Temerity Theatre

On a small planet in the Oxygen Network Nebula, there was a man named Janet. Don’t ask, it was a Polish name that was spelled even less effectively in English.
Janet had two wives: Tate, who lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, and Tontina, of Hanover, whose motto was “surely you gesticulate!”
The wives were blissfully ignorant of each other’s existence. Tate was arguably the more modern of the wives, leaving Janet some wiggle room to arrange his comings and goings. Indeed, Janet maintained that since he was an adjunct professor at two different institutions of medium-to-higher learning, he had to travel and in some cases sleep over in different places. It was also highly convenient because Tontina, being more traditional, as she said, insisted that according to her astrological chart she was subject to occasional Wacky Wednesdays or Fucked-Up Fridays. On these days, she would scream, break plates, and annoy the neighborhood dogs. Janet believed her when she said she was going to rage, and tried to not be around on those days.
Is it easy to whittle an academic career out of the solid granite of New Hampshire? That depends! Although at first poor Janet might seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place, remember that this is New Hampshire, not Vermont. Some folks genuinely have such a hard time getting through snowy mountain roads that they de facto limit themselves to their local area. Thus, Janet could write peer-reviewed articles in one part of the state espousing radical Free Free Somewhere and then drive to his other institution and publish something else defending a completely different position.
Surprised? This can be explained by one humble theory: Libertarians don’t believe that fact checking should be an obstacle to life.
If you go snow-shoeing through the wilderness, all the while composing pleasant haiku in your head, and whistle while you work, perhaps you will be greeted by a nine-tailed fox. Or maybe, just maybe, your whistling will cause an avalanche. Many dream of a White Wedding, but not a White Funeral.
Who would miss me more, mused Janet? He could visualize Tate smoking a clove cigarette and sighing, yes, I loved him, for 7 years, and that surely has to be weighed against all the time I didn’t know him, not to say that I didn’t love him then, but I was incapable of loving him fully. And then she would ash out and, while coughing, think of the lingering love she, might feel for him two marriages on from now. Such is life and death.
Tontina, after having been told, might, instead of breaking things, put on her work gloves and, using Krazy Glue (trademarked item, never a disparagement) glue pieces of different objects together in a novel way. If life is going to go on, we must rebuild. So what if a piece of the Lighthouse of Alexandria ends up in the wall of a government building. We must reassemble. Did she even suspect that, in this way, she was even more like Janet? Janet, who, through the art of love wheedled pieces of different women, could make a new world, or at least a kind of map that resembled Settlers of Catan?
Long Live Janet! We all owned a fraction of him, just like the people of Green Bay are shareholders of the Packers NFL franchise.

The angels were busy doodling in the book of life. Not to say that they didn’t take the fate of fucked up, mortal humans seriously. Sometimes, they drew people with one eye, or with a naughty third leg, or with urine squirting out of breasts, or with a big tail that emphasized the diminutive size of something else, or with a forked penis that was facing north and south thus defeating its every intention. Angels did not understand the difference between prejudice and ignorance.
Then again, if humans planned on achieving anything, they had a funny way of showing it. Wake up, make the coffee, dawdle before drinking because they don’t want to get burned. What are you afraid of, hellfire? Just kidding! Of course you are! Dawdle some more. Maybe start writing a poem, maybe finish it next week or next year.
Diddling was about the only thing that humans did right. Diddling meant screwing, which, because it was not directed to high-stakes survival goals, proved that humans were not animals. Angels, who had neither penii nor penises, were impressed by all the diddling. They noted Oscar Wilde’s comment: The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”
If you must doddle, can you at least hurry it up? It’s so easy to fall in love, they would say. It’s so easy to fall into a pit. It’s so easy to ski downhill. It’s so easy to start the operation of compound interest. And it’s true that it’s easy to be a little pregnant which is the same as being fully pregnant. Doddling at its best.
Dandle me on your knee, that one used to say to me. And I would say, it was easier when you didn’t weigh 250 pounds. Then lie down and I will sprawl across your chest. I thought of what it would be like to take my last breath. Maybe, I ventured, we could do it with VR goggles? Then you could get dandled or diddled anywhere you want. She sighed. Do you remember when we used to close our eyes and just feel it? Try doing that in virtual reality. And so, that is why I am now writing my last will and testament. And the angels will get their claws on it very soon.

Innocuous you said
Was the name you named your cock
5 inches of fun but also stealth [note possible connection with stealth bodily invasion which is bad]

Alchemists once thought
They could make gold from something inert
Also that’s your cock

Inebriated
Smiling like Dylan Thomas
I thought of the rock
That’s above your gems
Which makes me the Chief of Staff
Liquid like the Thames

All the books I have
They are so ineffective
When I try to block
Thinking of your cock
My brain doesn’t need a foot [or heart]
Five inches is fine
No one seems to know
How to drive stick nowadays
Leave that up to you

Hello, Amalgamated Sex Change Company. How may I connect your call?
I beg your pardon? Does your mother know you use words like that?
Take it back. First of all, this is a great company. We help ameliorate the human experience:your human experience. We go beyond the binary. Because we don’t discriminate, do we? Bitch, did I say press 1 for male to female, press 2 for female.to male? I sure as Walter Mercado did not!
What if you want a change from neutral to female? Female to neutral? Female to female? Exactly. For those who like to sing “I’m every woman”. So you think it’s bullshit?
Do you know anyone who’s married and renews their vows? Or re-inks their tattoos?
Or has been circumused more than once?
We are a very amiable company. We offer the power of choice. Say what?
We have payment plans. Of course, you could sit around at home visualizing your true self. You could also visualize world peace and not do a thing to bring about world peace. What now? This call is making you amorous? You want to amalga-mate with me? You want to lose yourself in my holy of holies? You want to plug into my ecstatic electricity socket? You want to go where no man, woman or set has gone before?
You’re cute. But I only like to be objectified on alternate Wednesdays. Please hold.

“Une Table Pour UNHhhh”

It’s not easy being a Sultan. I have more wives than I know what to do with, and still my outfits clash.
Don’t tell me. I have mirrors. I can see. And what I can see, is good.
I see I still have all my limbs. How many? It doesn’t matter. I’m tired of looking at them. Someone bring me some wives to drape over my various appendages.
Put her over there. And let her bisect the triangle described by the other two. Or maybe not. Bring me one who is more limber. No, I do not need to move. Yes, it is a double standard because I get to have double the fun!
And now, finally, my movement is limited by all this beauty. And only at this time can my brain start working. Because my brain is in limbo since it is always trying to escape from my body. Yes, it thinks it can except when it knows it can’t.
I love being buried under so many arcs and curves and chords. I also trust this setup more than my bodyguards because it is always moving and squirming, and the wives are always bisecting each other. When I am like this, my fear of death disappears.
When I am at the bottom of the heap, I can start thinking of the immortality of the soul. I am too scared, otherwise. Immortal is such a long time. But not long enough, am I right?
It is a liminal space, where the element of fire predominates. With hints of earth, since I am being pressed into the ground. That makes me a flower, by extension, and because I said so.
I would trust more of my enemies, if they, too, were held down by at least six wives. We should make the world a safer place.
And all our flowers would finally open.

“Well,” said Majestine, “it looks like he’s dead.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” sobbed Angelaura. “And so I ordain you to lezzerect him.”
“Do you think I can make the dead stand again as alive?”
“He doesn’t need to stand. He can kneel. But yes, alive, please.”
Angelaura brooded.
Majestine blinked disapprovingly. “If you’re going to wallow like this, it makes me question why I raised you as a Princess of Dextopia.”
“I’d rather wallow with Prince Enrique than bask in the sun all by myself wearing a silly tiara.”
Majestine blinked again. “It may be a silly tiara, but it is studded with conflict diamonds. From a generation ago. And you know how difficult it is for me to speak of conflicts.”
“I’m sorry I brought up unpleasantness. But can you see how sad I become when you talk about gem-studded things when my own stud lies collapsed on the ground!”
“I thought you did not like men. The whole point of our Queendom is, we don’t like men.”
“You know it’s not that I like them. I feel sorry for them.”
Majestine thought about this. It made sense, and yet! “Liking them has never been done. Feeling sorry for them has also never been done. And, of course, lezzerecting any of them has never been done. We don’t know if they’re strong enough.”
“No, we don’t.”
“And, surely, if you liked one of them, you wouldn’t want to kill him by accidentally.”
“It seems all I have are choices that obscure the one the other.”
“Shall we just let him stay dead?”
“Oh, but he was so cute. He just waded in the water when he saw me.”
“Yes. He didn’t know he couldn’t swim. Probably a clear sign he wasn’t that smart, even when he was alive the first time. Think of what might happen if he returns to us.”
“Time is short. I command you to wand him!”
“But, Princess! Does he even have the neural capacity of a woman? Wanding could really fuck him up.”
“Or it could teach him to feel. Do it. Now!”
And so, muttering, Majestine whipped out her special, adamantine wand and touched it to the snow-white cheek of the unmoving Prince Enrique. He twitched slightly.
“Try other places!” whinged Angelaura.
And so, the wand was moved down the sternum, across the thorax, until it rested atop the abdomen. And there, it began to glow.
“Maybe they really do have ovaries?” It had been part of the debate about these legendary creatures.
Though they could not believe their eyes, the Prince rose up. He was the first of any other species to be lezzerected.
What a shame he got up and ran the hell away.
“OK, Princess, giver of life, “smirked Majestine. You gave it a good try. I know you’re disappointed he didn’t talk to us.”
“I am nothing of the kind. Who says I wanted him for his conversation? I just liked to watch him run. And I got a double serving in one day.”

THE END

I can’t force you to love fission.
In fact, fission scares a lot of people well darn to heck.
Fission occurs when a neutron slams into a larger atom, forcing it to excite and split into two smaller atoms—also known as fission products. Additional neutrons are also released that can initiate a chain reaction. When each atom splits, a tremendous amount of energy is released.
Some people, oh they know that a big mess of energy is hidden inside. Let it out? Well, just one ding dang minute. The whole splitting open part is enough to give ‘em the heebie-jeebies.
And yet, what if I were to tell you that, when folks get a nose job, usually this involves breaking the nose?
Oh, I didn’t know that! I hear you snort. You didn’t notice because you got put under for the procedure. And there we are. Maybe it hurts to go through fission. Maybe it doesn’t. How would you know?
Some of us would rather stay inebriated. What if the snot, blood and fire is the way universes done gets bilt?
Or what if fusion was the better way? I hear you ask me this as we sit in a fusion restaurant. It is a Brazilian-Polish bistro. This is not a new cuisine, I think. This is where meat meets meat. But, there is not time to think this, because the fusion waitress brings me a fusion drink which contains passion fruit juice and Polish vodka. Yes, they are mixed, but it is not fusion, because of something called mass, and this is why it is diffusion, meaning the pulp is on the bottom of the drink and the vodka oil slick is on the top. When I drink it, I know I will have to chug the whole thing just to get some flavor, and I do, and that is why I puke 30 minutes later.
I am in the bathroom after that, popping an antacid into a glass of water. It is fizzy. It is rough, and ephemeral, and magical, like a firecracker on the fourth of July.
I am not forcing anyone to fawn, or blow a fuse. Gosh darn it, it is your decision if you take the path of fission.

“Coffee Will Bring the World Together”