3 

World Peace starts here. Four computers on tables next to a kitchen no one uses. No one here eats food. Just smoke cigarettes on the balcony.  

One guy is lying shirtless on the floor. Another is taking an internet IQ test and bragging about his score. The third comes in late. He was run over by a street sweeper on his way here. He has gravel in his hair.  

World peace won’t be easy. Sometimes the crying girl, whose name is Laura, and who is now your boss, is in the bedroom with the door closed. If you open it, you’ll find her face down on a pile of spiral ring notebooks that she draws the layout of stages in. Detailing where she’d like the band to stand. Flanked by enormous speakers. The shape of massive audiences cheering and holding signs. Always making sure to mark the spot where she imagines herself watching from backstage. 

*Laura

 If you come into this room when she isn’t here, you will find she has drawn dozens of these. At least one for every continent, even Antarctica. Even Atlantis, scribbling at the bottom “symposium of psychics must reach consensus on location...oil rigger???”. Once again she has drawn herself just off stage, but now surrounded by waves. In danger of falling into the ocean if she gets too excited by the idea of The Cure performing on a pile of sea rubbish. Singing Just Like Heaven to a Kraken.  

Sometimes her boyfriend with the teeth comes in. Stands slightly hunched over by the door, silently watching us eradicate war. His teeth seem to have gotten worse. She has kicked him out of the house and he’s been sleeping in bushes. He smells like crack. Follows her to work every morning and has a key to get in here. Suspects the shirtless guy on the floor is her new boyfriend but doesn’t say anything. Just looks worried. 

All day long you sit at your computer and Google one band after another. So many bands in this terrible, murderous world. You don't really think too much about everlasting peace. About how these concerts are supposed to help anything. Baby steps. Just keep looking up more bands. More bands. More bands. Bands no one has heard of, even you. Look for their contact information and put it in a spreadsheet. Take a guess at how much you’ll need to pay them to perform and sign a contract. Something to show the guy who is paying you and get him off your back. Stop him from saying you aren’t doing anything.

“Are you talking to anyone? U2? Coldplay? What about No Doubt? You gotta get me Gwen, or why even bother with any of this?” 

One day you feel brave and offer $25,000 to Oscar nominated singer Willy DeVille. You forget the name of the song he’s most famous for. His wife immediately calls you back and you have no idea what to say when she wants details. 

“So what’s this all about?” 

“It’s for world peace” 

“World peace, how?” 

“Um” 

She asks when she can get the money. You say you don’t know. She says she’ll talk to Willy, who you can hear mumbling in the background, but you never hear from her again. 

Every day you come in and do the same thing. Rarely talk. Only smoke on the balcony when no one else is out there. Get a better score on an internet IQ test, but don’t tell anyone. You can’t be sure it was the same one the guy at the other side of the room did. Maybe his was harder. 

But clearly not as hard as World Peace.  Even with at least two geniuses sitting around in this apartment we haven’t done anything. People are still dying everywhere. A guy without a shirt still laying on the floor at my feet. A crackhead with terrible teeth eyeing him with suspicion from a doorway.

I go out for another lonely cigarette.

5 

Clearly you can’t see his vision. But you’re not sure anyone else can either. 

He tells everyone to close their eyes and imagine it, but you all just keep staring at him. His hair is standing on end more and more every week. The sparkle in his shoes is dimming. Only his eyes are closed. 

He thinks our eyes are closed too and tells us to imagine ourselves in a dark space. Everything is completely black until, at the stroke of midnight, a spotlight is switched on and swoops upward. For a moment you can’t see anything in the glare, but as your eyes slowly adjust to the sudden brightness, you realize you’re in Israel. You’re standing at the base of the Wailing Wall. And looking up you see a man, precariously perched at its top, beginning to sing. His beautiful voice rising into the air.  

Pavarotti.

His beard. His big belly. No danger at all of him suddenly losing his balance and plummeting to his death. Your boss says there will be nets and a safety harness. He doesn’t want us worrying about any danger. He just wants us to see what he sees. The beauty of this thing we are going to make happen. 

Because he doesn’t know opera very well, he says he doesn’t know what Pavarotti might be singing. Tells us to just imagine something famous. Some old song everyone probably knows. Imagine the greatest voice the world has ever known ushering in the minute of world peace we are creating here. 

Even Pavarotti believes in our mission. 

But you don’t think anyone sees it. You don’t think any of you are even looking. 

All you can see is him singing until his enormous body hits the ground. Kicking up sand. The harness was faulty.  

As for the others, who knows what they are thinking. 

Gord is clearly shellshocked from yet another errant street sweeper. 

Mo is busy looking for an easier IQ test as he has begun to suspect you may have done better than him. 

John’s eyes are at least closed. But he might just be asleep, down there on the floor. 

As for Laura, who knows if she is even still behind that closed door. The last you saw of her she was throwing a tantrum and storming from the office. Maybe she has come back since then, but its impossible to be sure. No one has gone into that room for days. 

Also in the room with you is the wife of the man who is paying for all of this. She always shows up on pay day to watch him write checks. With the meanest eyes you’ve ever seen.  

And, just like everyone else, her eyes are definitely not closed. 

A BRIGHT FUTURE 

1 

I remember when they’d ask what I wanted to be when I grew up. They all did it. Every one of them. Always standing there tall and looking down at me. And me looking up their nostrils trying to think, wondering if what they were right now was what they wanted to be when they were my age. Realized you could choose badly. 

They would make a face like they expected an answer to come quick. As if it had been something I’d just been thinking about. And because I was never thinking about it, I could only tell them fireman. Always fireman. A dangerous sounding word I liked the sound of. That they might discourage me from ever becoming. Frightened I’d burn up. That the flames might eat me if I wasn’t any good at it.  

I thought maybe they might want to keep me safe and tell me to just stay the same age for the time being. Maybe never ask me this question ever again. But instead they would say almost nothing when I told them. Just said ‘awwwwwww’. Patted me on the head. Made fire engine noises. 

Turns out I had given a good answer. Not like my friend who wanted to be a loaf of bread. I saw what they did to him when it was his turn to answer the question. Took him into another room for a long time. Long enough that by the time they let him out he was different. Now claiming he wanted to be a businessman. That’s all he ever wanted. No more of this loaf of bread nonsense. Cut pictures of briefcases and men’s ties out of magazines. Taped them to his wall. 

“You can’t make a sandwich out of a businessman”, he once whispered in my ear, sounding terrified he might one day be mistakenly eaten. 

Is the first picture supposed to be hot dogs in jean cutoffs?

3 (actually, this should be 2)

Sometimes I’d think barber. Consider it as I listened to the sound of hair getting cut. Getting my head gently pushed side to side.

“Maybe that's what I should be”, I’d tell myself, even though I knew they were villains. Always taking off more than you asked for. Tying that thing around your neck that itches. Hair clippings getting down your shirt anyway. Always having to tell them it was fine, even when it wasn't.

Other times I’d think garbage man. A great ride dangling behind that big stinking truck. In the summer it would be nice. Everyone waves at a garbage man. 

But in the heat, the stink gets even bigger. Fills the morning air. And there you’d be, hanging from the lips of the stench. Nowhere to go as neighbours run outside in their underwear, their arms full of trash. Bags for you, full of hot bugs and maggots. 

I would not be a barber.  

I could not be a garbageman.  

There was nothing good to be. Only villains and failures. 

I kept having ideas but was unsure what to do. Starting to have nightmares. Strange dreams with firemen in them. Gangs of firefighters and gangs of police officers, fighting in the street. But all the cops standing on eachothers shoulders, making themselves giants. Not fighting fair. Too tall for the firemen to stand a chance. Getting their red helmets kicked off their heads. Dropping like flies. Buildings burning all around us as I died among them. 

I had to stop saying that’s what I was going to be.  

I had to stop pretending I wanted to be a firefighter. 

It wasn’t an answer and the lie was catching up with me. 

Spaghetti Joe Rogan

crumbsroom wrote:

Rock wrote:

Is the first picture supposed to be hot dogs in jean cutoffs?

I have no idea, but somehow "Dry Cleaning in the pockets of my Dry Cleaning" evokes nothing but Cronenbergian fashion nightmares.

If you tease an AI with something it can't logically comprehend, it quickly gives you a glimpse of its diseased mind.

The middle one looks like it could use a nice smooch. 💋

BAD DOG CHOCOLATE 

My dog disagrees. Keeps looking at what I’ve got melting in my hands. Thinks it mighty convenient he’s never heard about this chocolate problem before now. How could one taste possibly kill him? Tilts his head every time I tell him no. 

He says it’s probably killing me too but just look at me go. My face covered in chocolate. An absolute disgrace. Then he makes weird noises as I take the last bite. Won’t stop moaning, as if something terrible has happened. 

I know he won’t believe me, but I tell him anyways. Tell him the story of Maxi and the chocolate M&M’s. Now he suddenly wants to leave the room, but I won’t let him. He has to hear this. These are the hard truths and this is why I ate all the chocolate.  

Not because I’m greedy. 

“Once upon a time”, I begin, quietly, seriously, “My mother had this stupid dog who ate everything” 

Then I tell him exactly what happened to Maxi. I don’t spare him the details. For a second I think he’s listening. Until starts looking around for more chocolate. Because he’s stupid too. Because he wants to learn the hard way.

But I keep telling him this story anyways.  

Because I need to tell someone.  

Even if the dog isn't listening.

Tell him what I know to be true. 

That dogs should never eat chocolate. 

That dying dogs cannot see the future.  

And that my mother should never own another one ever again. 

GLOOP 

Have you ever thought about what’s inside a person? Do you ever shut your eyes and look around and almost see something?  

You probably think it’s too dark, but there are lights if you stay long enough. Something starts getting turned on. A weird glow that makes it a bit brighter. Enough to know there’s something, even if it’s still hard to see. Always having to feel around the corners. Trusting you won’t get lost while you're in here, looking around, almost seeing something. Not sure what it is you’ve found. Just something. 

My grandmother thinks she has answers even though she’s always looking elsewhere. Always got her eyes open. Watches surgery on TV and so keeps seeing all the wrong stuff coming out. Only what the doctors can grab with their hands and flip over with spatulas. Things I turn away from. That they spray with water and massage back to life with their fingers. 

If I ask my question, she will just point me back to that mess. Whatever got itself stuck in that rib cage. Waiting to see what falls out when they break it open. Yanked on it like the rotten hull of a sunken ship. 

“What else does there need to be” She licks ice cream off her spoon. “Isn't that miraculous enough?” 

I watch this alien stuff coming out for miles. Has nothing to do with me, even if she says I’m filled with it too. Her as well. I guess the same place her ice cream is now going. A gallon of rum and raisin sitting in this terrifying place. Melting. Mixing with what’s already in there. 

But she’s shaking her head again. Says she hasn’t eaten any ice cream at all. Calls me a liar. Throws down her spoon. The sound of it clanging in an empty bowl 

Always denying there could possibly be anything else in her.  

Nothing but all that horrible stuff.