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Lupita

That yellow never went,

Mushtak’s Bric-a-brac

Mushtak, an old and intelligent camel with human like hands, handled trinkets, ornaments, and antique pieces of human and alien descent whilst sipping on his Assam tea. Our group arrived at his desk of curiosities and began to fondle the dusty one off pieces. He frowned as he always did at this stage, watching with suspicion. I picked up a silver bowl that rested atop a taxidermy eagle claw. It was half full with rose water, and a tiny thumb sized silver ship sailing on the surface with the assistance of a red helium ballon attached to the ringlet of the boat’s mast. The balloon was filled with just the right amount of helium to allow this solid silver ornament to appear to be foating on the water.

“That’s one of yours I think.”, said the camel.
“Mine?” I said.
“Human.” He replied.
“Yes, we have the sea. and I’ve seen these boats before. but much bigger.” I said.
The camel looked unimpressed. “You’re not the only ones with sea. Though certainly the only ones as ignorant to call your mostly sea covered planet, Earth.”

And with this, he showed me the most magnificent piece of craftsmanship I had ever set eyes upon. It looked as if it was a living thing. Made from what I can only describe as precious metal, the camel wound it up and released the handle. Extremely tiny engraved balls, the size of caviar, attached to even smaller incredibly thin wire, created the illusion of a moving wave. They moved together in layers, the first one slowing and giving way for the second to rise up over it, and so on, and so on. The engraving on the balls was patterned so that when placed under a light, the rotation of the balls that occured when reaching the wave peak, created a shimmering reflection and the sense of movement.

“It’s from Ascian, of Messier 83. A planet completely covered in water. They live below, inside the core.”
“It’s beautiful.” I told him.
He didn’t look up at me and carried on admiring the exquisite object.
“Unlike anything I’ve ever seen on Earth. Your works seem to be mostly shallow in beauty, and when clever they rely on some form of humour. It all comes across as rather cheap. In amongst pieces from other planets and civilisations, they simply wither away into what look like accidents or half hearted ideas.”
I pulled out an ornament from my bag. “I brought you this. I wondered if you might like to buy it.”

I handed him a very old china camel ornament. Its hump was retractable and allowed for milk to be poured into it. The ornamental camel then became a milk jug, with the liquid pouring out of its eyes.

“Tacky. What is it with you people.” The camel snorted.
“My father gave it to me, and I’m trying to sell everything before we move to the Colisium Galaxy. They told me we can only take a small shoebox full of personal belongings”
The camel inspected it some more, begrudgingly.
“I suppose I can shift it before the last of you are moved on. I’m surprised any of you are still coming to my shop to buy if you’ve been given such a small baggage allowance. You don’t plan ahead at all well. You must be one of the first to go?”
“Yes. My family were in the first randomly selected groups.” I told him. Though this wasn’t true. My father had a connection to the government and managed to pay a bribe. They say the last half are not being flown anywhere at all. My father calls it the placebo ship.
“And how long till you are all gone?” The camel asked.
“Well we are on the first ship.. They will take a total of around 2 million at a time. One ship per month. So, quite a while.”
“Ok. I’ll take it, let’s hope the shoebox allowance increases and I’ll shift it to someone else for a profit. I’ll give you 5 pounds.”
“Thank you.” I smiled. He looked down at the china camel and ignored me.

As I took the money and left the shop of curiosities, I turned to see him pop open the hump and pour some milk in. He smiled sweetly as he topped up his cup of tea, laughing to himself. Other items in his shop were mostly from other galaxies and planets. Ancient creatures cast in strange mineral rocks, many times older than earth itself. Bizarre utensils for alien alchemy. Jewellery made from the blood of Xintoan warriors, denoting hierarchy within their warrior society. Then there was my china camel milk jug, the balloon assisted floating silver boat, and a mug shaped like some long dead politician’s caricature, allowing you to drink tea out of his empty skull, I supposed. There was no question as to the existence of alien life outside of our planet, of course, but I was yet to find much humour out there.

SOULCRUNT

The car started expanding, and the kids roared and grunted, slapping each other’s backs. The car’s paint began to slightly crack. But don’t worry, these guys are pros! You see the paint then began to self replicate and re-cover what would have looked like a car version of human female post natal stretch marks. But what about when it shrinks? Someone asked. Some IDIOT. Sheesh. Well, don’t worry about that either, you see they are real clever these guys. They also made the paint self destructive, otherwise it would look real stupid when it was back to its normal size, with rolls, like an old woman, who used to be fat. Like grandma. She’s thin now, but she was fat. Rolls of skin over death valley. Mould grows in between it sometimes and the poor nurse has to clean it out. Poor girl. Like one of those little fishes that swim under sharks, eating their dead skin. A bit like that. But the nurse didn’t eat the mould. She got a wage in return. How easy the world would be if we could indeed be content with the nutrition of a granny’s loose skin mould growth. One girl kinda got off from my metaphors, luckily she tuned in just moments ago, just after you. Otherwise  she would have heard my thoughts about her body, really something, dark skin with tan marks. I imagined discovering the extent of the tan mark.. But it was ok, I was thinking about metaphors. I like thinking about metaphors, they kinda put things into perspective. Don’t you think? I asked her. She said yeah, but that she kinda felt grossed out about the whole tan mark thing. It was hard to not to think about certain things, because you need to think about what not to think about, and them WHAM, you suddenly get a big thoughtfall of perversion. So I tuned her out, sigh. She would have made a great mother or something. Or just someone to see occasionally, when it suited both of us. But I wouldn’t want to know if she did that with someone else though, seeing them when it suited her. Or at least, to know I was the most special, and that maybe she didn’t want it to be casual, and I was in control, making sure it stayed casual. But she would dream of it being all long term and the like. Silly girl. So now the car was back to its normal size. I didn’t see the point in all this really, kids nowadays get up to the craziest things. I went round the corner to the patty shop. I asked for a patty.

“What?” the man said.
“A patty?” I said.
“WHAT?!” he said again.
“A patty? Can I have a patty?” I said, not really wanting one anymore.
“NO!” He shouted.
“OK, so could I get a dumpling?” I said.
“NO!!!!” He said.
I left.

When I sobered up the next month, I saw the self same patties on the ledge, and some pretty red eyed shaky kinda people walking out of the place. I think they sold Redkoln, or maybe Trunshin, who knows, all I know is I ain’t ever gonna puff on that stuff. No way. Never. I’ll stick to my Gruk thanks very much mister Trunshin-head. Oh, and how did I know it was the same patty? Well these days everything’s labeled. And this one happened to be coded 353CG2TD , and how funny, I thought, because my name is 353CG2TT!!!! I told 265SW7PT about it, and he just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed, and laughed, and grunted twice, then sort of breathed out slowly with a little wince and then breathed normally again. He never laughed, which is why I will always remember this particular sequence of laughs. But damn the patty story was real funny. Funnier than the time 616RR1LK fell over and tore his fabric LCD screen suit and all the liquid spilled onto his leg and shone a bright flashing red for 5 weeks! You see, nowadays people wear these suits that can have your Soulcrunt profile on them, Soulcrunt is THE most popular social networking world. With a screen suit, you can have all your comments scroll down your body, on the fabric. Once it was really embarrassing when my mum commented on my wall, because my screen suit broke, and then her profile picture stopped scrolling of course, but it stopped when it got to my crotch, and at the time I had just seen 003MQ9DD, she had gotten pregnant a couple months back and had this beautiful bump, with the most round breasts I have ever seen. And there’s something about pregnant girl’s, isn’t there? So anyway, my penis was kinda half hard thinking about all this, and so it pushed my mum’s nose out funnily, and everyone saw my mum’s distorted profile picture on my erection. If only the suit had broken just as 585HA7XS’s comment about how great I was scrolled past. But no, sod’s law I suppose. Like when you drop a drisdo, and it always lands cuflo side hovering. But it wasn’t as embarrassing as the time that 933WW9BV accidentally fucked his daughter. You see nowadays you can wear a digital mask, and you know, go to parties pretending you are 812SA2VD, 333JF7CS or some other famous politician or Bollywood celebritiy. But 933WW9BV went to the party as 887ZS0PL, and 617UU3HG, his daughter, went as 161DA2PO. And we all know how much 933WW9BV likes 161DA2PO. And my oh my how crazy 617UU3HG is about 887ZS0PL. So they partied and the such, and by the end of it they were frillting and drecking all over the floor. The sun went down just as 933WW9BV came with all his manly might, both masks started turning off due to the lack of light, because they’re solar powered silly, and he saw his beautiful daughter’s eyes behind the glitching image of 161DA2PO, and she saw her dad’s kind old mouth biting his lip in ecstasy through the fading image of 887ZS0PL. And oh how the sickness arose, it rose and rose, the tide of it crashing against their weak stomach walls. What animals. Dirty bloody animals, but how lucky I was for such an embarrassing moment to happen just after the mum-crotch incident. So here I am, thinking to you. you old school peeps are good listeners. but you fucked shit up real bad for the rest of us. Sigh. You know, it’s a beautiful day out. Much nicer than most of the days we’ve had around these parts. But I like the ugly days. At least they match. You know, I thought of another metaphor recently, one I am quite fond of, but haven’t shared with anyone. Don’t feel any pressure to like it though, just because it’s sort of exclusive, like a film premiere! So, the good days, weather-wise, they’re nice, right? But, they don’t match! A nice day, see, is like a pair of colourful socks with a grey suit. But, when you have the rain, and the clouds, and the hail, or the snow, or the fog, and the wind and the cold, it doesn’t look out of place. It goes well with the undiscovered suicides, hands shaking for change, my granny’s mouldy skin folds, the ugly woman that slipped over at the mall and cracked her nose real hard on the floor with blood streaming down the dirty tiles with all the people walking past her with the lady too ugly and ashamed to ask for help, hobbling back up and not wanting to look back at the mess she made, and the security guard tutting in annoyance, having to walk over and put a sign there saying “caution, slippery when wet”. The rainy days just seem to fit right in.

Illustration / Text by Ian Pons Jewell

Stand ins.

All is set.

We called upon a few (inani) mates who kindly stood in for our actors tomorrow.

Higgledy Piggledy

If my knife was a fork,
and my fork was a spoon,
and my spoon was a knife,
and my plate was a cup,
and my cup was a seat,
and my seat was a plate,
I’d eat just the same,
in a  higgledy-piggledy way.

Hat of a Man

I wore the hat of a man today,
I strolled surly and tight suited.

A constant frown of discontent,
as if my soul had just been looted.

The sun shone down regardless,
as i palmed the rays away.

“To hell with this, I’m a boy”, i thought,
and threw the hat away.

Dinner

Today i woke up yesterday,
my feet touching tomorrow.
I walked ahead a fortnight backward,
jumping to last semester.

I looked down to a while ago,
and touched a little later.
But then I sat down in the past,
and smoked my childhood slowly

I blew out the smoke of Jiminy Cricket,
of Willy Wonka and Transformers.
Smoke rings of Doraimon,
tapped falling ash of GI Joes.

Then stood up in the present,
and settled for this time.
For my stomach is really rumbling,
and dinner’s served at nine.