Original subtitles

Going dark.

Thom Pain, this is your 15 minute call,

15 minutes, 15 minutes.

Thom Pain, places call, places please

for top of the show, places please, thank you.

How wonderful to see you all.

I should quit.

We should define some terms here

then maybe you get a little story.

So, from the new Century Dictionary of English,

"fear, one, any of the discrete parts of the face

"as in the eyes or mouth, or eyes.

"Two, the capital of Lower

"in the north-central Southeast corner,

"population 8,000,001, approx.

"Three, fear, four, see three,

"five, there is no seven.

"Colloquial archaic verb or noun, depends."

oh, look at that, felicific,

adjective; causing or intending to cause happiness.

felicific, huh.

Anyway, now, I guess we begin.

Do you like magic?

I don't.

Enough about me, let's get to our story.

Do you want a story?

Do you need to see me to hear me?

If so, sorry, not yet.

I'm afraid you'd laugh at my native costume.

Promise you won't laugh.

I know you won't, friends.

I trust you won't,

but not because you promised.

You'll see me soon enough, I expect, but not yet.

And yet, some things are not really ours to decide.

The shape of the face, say, or whether we're forgiven,

how tall we are, where to die and when.

I'll wait for the laughter to die down.

I still sense some laughter.

There, wait, now.

There.

Oh, me.

So, our story.

Don't make it hard on yourselves.

Don't be troubled by what you might perceive as obscure,

hard, troublous, just remember

the simple human picture before you, this,

a little boy in a cowboy suit writing in a puddle

with a stick, a dog approaching.

Deaf or dumb, the boy is, or like anyone, a little timid,

partly stupid, ashamed, afraid like us, like you.

Our little boy is wearing shorts, shoes, no socks,

no cowboy boots.

He is there, dreaming of this real life, right here.

Picture the boy.

A terrible storm has just ended,

a cloud overhead, a little rumble.

The boy writes his watery lines.

See his eyes, sympathize with his little clothes.

Now, break his arm.

Give him an injury, some problem with his hip

so that he stands funny, can't walk real good.

Now picture that the stick he is writing with

is a violin bow.

Picture a violin section, picture every living person

as a member of a violin section.

We hold the bow above the strings, ready to play.

Picture a bird settling on a branch.

The violins are on fire, feel the world inhale,

picture the readiness, the stillness, the virtuosity

among this child.

Picture ash blowing across a newly blue sky.

Now go fuck yourselves.

Picture, I don't know,

a bird, the kid, the child, picture whatever you want.

You're free at least to this little extent, yes?

Who knows, not me.

You know who I suddenly don't need?

Anyone?

No, I don't know either, no bother.

Or to employ the popular phrase we use today

to express our brainless and simpering tolerance

of everything, the breakdown of distinction,

our fading national soul, whatever.

I'm like, whatever.

I really am like, whatever.

Does it scare you being face

It should, there is no reason for you not to be afraid.

None, or I don't know, shall I save your life?

Shall I love you slowly and be true?

Shall I stroke your cheek gently, almost not at all

and bring you a glass of cold water

in the restless, humid night?

Whatever, meanwhile, we were speaking of the infant,

the cowboy suited child, making his way

in the business world, a tale for the ages.

A flowery unfolding that will leave you yearning

for that old yearning, bye!

Au revoir, cunt!

Pardon my French.

I'm like him, I strike people as a person who just left

but a little performance, a little turn on the themes

of fear, boyhood, nature, hate the nature of performance,

and vice versa, the heart of man, of woman instead,

you know, you might be better off if you'd gone

with your heart and left, like our friend,

now departed who just left with his heart

and the rest of his organs.

I don't know, this was an aside, pretend I didn't say it.

Don't imagine a pink elephant, but our little story.

The little boy in the cowboy suit, did I say

he had a cowboy suit?

Not important.

Did I say he had a heart and a body full

of bleeding wonder and love?

Not important, either way, there is the little man

before the puddle in the quiet after the storm,

there is a little thunder, but no more rain.

Not unimportantly, the skies are all blue now,

blue skies for child Harold, whose name is not Harold.

Trees are down, branches everywhere.

The boy's beloved dog jogs toward him,

daintily avoiding other yet to be written in puddles.

She's been making her rounds, pawing around

the bases of trees, sniffing butterflies

drying themselves in the breeze.

Ah, the dog.

Long story short, boy loves dog, dog loves boy,

no question, no amendment, no need to revise.

The dog came closer, stopped to scratch,

then she lowered her head to lap water from the puddle

and was electrocuted.

A power line had come down and was lying frayed

in the water.

She was thrown some distance,

flew like some poorly thought out bird.

Her eyes were burned open, smoking.

The pads of her paws blistered off.

She was dead instantly,

veterinarians and electrical engineers would later agree.

Poor dog.

The boy laughed and laughed and wrote maniacally

into his puddle.

We don't know why, trust me that this happened,

it happened like this.

He went over to her, knelt down by her,

he opened the jaws and tried to put his ear in the mouth.

The dog had white markings above her paws.

He patted it, ah, the clear blue skies.

The whitish backs of the leaves in the breeze,

the feeling of the world renewed but still the same.

The boy yawned, a car came by slowed past,

an everyday moment.

The boy swallowed, he lived through this.

Questions?

No, I have one.

When did your childhood end?

How badly did you get hurt when you did

when you were this little, when you were

this wee little hurtable thing, nothing but big eyes,

a heart, a few hundred words.

Isn't it wonderful how we never recover?

Injuries and wounds, ladies and gentlemen,

slights and abuses, oh, what a paradise?

Living in fear, suiting the hurt to our need, I'm serious.

What a happy life, what a good game,

who can stand the most the most life and still smile?

Still grin into the coming night saying more, more,

encore, encore, you fuckers!

You fakes just give me more of the bloody, bloody same.

I don't know, what do I know?

People ask about the name Thom Pain, I don't answer.

Or I'll say, "It's been in the family a while."

Or I'll say Child Harold for no reason,

then one of us walks away.

Anyway, the boy lay down behind his dog holding her.

He closed his own eyes with his fingers.

The boy lay in the puddle behind his former dog whispering,

"I do, I do."

He came home later without stick or dog.

No one noticed him, the change in him.

The boy got some scissors and cut his hair half off.

He drew a simple bone on his stomach

with some of his mother's lipstick.

He tucked himself badly into bed.

He sang a little song without words or tune.

He lay there awake, breathing too much, biting a crayon,

trying to hold everything in.

The boy smelled of dead, wet dog.

His legs shook, and he wet his bed.

This all being an example of,

I don't know, how some days can go,

of actual life, of the close relations

between man and animal.

Now imagine a pink elephant.

Now stop, good, wait a minute.

There, thank you sir.

Now, I think would be a good time for the raffle.

I hope you held onto your ticket.

On the back of which is a number.

We have some very nice prizes.

Okay, you ready?

Alright.

Here we go.

Who has the luck with him tonight?

This'll be fun.

There is no raffle.

Who said there was gonna be a raffle?

The good news is you didn't lose.

You lost nothing except the time it took to find this out,

which is a pretty big chunk.

Someday, some minute, you'll have 30 seconds to live.

Think of me, my little comic bait about the raffle,

think of me fucking around with your life and try to smile.

Trust me, there are people out there who don't love you,

who don't love you enough to spit on your little hopes,

so as to leave you all alone respectfully and fully alone

with your larger ones, your larger hopes which are,

what, sir, care to share your larger hopes with us?

No, that's fine, don't want to jinx anything,

or have nothing to jinx, or can't feel hope,

or don't like sharing, all the varieties of experience.

Feel free to feel anything;

religious ecstasy, anarchy, chivalry, physical things,

nothing, blood, your neighbor, that stranger you married.

What possibilities we all have here are ways and means

to live and die.

Cancer, for example, or depression,

anxiety, insecurity, holes in your knowledge,

spots on your lungs, total oblivion, more?

Financial crisis, outer space, inner peace,

shame, lust, war.

Me, hate, you,

hate, words, love nothing,

more migraine, you, God.

The things you may be feeling.

The list goes on.

Then the list ends.

How are you?

I'd be sick of this already.

I'd feel restless, I'd feel like eating or urinating,

or like going outside and being sick,

lying in the grass or dirt and holding myself her.

Or I'd want to buy a nice flower and stick it to some woman,

or I'd feel sorry for me if I were you,

but again, feel whatever you like,

as if you need me to tell you that, it's your life.

Yes?

What if you only had one day to live?

What would you do?

That's easy, you'd be brave and true and reckless,

you'd love life and people with wild and new abandon

if you only had a day.

What if you only had 40 years, what would you do?

If you're like me and no offense, but you probably are,

you wouldn't do anything.

It's sad, isn't it, this dead horse of a life we beat

all the wilder, all the harder, the debtor it gets.

On the other hand, there are some nice shops in the area.

I bought a candleholder and a chair today.

I left the candleholder somewhere.

Now, I think would be a good time for the raffle.

I hope you held onto your tickets, no.

Sorry, where was I?

I was thinking about your life, very distracting, okay.

I bought a candleholder and a chair today,

I left the candleholder somewhere.

Okay, sorry, I bought it...

Huh.

While we're waiting,

so a horse walks into a bar.

The bartender says, "Why the long face?"

The horse says, "I'm dying of AIDS,

"and I guess I feel a little sorry for myself."

So the bartender says, "My God, that's awful.

"I'm so sorry."

I'm forgetting some part of it but you get the point.

You see the hilarity.

It's funny, because it's true.

What a nice crowd.

I see no difference really,

in a world filled with difference,

sickening, disheartening difference, I see none

between the you and the me.

You all seem so wonderful and I seem so wonderful

and so I make no distinction, see no separation,

no unbridgeable distance between us, wonderful us.

Or none worth remarking since the thought of you

disgusts me so much.

The thought of you doesn't disgust me that much.

In fact, you're all so wonderful, I'd like to take you home,

leave you there, then go somewhere.

no, seriously, the truth, I don't care either way.

That's not true, I do care either way.

I'm the type of person you might not hear from

for some time, then one day suddenly, bang!

You never hear from me again.

we're all roughly this way, yes?

Roughly, hmm.

Except you.

You're different, you're lovely.

I really love your difference.

It's so wonderful and lovely and different.

Where are you from I wonder?

Or did wonder about two seconds ago but now that's over,

we're through, sorry, see you around.

You can throw my things away.

I would change the locks if I were you.

Bye now.

Reality is funny sometimes, not to me.

Let's talk a little about love.

I see fine, I'll begin.

Do you like magic?

I do, it's fairly new, this love of mine of magic.

I made serious inroads into a woman once

by doing card tricks with a deck

that had only one card left in it.

"Pick a card," I'd say.

She'd lick her lips, touch herself or me.

Maybe we'd laugh, maybe not.

She wasn't from here, so I had to speak to her

in the international language of love, English.

But we had some laughs.

Two, no three.

We had an understanding, though neither of us

knew what it was.

We stayed up late together one night,

fell asleep together later.

We were pretty compatible for a while there,

what with the dick and the cunt.

Anyway, here we are together eating, sleeping,

holding each other.

The jargon of romance is almost unbearably precise.

Going steady, seeing each other, going out,

it takes a serious dose of shaking, vision loss

and a year of staying in to understand

the beauty of those terms, the pain in the words.

Anyway, this was us; a couple, partners unapart,

whispers like you've never heard.

"You've changed," she said, the night we met.

She had watchful eyes.

Sober sometimes, a natural sort of animal guardedness,

a doggie sort of way I found very fetching.

Sometimes you meet someone who you know right away

is made up of trillions of different cells.

She was one of these.

a quivering thing, nice legs, pretty eyes,

good vocabulary, the backside,

apologies for the dirty language,

but it's all dirty language if you look at it right.

As for our story, if you're lost at all,

you're not alone.

Don't think I'm somewhere out of ahead,

somewhere, anywhere, with a plan.

I'm right here beside you, or hiding behind you

like you, in terrible pain trying to make sense of my life.

Just kidding, you probably are alone,

or I don't know, where are we exactly I wonder,

in your estimation, in mine?

Earth is always an answer, we're on planet Earth,

a planet in the solar system,

which is one of a trillion solar systems in our galaxy,

which is one of a billion galaxies in the universe

and you think you're pretty special.

Math, there's a lot of zeros out there,

what can one man do?

Nothing really, or I don't know,

I've been taking vitamin supplements.

A, no, yeah, A,

B, D, Zinc.

Actually Zinc is a mineral, you don't care.

C, E, B, did I say B?

I don't care.

Do me a favor, if you have a home,

when you're home later avoiding your family

staring at the dog, and they ask you where you've been,

please just don't say that you're out somewhere

watching someone being clever,

watching some smart mouth nobody work himself

into some dumb ass frenzy.

Please say instead, when you don't say anything,

'cause nobody ask you that you saw someone who was trying.

I choose that word with care.

I'm trying.

A trying man, a feeling thing in a wordy body.

Poor Tom is a trying, poor Tom is fucking cold.

I imagine you people have some experience

with the Elizabethans?

Some experience with cold.

Anyway, the child, no the woman,

let me linger with my woman a little longer if I could.

She still had her tonsils, her appendix, her wisdom teeth,

all the beautiful useless extra things.

This plus the holes, the holes in her body,

in her childhood, the missing things,

the blind spots altogether with the pluses

and the minuses, a very complete woman.

I loved her so much, so beautiful.

My God, she...

Can I have a little light over here?

I loved her so much, so beautiful.

My God, she had everything.

She had fleas, which I think I gave her,

moles and birthmarks which she came up with on her own,

a healthy give-and-take.

We were very close.

She felt wrongly that she could tell me anything.

I think of her in the evenings.

Should I hear a plangent honking and raise mine eyes

to descry in the darkening sky of V of geese,

heading north or south.

I take my pulse and remember those,

again, I have to say I really like your individuality.

All kindness and light and loyalty, or

so I imagine.

Maybe you could meet me later on after?

I don't know where I'll be

so maybe don't bother, unless you'd like to.

We'll get a drink.

Who knows, depending on how terrible your life is,

I could be a good move for you.

And maybe I didn't have to say all that.

And I may have plans, so forget I said anything,

or imagined you at all.

Forget I thought or felt anything.

So, the woman of our story.

No, let's forget about the woman for a little while.

If we could, let me jump around here, thanks.

Let's get back to the inner child,

the crippled kid with the electrocuted dog.

Did I say his face was disfigured?

Even if I hadn't, can you picture the face of a little boy

in your mind without disfiguring it any way?

Can you picture anything without it getting jumpy

and all strangled?

Can you picture even a simple square

without it going sideways and wrong and triangular?

Yeah, like that.

I'm not sure you can.

Well, let's forge ahead, despite our obvious flaws.

I'm speaking to the obviously flawed among us,

and as well to those of us whose deformations

are more private.

Hello sir.

so, the boy becoming a man in the puddle.

No, we're further along than that.

It's late, he comes home, a dark house.

He walks upstairs slipperless.

Something is amiss.

Some real thing is amiss.

But who could put their finger on it, in it?

Who could see it, and state it plainly

the trouble in the bold quiet nights

and the tidy house on Garden Street.

Having seen the boy, the only child make his way

from room to room in search of anything

to mother or sister him.

I daresay no one,

the personality forms in the dark.

This is possibly a very good point,

a worldview rises at night without witness.

The boys did as he grew, changed, away from people,

in the bathroom, in the rain, down the halls,

in everyday familial places.

I daresay, no.

I don't.

I do know they didn't pat his head.

They didn't mess up his hair and say, "Good boy."

He comes and goes untouched, his childhood running out,

as he becomes a foreigner, an immigrant

to the place where he was born.

I have that same shirt.

Anyway, that night, the night of the stormy day

that was his dead dog's last, that night he had

with his brutal new haircut, a wet dream or

nocturnal emission if you like.

Who knows what he dreamt of?

Some inscrutably human thing, no doubt.

Something out of the vocabulary and wilderness

of a little boy at night.

Maybe of a woman bending over, eyes open, being nice,

knees deep in muddy water, a rural vulnerable thing

opening herself to the dreamer behind her.

Or maybe of some fuzzy uneducated version of a girl

saying a word he liked.

"Voucher" or "ankles".

Or whispering one of those funny little words

that only relate to words like, such,

or maybe he just felt some felicific little twinge,

some nice little physical feeling in the night

and came without language.

His little bed, his little sheets with airplanes on them

covered in semen, and freshly,

badly cut hair.

What a mysterious scene.

Somewhere in that same night, another youth bleeds

between her legs, wondering whom to tell,

wondering what to tell them.

What mystery, the onset of the breeding years.

Growth, the cancers are almost all in place.

Nature laughs last, ladies and gentlemen,

laughs hardest and best, and last

deep into the night at you.

But think of it all.

What a paradise, as I have said.

Think of it.

What a surprise to have a body,

meaning all across the world hardly anyone sleeps.

How could they?

Every night spent in the body is a fitful night,

fighting gravity and losing,

night after fitful night spent fighting everything.

But so, that morning, the messy morning of the messy night,

that morning on a walk through a meadow,

the boy was attacked by bees.

A nest had fallen on the ground

and he had kicked it by accident.

His eyes being shut because of the sun,

or maybe some other reason he had.

Is it clear that I love my little subject,

and therefore don't pry too hard into his reasons,

his empty head, his stupid little agenda on earth.

Anyway, the bees.

They swarmed into his eyes and mouth,

stung him on every skinny surface.

The boy did not at first make any sound.

Poor thing did not understand.

He thought out in that meadow

that he had done something wrong.

He thought that the pain was already inside of him

and was only coming out then to punish him,

that the bees that only happened along later

and were trying to help.

His body was exploding in painful sores

which the bees were trying to salve, to sooth.

This, according to him, he really didn't understand things.

It's kind of beautiful, if you like that sort of thing,

if you like the idea of a little boy

desperately spreading stinging bees all over

his bleeding body, desperately yelling,

"Help me, bees, help."

Sticking his little swollen hand into the hive for more.

We've all made similar mistakes,

mistaking the bee for the flower, giving our heart away

to the first prick or bitch

to come down the trickling river.

Anyway, the boy crawled enough away, almost died.

He lay there until evening neither crying nor laughing,

a thing of nature in pain among the crickets and frogs.

So that's the bee incident.

I have an incredibly rich interior life.

Yeah...

You really are very forgiving,

letting me get lost like this.

Nobody else let's me do anything.

Everyone else always has little tips about my soul,

nitpicking about my psyche.

"Hey, what about a haircut?"

"Must you be exactly that tall?"

"Why don't you talk different?"

"Why are you looking east?"

"Brush your teeth."

"Change."

"I hate how you breath."

So comparatively, you really are a nice group.

So easy-going, watching so gently.

Looking out at you all, I'm struck by the almost,

is that Sarah?

Is it you, I can't believe it.

Mary?

Anyway, now I'm gonna do this.

Behold, consider, use your head and imagine

that this is a brain or the mind.

There it is, in the skull of a boy still in the womb,

battleship gray and growing, folding over on itself,

turning as he kicks his way into the world.

Amazing, a little boy learns to crawl.

His nerves firing, his mind relying on his hands and knees.

A less little boy is introduced to a stranger,

he is embarrassed, his brain sending blood to his face,

his mind telling him, "Look down, little boy."

Hurt inside, be shy,

and so on and on until an old man sits in a chair.

The hearing gone, the eyes gone, the body almost gone

but the brain still going, or the mind insisting on itself,

making itself heard, causing trouble.

There, the brain, the mind in a chair in a field

or under stars in the bright sun of Egypt,

Beantown, Whoville, all the while, all the while fighting,

revising, planning its next defeat.

Or a man stands before you, age unimportant,

the mouth moving, big things going badly

but a million little things going right.

The brain is doing its job, but the mind,

oh, another story, it's a monster.

They don't know, the doctors, the distinguished authors

but oh, the memories of there.

Her fine hand on your shoulder on the steps of a museum,

a dog I play with the caterpillar.

Insomnia, nausea, ocean waves, rain,

the taste of mascara, the feeling of night,

how the world can sound.

Such a feeling life, such sensation.

Yes, then pile the words on top.

Watch them seep down.

Think of it, the brain, the mind, all that up there,

married happily or not.

Imagine.

Or just think about snot.

Imagine that this is a handkerchief

and that I just blew my nose in it.

To backtrack.

You worry you, have anxiety, the blood vessels constrict,

the handkerchief crumples, it's a headache, a migraine,

a blow to the head and now you try to live.

It all feels so useless, so unusable.

The house that you live in, the oceans,

the mountains, the peacekeeping forces,

restaurants and anniversaries, factories and gardens,

useless, fuck it all, kill it and burn it down

you say when you have a little headache.

So maybe I have little headache.

Maybe I was born with a little headache.

Maybe that's all, just some wrong pressure somewhere.

I'm speaking softly for a reason,

because I guess I hope that you...

I don't know.

Let's go over the enormous and informative ground

we've covered so far.

We were talking, I guess I was talking, about a little girl,

a little boy I guess it was, who got stung by a bee

and used to have a dog.

Then there was a woman.

Then I took out my handkerchief and tried

to use my imagination on you,

think that brings us up to now.

Did the raffle.

Did the joke about the horse, oh, I know.

Another joke.

Why is a fat girl like a tiny motorcycle?

Well, of course she isn't, she isn't at all.

And you should be disgusted with yourself,

for even for a second trying to think of how she might be.

I'm disgusted with myself,

and this makes me you know, act out,

or lash out, or lash in, depending.

But to continue.

The woman, my darling from earlier,

one fine week, we awoke to cold sores tearing

through our lips.

Picture that we lay in bed, me confused and not unhappy.

Her thinking thoughts I never knew, never will.

We were so full of life each other, love cankers all.

A pun, thank you.

She had beautiful eyes.

I'm almost sure, I must've looked.

I bet she smiled or tried to through the cracking pain,

the dryness I caused in her.

It was more complicated than this, our love,

plus I lied about all of it.

It was a while back, or sometime ago.

Maybe this morning or even longer back.

Early this morning, the poem of the wee most hours.

The old stars twinkle over the sea,

nobody else in sight.

Bony stray dogs roam the streets.

Stars and dogs circle our house, us asleep in love,

or wide-awake, one or the other.

It makes you stop and think these timeless times,

how long does everything take?

How long did I kiss her, that time I lost track of time?

My lips red with life, saying nothing,

covering her in me, in my saliva,

how long did our little hero, who I'm getting sick of

lay in the meadow drooling, in bed, in the park,

which we'll get to.

Long enough, I should think, long enough to learn something.

Back to the cold sores.

After all my efforts at communication,

something had passed between us.

Would that I might provoke in you a similar mark,

a little growth, a blemish of real life.

Don't think that I think I will.

Any thoughts, feelings?

I'm sure.

Anyway, the woman and the man myself, good, good times.

Except for all of our unfixable problems,

everything was perfect.

Epic romance in the aisles of all-night stores,

on aloneness at last the stupid clouds lift,

kissing in the morning, pissing together

in the roomy handicapped bathrooms of the emptier museums,

a million little weddings.

My life to this point was mishaps.

I was just accidents and wrong roads before her

but then the lost was found,

happiness, perfection with an asterisk.

Yes, she found my desire a little unruly, a little dire,

too much of an emergency, but in the intermingling of our,

not intermingling exactly, I don't know.

We've all probably had the roughly same experience, yes.

I don't know.

Back to the boy then.

The little mistake, he's grown into an even bigger mistake,

aching bones from all the growth spurts,

furious, oily skin, shy to the point

of not even really being there.

He watched the parade of life go by,

drew some faulty conclusions.

He said almost nothing.

No one ever asked him what he was thinking,

so he never really got into the habit.

Though it came later anyway, I sometimes like to think.

Though this wasn't always the case.

I'm thinking right now, yeah, I am.

We were the perfect height.

Look at me think.

We must've been so stunning.

What luck to be me then.

The dirty nights, the magic days at the laundromat,

taking our clothes off, sharing forks,

afraid of nothing we felt.

I disappeared in her and she wondering where I went, left.

It's not clear what happened exactly, so you just tr...

Do you like magic?

I do, I think.

It's fairly ambivalent this love of mine.

Once a moth was flying around my room.

I was afraid.

A yucky flapping moth.

It all has some effect I'm sure, end of rumination,

thank you very much.

Now I'm gonna need, not a volunteer but a subject

from the audience.

Don't raise your hands shouting, "Me, me!"

Although certainly I see your point.

I'll choose someone, we know who you are.

It'd be good if the personal were wearing light clothing.

If he or she spoke a second language, and liked

a little violence, that'd be great.

So let's see.

I apologize for this, we all hate things like this.

- But in order for me to fully prove my point,

to really ram the thing home, I'll need a subject

to volunteer, really one of you watchers.

One of you lovely pounding hearts.

Now, who, who, who

or whom

I sounded like an owl just then.

Anyway, how about this recent weather, am I right?

What a day to be outside?

Hi.

I saw someone walking eight dogs today,

also pretty, so pedigree except for one ugly mutt, a runt,

angry, and diseased, less loved ergo less lovable.

I hope you're paying attention.

I am because my own pains going to make someone else

suffer without proportion.

Because this is not my dream of her in lazy rivers,

because I miss her leg around my neck,

someone is going to pay.

I really apologize, but so, now,

our volunteer, our conscript, anyone will do,

but it has to be someone.

Who of you deserves it most?

Who shall join me?

You know what,

skip it.

Thank you though.

Life for the little boy, now a little man,

sped up and sped up.

He was schooled to no effect.

He left home, saying only, "I'm going somewhere else now."

His mother wept due to an unrelated malady.

His father who was still alive, God rest his soul

waved goodbye, and so our young man to a city.

He got jobs, you may have seen him, something close enough.

He's the one waving a flag that says parking next to a sign

that says parking.

He is dressed as a telephone

handing out flyers concerning telephones.

He is picking up trash, eating in doorways, eyes down,

an expressionless expression.

He is just like you, or he is you,

or he isn't and doesn't like you.

See the former child hated by life about my size

losing weight, working for shit pay.

No real belongings other than a dictionary.

One night, call it a winters night,

one night in a park walking off the day's food poisoning,

he came upon some vomit, vomited then collapsed.

He wondered as he shivered on the frozen ground

covered in stomach fluids, saliva and bile,

if there might be, you know, more to life than this.

Nearby, a brightly lit skating rink.

He lay in the slush, listening to Christmas music,

chirping allergies to reindeer and snow.

He got up, went over to the rink,

leaned on the side.

Couples glided by, families,

call it the Christmas spirit, call it coincidence,

call it whatever you like, but suddenly in the bright lights

and beautiful music, he got sick and collapsed again.

The next day at the city morgue where he was painting

the bathrooms, he saw her.

He felt light and sick, sad but true, high on the fumes,

he watched her cry.

She was perfect in her grief.

A born widow or orphan, a person of serious and recent loss.

You can probably guess the rest.

And I can leave it at that, but I'll tell you.

She didn't see him, never would

and that was the end of that.

I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it.

But, it was a start.

What a nice looking crowd.

I see we have some couples here tonight.

On came the animals two by two, good for you.

Really.

Good for you.

Anyway, a few seasons later, picture him sitting,

nowhere really, a nice day in terms of weather

reading his dictionary like a novel,

scanning ahead to see if the story picks up.

Remember, the man is the boy from earlier.

He is really not outfitted for this life,

not properly clothed, not enough skin.

He reads on, absently picking at a scab

on the side of his head, staring at the word veneer.

Suddenly, like a beautiful dog at the wrong door or no,

gentle snow in the morning, she appeared.

She appears.

Sometimes you look off somewhere.

There is something that you want to see.

You expect this almost operatic moment to happen

in your life.

You expect something to appear.

And all that's there is what was there before,

and you, looking,

and what do you do?

Maybe there was a raffle, and maybe we all won.

Or all lost, together.

Speaking softly again because I wanna be heard.

Because I want to be gentle.

To be, to my own self, untrue.

I continue.

Here she comes, the one everyone would agree was the one.

Not the widow, not a widow, but close.

A modesty, an understanding, a pain, a complication,

a human being.

Imagine a gazelle, a zebra, a giraffe.

Now, don't imagine any more animals and picture a woman.

God, if you could see her.

Imagine he is not afraid, imagine he has feelings,

imagine he reaches in his pocket, "Pick a card," he says.

"There is only one," she says demurely, womanlily.

"Yeah," he says, in customary brevity

but surprising coherence.

Anyone could see.

Off they went, to laundromats and chapels and bathrooms,

places that you've heard of, been to yourself,

the steps of museums, hand in hand in hand in hand.

She would write him letters, one of which he would save.

Love, period, full-stop, probably.

Unless you're very happy or have a good imagination,

you can't imagine how happy they were.

They were close, not fully there but close.

We hear the word love a lot, throw it around,

less and less maybe, but still a lot, the word love.

We mean all sorts of things.

I don't know really.

On this freezing,

how anybody could...

We were probably, dammit!

He could not see the story through.

He did not love too much nor too well

but with too much sweat, shit and fear.

Too many long words, too many commas, it seems,

may every animal find its animal, find some food,

its fellow animal, a warm rock and somewhere dark to sleep.

Where are we supposed to learn about things?

What happens, when the little spurt and the little time

we are, I guess, given?

Maybe this will explain.

Nope.

I just got this from back there.

I don't like magic, I'm no good at it and I don't like it

but I do do a little disappearing act.

Now I'm gonna need another volunteer.

Seriously, no kidding around this time.

Thank you, may I?

Sir, you'll do fine.

Thank you, may I?

Thank you, thank you.

The disappearing act, here we go.

Close your eyes.

You're gonna have to completely trust that I'm...

You know, she came back to me, sort of.

I had the worst dream the other night.

I'll spare you the details and the main parts,

but when I woke up I went out for a walk.

I liked the weather, it was nice out, cold, sort of raining.

I thought about the world.

I like looking in the dark windows.

I just let everything come.

Stopped thinking, let the words run.

They came, went, disappeared like the things they stood for.

I miss her so much.

I do, I do, help me bees, help.

I'm going somewhere else now.

My face was so swollen.

I lay in the meadow behind her, I felt spasms, our last.

I like violins, white markings above the paw.

I lay there, I lay everywhere always looking up.

I should have tried more.

Her pretty ankles, dresses she wore.

She stopped to scratch.

She quivered, you only have a day,

I couldn't make the matches work.

I scratched behind her year, I kissed her lips,

her neck, the nest was full of bees.

She said I love you.

I heard buzzing, my eyes were closed, the sun being bright.

I said I love you, and I didn't want to see.

I walked around, I left home, Christmas carols played.

I could smell my insides.

I lay there, weeping mother, waving father.

I sniffed butterflies, I kissed on things.

My poor face, I ate scraps.

I wanted to be a cowboy.

I had food poisoning, he said to me,

"Sarah, Mary?" I didn't say anything,

I thought I'd get dragged up on stage.

I take things out on others.

Who am I now, and what difference does it make?

I took her on walks.

We ran through nature, we barked at cars.

He put his mouth on me and I lady,

put my leg around his neck.

I cut my hair half off.

He hurt me, she hurt me.

I bled in the night.

I hurt her.

There wasn't anywhere, then I was in love.

Now I'm here.

You're being very patient.

We could have had something together.

Wouldn't that have been nice?

Off go the animals, two by two.

Love, I was lucky in it once.

Wrote a note saying, thank you kindly,

leaving now, the key is under the door mat.

I had my reasons, none of them good.

Wanted to leave before I was left.

She wanted it that way,

or would soon enough.

Maybe.

I never understood things, I was too confusing.

I did everything in fear.

What was I so afraid of?

I had promise.

I don't have anything anymore.

I thought you would have left by now.

What do you want?

Not to disappear, I'm sure, then what?

Shall I love you slowly and be true?

Shall I stroke your cheek gently, almost not at all

and bring you a glass of, boo!

Sorry.

Here, have my glass of water.

Your throat must be getting dry from all the things

you'll never say.

And then there's you.

Don't say anything,

don't think anything,

just be yourself.

Keep in mind how little time there is,

how little time there always was and try to be brave.

Try to be someone else, someone better.

Fff!

Fff!

Ear, a word without definition, fear.

Nothing to be afraid of, kind of beautiful, right?

And so the little boy somewhat hilariously

was never able, boo!

Sorry again.

Why do I do that?

Enough.

I have to go.

You have to go.

Maybe someone is waiting.

Please, be someone waiting.

I'm done with this.

Important things will happen now, I promise.

Be stable.

Be stable.

Be stable.

Be stable.

I know this wasn't much but, let it be enough.

Do.

Boo.

Isn't it great to be alive?