Things to Do in the Desert (Fifth Entry)

Am I being too literal?

Wisdom

My teeth are yellowed. Not so much that it's noticeable unless you look at them from inches in front of my face (and why would you do that unless you're a dentist? I'm a married man, lady), but they are. Like the pages of an old paperback.

And that's how I like them. Yellow. Off-white is a better description, or perhaps slightly pee stained. Regardless, my teeth aren't flawless. My mouth is used. 20% off discount, this Sunday only.

I don't want to upgrade my teeth. They work fine. They look fine. Unless I change my career path and start appearing on TV, I have no desire for my chompers to resemble bleached tombstones. Character.

I've never had a cavity. Braces in middle school corrected my crooked mouth but couldn't correct my crooked smile. Nothing has corrected my warped mind, and I've eaten human flesh (by accident), but I'll take that over worrying whether my teeth are straight, white, tight.


* and my breath stinks

Bawdy Gaudy

Drool

The door slammed and I awoke feeling guilty. Claudia had left for work, mad, and here I was ensconced in the cloud of blankets that were her late mother's duvet and bed sheet: a siren's song more sleep-inducing than any pharmacological anti-depressant prescription.

I was dreaming about rowing a sailboat up a flooded hill. It was vivid. It involved Robert Downey Jr. and contraband cigarettes. It was epic.

I would have liked it to have continued uninterrupted.

I was numb when the door slammed. It was like being under water, and the new day was a breath of air -- just air, neither fresh nor frozen. I felt I could wake up, even though I didn't want to. Dead ends in my dreams have that effect on me. They creep into my present life.

I wasn't tired, though, just mentally exhausted. Tiredness has to be earned to be appreciated, and my card wasn't valid. I can have a doctor prove I have a heart murmur and an employer tell me I'm no longer needed, but no one can tell me I'm not awake on my grind or mentally sound. If they do, they're full of shit. Because the only job I've ever not given a shit about is the one I didn't have.

When Claudia came home she was livid.

"Are these cum stains in your underwear?" she asked. She had obviously been through my laundry.

I couldn't stifle a laugh despite myself. Claudia looked at me hard. I'm a genius in many ways, too many to count, but the stealth of infidelity isn't one of them.

"Tell me, who was it?" she asked.

I refused to answer.

Gegenschein

    There is no light to be found anywhere but here, yet it isn't a light that can be felt, seen, or otherwise experienced without having relinquished the inveterately jejune conceptualization of forbearance in which you place the utmost importance, and to do that (yes, that) would require some unknown trait readily, perhaps sardonically, misidentified as apathy.

    Eighty-six seconds from this very point in time, a stop sign shall be uprooted, hexagon and shaft alike, from its earthly mooring and subsequently tossed into the somber heavens above; by whom and for what purpose need not be elucidated, though it stands to reason that the sign is bound to return whence it came, give or take a few meters, miles, or misshapen intentions. Ultimately, the particulars of its descent to Earth, be that an Earth of grass, concrete, steel, or for that matter, flesh, are unimportant since knowing the sign's trajectory and moment of arrival would be of little, if any use to you. If it were to scathe, to pierce, to ruin someone or something, and if that undisclosed entity were you, precognition would prove equally futile, as looking up or out is analogous to looking down - if you're to be struck, you're to be struck and there's no sense in lamenting the actuality of said possibility.

    In all likelihood, the makeshift spear is set to impale something else: you grasp the concept, yet the light eludes you still. The scenario is neither a conundrum nor a Zen koan. What this is, to the best of your knowledge, is unmistakably anticlimactic and like all levelheaded people, you demand something different, or something more.

    Truth be told, they always do.