Playing tennis on the moon...
This from Dani Twofu, year two-thousand-and-you-know-that, written of course after he had taken up his famous residence beneath the tennis courts on the Moon.
Back when I was still living on Earth, I used to hang out by what is still, on the Moon, considered Lake Winnebago. And sure, the rivers I could take still flowed on courses leaving the Great Lakes (so much greater, and green) still hitting the Mississippi (now too wide to see across). Hanging out by the lake was fun because a few times a day spaceships would descend and pick trees from the lakeside. Lots of times a ship would put out a little rowboat and send some guys onto the shore with radios to supervise the cutting. They always tried to get guys like us to help out, and sometimes we do, as long as none of them gives some speech up into the trees about how it’s a playing our part for the hope clinging up top on the moon. Anyway, there's nothing else really for us to do, and there isn't much that they can give us. What usually works out is that they give us a few meat-bars, and we eat them, and we feel a little more centered in our heads, and then we help them saw a few trees down.
Today was different because after we were done working and we were strapping them tight with squirrel-skin cords, one of the spacemen came up to me and said, "Look, I'm off for a few days, and I used to hang down here - Do you think I could hang out with you guys?" It seemed like a strange situation. My friends and I had many acquaintances around the jungle, but we weren't really used to having someone we didn't know, much less some kid from the moon, just ask to hang out with us. He seemed to be assuming some code of friendly acceptance among us, and he was right about it, but still, to just assume....
But what were we going to say, no, you can't sit on the root next to the root I am sitting on, no, you can't eat off this tree that we are all passing the afternoon munching? So I looked away from the kid's dumb face and said "sure".
Then he asked us what was good to eat around there. Beet said "Your fucking meat bars" but we all laughed and he was cool enough to leave earth without any in his sack, but it was a funny question coming from a moonkid, about drugs when we are feeling so drugged out here all the time that all I can ask is for my vision to align things in a pleasant effect or at least swim in a direction that's discernable.
Back when I was still living on Earth, I used to hang out by what is still, on the Moon, considered Lake Winnebago. And sure, the rivers I could take still flowed on courses leaving the Great Lakes (so much greater, and green) still hitting the Mississippi (now too wide to see across). Hanging out by the lake was fun because a few times a day spaceships would descend and pick trees from the lakeside. Lots of times a ship would put out a little rowboat and send some guys onto the shore with radios to supervise the cutting. They always tried to get guys like us to help out, and sometimes we do, as long as none of them gives some speech up into the trees about how it’s a playing our part for the hope clinging up top on the moon. Anyway, there's nothing else really for us to do, and there isn't much that they can give us. What usually works out is that they give us a few meat-bars, and we eat them, and we feel a little more centered in our heads, and then we help them saw a few trees down.
Today was different because after we were done working and we were strapping them tight with squirrel-skin cords, one of the spacemen came up to me and said, "Look, I'm off for a few days, and I used to hang down here - Do you think I could hang out with you guys?" It seemed like a strange situation. My friends and I had many acquaintances around the jungle, but we weren't really used to having someone we didn't know, much less some kid from the moon, just ask to hang out with us. He seemed to be assuming some code of friendly acceptance among us, and he was right about it, but still, to just assume....
But what were we going to say, no, you can't sit on the root next to the root I am sitting on, no, you can't eat off this tree that we are all passing the afternoon munching? So I looked away from the kid's dumb face and said "sure".
Then he asked us what was good to eat around there. Beet said "Your fucking meat bars" but we all laughed and he was cool enough to leave earth without any in his sack, but it was a funny question coming from a moonkid, about drugs when we are feeling so drugged out here all the time that all I can ask is for my vision to align things in a pleasant effect or at least swim in a direction that's discernable.
posted by M.N.V.L. Local 1430 at 2:21 AM
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