Chris Butler is an illiterate poet howling from the Quiet Corner of Connecticut. He has published 8 books in his “Poems of Pain” (or POP) series, with 2 more soon on their way. In his time that is spared, he is also the co-editor of The Beatnik Cowboy literary journal, soon to release a chapbook with his comrade in the wars of words, Dr. Randall Rogers, entitled DEAD BEATS.

Cyborg

In this youngest day
of premature age,
our offspring are
the future, dying
in real life just to
become a cyborg.

Implanted with  
tracking chips,
nanomachines
plugged into
every hardcore port
before developing  
the ability to
read and write,

they’ll soon begin
thumb strengthening  
and mind devolution
by poking uteruses,
until every baby
is born with both
bionic and carbon
based parts.

In one generation,
one dumbphone  
will have more intelligence
than the entire population
no longer growing inside a tube.

The dumbphone
is far too intellectual  
than all the people
in all the known worlds.

Cellular devices connecting
to biological machines on a cellular level,
dismantles the DNA sequence  
downloaded from the first birth,
programmed with original chromosomes.

Intravenously attached to mePhones, mePads and mePods,
Because there is no I in me.

Facespace, Tweedy Twits, InstaGratifucationGram, Timber, GrindHer, Slapchat, WildVine, ClitCock, WeShat and BoobTube
steal our attention,
in order for our need
to seek attention
during each day’s detention.

The first tool of man was the stick,
a weapon of impersonal demolition.
The second tool of man was language,
a weapon of interpersonal devastation.
The last tool of man will be misinformation,
a weapon of mutually assured self-destruction,
bombing us in the form of a black monolith.

We are only woke when the mind is at rest, sleepwalking through protests of peaceful violence.

Memes are the cultural genes of any generic society,
with the power to hijack any and all social interaction,
spreading pamphlets from fiery zeppelins during propaganda pandemics without medical masks to keep our mouths shut.

Minds with master’s degrees in memeology see you as witticisms for idiots,
unknowingly inventing an army of sentient thingamajigs with simulated stupidity,
long before the incarceration of the one zeitgeist lightning strike…

…the almighty phone…

It tells us where we are and where to go,
how to get home down unknown roads,
connecting us with ten digits we no longer need to memorize,
cheats so people can’t tell that one can’t spell,
keeping contacts intact despite long lost distance,
nuanced destroying machines of an emotional emoji,
sharing opinionated commentary no one cares for,
with imposed guilt to keep us woke by invoking insomnia,
political correctness autocorrected before even written,
canceling a citizen’s existence once send is pressed,
and the only thing we can never leave home without.

Gradually, the dependency seeps into all of society.

Unable to initiate, copulate, maintain and sustain conversations face-to-face or voice-to-voice, but instead opting for text-to-text

Even when you shut off the shutter, the cameras are always watching, especially when playing solitaire while squatting on the toilet.

Facial recognition software knows us better than we know our best friends, significant others, domesticated pets and megaton nuclear families,
our privacy is eaten away at us like spam with a side of cookies, disguised as apps with no entrée to devour.

Instead, biometric fingers play the rhythmic keys of algorithms sequestering our unhealthy habits and isolated lifestyle from the rest of the real world.

Conversational swipes that smudge fingerprints from right to left on scratched screens to express which picture makes you want to sext dicks the most,
then conveniently hacked and on display as a C-list celebrity peepshow free to download for pubescent boys to continuously blow their load over.  

Some will even deepfake a new face of uncanny valleys onto the wrinkling skin of airbrushed lies,
the latest form of plastic surgery to propagate with or against the disinformation machine,
all of which will get my name prominently displayed atop every government watch list,

then unfriended by superficial friends
and unfollowed by lemmings just before the cliff.

In order to continue,
one simple click equals
a bound and gagged agreement,
an arrangement that forces
the user to read then reread
the slight variations to
terms and conditions
of the tiny fine print
hidden with invisible ink
between the lines,
forced to consent to
their blood contracts,
Issuing consensus to
corporate Satan to
torture you for
an eternity, or
until the next cruel agreement
when a download is required
from passing billboards of  
dangerously distracting QR codes,
the new and improved  
unbarred mark of the beast.  

From trolls demanding tolls for safe passage over the fiber optic bridges,
to masked bots masquerading as human beings whilst fishing for cats as they moan and piss into our drinking water from upstream,
it all seems to exist in a fantasy fairy tale indistinguishable from the extinguishment of reality.  

Even in the privacy of our own homes, as the old saying goes, we are never alone.  
Unwelcomed house guests disguised as girls named Alexa and Siri,
wear a spying wire unwarranted but governments, but the corporations in power,
pretending to be the global positions system’s guardian angel,
recording all of our priceless lives on permanent records
and selling access to our electronic existence and priceless debts to the highest bidder.

Drilling the mountainsides for zeroes and ones,
digging up bank accounts, social security numbers,
credit score cards, birthdates , mother’s maiden names,
emails, text messages and mapped out routes
where there are no canaries.  
Even single toothed prospectors in goldfields digging forty-niner miners take megabytes into counterfeit bitcoins
that were sifted by panning in the same digital streams,
until they create a crater called credit reports that strip mine us all,
and surveillance surveying what we’ll spend our life on buying next.

Until a simple butt dial from our back pockets exposes our secrets to not only the receiver, but any listener on
the same spectrum
on the other end…

However, even worse for the selfish is the selfies
facing the fate
of Damnatio Memoriae,

the deletion of a human being’s electric existence
by means of a search engine
and browser’s history.

This banishment from the grid
is in the coroner’s fraudulent report as social suicide,
but instead death was carried out by execution, quartering one’s texting digits in the cybernetic town square as the crowd’s six second creeper clips is cut down just as fast as it was pasted up.  

When you are persona non grata and your name is not even spoken of in dead languages,

and as your carbon-based footprints imbedded in the shore’s sand
are instantaneously washed away by eternal high tides,
no longer with a legacy to stand on.

United we progress toward a perfectly monitored society,
in the inherent anarchy of the year
Twenty-Twenty.

Interview of Leslie Klein

Driving through Paintings

Poems by Leslie Klein

Shanti Arts Publishing

June 2020

82 pages; softcover; $12.95

ISBN: 978-1-951651-34-3

Liza Gyllenhaal Bennett, past president and current executive board member, Academy of American Poets, noted: “Leslie Klein writes with the eye of an artist and voice of a poet.”

Smallwood: How has where you live influenced being a writer and artist?

I have been fortunate to live throughout the northeast—from Vermont, the Hudson Valley in NY, and here in the Berkshires. The natural world—its colors, shapes, sound, light, plants, animals inspire both my writing and art.  Each day is a visual feast. At night the owls serenade!

Smallwood: Please share with readers any formal, academic training you’ve had

Bachelors from State University of New York at New Paltz in Sociology/Education.

Smallwood: What types of writing have you had published? 

Most of my published writing has been op-ed, feature stories and some poetry for newspapers and magazines.  

Smallwood: What are some galleries and juried exhibitions you’ve taken part?

A sampling includes:

            510 Warren Street Gallery, Hudson, NY

          Lauren Clark Fine Art, “Small Works,” Great Barrington, MA

            Gallery 35, Great Barrington, MA, Guild of Berkshire Artists

            Boston 2000, Inc., Boston, MA; Created sculpture for “The Boston Freedom Award,”                      presented by Coretta Scott King and Boston Mayor, Thomas M. Menino, to Dr. Charles Jacobs,                                  Founder and President of The American Anti-Slavery Group

Smallwood: Please share your affirmation expressed in “Magic”:

If we open our eyes to really see all that surrounds us in the natural world, we would be in awe of its complexity and beauty.

Smallwood: Another lovely poem that caught my eye was “Library”. What was your first visit to one and how do you use them now?

Though the memory of my very first visit is vague, I always remember feeling like I was in a peaceful space with so much to see and touch. Just about every book I read is borrowed from the library.  Even now, with the virus, it is great to be able to order books and movies online, and pick them up at my local library. I do miss being able to go inside. I often use their computer and printer.  All librarians are wonderful, and have all the answers!!!!!  My love of the library, is also very much influenced by my travels. I am inspired when a library in a small town comes into view. They are so architecturally beautiful and solid—reminiscent of ancient structures holding sacred texts—truly, works of art.

Smallwood: You make many references to birds. Have you always been so aware of them and what do they mean to you?

I “discovered” birds when I was in my late 20’s, after seeing a flock of cedar waxwings land on a tree to share berries. They actually fed each other. They were so exotic looking, with black eyeliner and feathers like Chinese silk. That was the beginning. I am fortunate to live in a lovely, rural area, with a small brook.  I am surrounded by birds and their melodic songs.  Many are familiar and have personalities. They are truly beautiful, delicate creatures. Though, considering the perils of migration or just daily survival, they are so strong. Their ability to fly makes them seem so free and happy.

Smallwood: One of your poems says: “We are all artists”: when did you come to this conclusion and please explain:

That poem was the result of one of those long, into the evening, conversations with a friend. That’s why it is titled “Letter,” because I wrote it for him later, restating what was said about art and creativity. He was lamenting that he was not an “artist.”  I was trying to explain to him that even though he was not a painter, sculptor, writer, his life path was one that would leave its mark, and inspire others, just as a painting or a poem. 

Smallwood: Has there been subjects you wanted to work on as an artist that ended up as a form of writing or the other way around—or didn’t fit either?

Not that I can think of. I have, however, created numerous sculpted trees (including The Boston Freedom Award) which are perceived by each viewer with their own impressions. I think my poem “Trees” is more descriptive of the feelings that I have for them, than the actual sculpted pieces can convey.

Smallwood: Are you working on a new collection of poems?

Yes, I do have more poetry that I am compiling and changing and changing some more!!! ha!  I also have an idea for a book on libraries, and two children’s books that have taken a back seat of late.

Carol Smallwood, MLS, MA, Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, is a literary reader, judge, interviewer; her 13^th poetry collection is Thread, Form, and Other Enclosures (Main Street Rag, 2020)

Widespread Coronavirus Testing: Facing Challenges Outside the Lab

— Cristina Deptula

According to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracking site, clinicians have performed some 20 million coronavirus tests in the United States.

That number may seem impressive until we remember that the working-age population of the country is just over 200 million, and the elderly population, those most at risk of serious complications if they become ill, is 56 million.

Public health experts say far more diagnostic testing is crucial, not only to safely reopen society but for the epidemiological research needed to track and stop the spread of the disease worldwide. In fact, many experts are calling for testing levels at least twice what they are now.

Craig Rouskey is the founder of San Francisco startup Renegade Bio, which claims to have created a significantly cheaper, faster, and easier coronavirus test. Rouskey’s expertise is in molecular biology and the development of diagnostic tests within the laboratory. Yet, even as a lab scientist, familiar with the long road to developing tests and the accuracy issues with some early coronavirus diagnostic tools, Rouskey believes that the biggest obstacles to rolling out widespread testing are factors outside the laboratory.

These hurdles include creating and distributing enough testing supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for those who conduct tests, getting accurate information out about testing to different groups of people, training enough clinicians and making the testing centers fully accessible.

Randy Altschuler and Laurence Zuriff co-founded Xometry, a Gaithersburg, MD firm that sources parts for manufacturers. Although Xometry is not directly involved in logistics related to coronavirus testing, they, along with the rest of the world, have had to quickly adapt to broken supply chains during the pandemic.

Altschuler commented on ways we might efficiently source and distribute vast quantities of PPE and testing materials:

“Often, even when large organizations are desperate for supplies, like cotton swabs, it’s hard for them to change their behavior. They don’t, or can’t, adopt creative solutions or always accept donated or innovatively manufactured supplies because that doesn’t meet their needs, or their expectations.”

Altschuler acknowledged the many makers and startups 3-D printing healthcare supplies, but said that it was difficult to rapidly produce large quantities of items that way.

“As much as possible, it makes sense to use already existing infrastructure to produce, store, and ship what we need. Big retail and big restaurant chains are used to handling perishables [such as coronavirus test samples], so let’s shift our tried-and-true systems to facilitating coronavirus tests rather than inventing something new.”

He said we would probably need a government partnership with big retail chains. “Who knows how smoothly that will go, but that’s likely what will have to happen.”

Maria Chavez, president of Bio Curious, a laboratory and meeting space for citizen scientists and entrepreneurs in Santa Clara, CA, echoed the concern about shortages of cotton swabs and other physical supplies for testing.

“It might be up to two years before we get a vaccine,” she said. “So we’re going to need a lot of testing equipment.”

Other researchers and community leaders point to emerging social concerns with widespread testing.

San Francisco news outlets have reported on difficulties in the city’s low-income Tenderloin neighborhood, where testing appointments are required and many residents lack smartphones or computers to make those appointments. Community leaders have provided feedback to testing center administrators about ways to improve community access, such as allowing walk-in testing.

Testing centers will also need to consider the needs of people with disabilities. 

One product designed to promote accessibility is the clear mask. The idea came from hobbyist inventors concerned that existing masks would prevent deaf and hard of hearing people from lip reading. One of these hobbyists, Eastern Kentucky University senior Ashley Lawrence, profiled in Shape magazine in April, just reached her $3000 fundraising goal on Kickstarter and is now donating and shipping the clear masks out to deaf and hard of hearing people. 

Altschuler of Xometry also highlighted clear masks as an example of ideas and products from small startups, hackers and makers inspiring more mainstream outlets to expand or improve their offerings. Although, as he pointed out, we can’t replace large scale manufacturing with a few 3-D printers, small startups, hobbyists, and citizen scientists can play a crucial role in public health by prototyping ways larger firms can enhance their products.

Others have noted that privacy and other civil liberties issues present serious concerns if testing becomes mandatory in society at large or even just in the workplace. Certain populations may prefer not to attract the attention of authorities and many people may not want their social networks exposed through contact tracing.

Stanford University Ph.D. candidate in bioengineering, Rolando Perez, also a board member of Xinampa, a biotech lab and coworking space in the agricultural center of Salinas, CA, echoed many of those concerns.

“We’ve got undocumented farmworkers in Monterey Bay, essential workers, who don’t access regular healthcare because they’re afraid of being deported.”

Perez continued, offering a paradigm shift for testing informed by Xinampa’s philosophy of empowering local populations:

“You put the testing technology in people’s hands so they can test and sequence themselves and track the disease within their own communities. Put the tools in their hands so they don’t have to interface with institutions.”

Bryce Nesbitt of Counter Culture Labs, in Oakland, CA, said that people may also avoid getting tested where it’s voluntary. They may fear losing income or employment if they receive a positive result and need to self-quarantine for 14 days.

“We can work through that by setting up a safety net,” he said, “so that people have paid leave in the event of a positive test.”

Employers can also offer those workers the option, where possible, to continue to work from home.

Nesbitt also reminded us that with voluntary workplace testing, and no social or other pressure to get tested, there’s no guarantee that the workers who volunteer will be the ones most exposed to other people and likely to accidentally infect others.  

The perceptions that tests are not readily available, that only those who are symptomatic can get tested, that people will have to wait in line for hours to get a test, can also discourage people from seeking out testing. So once we can produce and distribute enough tests and equipment to make testing easily available to large segments of the population, we will need to communicate to the public, through various media in many languages, that even healthy people are strongly encouraged to come in for a quick test.

Of course, many public health experts view a ‘hand-held’ kit that people can use at home as the ‘gold standard’ for diagnostic testing. Six firms have recently received FDA clearance for emergency use of their at-home tests. Some observers point out, though, that accuracy may be compromised with a self-administered test. Also, samples still need to be sent to a lab for evaluation, so results are not immediate. And privacy and civil liberties concerns about confidentiality of personal data will still need to be addressed.

As Craig Rouskey of Renegade Bio reminds us, diagnostic testing won’t answer every question we have about the coronavirus – how long the epidemic will last, whether the virus will mutate, how best to treat illness.

Still, though, Rouskey says widespread, frequent testing is vitally important because of the nature of this epidemic.

“With Spanish flu, you tended to catch it and then get better or die relatively quickly. But with corona, you can be infected and spread the disease for a much longer time with absolutely no symptoms. So you’ve got to get tested, for others as much as for yourself.”

Welcome all to September 2020’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine. This month’s theme is Fragility and Mercy.

“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love.”
― John Steinbeck

“You see, my son,” continues Kolbe softly, “the saints are not so different than you or me. Their stories reveal them to be very much human. However, this frailty does not weaken their witness or holiness, but rather extends to us the invitation to the same life amid our own frailty.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, The Sinner Saint: A Novella of St. Patrick of Ireland

“I was reminded of a proverb: ‘When a clay Buddha statue sails across the river, it can hardly protect itself.”
― Qiu Xiaolong, Enigma of China

“You can never be a first class human being, until you have learnt to have some regard for human frailty.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Conscience over Nonsense

This month’s contributors express our hopes, aspirations, struggles, and yearnings, and where we go to find meaning and grace.

Doug Hawley writes of how the end of a person’s cancer journey impacts his family, while Kevin Hibshman discusses the lessons of pain and loneliness.

Michael Lee Johnson sends us vignettes of complex relationships, fragile beauty, and battlefield deaths. Tony Beyer writes, among other things, of caring for pets: our companion dogs and cats.

Hongri Yuan envisions a lovely, orderly golden city in our future while Allison Grayhurst draws on her Christian faith to reflect on compassion and mercy.

Art gallery owner, painter, poet and sculptor Sara Joseph speaks of how her faith journey, her creative work, and her maturing as a person all connect in her memoir Gently Awakened. Mary Bone writes of the simple beauty of birds, the sun, and the insects of summertime.

Mark Young combines images of hardness and softness, delicacy and strength while Steven Jarrell Williams reminds us, in a gentle way that however we wander or err as humans, nature outlasts and forgets us.

Michael Robinson honors contributor Joan Beebe’s husband and talks of love, legacy and mentorship. Joan sends in a lovely and poignant piece about her memories, reflecting over her long and love-filled life.

In her monthly Book Periscope column, Elizabeth Hughes reviews Andre Mego’s Reverend Duckworth: How Kendrick Lamar Lyrics Redefined Spirituality for Me, about how and where Kendrick, and Mego, find meaning and grace in life.

Norman J. Olson reviews art historian William Wallace’s latest work Michelangelo: God’s Architect, describing how Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, an opportunity he received later in life after he’d already begun designing his own coffin.

Ahmad Al-Khatat expresses some hope amidst the misery of trauma and discrimination. In his new novel Not Okay, Brett Axel writes of a vigilante murderer who evokes tenderness despite his brash words and behavior because of his history of abuse and because his goal is to protect children.

Moustafa Dandoush writes about the ups and downs of romantic love and friendship.

A. Iwasa relates vignettes of love and small crushes he developed while working with a moving company and Ian Copestick talks of heatwaves and minor illness in a time of pandemic. Tim Suermondt writes of romance and nostalgia, along with a poignant love letter to global cities struggling amid coronavirus.

Santiago Burdon presents a character addicted to drugs, focused on external disapproval rather than his own personal choices, while J.J. Campbell’s pieces deal with stuck-ness, feeling at a loss to change one’s life.

Chimezie Ihekuna shares a Mafia suspense tale where best laid plans for revenge go awry.

Mahbub looks to Greek mythology to express the constant tension between love and death, while Mike Zone and Daniel DeCulla use cats and donkeys as metaphors for our impulses to connect to, or become, something greater than ourselves.

J.D. Nelson and Damion Hamilton use wordplay and contemplative pieces to speculate on who we are, how we can live our lives. Ike Boateng is always ready for inspiration, be it musical or poetic.

Unpolished Journey by Morgan Blair

Unpolished Journey is a memoir of Morgan Blair’s journey through depression and an eating disorder. She tells her story through the use of pages of her personal journal. This gives the reader a true look into what the mental illness looks like and what it feels like to live it. This book will speak to anyone who is or has gone through this in a very real way. She lets others know that they are not alone and that it is okay to have these emotions and there is help. She lets the reader know that the road to a healthy life is hard work, however it can be done. This book touches on a very real topic and can help others are going through it or know someone who is.

Unpolished Journey isn’t available at this time but you can visit the author’s website here and learn of her other current projects.

Andre Mego’s Reverend Duckworth: How Kendrick Lamar Redefined Spirituality for Me

Andre Mego wrote this autobiography about his love of hip hop music. He describes how he incorporated his love of God into the Hip Hop genre. and how any music can be used to get the word of God to people. I agree with that. Music can be very personal to each person, if people are learning about God’s word through whatever kind of music they listen to and use that to better themselves and their lives then it does not matter what kind of music they listen to.

Reverend Duckworth can be ordered here from Indie Bound, support your local bookstore!

The Dictator’s Dream or The Son of god Trembles
By Mike Zone

He was dreaming of cats again. Looking for something pure. He wanted to be pure. He was pure…or they said. The black and white kitten was now a full-grown memorial balloon coming down on the citizenry of Seoul, spreading a noxious green gas turning them to what he loved best…cats, this would be his City of Cats, now that the Divine Empire had been rendered officially victorious.
K’s father would be proud, only it was not past tense but the here and now. A technicolor ghost of gray uniform and glowing golden Buddha skin and he was there presenting him the Gatekeeper of Eternal Paradise, Chamchi The Cat…get it? Translated into dumb Americanese for the dotard President Triumph, Tuna the Cat, get it, the cat is named after what it enjoys to eat when it is in fact not what the cat is?
Ha-ha. K was funny even as a child and his father rewarding him his dead reborn cat at the moment of triumph when Triumph and the rest of the world who opposed him was just cinders and ash.
He cuddled his illuminated and cosmically soft feline friend from childhood who long ago disappeared with a mangled leg never to return and wept tears upon the earth from the cloud in from which he hovered above the dry dead lands, tears of bliss and purity rejuvenated and fertilized what was lost and from bombed out husks of continents grew vast fields of rice patties and trees of water fruit bearing infinite arrays of fish from within.
The world would no longer go hungry again.
The Great Leader had won. The Son God had never trembled and bowed before his father ready to be anointed as God himself, sending his own father to a blissful rest in the grateful ever expansive wave of forever.
K awoke.
The Son of God awakened to another day.
Glory to The Leader.
Three looming attendants chanted.
Gold featureless masks and black cloaks.
“Morning is here. The Son of God does not tremble. Oh, save us from universal mourning, Oh Son of God. We surrender to your salvation.”
He was curled up in the womb position in order to be reborn each and every day and time he slept.
“Great Leader, we strive for you, yearn for you. Oh, Great Leader save us from darkness, lead our childish sinful hands to the light.”
K knew he was really rolled up like a ball and could have cared less. There were no cats in this sterile white room, nor clouds even though his bed felt like one.
“Dawn! Touched by the Great Leader! The Son of God, does not tremble!”
K tumbled out of bed. The attendants scampered around, prostrating themselves before him as if it were a grace and delicate birth.
He had his boots on. He was nude. The attendants pounded their fists on the floor, beat their chests and wept on how unworthy they were to be in Great Leader’s presence. He swayed back and forth groggy from his afternoon slumber which was needed for the first three hours of his day diplomatic duties depleted his being.
The door slid open and three white clad virgin brides entered. Virginal though they were, they were still impure seeking something pure much like he was, but was he pure to begin with and if he himself was pure without knowing it, wouldn’t that make everyone else just as pure, possibly divine? Best not to consider anything of the sort, there were no cats here, ergo how could he really know anything?
The needled plunged into a fat roll, his rotund finger recoiled, shuddered and all of a sudden K stood straightly erect like a rocket ready to launched overseas delivering thunderous flames of liberation and blessings. The dwarven virgin hair down like a common street girl, threw the apparatus down which was quickly picked up by a guard. The vial it was connected to contained a cocktail of vitamins needed to keep the Great Leader ever vigilant and healthy at the height of perceptive power.
K felt a comforting warmth engulf his blood vessels, an electrical current circulated through bone and sinew, blooding rushed like a typhoon to his private member, “Chamchi Junior” in honor of Tuna the Cat who he always held in the most intimate part of his soul, hidden from even All-Father God and Supreme-Leader, his father.
His mother knew but Mother May I no longer existed, nor did she ever as he was repeatedly told.
“K, you have no mother.” His maiden-wife proclaimed.
The cocktail of vitamins silenced these thoughts as his cock swelled toward the trio tale, disrobed, and setting on all fours before him. Mechanically the virgins spat and rubbed themselves wet to receive the poison he must spew from his system in order to cleanse the dirty realm with his cleansing seed. He chose the plump one to the left with the pigtails and thrust himself inside her.
            “I love you, oh Son God.” She cried in a forced moan, gyrating in a dramatically staged ecstasy.
The other virgins rolled around, reaching toward the sky.
 “Will the Great Leader ever one day choose to love us?”
K pumped vigorously away hoping to end this filthy exercise as soon as possible. The theatrics emotionally wounded him. These women didn’t love him nor would they ever just as he could never love them. They acting within the mechanics of which they were created for. How could he a man of flesh and blood descended from Heaven love a machine?
Once upon a time, when he was dreaming of cats…a herd came to him in a dream, they spoke without moving their lips, eye broadcasting ray of thought transforming into images in his brain, the secret language of cats.
He plunged all the way inside his virgin bride as she wept begging to be impregnated. The rest of virgins weeping at their missed chance to take part in divine conception.
K was not yet God only the son he quivered at what he started to remember but didn’t want to explode just yet inside this robotic girl for lack of pride and remembered the set of purple doors which opened to the golden hall his cat friends had shown him within his dream; a hallway of glass cases containing all manners of shapes, eyes, noises and mouths, a variety of skin toned doll parts to shape the record of a not yet living being, even the schematics for his wife were plastered across the ceiling along with the schematics of various dispatched concepts for  potential wives and consorts had been,  being or had yet to be.
He climaxed as he put the girl he was inside together from the various parts. There was much rejoicing as the Son of God did not tremble doing his duty with a mighty roar which really sounded like a pig’s squeal but this was the world K knew he lived in until he could find something pure and pretended to blindly accept it as a guard wiped him down, while groveling and simpering how as much as he risked his life he could never be as brave as the Great Leader.
They met eyes. The guard bowed. K stiffened his upper lip and solemnly nodded.
The door slide open and General Shipeo ran into the room and fell on the floor before K. He held his hands out, asking for mercy before the naked Son of God. K stood stupefied as his attendants dressed him in the same gray uniform as he wore day in and day out much like his father The God-King of Neo-Heaven.
“Great Leader, Son of God who does not tremble! The military has failed. The police have failed. The Red-Light District we thought extinguished burns bright with vice corrupting our people and attracting killers from far off lands. We know your burden is great God-Prince of Forthcoming Golden Eternity, a killer terrorizes our unlawful whores and frightens our people…Johnny American, sent by the dotard President Triumph to strike fear into our people, sullies their innocence, I beseech you for our salvation and forgive our failure.”
This was it. This was the purity the cats alluded to in his dreams. The search was over. The quest could begin. K would be pure. The people would be pure. The land would be pure. All he needed was his special uniform to hunt Johnny American for one had to blend in looking like an “American Johnny” to stalk and slay one Johnny American.
He would hunt just like the killer masquerading as an illegal American Tourist would look, needing to slake his thirst in the dim world of the flesh trade. One attendant cut him out of his uniform with oversized scissors, while the other two put him in tapered khakis and a red Hawaiian shirt with gold flowers and fish, crowning him with a white fisherman’s hat but saving the best for last, he would know Johnny American’s every move for the great General Shipeo bequeathed upon him eight-ball sunglasses so he could see the plethora of the villain’s possible moves before any could be enacted.
All fell to their knees before K, praising him as the Son of God who did not tremble and Great Leader who could never falter.
K was all that stood before the Bright Land and the onslaught of American terrorism. He thought about this and the ever allusive purity, dreams, and cats, most especially Chamchi as the chopper landed and he was all but pushed out into the dark alley in his ridiculous outfit, his most loyal men, sacred friends and honorable followers laughing and waving in which nothing felt right. He clutched the M-16 they had given him which felt much lighter than it should have as he had shot them off before and the texture felt so…rubbery but “It is a new type of gun, Great Leader meant to look like a toy to distract and inflict more harm with false perception.” He was assured.
Crimson light flooded the darkness…indeed this was what a red-light district must be like K assumed. He looked around, taking a hesitant step forward gripping his so tight, the perspiration caused his hands to slide off the rubber textured weapon. Good thing, the gun was still slung about his neck with a strap otherwise hope would be gone for President Triumph would stand triumphant with the gates of paradise closed for all eternity.
He wondered where Johnny American could be hiding and shook his head vigorously, the rattling of potential answers slushed around until there was a hiss and a wild growl. The glasses hits the ground as a soft cuddly wind hit K’s face. The lens were broken leaking what looked like liquid onto the trash littered illuminated blood colored sidewalk.
The gray scraggly furred cat with wide insane eyes looked up at him telepathically projecting images turning into words he could read in his mind and hear upon this tangible realm of existence.
“K son of god you are not but more…soon to learn right meow.” The cat scurried away into a dark corner which could have been a black hole, but black holes only existed in outer space didn’t they and weren’t those just western capitalistic fictions to prevent the Age of Gold from being ushered in?
A bloated calico rose from a garbage can, a lid on his head.
            “Fire and fury beckons your land, your people and yourself K. Throw your gun away. Save yourself. You are messiah of the pure, your true father awaits.”
            “My true father? Who are you? How do you know all of this, living in garbage?”
            “I am Booster and it is called a garbage can not a garbage cannot.” Booster sunk back down into the filthy container.
            “It’s okay, K you won’t face him alone. I am here.”
K looked down upon a cylinder-shaped white cat with one eye. He looked young but was scarred with alley cat battles. There was a bald patch on the left side of his body, a jagged scar like a lightning bolt ran along the length of it.  The cat noticed K gazing at it.
            “A human thought it would be fun to lure me with tuna when I was but an innocent kitten yet seeded with feral savagery. He ran piece of broken american cola bottle across me, I tore his throat out with fangs and teeth. He died and I bled dying next to him and in my dying days as we were left unattended to by the rest of our kind I saw what was to transpire for the great good and lived to make my life sacred which was to be here with you now.”
            “What is your name, brave one?”
            “I am nameless, like every great sacrifice never to be known, hidden from the world and knowing eyes.”
            “May, I call you Brave One?”
            “You may call me whatever you may wish, I stand ready to do battle with you. The world of forever dreams and prosperity lies before us and to endure we must be pure.”
            “I see.”
            “You do not but to be blind is to really see…when the sky ignites, look to darkness.”
K did not understood, nor would he fully understand. The Son of God trembled and pissed himself as a hulking form came from the other end of the alley way. Brave One moved aside to avoid the wetness secreted from K and stood ready to pounce with a low growl. 
Like an American horror movie, the massive steroid infused figure came barreling toward them. Johnny American, shirtless with eight-pack abs and muscles looking like they were about to tear open his skin, American flag painted across his face with a blond crew cut and camouflage pants, he had no weapons but a machete. A silver tank embedded in his chest with various tubes pumping a queer vile chemical concoction which seemed to make him a flesh-machine of rage and manic muscle, getting larger and angrier as he charged forward.
            “This is so unfair! I’m just a political science major! Call the President!  Send in Space-force!” Johnny screamed aimlessly swinging the machete.  
K raised his gun and pulled the trigger…. nothing happened. Nameless as he was truly known, rolled his feline eyes and leapt at Johnny American who instantly grabbed him and began to squeeze.
            “Brave One!”
Nameless formerly known as Brave One turned to K as his body was crushed, his sight-orbs popping out from his skull.
            “A spear to the side, a loss of an eye for true insight. My life is no loss but sacred K. Look away dear hearted friend to the sky and see fire and fury toward a better tomorrow.”
K did as he was told. The lights went out. Sirens went off, blocking whatever death rattle emanated from Brave One from invading K’s living audio receptors. Cats did not lie. He knew this to be true. Most especially when in dreams. There was a whistle and the sky was literally aflame. Swirling and coming down toward the ground, melting structures in an eerie silence, like a fictional depiction the world as it was meant to be on the soundstage of reality which didn’t seem all that stable to K despite what he had been told over the years.
“The bastards did it! They really did! Without rescuing us! We show them giants walked the Earth and no one cared!”
K watched as Johnny American wept and plunged the machete into his stomach toppling over the corpse of Brave One as he would eternally be known instead of Nameless as he would have preferred but K would decree otherwise.
            No one should be nameless…He purposefully thought for the first time.
The calico garbage can cat knocked the can over spilling contents of dirty diapers and remnants of pasted canned meals over as he rushed past K.
            “No time to gawk K, into darkness we must go.”
The ground snapped, crackled, and popped beneath K’s feet as the fire got closer. He followed the cat into a black oval located in the corner as flames engulfed everything above, below and beyond what could be void of everlasting non-existence.
K was where he belonged. He sat on a golden throne in a round room of violet and gold.
 A stack of pies; cream pies with fish parts stuck out of them, tails, fins, eyes, and complete open faces.
Towers of pies accompanied by marble columns and millions of cats sat before him.
            “Welcome home son.”
K looked up to see Chamchi, like the miniature tiger he was so unlike a tuna, curled on his own golden throne, levitating before him with a sly grin and a pie sitting next to his tail.
This is pure. K thought purposefully for the second time in his existence.
            “Yes, it is.” Chamchi replied aloud. “Let the purrification begin right…Meeoow!”
He flicked his tail, the pie flew from his seat and smacked K right in the face…tuna and cream, how divine. Cats and human threw pies and chased each other every which way in a slip sliding cacophony of bizarre laughter…
K woke up.
He was dreaming of cats again.
Searching for something pure.
He had his boots on.
Naked with dried semen on his stomach. His wife’s robotic parts strewn all over canopy bed. Circuitry and wire protruded from her cheeks and forehead. Chamchi walked up to him and stretched with an epic yawn.
            “Sometimes you have to hurt the one you love, K.”
K awoke…
He dreamed of cats…again…
Nude except for boots…  
He wanted to be pure.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Final Frontier

Sally got home from her nature guide conference after being gone for a week.  She was surprised to see an envelope with her name on it in Duke’s handwriting propped up on the phone.  He used to send her little love notes, but with his recent problems, he had dropped the habit.  Could he finally have some good news?

“Sally, there is no way to make this easy.  I’ll be dead when you get this.”

After the first line, Sally sat down and started to cry.  It was five minutes before she could resume reading while still sniffling.

“I didn’t tell you how painful and humiliating the first dialysis was.  You may think that I had some hope of getting a kidney transplant.  I was able to keep other health problems from you that ensured that I wouldn’t be around long.  I also have liver cancer.  No idea why I bothered with dialysis, I won’t be around long, so why keep hurting when the end is near?”

“You were too good to tell me ‘I told you so’, but I certainly deserved it.  Every time you tried to keep me from smoking, drinking and overeating, I fought you.  The hacking and coughing, the blood in the urine, there was nothing that I wouldn’t ignore.  It is all on me.”

“Besides trying to protect me from myself, you were so good to me in so many ways.  When the DMV wanted to pull my driver’s license, you went to bat for me to keep my license.  When I wanted to invest half of our money in my crazy brother-in-law’s get rich scheme, you talked me out of it.   You saved me from having the crap beat out of me by the neighbor that hated the loud music I played in the backyard.  Eddie forgave a lot for your scrumptious apple pie.”

“If you knew how dire my situation was, you probably would have wanted a few more weeks together, but you know what a whining baby I am.  I would have been miserable, and I would have made your life miserable.  That is why I’ve been on my best behavior the last few weeks.  No whining about your hair or the time you spend on the phone.  Finally, I’m acting as I should have all the time that we have been married, so I hope that I get a few points.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with the grim details.  I will take a bus out to the Gorge and get off somewhere, and then climb up, avoiding trails as much as possible.  Do you remember I wondered if there was any place in Oregon no one had ever set foot?  I hope to find such a place where I’ll never be found.  I was able to get enough fentanyl to kill me.  Remember how much better I felt at emergency when I got it in the IV?  I hope that and the brandy I’m taking will get me a feel-good passage to oblivion.”

“I loved you since we met.  You deserved better than me.”

Appears in Soft Cartel