenage years, using my favorite books, shows, movies, and music as an escape and front was always an intentional choice to avoid confronting uncomfortable truths.

Over time, I absorbed the stories so that they became a part of me, so that I was unrecognizable without them.

There are two aphorisms both The Midnight Library and I Saw the TV Glow really hinge upon. Without them, there is no purpose to either story. 

Matt Haig writes “three simple words containing the power and potential of a multiverse.” 

I AM ALIVE.

Jane Schoenbrun lingers on a shot of a street covered in chalk doodles and squiggles, framing a clear message.

there is still time

I want the stories I consume to be an extension of who I am, rather than define and form my entire being. 

I’m working on talking more about the experiences I’ve lived and not only the ones I’ve lived vicariously through fictional characters.

In separate discussions about I Saw the TV Glow and The Midnight Library, two friends asked if I had any regrets.

I said I didn’t, I’m too young, but I also don’t know that I’ve made decisions big enough to live out their effects. Or perhaps therein lies the regret: the absence of risk.

The voice that narrates in my head sighs and tells me to keep going.

The post I Walked Through the Midnight Library and Saw the TV Glow appeared first on The New Absurdist.

That creek was the only thing separating the Davis estate from a lesser property whose  quaint Tudor home had been on the market for years, gradually depreciating with the turning  seasons. The summer sun would fade the roof and burn the finish off the porch until the beams  warped inward like the hull of a Guineaman ship. The falls were mild and didn’t do much  damage. In the winters, though, the pipes would freeze, and when they thawed come spring, the  realtor would pay a plumber to plug the leaks. Yet the sun and wind were petty compared to the wrath of water. For if the creek overflowed, the basement would take on a few swampy inches,  and in the weeks following the realtor would leave the doors open so the carpet wouldn’t mold.  From a mile away you could hear the wet vacs humming and the choppy voices of carpet  cleaners as they yodeled ay-yai-yai into the blades of oscillating fans. 

The realtor was content to let the creek serve as the property line, like the Rio Grande or  the mighty Mississippi. But Jefferson wasn’t about to leave his family’s fate to the whims of a  matriarch like Mother Earth. He drew the brittle yellow deed from a safe that gleamed inwardly  with heirlooms and, assuming his tea-time post atop the third-story veranda, compared the  notarized sketch with the current landscape; indeed, the creek had shifted with the last flash  flood. Whenever it rained for days on end, it would reroute ever-so slightly, the bed deeper, the  bank steeper. This time the momentum had eroded his side of the bend, displacing it as a jut of  earth on the other. Hence, telling by several ancient elms that served as landmarks, he now  owned a fraction of the neighboring property. Just enough to fish from.  

In case of a legal dispute, Jefferson summoned his lawyer to redraft the deed. The two  men conversed over a pair of shared binoculars as would generals before battle. Meanwhile  Keesha took five, turning up the radio and wiping sweat from her brow with blanched hands. When Jefferson caught her in the crosshairs of those binoculars, her image advanced on him like  a darkroom negative or postbellum vendettist, this black woman in whiteface. And since she  seemed closer than she actually was, he said “Afternoon” in a voice she couldn’t possibly have  heard. 

What she did hear was the host of NPR detailing the recent toppling of statues in a  number of city centers and college towns, the movement of her people coming to a head as if it  were a planned tricennial: the ’60s, the ’90s, and now the ’20s. And here she was playing the part. She took some comfort in knowing she wasn’t alone, that there were still the quiet caddies  at the country clubs, the hooting cooks at the hot chicken joints, the humpback shoeshines at  Nashville International. Then there was her father, a former barber. When gentrification  shuttered his shop in East Nashville, she’d dropped out of Julliard Drama to join this farce;  because around here, being typecast still paid better than breaking character. 

Keesha squeezed the sponge like a stress-relief toy then dropped it in the bucket and  watched the two men head indoors after a lot of insistent pointing. If only her employer would  plant some boxwoods. That way, no one would notice the stains left by the rising water. That  way, she wouldn’t have to whitewash the goddamned gazebo again. Waiting for the sponge to  bloat, she let herself be distracted by an acrobatic squirrel; a jet drawing a chalkline in the sky;  the leggy realtor across the creek, teetering in stilettos across a sodden lawn to uproot the For  Sale sign.  

Keesha was halfway around the gazebo when the sun was low enough to look at. She  reviewed the checklist in her mind. She’d changed the linens. Beaten the Persian rugs. Windexed  the windows and Cloroxed the commodes. She hadn’t mopped the floors, but that could wait  until tomorrow since she’d mopped the day before yesterday. Satisfied with the state of the set,  she left the sponge in the bucket so it wouldn’t crust then went inside to ask if there was anything  else she could do before heading home. Jefferson was in his study returning the deed to the safe.  Keesha made a point of turning away before she saw the combination. Backing out of the room  without a word, she drew the curtains in the master so Jefferson wouldn’t wake up when she  arrived early to bake a cake for the new neighbors. And…scene.  

* * *

The boxes labeled BED were in the bedroom. The boxes labeled BATH were in the  bathroom. The boxes labeled FRAGILE were in the kitchen. Jasmine was in the kitchen too,  taking stock of her new home. She stood beside an old coffeemaker, the first and only appliance  she’d unpacked. Bringing a cup to her lips, she blew at the seemingly placid surface then  proceeded to scald herself when the doorbell rang. Not the harsh buzz of a Boston brownstone  but the Westminster chimes of a grandfather clock. She could practically see the full octave  plotted on sheet music, falling for half a bar before rising in equal measure.  E-C-D-G, G-D-E-C.  

Jasmine figured Carl had lost his house key, or else it didn’t fit. If so he would fix it  without calling a locksmith. As newlyweds she’d loved having a handyman for a husband. But  she was starting to see he wasn’t as industrious as he was stubborn. He would cut out his own  tongue before asking for another man’s help. She opened the door. Where she’d expected to find  a middle-aged man holding a blunt key, she found an old man holding a crumb cake. 

“Morning,” he announced with a voice like a bugle, throwing glances over and around  her. “Thought I’d drop by and say welcome.” Jasmine stood quietly with her hand on the jamb,  that slender arm her only barricade. When no one else came to the door, he turned his full  attention to her. “Well, welcome. I’m Jefferson.” 

Jasmine made a platter of her palms, and Jefferson lowered the back of his hands onto the  front of hers as though they were about to play slaps.  

“Jasmine.” She showed him in. He cupped his ear and she said it louder. “Jasmine. Like  the flower. And you really shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t, to be honest.” Jefferson followed her down the hall, limping a little and halting  to regard an unhung diploma: Harvard, Magna Cum Laude. “My help baked it. I try always to be  forthright.”  

“Your ‘help’?”  

“Maid? Housekeeper? Domestic worker? You’ll have to forgive me if I’m behind the  times. But you wouldn’t begrudge living assistance to an old widower?” 

Jasmine put the crumb cake on the counter beside the blinking coffeemaker: twelve,  twelve, twelve o’ clock. She synched it with her wristwatch. Rounding to the nearest half hour, it  was eight-thirty. Early. Too early for a house call.  

“What did you study?” He pointed his chin at the diploma. 

“Music,” she said. 

“Which instrument?” 

“The lungs.”  

“Sing me something, if you don’t mind.” He aimed his better ear at her. 

“I’m no early bird.”  

“Doesn’t have to be fancy. A do re mi would do.”  

“You wouldn’t prefer ‘Wade in the Water’?” 

“I fear we got off on the wrong foot. That, or you got up on the wrong side of the bed.” “We haven’t bought one yet.” 

“We?”  

The conversation was interrupted by the tooting of a horn. 

“That’ll be my husband with the U-Haul. He’s been driving all night.” 

Before leading her guest into the foyer where the latticework of the Tudor facade showed  in relief, Jasmine took the pot off the hotplate and poured what was left into a travel mug. If he  was surprised to see a white man walk through the door, Jefferson didn’t show it. The white man,  on the other hand, was clearly surprised to find a stranger in his house. Handing off the  brimming mug as carefully as a torch, Jasmine introduced Carl to Jefferson, Jefferson to Carl. 

It hardly seemed worth giving their guest a grand tour of stripped carpet and bare wall, so  Carl suggested they have a slice of the crumb cake on the back porch. When he opened the  sliding door it made a horrible grating noise; he assured everyone it just needed a little WD-40.  The lawn chairs were sitting right out in the open, right in the sun, and without the cushions the  wrought iron was hot to the touch. They ate standing up.  

“What do you make of the neighborhood?” asked Jefferson.  

“So fah so good,” said Carl.  

“Jersey?” Jefferson said of the accent.  

“Boston.” Carl dunked his cake in his coffee, which meant he couldn’t be invited to  dinner parties.  

“And what do you make of the house?” Jefferson asked.  

Carl nodded at a window below their knees. “Basement’s watahlogged.”  

“Floods every April.” Jefferson shook his head regretfully. “You’re in a sinkhole, in case  the realtor didn’t tell you.” 

“Yeah, yeah. She toll us,” Carl said with a mouthful. “That’s why we could afford it.” He  lost the last bit of his crumb cake to the mug. 

“At least she’s forthright,” Jefferson thought out loud. “Had my doubts about her.”

Carl finished his coffee and slung the grounds into the yard. “I’m gonna fix this place up  on the cheap. But don’t worry, it won’t look it. Your property value’ll go up with us next door.” The Davis residence stood on the other side of the creek beyond the willows and reeds,  alone and imposing and white. Jefferson admired it from afar as any outsider might. If for  nothing more than this new perspective, he was glad he had come.  

“Funny,” Carl started. Jefferson saw that he too was admiring the Davis residence. “Me  and Jazz didn’t think no one lived in the place. No one but a ghost, maybe.”  “No ghosts.” Jefferson laughed. “Not as long as I’m alive and kicking. After that I can’t  guarantee anything.” 

“And if it wasn’t a haunted house, we guessed it was a clubhouse.” 

“Wrong again. But you come over for billiards whenever you please. My son Jeff’s  always looking for someone new to hustle. By the end of the night he can’t stand up straight, but  he can sink an eight ball corner pocket.”  

Carl loosened his toolbelt and suggested they walk off the cake. They followed the  boundary of the back lot where honeysuckle grew in clumps along the creekbank.  “So you’re a handyman,” said Jefferson, “and she’s an Ivy Leaguer.” 

Carl was treading around flatfooted in search of mole holes. He hadn’t mown the lawn  yet. The realtor had been paying a teenager to mow it.  

“Can I ask you a question out of sheer curiosity? Promise me you won’t take offence.”  Jefferson waited until Carl nodded. “I pulled some strings, but Harvard rejected my Jeff. We had  to settle for Vanderbilt.” 

“Settle?” said Carl. “Vandy’s all but Ivy.” 

“You said it,” said Jefferson. “All but.” 

“Vandy’s why we’re here, matter fact. Jazz was hired to teach music appreciation.” “Was she accepted to Harvard outright?” 

“Outright?” said Carl, still patching divots with his foot.  

“She’s clearly made the best of it, and she’s to be commended for that.” Jefferson clasped  his arms behind his back and kept walking even after Carl had stopped.  

“Really?” said Carl. “You’re asking if that’s why Jazz got in?” 

“I’m asking if that’s why Jeff didn’t. He can’t land a decent job. Or can’t keep one at  least.” 

Carl would’ve taken offense, but he was a man of his word and had promised not to.  “Jazz is waiting for me to unload boxes.” He walked toward the house without looking back.  “You know, Carl…” Jefferson’s legs creaked like an antique chair when he squatted to  run a palm along the unmown grass there on the ledge of the creek. “My family used to be in  charge of this land. Not just this spot, but the whole kit and caboodle. Everything south of  Kentucky. Speaking of this spot, though.”  

Before he could get to the point, Jefferson was cut short by a sharp grating sound. Carl  was back inside, pantomiming with his wife behind the sliding glass door.  

* * * 

Later that morning Carl was hanging a crossbar for the curtains when he spotted a  trespasser. The man seemed innocent enough, reclined in a beach chair with a foam cooler by his  side. As he came closer Carl saw the chair had cupholders in the armrest, one of which held a  silver beer can. The trespasser himself held a fishing rod between his knees while snoring  through a sunburnt nose. Before waking him, Carl looked him over. A decent-looking man of  thirty something in a half-buttoned shirt, madras shorts, boat shoes. 

Carl cleared his throat, then said “Skews me,” then gave up and tapped the guy on the  shoulder. The trespasser came to as if he had a fish on the line, leaning forward and reeling. He  didn’t notice Carl until he had the hook in hand, vexed by the missing bait. “Dadgum it.” He  fumbled in the cooler for his worm can but came up with another beer, prying it open with a  gritty fingernail. He’d dug up the worms right here on the ledge where the soil was new and  moist, leaving the shovel stabbed in the ground the way a butcher leaves his cleaver in meat. To  either side of the shovel were a hole and commensurate mound. “One more drink never hurt  anyone, right?”  

“It’s ten-thirty,” said Carl. Or it was when last he looked at the coffeemaker.  “Already?” The trespasser slid on the Croakies he’d been wearing like a necklace and  peered up at a sun that was climbing right along with the temperature. “Then it’s now or never.  Fish don’t eat lunch, you know. Only breakfast and supper.” 

Carl was busy today, so he cut to the chase. “What’re you doing out here?”  “Not having much luck, that’s what.” 

“What’re you doing out here?” Carl tapped his foot. “Stead a somewhere else. There’s  plenty more creek down the way.” 

“My father told me this was the spot.” The trespasser peered into a pail that should’ve  been stirring with fins then looked up into the sun again with the beer pressed to his brow.  “This is my back yad,” said Carl. 

“Where are my manners?” The trespasser stood and held out a hand. “I’m Jeff Davis.”

Carl stuck out a hand of his own and Jeff squeezed it harder than anyone ever had. About  that time a cloud came between them and the sun. A few fat drops wept onto their shoulders.  Jeff, shaking a fist at the heavens, stepped under the umbrella of a willow and pulled out a flask.  When Carl followed him in, Jeff offered it up.  

“I don’t drink that stuff. Not straight anyway.” 

Jeff heard possibility in Carl’s reluctance. “Then let’s send for mint and sugar. We’ll  make juleps. We’ll make a day of it. We’ll send Keesha to Kroger. Or you can send yours.”  “Mine?” 

Jeff looked over his shoulder at Carl’s house. “The lady hanging curtains.” “That’s my wife,” Carl hissed.  

Jeff flushed. “Honest mistake. No hard feelings? Truth be told, I envy you.” “Yeah?” Carl crossed his arms. “And why’s that?” 

“Doing what you want to do. Doing who you want to do.”  

Jeff walked out from under the willow. The rain cloud had passed. He arched his back,  opened his mouth as if to scream, and made the most monstrous face Carl had ever seen. Then he  patted his lips with a lethargic tribal sound. “High time I get back to my nap.”  “First I’d like a word with your father.” 

“No can do.” Jeff slumped back down in his beach chair and propped his feet up on the  cooler. “He’s at the chiro.”  

“Tomorrow then.” 

“Tomorrow’s the ortho. Father’s on his last leg, you see. One bad spill and it’s all me.” “The family fortune?” said Carl. 

“The family name,” said Jeff. “That’s why I’m laying low while I can.” 

Jeff rebaited his hook, doubling it through a single worm to form a fleshy tumor. That  graceful rainbow of a cast landed nowhere near the reeds, the line wafting down until it hung like  gossamer in the gnatty afternoon. 

“Fine. How’s about I have a word with you, then you have a word with him?” Jeff  nodded and Carl went on. “Look, I know no one’s lived in our place for a while. But here we are.  And we’re here to stay. Now I don’t mind you dropping by from time to time, but I’d appreciate  if you didn’t make a habit of wandering over without letting us know.”  

Drawing that deed from his pocket, unfolding it according to the creases, Jeff handed it  over to Carl. Carl held it up like an x-ray, the daylight illuminating all but the black contours of  the contiguous estates. He traced the dashed line that followed the course of the creek, faithful  but for a single divergence along this side of the bank.  

“Heck Carl, I don’t mean to patronize you.” Jeff reeled in and recast. “But the  paterfamilias told me to show you that.” Jeff plunged his naked arm into the ice water and  pitched a cold one at Carl’s chest. “Now you just go on and make yourself at home.”  

* * * 

Come late afternoon a boy of about ten found the shovel just where Jeff had left it. He  pretended he was King Arthur as he pulled it from the earth, fencing with his shadow until he’d  slain the dark knight several times over. Only once did he wind up on the wrong end of the  sword, having tripped over a hole in the ground still wriggling with earthworms. He pinched one  between his fingers, pulling it apart, and waited for it to become two. This concept— regeneration—he’d learned in science class. He bored when the worm didn’t grow back right away and, taking the hole as a suggestion to dig, commenced to slinging soil over his shoulder.  Some of it landed in the creek. Some of it showered down into his hair, which was about as  sheeny and unkempt as frayed copper wire.  

Carl spotted him first, but Jasmine said she should go. Knowing kids tend to skedaddle  when approached by a stranger, she came upon him quietly but without realizing her shadow had  preceded her. The redhead spied it and, presuming the dark knight had been revived, sprang to  his feet. He charged right into Jasmine’s grasp, braces flashing as he bit into her forearm. She  staggered back and examined the imprint of his crowded teeth. Then she looked at the boy  himself. He’d recovered the shovel and retreated a few steps, lunging and gashing the space  between them so she’d keep her distance, his nose scrunched ferociously, his freckled cheeks  bunched under his eyes. Jasmine resisted the urge to call him a brat or monster or little shit.  

“Whatcha digging?” she asked with a strained smile. He glanced at the hole, now a few  feet deep, before turning one wary eye back on her. “Is it a grave?” she asked. Jasmine didn’t  mean to be morbid. Next to the hole was a pair of twigs that resembled a homemade cross. But  the bark was worn in the middle, meaning the boy must’ve abandoned them after failing to make  fire.  

“Maybe.” The kid seemed to like that idea. “Yeah. That’s what it is. A grave.” When she  asked whose grave, he shrugged. “A dead person’s.” When she asked if he knew a dead person,  he nodded eagerly. “Mimaw. But she’s already got a grave.” When Jasmine asked who the grave  was for, then, if not his grandmother, he said, “None of your beeswax,” and scratching his  cowlick, added, “Maybe it’s for me.”  

Were the boy a man, Jasmine might’ve concerned herself with that last comment. But he  was still a boy and thus immortal in his own eyes. Die! Die! Die! he would yell while shooting bullets from his finger. And if he himself died—a cop or robber, a cowboy or Indian, a Rebel or  damn Yankee—he would lie like Mimaw had in the casket until no one was around, then jump  up and run for his life.  

“But that’s silly,” said Jasmine, “because you’re not dead.”  

“You don’t gotta be dead to have a grave. Papaw has a grave right by Mimaw’s. It’s got  his name and birthday and when he croaks they’ll add his deathday.” 

“Speaking of names.” She knelt so they were eye to eye. “I’m Jasmine.” 

He switched the shovel to his left hand and shook—“J.D.”—then leapt back in a  defensive stance.  

“I see,” she said. “Another Jefferson Davis.” 

“That’s Papaw’s name.” He dropped the shovel to list three generations on his fingers. “Here’s how to remember it. Our names get smaller, just like our ages: Jefferson, Jeff, J.D.” He  explained this lineage with his head held high. Initials were something a boy could be proud of,  stitched as they were into the child’s pajamas, etched as they were into the father’s flask.  “And what number are you, all in all?” 

The boy made a face. “Who’s counting?”  

“Someone, I’m sure. Some kooky historian.”  

“Then why should I?”  

J.D. narrowed a pupil at the sinking sun then reached of a sudden for the shovel. Across  the way Keesha picked up her pace. It’d been two days and she still hadn’t finished the gazebo.  Now that the boy was at ease in her presence, Jasmine snuck up on him and snatched the shovel.  

“Hey, give it back!” he demanded, but she held it higher than he could jump. “Give it!”  When he tired of jumping, he kicked her shin and retrieved it on the drop.

“You little shit!” she said before clapping a hand over her mouth. 

“I’m telling,” the boy sang.  

“Keep digging!” Jeff called from the other side of the creek. “Do your worst, J.D.! Dig to  Red China.”  

Carl made his way onto the scene. He’d been watching from behind the new curtains, and  when the kid kicked his wife, he could stand by no longer. He joined Jasmine, followed the  thread of her gaze through the creek’s parallel treelines. There was Jeff, sipping on a Julep. He’d  climbed up on the veranda to take in the last of the sun. He raised his tarnished cup to Carl and it  caught a ray of light, gleaming with a luster both silver and gold.  

“Now Jeff,” Carl pointed a toe towards the hole, “we got us a little problem here.” “Come on over,” Jeff suggested. “We’ll hash it out over a cocktail.” 

“I don’t want a cocktail, Jeff. I want this hole filled. Someone could get hurt.” “He won’t hurt himself. He’s dug holes up and down the Gulf. Heck, he’s buried himself  neck deep at high tide.”  

“I’m not talking about him, Jeff. I’m talking about us. The people who live over here.” “If you’re that worried, put a fence around it.” Jeff stood as the last of the sun lifted from  the veranda. He made a bullhorn of his hands. “Let’s call it a day, Keesha. You too, J.D. Time to  wash up.”  

“That’s not our responsibility,” said Jasmine.  

Jeff opened the French doors that led into one of many bedrooms. “Alright, lady. Have it  your way. We’ll fill the hole for you.”  

* * *

Keesha was wearing the same overalls for the third day in a row. By now they appeared stonewashed, though they’d been true blue when she’d bought them on Jefferson’s dime. She  spread her limbs like a scarecrow and stood in the sun until the smears dried to her skin, then  took off her shoes and entered through the backdoor—the routine she went through whenever  nature called. She didn’t bother washing her hands since she would just dirty them again. She  simply flushed the toilet and ran the faucet to lap at that cold popsicle of tap water. She thought  she heard the doorbell and turned the faucet off to listen. A woman screamed upstairs, followed  by two gunshots and a blare of music. With Jefferson in his study and Jeff sleeping one off, J.D.  was sneaking in an R-rated movie. How the boy craved violence.  

Keesha wiped her hands and went for the foyer. The driveway was a straight shot of  marble chips and magnolias. She hadn’t heard a car crunching its way forward, meaning the  caller had come on foot. She saw through the cut crystal doorframe that it was the new neighbor.  He looked small standing on the porch between two Grecian columns. He didn’t introduce  himself, just studied her—her clothes soiled and her hair skunk-striped with whiting. “Can I have a word with Mister Davis?” 

“Which Mister Davis? We got three of those.” 

“The oldest,” he said.  

“He indisposed.” Keesha started to shut the door but felt it stick with the wedge of a foot.  “What is it you need, mister? Sugar? Flour? You short of something other than manners?” “That’ll be all, Keesha,” said a voice from the top of the stairway. “I’m happy to chat  with Carl.” Carl noticed the duckhead cane Jefferson used to make his descent, the way he  placed both feet square on each stair. Keesha tried to come to his aid but Jefferson waved her off. 

When he reached the landing he clutched the banister and caught his breath before conquering  the last flight to stand surefooted on the marble. “Little early for billiards, isn’t it, Carl?” Carl was shuffling his feet to keep from losing momentum. Were this his own house, he  would’ve been pacing. “What’s with the flag in my yad?”  

“Your yard?”  

“My yad. Your yad. What’s the difference? It looks like I’m the one whistling Dixie.” “You asked us to fill the hole, so we filled it. And yes, we posted a flagpole so there  wouldn’t be an unsightly scar in our yard.”  

“I thought I heard you up here.” Jeff smiled groggily at Carl, having finally emerged  from hibernation. Guzzling straight from a bottle of V8, he wandered into the foyer with bedhead  and a cheek scarred from pillow stitching. “What’s up?” 

“It’ll never end, will it? Not till one of you’s castrated.” Carl pointed upstairs at J.D., who  was spying through the spindles. The boy would have gone undetected if not for those jailbird  hands. “He’ll have a son, then he’ll have a son, then he’ll have a son.” 

Jefferson poked Carl’s sternum with the heel of his cane. “What on earth are you  rambling about?”  

“This.” Carl presented Keesha. “For Christ sake, man, you even have her barefoot.” Carl  had mistaken Keesha for a pitiable throwback as opposed to the talented guerilla actress she was.  “Come work for me and my wife. We’ll find something for you to do. And we’ll treat you right.  Whatever he pays you, I’ll pay that and a half.” Carl made to spirit her away, but Keesha didn’t  budge from her blocking. “Fine.” Carl patted the seat of his cargo pants. “I’ll double it.” 

Keesha didn’t exactly break character, but she did look to Jefferson as if to say Line? After all, she had bills to pay. Her father’s and her own. 

“Last I checked this was a free country, Keesha. You work for whomever you please.”  Having given that direction, Jefferson stood back to watch the intended dénouement:  Keesha slamming the door on Carl.  

* * * 

Seeing that the neighbor had tracked in mud from his creek crossing, Keesha could no  longer put off mopping. Giving up on the gazebo, she rinsed out the bucket of whiting and  refilled it with soap suds. Then she lugged it inside to slap at the marble and wrench the gray  dreadlocks. Morning passed. Before texting the guys to come down for lunch, Kesha improvised a bit, leaving a fresh layer on the landing between flights and waiting in the trap room under the  stairway until she heard the bony avalanche. One hip would’ve done it, but by the sound of it, she’d gotten both.  

As the other Jeffersons rushed to the foot of the stairs, Keesha gathered her things and  slipped offstage. She lowered the flag to half-staff before making her commute without breaking  the speed limit, like any other day. Once home, she cut and compartmentalized her father’s pills then stood alone before her bathroom mirror picking off streaks of dried paint that pulled her  skin as tight as stitches. Only then did it occur to her that she had toppled the wrong statue. The rusty old figurehead was merely corrosive, whereas the coppertone cupid was newly armed. 

The post Jefferson Davis the Nth appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Ash Patel-Brown is now on an eight-day streak. COW24’s new meteorologist has accurately predicted the weather eight days in a row, an unthinkable feat that has never been attempted until now. One can say she’s taking the meteorology world by storm. This is John Maynard reporting for XYMN from Boston, MA.

July 10 

Sir, the viewers are irate! We are getting more phone calls, letters, and emails than we’ve received about any story or subject we’ve covered in the twenty years I’ve worked here. People are confused. They’re angry. They have no idea what to do with accurate weather forecasts. An elderly couple got soaked because they left their umbrellas at home—Ash had predicted rain. They’re threatening to sue the station, and Ash because she’s changing the old way of doing forecasts. Others are upset that we’ve made their lives more predictable and boring. Today we received a letter from Congressman Jordan’s office. He plans on launching an investigation into Ash’s liberal education and elite credentials. By the way, he’s also threatening to subpoena all of our internal correspondence. 

July 12 

Ash, consider this your first warning. This station has a long and storied history. While we appreciate your work ethic and commitment, you are changing too many things, and too fast. First, you insisted on ditching the traditional blue/black/gray suits for dresses and then last Thursday, you wore a print! On air! I’m surprised we haven’t been targeted by the Epilepsy Foundation. But really, for Pete’s sake… Haha, get it? I’m Pete!… Haha, anyway, you have to bring inaccuracy back to the forecasts. People are not ready for change. Nosireeebob, they are not. It has to rain when none is predicted. It should be sunny when you forecast a storm. You can’t mess with traditions!

July 13 

Are you kidding me? That witch predicted a sunny day and it’s fucking sunny! I already cut the patio servers thinking it will rain. Now the guests are complaining they have to sit outside on a beautiful day when they were expecting to be told patio seats weren’t available due to rain. Goddamnit! I’m going to have to put on an apron and serve the cranky beasts myself!

July 15 

Dear Asha, 

This is to inform you that the Meteorologists Association & Glaciologists of America is suspending your membership. You have brought disrepute to our noble profession with your “revolutionary” practices. Scientific theories and fact-based predictions have no place in our modern world. We are also worried that you will lend credence to climate change believers and socialists. Please return your official ID and weatherman’s raincoat at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, 

Donald Goodwin 

President, MAGA

July 16 

Yes, Ma! I’m going to stop thinking so much… 

…Yes, I want to keep my job. 

…Of course, I want a husband and family someday. 

… I threw out my analysis. I’m going to predict a snowstorm… Yes, exactly. It’s July, I can’t possibly be right. 

…I’ll give them what they want. Don’t worry. Give Dad a kiss for me.

July 18 

This is John Maynard reporting for XYMN from Boston, MA. A freak snowstorm is causing panic around New England. Sub-zero temperatures have been recorded throughout the region. At grocery stores, shelves have been emptied of bread and milk while other retailers are struggling to meet demand for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations.

A growing chorus of voices is blaming this anomaly on meteorologist Asha Patel. In the House of Representatives, a bipartisan resolution condemning Patel for her hysterical behavior has over 400 cosponsors. Station owners offered no comments but sources close to COW24 President Eric Murdoch Jr. confirmed that the station has already launched an internal investigation into the veracity of Asha Patel’s birth certificate.

July 20 

Asha Patel was seen wearing a tan suit.

July 22 

Comedian Bob Whitefellow was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his critically acclaimed skit featuring an interview with an Asha Patel mask made to look like a severed head.

July 24 

Extradition proceedings against Asha Patel grind to a halt after the mayor of Jacksonville, FL refused to acknowledge her birthright city-zenship. Patel has already been declared a persona non grata by the state of Florida. State lawmakers in the Sunshine State are filing emergency legislation to replace teaching about slavery with a course on the horrific failings of Asha Patel.

July 30 

Asha Patel offered a tearful apology for being a woman, brown, scientist, and anything else that might have caused offense to the American people.

At a hastily scheduled competing press conference in the parking lot of a Hobby Bobby, former presidential candidate and retired American hero, Rudolph Plump urged Americans to reject Asha Patel’s apology.

July 31 

Breaking news: Asha Patel’s emails were leaked to the media by an anonymous Danish activist. Among other gems, the emails revealed that Patel had turned down offers to appear in the next season of the Indian Matchmaker as well as Bravo’s hit reality show Idle Women of Jacksonville.

August 1 

LGBT+ activists are alarmed by Patel’s Bravo snub.

August 2 

Young Republicans and Democrats voice concern and confusion over Patel’s use of a Hotmail email address.

August 3 

MEN365 reports that Asha Patel has been granted asylum in Afghanistan. Patel told MEN365 reporter Mitchell Crank that she is looking forward to feeling safe again and to the anonymity granted by being wholly excluded from public life and employment opportunities.

August 15 

Sen. Warren Liz cast the lone vote against bombing Afghanistan for harboring Asha Patel.

August 30 

COW24 President Eric Murdoch Jr. announced that Kandi Kardashian has been selected to replace Asha Patel as the Chief Meteorologist for the station. “I hope that Kandi’s appointment helps us turn the page on the recent controversy. The American people are ready to move on,” Murdoch said in a statement released by the company. 

It seems that people on the street agree with Murdoch. Our intrepid reporter John Maynard checks in with the people.

“I’m just bored of the whole thing. It’s time to talk about things that matter. Did you see Kandi’s TikTok reel?” Brittany Lavoie, Burlington. 

“I don’t even know where Afghanistan is.” Matt Mattson, Portland. 

“I’m sick of the media’s gotcha questions. No, I cannot spell the name of that place.” Farah Malin, Juneau. 

“They need to have better special effects and actors if they want us to care about the war.” Loren Hobert, Graspen. 

This is John Maynard reporting for XYMN from Boston, MA.

The post A Perfect Storm appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Making cloth is such a beautiful and humble practice. I am obsessed, especially because so much time and labor are involved in weaving. Within a rapidly changing world which prioritizes tech, my discipline and motivation to produce meaningful thought provoking work remains the same. I am invested in processes that are not digital, or adapted from technology, but human driven. Slow and simple traditional methods which continue to be reliable, with the use of hands instead of computers. In a capitalist world where commerce overtakes creativity for the sake of profit, my only investment is to hand produce work with commentary on what I deem neglected and important. I don’t really care about selling the clothes from my runway shows, or producing seasonal garments; my runway shows are there to tell stories, and my work is there to whisper my obsessive ideas, opinions (and sometimes secrets) to the mass public. 

A Bloodline And Their Rituals.

Growing up in East Los Angeles, we get our nutrients from the corners. East Los Angeles is where my unnamed neighbors sit next to me on the public buses and crowded mercados. It’s where artisan hand painted eyebrows became a fad and rosaries dangle from our throats. Where frightening gunshots get mistaken for fluorescent firecrackers, and add warmth to our atmosphere. Where we spill our teeth over our subhuman occupations during the heat of the summer.

The concrete is meticulously tattooed with graffiti, so pure, however its expression is often misunderstood. Our blood; it gets misplaced with a type of sticky tar. Our skin sizzles in the summer as we congregate under the sun in fields or in manufacturing factories scattered across this country. Our sweat drips and pools around our ankles, as our labor becomes someone else’s commodity. The community I was raised in, it places me under its tongue, and I’m absorbed into its gums. It’s dangerous. 

I come to realize how my Chicano identity and Latino background has become the originating genes to my body of art work and craft. The working class struggling family and community I was born into aided my drive for innovation, and a lust for “honest art” which to me, is realistic, relatable commentary on underprivileged lives. I come from a culture of people you never see featured in popular magazines or media. Our lifestyle is evident and purely valid, however I continue to find narratives of our existence to be misconstrued. I want to showcase truth and honesty. This is the significance and integrity I wish to provide through destacarse. My apparel work and runway collections have always been really personal and intimate. 

Experience From Losing Teeth

One of my first professional runway showcases featured my Fall Winter 2015 collection titled “The Boy Who Dreamt Of Losing Teeth”. This collection was inspired by my discharge from a psychiatric mental hospital. The collection focused around recovery and phototaxis organisms. The color pallet for the clothing juxtaposed dark colors such as navy blue and black, but with neon orange and faded blues. Some garments also had dead moths sewn into the linings or behind clear plastic. The models graced the stages with bloody noses and bruises (makeup, of course) and I hand constructed metal face masks that also had moths and butterflies clustered onto them. I was twenty two years old. 

Another significant collection was my Spring Summer 2017 collection titled, “Sinnerman”. This collection was really a menswear collection but had very feminine details such as hand pleated tulle ruffles and lace. Some of the male models walked down the runway in knit dresses. This collection was inspired by gender and binary oppositions regarding human sexuality My models also had their arms dyed in Japanese ink to physically represent the “illness” of being queer onto the body. This period of my life allowed the DNA for this collection to unfold willingly. 

The next collection which I feel pushed me to extend beyond personal realities and enter into political commentary was my Spring Summer 2018 collection, “Travieso”. This collection was born in the era where children were being contained at borders in cages and unmentioned presidents were specifically targeting brown immigrants. “Travieso” was a collection that drew inspiration from both the Bracero Program in the 1940’s but also the Zoot Suit Riots. I think American society heavily (and secretly) relies on immigrants for staple industries such as the garment manufacturing industry and agricultural industry. Around this time, I had gotten fired from my job for whistleblowing cruel mistreatment towards the undocumented immigrants in the company. “Travieso ” showcased garments that had hand sketched, tattoo inspired cultural imagery screen printed onto select pieces. 

The layout of this show forced the audience members to be separated by a chain link fence that ran along the runway. Audience members were seated on both sides of the fence, looking at the clothes on the models and the audience on the opposing side of the fence, as a border. This emphasis of separation was crucial to my strategy presenting a blatant division of people that I wanted to provide commentary on. It was obvious and it was cold. Lastly, the model who opened the show was wearing a hand draped chunk of metal chain link fence. This wearable piece was inspired by the reality that immigrants in America always carry the weight of the border on their shoulders.  Intersectionality is a very fascinating format, and with my work, I want to introduce narratives that allow my audience to resonate and understand immigrants, and the underprivileged. I hand construct every garment in my collections, and am hoping to showcase a new collection after I graduate from RISD. This collection will be  titled, “Dolores”, which means Pains in Spanish. My fingers are crossed. 

Left Image: From “Travieso.” Right Image from New Collection, “Dolores.”

Weaving Possibilities

I am currently developing woven textile work and learning how to weave while earning an MFA in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). I got accepted into RISD with no prior weaving knowledge, and so here is where I am completing my full circle of garment development. I feel like I have enough knowledge and experience on how to produce a garment; the final link that was missing from my skill set was the ability to produce the textile for the garments. Now I am learning how to weave both by hand and machine to produce the woven structures for my garment. I learned how to use an eight shaft floor loom, and soon I will learn how to weave using a Dobby loom and industrial Jacquard loom. Making cloth is such a beautiful and humble practice. I am obsessed, especially because so much time and labor are involved in weaving. 

  My label, destacarse., was formed originally to showcase abstract garments. Since then I have been transitioning my brand to highlight Chicano culture and what I deem as “East Los Angeles realism”. Now, I am in the early stages of investigating how my brand can really produce nearly 100% hand made and housemade goods and artwork without outsourcing. I know after I graduate, I will expand my work and products on a somewhat larger scale. Slow fashion is the way to go, and I am even considering how to find a way to produce all the textiles for my garments as well. 

  I value handmade work. Where there is technology, there is ease and a lack of trial. The trial for error is supremely human. Technology and its abilities are a major crutch on civilization. We no longer solve math problems in our head or on paper, we use the calculator app on our iphones. We have no need to write grant proposals for non profit organizations, we now use AI. Chronic convenience suffocates human motivation. All these shortcuts diminish our ability to think creatively and independently. However, as we, a society continue to use technology to solve all our problems for us, at the same time this is happening, we are beginning to undervalue the ability of craft and handmade. There is a tremendous amount of trade and skill that goes into constructing a garment, so why are seamstresses getting paid subhuman wages? Why are there declining artisans worldwide who specialize in shoes, apparel, handbags etc. Why are there no longer special members in each family who sew clothes for the family and mend on a domestic level? I think one answer lies in the creation of the assembly line, pushed by the industrial revolution. The disassemblage of craftsmanship was caused by the expansive mass producing assembly line; where employees are forced to remove themselves from a “start to finish” process, and only perform a one step task repeated in a production line. Hand making, the skill to be able to build and make something on your own, is a weapon against capitalism and in some ways can be the most political step away from government, because you no longer require monopolizing companies to sell you goods and services. In my opinion, we have to relearn these archaic ways of life. 

 I still find myself unsatisfied by all these absurd systems. At the moment, I find myself caught in the jaw of an art school. My past and future are flashing before my eyes like a fire alarm signaled during a therapy session. I come from a community where art is labeled as “Folk Art”, instead of “Fine Art”. Beyond all this I have realized that my integrity and dedication to my craft has gotten me to where I am today. Since high school, I am doing exactly what I set out to do to my surprise. I still have so much more to learn and experience. I still want to study textiles and denim manufacturing in Okayama Japan, too. Dedicating my life and labor to design and craft has been challenging, but I have a feeling that things will eventually work out. I feel like I am in my own little golden age. 

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