Jim Meirose


Excerpt from the WIP novel, Audio Bookies (Making the Audiobook "The Great Beethoven Infestation")

Chapter #6 Redoubled and redoubled all anon

               Kitchenette the breakfast-nook the sun rose by degrees again doing over the days one more time like everyday. Seems a do over and is a do over depending on how—how you measure it. In the middle of a week every day’s nearly but never always an exact copy of the day before. Also it is often true that backwards-speaking every day’s a nearly but never always an exact copy of its following day. And then o a then then blah lah la the same quite frankly for the week and the month, but. An instant. Is always. A copy. Of its previous instant. And always. An exact copy of its following instant. But and then o a and then blah lah la—down in the bottom times where it all blends together—to what might live at those depths it looks like the same’s all forever. The black super tight sea bottom-floor of the big timespace that less is known of literally talk speaking than is known about how light bends in the high wide open bright lit interstellar opposite of the reverse bottom floor place. The narrow band up from one and down from the other’s where Lane and Lydia just entered when we weren’t looking and each separately backfacing each other’s began working in their respective private boxes cutting opening bowling toasting pouring getting opening cabinet closing cabinet very similar they do very so very the same; but she comes to the table with cereal on this side and he comes to the table with fruit and toast on that side and they pretend like they do every day pretending that they just met right there and backforth morning Hi morning there was a big storm last night did you hear it No no I didn’t how bad Pretty bad and so on don’t blame us this is exactly what happens every day but that is how their kind perceive you see. Much easier to ignore the truth and pretend its just one more of a finite number of sames bounded by the first such sequence of instants the first morning they rose in their current longterm partnering circumstance to the last day they’ll rise in the same circumstance than to face the fact that each moment’s exactly the same and different moving jammed tight not pleasantly so if too deeply known because they’re not built for that; not yet anyway. So they fall back communicating building something to pay attention to a safe but temporary perfectly realistic but still perfectly phony improvised catwalk across what’s boiling and roiling all around that they don’t want to see feel or know about that makes them saying, Did you think about what we’re going to work on today Lydia?
               I’m not awake yet Lane. Let me have a coffee or two before we talk about that okay?
               Sure.
               Seats pushed up under them both now past and future no words in the air between and floor pushing up at their feet and all they’re experiencing in common as a pair no issues there except one has shoes on and one’s feet are bare which one is which based on the observational data gathered so far is Lydia or Lane most likely to do one or the other but don’t try to answer you can’t be heard in here anyway inside the pages of this book you can’t go except to fool yourself that you are in here what kind of delusion is your infection you there reading this now see how easily distracted you are you are you are haw haw—coffee cups up down both up down both as by increments the toast fruit cereal coffee go away gone up the rinse of the sink on the small breakfast plates everything about breakfast is small small small small words he says I’m going out to check the studio make sure its ready to go.
               Okay. Yesterday, whew. I can’t get over yesterday.
               Decide where you want to pick up in the book. I’ll let you know when things are all set.
               I already decided.
               Oh yeah? What?
               Skip to the next chapter. We’ll redo five after all the rest’s done.
               Did you tell me this?
               Last night.
               I told you I don’t agree. We should keep the whole package together. I told you the client may ask for what we’ve done so far to go over. If one chapter’s skipped it’ll be hard to explain.
               If they ask just tell them what happened. I mean you know—you said it yourself. Things happen.
               Yes but now we’re talking about the client. They shouldn’t see our dirty laundry.
               Oh. So you can use things happen to pacify me—but the client deserves better than me?
               Hand nail tips tapping drumming the table top between her taps he speaks its all synchronized perfectly a joy to watch and listen to a joy tap Of tap tap course tap tap tap not tap Lyd tap I want tap tap us to tap look tap good to them tap tap tap its not tap they deserve better tap tap they deserve different you tap know? That’s what I mean—
               Taphand’s up catches that’s what I mean flingsback as flings back as, Different than me? Better than me you mean.
               No, I—
               Lane it’s sickening that you think more of some client stupid enough to invest in this piece of shit book than you do of me. I know shit when I see it. Even a dog knows shit when he sees it. I’m sorry—
               Lydia. Come on this is out of hand now.
               Hand? Out of hand? All I’m asking for is to skip to the next chapter. I don’t want a repeat of yesterday.
               There’s not going to be a repeat. Settle down please!
               No—you settle down. We’re skipping over one or I won’t read at all!
               Lyd. Come on—hands rose at her one step toward her waving over more same such words from Lane but there—dirty pool—there it’s waving at me there its pushed out at me both hands no hand on one yes hand on the other choose yes or no bright or dark silly or grave black or white gone or present don’t think it where’s what used to be there now? What used to be there’s someplace now being existing coming going no coming please going no coming coming coming—drop those now take this cup from me if it be your will I should come on Lane come on I should drop them—sweet snapped her lips the next words piled together in the front there for her to say saying Come on Lane—Lydia, stop—Drop them. I should come on, Lane? Drop them one two and both. I should Lyd come on like I should have after your Mother years back Drop them went off on me every time I went to your house Drop them saying why do you wear those clothes they don’t become you honey—Lydia please, calm down come on stop—Drop them why do you read that book you told me it’s not something a lady should really be reading you know, oh, you like that TV show sweetie, oh you should watch these other ones instead, be careful with my little Lanie sweet honey Drop them he picks up bad habits so easily the rascal—hey Lanie this new girlkid of yours got any bad habits into you I haven’t seen yet? You spend a lot of time together you two. It must be a serious thing between you two eh there, eh, your name is Lydia right? Drop them. Do you ever think sweet Lydia that you might be taking my pretty Lanie from his Mommy too soon? Ever think that Lydia-a-a-a? Ever think I might not like that? Oh, you cute little sweeties oh how cute, such cute children—hey yon pappy come in see the cutsie little children—Drop them drop now. Remember Lane?
               Lydia. I’ll be out in the studio. Come on out when you’re done raving at me.
               Raving who’s raving? You always say raving.
               Bye Lydia.
               He’s gone hands gone all gone we won right left check both gone yes both gone but what used to be there’s still there maybe there though probably not around here yet but the probably word cancels the not word probably not’s a weasel yah weasel less than a weasel word true or false oh oh the big bow just whipped the arrow up the summery grassy wayback upslopey sent the hot hot arrowtip plunged in the big strawbacked eyehole crying, See, see-you see that hey I’m getting pretty good at this shit he dropped it I made him me did gimme more arrows I need another arrow—hey hey you up there little pale ‘bro in that top roundfacing windowframe watching but can’t come down here try this get bullseye after bullseye he dropped his hands those hands that hand hey, whoosh—pity the fool who’ll never know what it feels like to hit some bullseye at last after trying and trying and trying and faster trying fastest and final ah final eh—What’s wrong? Some spell drop you eh? The same spell made you fuck up the recorders yesterday making me read that shitty sludgy stinking superlong turd of a shitty—I can’t say book Lane, it’s not a book Lane, it’s an insult to all books to call it a book Lane, how ‘bout we call it shit. Simple little word to match the simple little brain of Mister Fredrick Hollywood who, unfortunately, is somehow able to set its fingers typing and typing out onto paper his full great big colon load by some internally organed teleportation ability he no doubt got my making a pact with Mister Moon—yah that guy. Eh? Mister Moon you know that guy now you go the gist baby babe did you like it how’d you like it I’m liking it fine do you? I bet you do. So what you say you want again little Lanie? Like I should care what your kind should want—but ut oh hey magic wand up down across and around what used to be there’s unaccounted for so you better get up you better get out there Lydia you better you better openfridge snag two waters rush rush to get started-get, get started reading forget forget this shitty morning I never happened anyway there’s just right here and now that’s all everything’s blank all mystery yes—I’m ready Lane. Headphones on Lane. Ready to go Lane. Okay Lane? Here—what’s this? What chapter?
               We’ll be skipping over Lyd. Just like you want.
               Thanks Lane.
               You’re the best.
               Ready then?
               Yes, ok—wait—okay I’m ready—four, three, two, one—go; she goes fast to forget move beyond run away from, reading like just saying it new off her head, like, “Chapter Five: Sonata Number Four: Beethoven. Beethoven’s vast horde of Beethovenites Beethovenistas and Beethovenettes sprang a sudden surprise attack across all fronts consisting of the simultaneous firing of one thousand brutally brusque thousand note chords followed by needle-tipped pipethrusts launched from beyond the advancing dawnlight, while at the same time unstoppable tight groups of thousands upon thousands crossed the cease-fire line in a blitzkrieg-like head over heels wildly pinwheeling careening sideskidding careless thus super-incredibly dangerous multiple powerful state of the art star wars style jaunty second subject unstoppable clusterthrust. This had the effect of suddenly lightening the mood of the battlefield abruptly in mid-tune. A fortuitous circumstance easing the way was that we called the city to get the water turned off at the supply in the street as Anvil-Man Paul has told us back in the first war to be sure to always do. Plus we would not make the mistake of opening the cleanout ourselves unless we had proper training. Which we had learned the hard way way back when in an episode best left forgotten. Though this breakthrough was nothing compared to the mercurial sonatas Emanuel Bach had staged against the now-defunct Willy Brite Rangers a few decades earlier, because of the many instant wall-slides that have been mounted between these current instants and those wayback nearly forgotten instants, this seems to most the worst ever yet encountered. Deciphered again and again and again under each and every fast following breakfast-sun, they and the others as well as those not present became most probably also between themselves after deep zen-like analytical reflection, in the midday bright of their noon suns, became unaware, probably also so so unconcerned, as in their trivia-swollen mass marketed consciousness spread thin spread low so low as to nearly be invisible to the low minded uneducated mostly wakesleeping dunderbrained herd, that dumb inanimate objects such as they have no morals no feelings no empathy just as rocks grains of sand railroad ties hillbillies roadcurbs soft shoulders cellphones cracked clay pipes and all sizes and shapes of fossilized dementia victims—except for those felled by the ravages of the stage five level of this disease—yes every inanimate object in creation even each and every word in this thirty six thousand words bright-tome all illuminating, dousing all with the most pleasurably nearly orgasmic illuminations, no more conscious after such a pleasure-dip as to never if male ever to seek ecstasy by repeated insertions of their phalli into warm places to put it—as so defined by Duckwater the Lorridian—and if female to never seek the tight rub-fill and flash over flash introduced to their body space by the tug and push of random fat phallus over random fat phallus over that over this over and over as high as you want it we’ll take it m’seur—be aware that if you make the wrong decision, you’ll be stuck with the additional task of blasting the bedrock in your basement. All the while in the background lurked Maestro Rubbinschteen and the Gages all caught up in the war but still the Maestro maintained he’d take on the teaching of Beethoven to Gage. Time of war he reasoned. Yes I will teach you Gage, he decided. The life expectancy of non-combatants caught up in war is cut by half or more. Even though Gage was knocked over by the incident he may not have lost consciousness. Take him on yes, accumulate rewards in heaven when faced with death. Plus Gage’s brain damage seemed to have no effect on his senses. Take him on not, gamble with what current rewards there may be. Plus the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal wondered when considering cases like Gage’s, possibly the greater part of the brain has no function at all—and actually the paper went on to say long story short and actually no actually actually quite quite longer we know up here where everything’s lower that to meet the DSM-II definition for the negative form of schizophrenia, pleasure must have been incrementally flattened over several uninterrupted decades by the hidden viral locii of inserted size small Mon-Mon beans. Yup! Back to the facts; the first tamping iron entered the first defender’s forehead point first. Fast following after generating rippling howls and general blastlike noise, the next thousand irons flung outfront of the oncoming super-blitz squarely penetrating soldier after soldierette and even soldieristas and one or two of the computer generated SuperDefenders still in beta testing but cut loose on the Beethovenites in response to the sneak attack, but—bacteria of all kinds, including dangerous ones, thrive in the moist environment of such wounds, as do some insects. Because of the ensuing deep infections the wounds were dressed penicillin was injected and the enemy faded back to their original lines.
               Time passed slow as the wheel of God, but it ground exceedingly fine.
               For about eighteen months the inventor of the SuperDefender concept worked for the owner of a stable and coach service in Hanover, New Hampshire—the bright shiny idea he woke up to in the lowly low manure barn he slept in due to there not being rooms in even one fifth of any of the dozens of inns in the nearly surrounding area—which my chance or fate as some would say were the first entrepreneurships to be razed in the first hours of the surging tsunami-like repeatedly deep deeply deep and deeper non-coital superthrust of the crazed Pervetin-laced forward troops of the slavering bullheaded enemy. Once firmly beachheaded the invaders wasted not a nit of time in self-congratulatory stupefyingly excessive hilarity, the development section which they’d had trucked in behind them was activated immediately ripping and rending the continuing defenses with pulsating syncopated logical copies of a massively rock-hard second subject, then dropped back to toy a while with the charred remains of the first subject and all the other miscellaneous material Beethoven packed into the exposition he’d devised during his long period of meditation up his mountain the cheeks of which spreadwide giving him the way.
               He thought he was done, he thought he was spent.
               But; then Hollingswood stole the chalice from the church and put it on his mantle. Ah—this idea thrilled the great man so; giving rise in him of similar emotions as those found in any of the many men who’ve fallen in love mourning woman figures in romantically moss-hung shadowy centuries-old cemeteries. Ah—man in love with mourning woman figure in the cemetery longs for her to come alive. Ah—man in love with mourning woman figure in the cemetery longs for her to come alive and stay alive to meet him when next he enters the cemetery. Ah then—he got his wish; very. Ah then—he got his wish; very very. Ah then—he got his wish; very very bad. Because; since dumb inanimate objects such as cemetery statues have no morals no feelings no empathy just as rocks grains of sand railroad ties hillbillies roadcurbs soft shoulders cellphones cracked clay pipes and all sizes and shapes of fossilized dementia victims have no empathy and all meet the defined criteria for negative Schizophrenia as defined in the aforementioned DSM-III, then—you figure out what the horror he met was. Sneak attack no, no. Sneak attack no. Sneak attack. Eh, now, let that sink in take a break and come back. Hi now that you’re back the answer is fully truly and not miraculous at all that when he came back to the cemetery there she was. There she was alive warm and—negative schizophrenia no, no, no.
               At this point, drip that stain-o fore we immediately—why here’s why.
               Cause you never remember nothing’s why.
               Oo-ha?
               Okay here it’s at is that, the reason for all the preceding hundred pages or so of foolishly drafted superfluity is that when this whole thang gets boosted into the now God I missed it’s the next now already hey God I missed it’s the next now already hey God I missed it’s the next now already hey—okay hit it this time sort of rusty we may be yah but—when it counts the mark is hit—you just got to lead your big gun like you’re in a duckhunt—Beethoven's treatment of this statue loving theme is a bit too sequential and level-headed for a good development section, so; why has it not all been deleted eh? If it is far too free for a serious recapitulation, then; why has it not all been deleted eh? If indeed every single reader feel they could write a better book than this asshole, so; why has it not all been deleted eh? My God ah God, the defenders having been as distracted by the sudden wall-breach of their oh so silly centuries-long complacency, at last woke and rang up God who immediately sent over face shields and steel-fingered gloves to prevent the exposure of the quickly regrouping defenders to the so tiny as to be nonexistent possibility of the invaders bringing in with them dangerous micro-organisms like hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. But luckily the fear turned out to be just a foolish phobia and melted down away below the underlawns they stood on as they did not let the fear lower their muzzles to end their defense.
               To sum once more somewhat differently, we threw in their faces, political slogans such as drip that stain-o, ‘fore we shoot, and Man dig it, Mandingo-man dig it; blow. Otherwise.
               No do again.
               You must blow much more deeply to stay in the fight.
               They hung on.
               They hung on all thinking back dreaming of—if it could only be that one over again there will never be before or after that one another now doing that one again there. They all nodded agreeing that things at last had become crystal-clear. Seeing the rearing wave of defeat coming over the horizon toward her forces, Beethoven eventually drew the movement to a close and her troops halted where they stood dug in and hunkered down in place as the first day of the offensive drew to a close. By the power of the late Cardinal Sierra; by the unearthly virtuosity of Super-Maestro Artur Rubbinschteen; and by God the ungodly but easily achievable just as achievable as the straight-through drive of a family of four from northern New Jersey to the Magic Kingdom—yah also it’s no farther out there than three or four relatively tall mountain-climbs away.
               On May eighteenth, to be exact, Gage left Santa Clara and went home to his mother.
               There! There’s your example which steps aside and makes way for the spew of further major points and others. Yes, and so, m’seurs and m’seurettes, it’s plain as meat from this big pile we just plowed through that the second dimension is that which gives artifacts height. Stains dripover and flowdown from highest heights to deepest depths as seen on TV in all Drip that stain-o we shoot modern ads. Man dig it. Mandingo-man dig it. Blow it and dig it; only to find it weighs over thirteen and one-half pounds and it did, after all, shoot clean through his head. Nextly the Largo con gran espressione the Beethovenites tried to break us with early on was a neat example of the stately slow movements that Beethoven would later bring to extraordinary poetic heights and thusly make enormous territorial gains, until the advent of the Anvil-Man Paul period.
               Now, let’s try again. Pull the rope try and start the engine again.
               After it starts gun it and grip it and bow to read the rule, yah dig it; only to find it’s over one and one quarter inches in diameter at one end. Much too large around for digestion. Next measure the bar out to where no more brain-grey sins encrust it. This condition will be found out past the fifty-foot distance. Not what the newspapers say, but this; fifty feet back beyond its sole and only victim’s where the fucker landed, so; first he stumbled half-crippled into the giant Lever Soap Company plant out Milwaukee way, and bombed. Phrenology. Second, he took a stab at shower room attendant and sole and only graveyard shift peacekeeper in an unidentified regional punishment center and community flophouse and bombed at this job also, due to an extremely distressing need to consider all toilet paper reusable until fully shredded down to nothingness. Third, he trained intensively in an online crash course—which unfortunately due to severe miscommunication, was offered two decades before the first online network was invented—to become a specialist in Rambler automobile repair and environmentally safe Rambler-car breakdown scrapping and sub molecular recycling. But he opened his shop a century or more after the last Rambler disappeared into the massive planetary universal scrapyard which that early country once known as China, found it most economically expedient to evolve the country into by implementing a phased approach spanning a period of no less than twenty-five minutes exactly yah—and while the defenders were still deeply dreaming this rollin’ and tumblin’ longdream supercanned heatwave which, in case you’re scorekeeping, began back about at the end of the word-string the offensive drew to a close here it is again the offensive drew to a close thus; the dawn of the second day of fighting came up, hersaying, Crabby, crabby, crabby!
               No way we will accept him here again. Absolutely not.
               Wait a minute, wait. I’m talking to Finnie now—Finnie, hey. How well do you know the sonatas? Do you have any certain one you want to learn to play?
               No I don’t.
               You don’t know them well or you don’t prefer any one over the other.
               Both—
               Wait, wait—Maestro we need your vote—please choose, will you vote to allow Anvil-Man Paul past the front line to join us again? We need to know because dawn has broken.
               I’m sorry but I don’t see why it’s important that dawn has broken—go wait over there while I finish with Phineas—here’s what you need to do Finnie. I’ll overnight you a copy of my best recording of all thirty-two Beethoven sonatas. You must listen to it through thirty times and home in on which one you want me to teach you. You need to discover which really excites you—because you will need to practice it so much that once the contest is over you may not want to hear it ever again. Plus, choosing an inspiring song leads to the next point, which is—
               No!
               Bonnie and Dorothy, Gage’s imaginary wives stepped forward arms raised threw back their heads and stated in unison, Finnie’s hearing was affected by the thrust-up of the rod. The music will become mush crammed into his ears—metaphorically of course.
               Gage—why did you undertake to sign on to this competition if all music turns to mush in your ears? Is this true Gage?
               I don’t know that’s true Maestro. Wait, wait—in the space of the talk-pause fingers came up which fingers little fingers pushing first in the left ear the side which favored the rod-path and then in the right ear the side off from the rod-path and in both the finger twisted pumped pushed and pulled—there Maestro, I have checked my ears are fine since both drums heard the presence of my fingers. It’s simply not true eh—ladies why you tell the Maestro this? Not to make small of Maestro Artur by lying but I will want to know why you said this—first Bonnie come look in my face enter my private questioning room that no, was not there before the rod shot but yes, is now there after the rod shot—come in Bonnie. First.
               Bonnie entered Finnie’s small square room lit harshly by a single simple hanging loose one hundred fifty watt bulb. Gage motioned her to sit at the small table between them causing sudden swelling music under the side edge of the flooring tilted the room setting the lamp swinging first into then out of her her face no face her face no face yah like that it swung on swung off as he asked her, All right, Bonnie. Why did you tell Maestro Rubbinschteen my hearing was made useless by the iron rod shot up into through then out my head?
               —face no Because I want you to face her face back out of no face the piano competition swinging dark light dark.
               Oh you think I will just back out because you lied?
               —face No I’ve no got to face do something her face because no I face love you swinging dark light dark.
               What about you Dorothy; you lied out of love for me also?
               —face Yes no face Finney her face both Bonnie no and I face and love you Finney I faces no right Bonnie faces their yes Dorothy faces no we love you faces Finney face no we love you faces and so do I face no faces we faces no love faces their you faces no we do faces faces no faces back out break their faces contract Finney swinging light swinging dark light dark.
               The pause brought the music again swelling and passing over ocean wave swift dark and ocean wave light deep and ocean wave strong and faded into the shore the shore so the breath the three held to allow the wave over released pulling out in in out in again the ladies spoke together both fast all together to force it out force it all out before the next came on saying as, Faces At least Finney no faces will you find out faces the booby prize no faces the booby prize being unknown faces pains us right Bonnie right no faces Dorothy we are pained as one by the booby faces prize being undefined no faces, then faces swinging dark light dark.
               The bulb hung signaling on and on still causing Gage to say to them both by saying all at once this, All right. I will talk to the contest organizers and find out what the booby prize is. I will do that for you.
               My word thank you thank you thank you that’s good news swinging dark. Light. Dark. Light dark—light only light now. Only light.
               But—if they refuse to tell me, I will still go ahead with the contest.
               Causing sudden swelling music coming again but this time under the other side edge of the flooring tilting the room the opposite of the first time setting the lamp swinging first into then out of their faces no faces faces no faces yah like that it swung on and off and on and off Bonnie and Dorothy rose on off on off went out of Finney’s room leaving him switching the room off after first drilling a pilot hole into the rock and filling it partially with gunpowder, then instructing an assistant to pour sand in atop the powder this closing the first day.
               The second day’s dawn featured a measured main theme as arresting for its pauses as for its arrangement of notes; as the accompaniment became more elaborate, these pauses provided the melody with an aura of grandeur—as long fat stilted mortar bores were installed straddling each pause beginning the rippling growth of the intense shelling which as the story is told first grade catholic school history over first grade catholic school history becomes more and more falsely exaggerated but, and the same time, revered—but the world nearly ceased turning when Anvil-Man Paul emerged from his apathy on his high sterile hilly rock past past the rear lines. Shedding his outgrown horny carapace of temporary extreme cowardice he strode to save the day. He first pounded in and inspected the area; Paul’s favorite saying was not a wart can be transmitted to someone by the bogeyman for nothing. Leaping wildly on the back of each and every unsuspecting member of the Beethovenite horde’s rearguard mopup crew expecting to see no actual action and staffed accordingly almost completely with pathetic cowardly crybabies, Paul took them out stealthily five per millisecond as a Toro mower scythes along and along and; along, until--at five o'clock, A.M., on the twentieth, the last succumbed to severe con¬vul¬sions.
               What a man Paul.
               Paul what a man.
               For the husbands he fought. For the wives also. For the offspring no matter which of the roughly six sexes existent in that era. He went on to accomplish much more but it is mainly for the initial thrust of his counterattack he later became a living museum exhibit at Barnum's American Museum in New York City. Unfortunately however, the armies of Beethoven never lost sight of their opening theme during the course of the remainder of this movement; they merely varied it by filling in the silences with more legato melodic treatments, even while fending off the Anvil-Man with old school football stiff-arm moves, making the accompaniment more and more staccato and at the same time wildly fluctuating low to high and high to low. Then—in a drunkenthrusting brainhead ideaburst never to be equaled—the rearmost Beethovenettes turned and stopped the Anvil-Man cold, unexpectedly shouting smack in his snoot such epithets as, Ramblers’ one such plural word nyah nyah, and, Hey sonny lean your ear here nyah nyah, and, Ramblers, shit. He say the next thing’s old Ramblers. That’s a free tip, he says. Well bup in his sweet to that, nyah nyah nyah. Bup. Smith ignored me and look why he ended up down there. Don’t be next. We had him in to look at a couple things and while the quote he gave us might have been reasonable we decided that if we were going to pay someone to be in our house, we want someone with a decent attitude that doesn't complain the whole time. Fannie earned that braining. Anywhere you have a trap, you need a vent pipe. Yonman Artur Rubbinschteen? Yes he be dat Artur Rubbinschteen you old virtuoso. Here’s a new tack perhaps a selfish one but an important point. In and of and about and around and past and under ourselves, hic-cup, we are not combatants. Not only that but we’ve never in either side’s physical plant-tations. Huck Finnned that a bit. Catch it? Catch it? No? Haw crap—back on point we aim to fire the sweetly true fact that we are clawing forward tunneling through this thickly layered deep pothole you call your war. God had commanded Moses to speak to the rock. Instead, Moses struck the rock with his staff. Second, Moses took the credit for bringing forth the water. The Beethovenite horde proved no less audacious; their first movement, allegro molto e con brio, began with throbbing sensuous long-drawn-out chords swollen to their limits with anticipation, that after the inevitable climax and deflation gave way to a bright, confident meandering babbleon-brookie of a smartplayed melody all wandering up and down de da-doozie popper the entire length of which is tainted with a deflated minor whispering smith of a bomb-flattened scale. This followed by multiple hours-long treeshaded smokebreaks that wouldn't be out of place in a first-draft Meester Mozart themselves-authored big drink of a cloned-out sonata. Most of the thematic elements swallowed during this somnambulant interlude closely resemble each other, notice each other, embrace each other, and the butts are all crushed out at the end of the day, my sweet corporate rainbow-clad questing and thrusting little ponies, yes you are, and are even harder to differentiate over Beethoven's rapid fire gatling-gunnery sidemounts casting aside the archaic encumbering manually manned bayonet-like supervehicles in favor of hundreds of random, insistent, energetic six-eight quickstabbing rhythmstrokes. The venting pipework underlying this all, thus warmed by fistfriction, which began small in diameter close to the traps, and grew larger the closer it got to discharging itself out the exit point for your home at the inevitable climax. This parrying action was destined for the textbooks of future budding imagination-bankrupt would-be imagineers—and indeed advertisements were posted even before the thingy thing fell fully flaccid, for public appearances by the potent over potent discoverers of the strategy—which they may have arranged and promoted themselves—in New Hampshire and Vermont and also in most of the larger New England towns. This well-defined area—where the allegro third movements in particular never strayed too far from the old minuet style—although Beethoven did manage to create a melody full of hesitations and little deviations from the expected harmonic path the other villagers converted to waste daily—was so intriguing to one mister Bigelow, who among other things was a shrewd and intelligent man and quite disposed to do anything of that sort to turn an honest penny, that he was moved to overwing one youth gone astray that later mutated one liver at a time to the scads of Artur Rubbinschteen impersonators contaminating the outer as yet undiscovered ringed gas giant planets which because of this blight can never be explored by mankind. Remember how Mike tore out Homer's spine; that should have been a lesson. And the way he refused to be reachable except by a weird cellphone-slash-text message dance. Remember how painfully your only sibling learned the hard was that skinny whores don't crave fertilization; that should have been a lesson also. By the way we notice that as we unload these multiple irrefutable proofs on you, your mood becomes more serious in your central trio section, churning down that way all the way to the last available floor-model E flat minor example of that breed, but the passage is too brief to alter your movement's essentially lighthearted character. Thus you reader are perfect for this. And the cappers are these great truths laid sharply open displaying their appalling sweetness. Pay attention—yah sure smoke ‘em if you got ‘em—yah yah under your left cheekbones and completely out through the top of your heads thrust those rude missiles because it is certain that in the end Clay will prove to be a man.
               But listen; first tomorrow at nine. First lesson. Be there.
               Second; remember, you might have a shitty job, but get a load of your god-damned car.
               Third; butcher your lives in the most intelligent ways possible.
               Use everything but the squeal.”
               Jesus, Lane! exclaimed Lydia, rising from the clatter of the whipped-off headphones and the slapped-shut book. Lane, there has to be some ethical rule about cruel and unusual assignments, in that there should never be any. Plus we should dump this assignment and tell the publisher to read this shit over—because anybody who actually had would reject this pap out of hand—and to cut their losses and pull back this bomb.
               I mean reputations have been smothered to death under smaller mounds of manure than this bomb.
               What do you think Lane?
               You agree?
               Spit.




Jim Meirose's work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Calliope, Offbeat/Quirky (Journal of Exp. Fiction pub,), Permafrost, North Atlantic Review, Blueline, Witness, and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for several awards. Published books include: Understanding Franklin Thompson (Exp. novel - JEF pubs), Sunday Dinner With Father Dwyer (Exp. Novel - Optional Books), Inferno (E-Chap - Underground Voices), Mount Everest and Eli the Rat (Lit. Novels - Montag). Visit www.jimmeirose.com to know more.
 
 
 
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