Stuck in a lift...
From sailor Jennie James, who submitted this after 8 months in the belly of a whale. Such a swallowing happens to good people, every day, and it’s always of interest to see how they passed the time awaiting that liberating sneeze.
Boy, how can I learn so many things and at the same time learn nothing? Like, I learned which are the whale-prone routes, and yet I still sign on to ‘em. I learned that when you’re swallowed with others you think you’ll get out quicker, but really what happens is you stay around longer and only plan to plan that bonfire, or to fasten together that longpole with a seagull feather at the tip, and end up doing nothing. In fact, its usually a sneeze from natural causes that finally breaks open that giant room and reminds you that there’s a world out there that’s not contained by ribs and friend’s faces.
So isn’t it symbolic what I always carry in my sailor-pants pocket, just waiting for that moment a new gulp gulps? Cards. Oh sinister. What can turn faces towards each other and away from the world like cards?
On my last time in a belly, I realized finally that cards put friends in just the kind of cryogenics so well documented in short-time whalesquatters. The game distracts but at the same time focuses. You ask less and get it every time, so graceful, so accurate. Cards are a crutch, a pet bird, the wall after a swig of polarbear liver juice. Through them you watch the game unfold and your friends, those grizzled faces that you know so well, need only to comment on the proceedings to update themselves in time. A card is laid and with it words, together, correct, and of your friend’s mind. So yes, I laughed anew each time Ugly Jack said “Now don’t that make up for the time you skinned me queen-side on the uptake” and really, he probably said that exact phrase only once.
Thats why, now, in a portside internet cafe, I can see that each player's reflection is like his blog, each hand a day, and it’s this way that months pass unmarked in living rooms where we sit for what we later realize was a spell.
Boy, how can I learn so many things and at the same time learn nothing? Like, I learned which are the whale-prone routes, and yet I still sign on to ‘em. I learned that when you’re swallowed with others you think you’ll get out quicker, but really what happens is you stay around longer and only plan to plan that bonfire, or to fasten together that longpole with a seagull feather at the tip, and end up doing nothing. In fact, its usually a sneeze from natural causes that finally breaks open that giant room and reminds you that there’s a world out there that’s not contained by ribs and friend’s faces.
So isn’t it symbolic what I always carry in my sailor-pants pocket, just waiting for that moment a new gulp gulps? Cards. Oh sinister. What can turn faces towards each other and away from the world like cards?
On my last time in a belly, I realized finally that cards put friends in just the kind of cryogenics so well documented in short-time whalesquatters. The game distracts but at the same time focuses. You ask less and get it every time, so graceful, so accurate. Cards are a crutch, a pet bird, the wall after a swig of polarbear liver juice. Through them you watch the game unfold and your friends, those grizzled faces that you know so well, need only to comment on the proceedings to update themselves in time. A card is laid and with it words, together, correct, and of your friend’s mind. So yes, I laughed anew each time Ugly Jack said “Now don’t that make up for the time you skinned me queen-side on the uptake” and really, he probably said that exact phrase only once.
Thats why, now, in a portside internet cafe, I can see that each player's reflection is like his blog, each hand a day, and it’s this way that months pass unmarked in living rooms where we sit for what we later realize was a spell.
posted by M.N.V.L. Local 1430 at 7:53 PM
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