Bob Heman


from INFORMATION

INFORMATION

A film with no men. A film with no women. A film in which bears have been substituted for the trees and each word that is said is the word “the.” A film they are expected to watch more than once.



INFORMATION

Burglary tools normally include a red crayon and a bowl full of washers. Sometimes houseplants are also necessary, but only if they are the kind that don't need frequent watering.



INFORMATION

Eventually you will only be a statistic.



INFORMATION

The fear of dancing swept through the forest infecting each of the animals in turn. It was the robins and the squirrels who first gave up their moves, but the bears and the turtles soon followed suit. It was only the moose that did not stop dancing--he had never been big on self-reflection, and besides, it was the only distraction he had.



INFORMATION

Of course there will be sequels, filled with people who look similar but aren't the same, who travel through landscapes that look similar but aren't the same, who face dangers that seem similar but aren't the same. The words they speak always the same, but meaning something different each time.



INFORMATION

The bees listen to the color red, to the footsteps of the coral, to the mayor constructed out of old sponges. They form clouds where the air is not deep enough for the men and women to enter, where their own songs are only mirrors, where the number 5 describes the desire they are expected to embrace over and over again.



INFORMATION

They are always searching for their family, trying to avoid the animals or the zombies or the tongues of lava. Trying to avoid the sun that doesn't set or the idea of meaning. Each word that they speak becomes a caption for those who come later. Each color they use is only an aberration.



INFORMATION

“There would be blood. More blood than that.” The record on the Victrola kept going around and around and around, but she had nothing more to say. Later on he made it into a poem that would require footnotes to be properly understood. He dedicated it to her, of course, even though she was only a figment of his imagination.



INFORMATION

The bears were still bears when the new year began. No one had remembered to change them back to what they had been before. Instead they were given new lines to read, and a poem that they could use to change the sky. And for the first time they had dreams they could remember.



INFORMATION

Wouldn't use a microscope when a radish is required. Wouldn't use an empty spool or a horse made out of wood. There was water inside of the machine that shouldn't have been there. There was a woman whose face was her only explanation, and a man whose different parts had been repeated. The word they spoke made the oak tree real.



INFORMATION

The snails raced across the cross-beams of the ark cheered on by the giraffes who kept increasing their bets as the snails approached the finish line. The rest of the film contained less action and much too much talking, but still the ending was something of a surprise, the reason the film is still shown to film students all across the empire. But not one of them has ever been able to improve upon its pathos.



INFORMATION

If no one tells the truth the truth will be changed.



Bob Heman continues. He has no explanation. Nothing has changed.

 
 

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