tight pecs

Tight pecs, she said. The massage therapist. He was on his stomach. When he flipped to the other side, on his back, like a salmon on a cedarwood plank being grilled, she said it again.

Tight pecs.

She said it factually, indifferently, with no judgment implied. Nevertheless, her repeated assessment unsettled him if only because she hadn't said anything at all (nor him either, uncharacteristically), since she had said, All right now. No more talking, enjoy this, at the beginning of the session.

So, he wondered to himself, were my pectoral muscles so tight she could even tell from the back, it was that noticeable oh boy.

He took no blame, felt no shame. What do you expect after all these years, all these chest-tightening events (CTEs), this parade of pectoral crossings?

Then, on his back, posed morgue-corpse-like, eyes REM-fluttering, the massage being so soothing, so somnolent, his mind (and body) drifted off, untethered from orderly language and thought. Pec. Pecs. Peccavi. Penance. Pick a peck. Peckish. Pecking order. Tight pecs. Loose pecs. Henpecked. Pickled.

And so on, peter-pauling off into Faulknerian-Joycean incoherence, and then pre-Freudian, Jungian gibberish.

Her hands continued their soporific, salutary journey, aided by exotic emollients from unnamed islands south of Madagascar. Her healing hands advanced their sacred mission of sensual reparations, carrying the dessicated, wounded cells back from undisclosed unwinnable battlefields.

Her hands.

His mind.

Like a reverse-backward-forward-slo-mo-1980s-MTV video, like a 1960s LSD-laced kaleidoscopic vision of the Desert Fathers, his gibberish scrambled, rescrambled, and jigsaw-puzzle-solved into something reminiscent of language, suggestive of logic.

Her hands regrooved the worn roads of his pecs. YIELD. Work Zone. 

A configuration of notions, letters, syllables, words lined up on the shore of rationality. Sentries or sentinels, reporting for duty. Reporting for sanity.

I got it, he said, a toddler finding his missing marble, the cerulean cat's-eye with turquoise pupil. I got it.

What, she said.

Tight pecs.

What.

It's easy, he said. So simple.

What.

I have tight pecs because they're trying to protect my heart from ever being wounded again, he said.

Oh.

Oh.

She pressed down on the plastic pump, twice, thrice. More emollients for her traveled and trained hands. Back to work.
 

a thousand nothings deep, or fifteen questions

• To not be or to be? (that's where every naked vernixed baby starts)
• Can you be tied up in nots?
• Have you been a little noughty boy or girl or other?
• How many noughty problems are you trying to solve?
• Is it all for nought?
• Exactly how do you not do something?
• Will she even know about the myriad midnight moments you texted her but did not press Send, the relentless repetition of uncertainties, declarations of love posing as a litany, the anvil of No in your chest radiating its metallic pulse out to the tired sheets?
• Have you learned any lessons from that course you took on set theory, the difference between a null set and an empty set?
• How does one measure nullity-zero-none? 
• If you're trying so hard to not do something, aren't you doing more than if you were doing nothing? (we're talking again about her cited above)
• Why is it harder for you to say No than Yes (except when Yes would clearly be better than No, or vice versa)?
• Have you noticed that to forgo the habit of Yes you have to acquire the vernix-covered habit of No, which requires more discipline, resolve, will, and anonymity, because after all who pays attention to your silent No, Not This Time, the No that is mined in the night or in the day when you are mumbling with your earbuds in?
• When is enough enough, more accurately, when is not enough finally enough?
• Are they always lying, at the least fibbing, when they assert, No, it's nothing, nothing at all, that is not what I meant at all?
• How do you (yes, you; no, not you) spell No?

Lyrics to a Shitty Country Music Song, take 1

She said she loved me 
Told me I was hers alone
Not counting her Huskie. 
Scratch behind my ears, I'd beg. 
Boy, she tickled my funny bone 
As her Huskie humped my leg. 

Refrain:
I'm your hungry dog a-growlin'
You got me pantin' and howlin'
Babe, treat me like a piece o' meat
And give me that extra treat.

I said I'd love her
Till the cows came home
She's creamier than butter
Even more than cream cheese
Shipped all the way from Rome
Though it was just a tease

Refrain:
I'm your hungry dog a-growlin'
You got me pantin' and howlin'
Babe, treat me like a piece o' meat
And give me that extra treat.

Then one day just before dawn
She hopped an eastbound train
By noon her clothes littered the lawn
So Huskie and I were all alone
Standing in the cold and rain
Left with nothin', not even a phone

Refrain:
I'm your hungry dog a-growlin'
You got me pantin' and howlin'
Babe, treat me like a piece o' meat
And give me that extra treat.

[readers invited to add lousy verses]

stock phrase

if you recall

our stock

phrase

such as it was

three ancient words

wrapped around

our twisted veins

mad crazy

seared

 into a Tuesday

moon

bright blood

bloomed in the cut

one too many moorings

ripped from our secret heart

a black pearl

labeled

‘love’

taking a sip

what's the harm

who will know

just a taste

after the dance

just a touch

no pain all gain

we can manage

a single kiss

ain't no trouble

have one more

just a sip

give it time

give us time

for one last hit

before the slip

lurks a lie

has a name

shiny bauble blaze

sends a scent

and hides a truth

of fire and rain

flame and fury

crashes to ashes

rust to dust

dangling participles

Williams and Fayette. By the Legion hall. Misting. Next to the Open House. Closed. A skeletal artifact from before The Ending. Gutted. Payphone on a pole. Dangling handset. Nodding in the breeze. Forgotten. Booth or kiosk. Prenuclear minimalism. Raided. Metal, wire, plastic, screw, bolt, time, pleadings, hustles, cries, calls. Jangled coins an eternity ago. Deserted. Abandoned pedestrian loiterers. Freeze-framed headlights. Telling. Remnant. Torn. Ghostly metronome. Busy signal. Blaring. Humming. Buzzing. Waiting. Having had. Having been. Dangling.

emojification

When I took, and passed, a linguistics course 127 years ago, the prof said, "The simpler a language is, the more complex and sophisticated it is." But he couldn't have said that. It's patently absurd. He likely said the opposite.

Never mind.

Linguists debate whether languages are equally complex or sophisticated. They quibble over whether as a general rule languages become more complex over time. Do they?

Consider emojis.

Emojis don't constitute a language, not exactly. They evolved from emoticons. Both alternative "languages" grew out of keyboard demands and changing habits as our planet, especially Japan, became more digitized.

I'm driving out of my lane here, yet I wonder about the apparent simplicity of sign languages, pictograms, and ideograms. (Don't ask me about the linguistic differences between each. My ignorance means I am not free of cultural biases and preconceptions. Duly noted.) But what if we were to communicate solely by emojis? Are we moving in that direction? And does it signify progress or decline?

Before going further, allow me to note that I will resist resorting to emojis in this post. It's too facile, cheap; somehow cheating. Better to have us picture an infinity of emoji images in our minds.

Part of me feels that a stripped down, minimalist method of communicating by emojis would declutter the conversation, like filtering out static on a distant AM station. That may be so, but we already know the perils of methods such as texting, where tone and intent are easily misconstrued. 

Can emojis be misconstrued?

I once had neighbors who communicated by sign language. When an argument ensued, I could almost hear them shouting. Almost.

What would an argument by emojis look like? For all I know, this happens every day.

How about a stately speech? Could these stark iconic symbols be "stretched" into formal, lofty language, the polished-marble discourse of courtrooms and capitols? 

This invites the topic of translation. I would opt for the opportunity to wax eloquent, soaring above the pedestrian emojis of commonplace chatter.

Something tells me these musings are far from original, already obsolete and outdated. Something tells me that government, corporate, and private hackers and programmers have secretly crafted a post-apocalyptic ready-to-go language, bereft of words and sounds, portable and universal, handmade for a denuded, simmering planet.