Friday, July 31, 2015

The Alarm Clock at the End of the World


Part 33
The Previous Afternoon.

The car ride back to my apartment is more less in silence as I towel away as much black slime as I can. Nepotism tries to keep my mind off it, but nothing he can possibly say would contribute to the situation in a positive way. After this many years, I’m pretty good at tuning him out.

At home, I take a much-needed shower and stuff my torn, slimy clothes into garbage bags inside garbage bags. It’s approaching evening. Nepotism is on my couch, flipping through a coffee-table book about great artists from history. A self-portrait of Van Gogh stares out morosely, clearly disappointed by my choice of lifestyle. After Van Gogh shot himself in the stomach he crawled home to bed. His brother, Theo, delivered news the wound was superficial, and Vincent was sure to live. Van Gogh looked away and said,  “I’ve been a failure at everything in life, I don’t want to be a failure at this as well.” With that, he gave up the ghost.

This, and other tidbits came from the 70's cult program, In Search Of..., which asked the daring questions. Does Bigfoot lurk in the woods, the Loch Ness Monster swim in the depths, and are Great White Sharks immortal? I watched reruns every day after school. “You remember that episode of In Search Of...  About the Dogon?” I ask, tossing him a beer. Incidentally, despite several experiments, Great Whites were not immortal.

“Planet Sirius. Home of the Lizard People,” he says, not looking up from the book in his lap. “The Dogon are practically Stone Age to this day, how can they see a planet behind the Dog Star?”

I groan and sit down in the chair next to the couch. “Does this all come back to Sirius? Do you think there really are Lizard People?”

“Oh, hell no, dude. Don’t start yapping about that shit. Those people are crazy,” he says, looking up from the magazine. He open his cell phone. “The Spot starts serving dinner in twelve minutes. “We can finally get breakfast.” He slams the book closed and jumps to his feet. “We’ll get there just in time.”

I wait, staring a few seconds.

“Wait, let me piss first,” he says, wandering off to my gore-strewn washroom.

I nod and lean back in the chair. “These people are interconnected, twisted up in the same lies and deceptions. What if there is some kind of extra terrestrial agenda being furthered?”

“You’re trying to live an X-File. Horrible in the reruns, dude. Don’t be that guy. Did you just leave your slimy towels laying on the floor?”

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