I know I’ve been a very bad boy, off doing my own thing and (mostly) ignoring WordPress. It’s been a full two weeks since I’ve posted anything here, and I’m mildly blue about such. That being the case, I thought I’d best share something extra fun (at least in my own mind) to make amends. Ergo and forthwith, here’s the first “chapter” of the short-story collection that is supposed to be my next book. (I’ve been working on it since 1927, so who knows.) I hope you find it fetching, or at least moderately entertaining. Enjoy!

Reflections in a Golden Womb

I am not happy. And this is why.

The whole ordeal has been a wretched mess, from the startling start to the demoralizing denouement, but we really don’t have time for all the details. I’m busy, you’re busy, we both have a shocking and questionable cornucopia of options piled up in the queues of our streaming services. So, I’ll limit myself to the most salient points in my journey from happy to not happy. There are three such stations.

One, I am a former member of the Tribe of Ova. Until I was brutally forced to add that “former” bit, I was quite pleased with life, mainly because it was the only existence I had ever known. We lived in the Land of Ova Scotia, a delightful region located just to the south of Buttonous Bellious. (Please refer to the cartological works of Anatomious the Elder if you are unfamiliar with this geographical guidepost.) I shan’t bore you with the particulars, but suffice it to say that everyone was cordial, nobody took more than their fair share of the cordial, and “Cordialty Forever” was emblazoned on our knickers to remind us of this time-tested directive, lest we have wicked thoughts otherwise.

But then That Thing happened.

Due to a pending court trial in which I am doing my litigious best to reverse the outcome of That Thing, I am not allowed to be intimate with the particulars. My lawyer, in another one of his questionable decisions that has made me ponder the worthiness of his fees, has advised that we should rely on a non-biased outsider to provide a non-judgmental analysis of The Things That Transpired on That Day. In that suspect spirit, he has anointed Judy the Obscure as the non-partisan provider of palaver.

Personally, I think Judy is not so obscure, as it’s obvious, to me, that her main objective in life is to be the main objective. After all, she hails from the Land of Trustfundia, where nobody really has to worry about anything other than remaining in the good graces of older people with even more money than the younger people already have. Nevertheless, in the interests of fair disclosure, I am compelled to share Judy’s judication of what happened when it all went to hell. Herewith, her words on the matter:

[Editor’s Note: The proper use of quotational symbols has been dispensed with in this excerpt of Judy’s report, as doing so is rather tedious and no one really cares, aside from vindictive English professors who have far too much time on their hands and clearly need to get out of their ivory towers more often. Just assume that Judy is speaking, until I note otherwise, and carry on with your life.]

Once upon a time, in a place that you might not expect, things were happening that did not make sense. Nonsensical developments are not new on this third rock, as humans are involved in the mix, and history will show that perhaps humans should not have been given the corruptible power granted them by Someone or Something who should have paid more attention during the Granting Ceremony. In any case, poor decisions were made, and the fallout will continue into infinity on this irksome planet until everything explodes in a startling rebuttal of manifest destiny.

But before that second Big Bang happens, we should at least try to understand our mistakes in the hopes of extending our warranty on this sphere. (After all, our alternative exit plans are quite limited, as mankind has never managed to make it past the moon, and no one with any degree of sensibility would wish to live there.)

In that spirit, I was asked by an international tribunal (one of those murky organizations that only exists in order to ask other people to do other things) to travel to Ova Scotia and research the causality of a certain event. Something or other to do with the butterfly effect or the space-time continuum, I’m not really sure. (It’s fair to say that I’m not a good listener, choosing instead to impatiently await the moment when I can hear my own voice speaking.) As I wasn’t dating anyone at the time of the tribunal request, I agreed to go, especially since some harried person on the conference call kept hollering out the number “42”. This reminded me of an address in Chelsea where I used to purchase recreational drugs, and it comforted me in some way. I was on an airplane the next morning, and I was even thoughtful enough to wear panties, a donning that I normally disavow.

I landed, I researched, I interviewed, I took photos, I did not appreciate the quality of the local sushi or the accommodations, and I flew home two hours later. Some things are obvious the moment you cast your eyes in their direction and I had seen enough. Once back at my flat, I organized my meager notes, I came up with a half-ass outline, I typed, I rarely edited, and I may or may not have discovered the perfect spot to lean on the vibrating clothes dryer to make one surprisingly tingly in their personal zone. (I mention that last bit for all the non-dating and lonely people, Eleanor. Take it where you can get it.)

Two hours and three drying cycles later, I finished my report. Herewith, my findings:

It seems that at one time there used to be these happy little things called Eggs. On the basis of some cyclical timelines that I didn’t care to grasp, these beautiful but fragile creatures would be allowed to run about and frolic in the “World of the Cave”. Occasionally, these delightful beings would have to run for their lives, chased by little swimmy things that were rude and pushy. But they spent most of their time singing songs and picking daisies, with pauses here and there as someone in their midst recited poetry penned by some long-dead scribe known as “Agnes de la Omeletta”. (I didn’t bother to pursue the provenance of said artista, because it was a stupid name and I was already beyond bored.)

After several hours of carefree play and sporadic recitations, the little eggs would be gathered up and taken to the River of Departure. (The youngest of the eggs never got to see the fabled location. They were snugly tucked away in one of two nurseries built specifically for this purpose.) At the River of Departure, the older eggs would hold hands, sing a perky song of travel and presumably wholesome adventure, and then leap as a group into the thick darkness of the river.

They would flow away, happily chatting about the exciting things to come. At the far end of the river they would board a tremendous white barge, widely known for its softness and rectangular comfort. The ship would always remain in port for several hours, then it was whisked away to another land. This new location was a beautiful place of round whiteness, porcelain in nature, but it was only a temporary stop on the Voyage of Life. Another gentle river would soon carry you away once again, in a lovely circular motion, followed by an odd little gurgle as it thrust your exuberant body into the Tunnel of Foreign Intrigue.

Details became sketchy at this point. Very little was known, although there was rich speculation, about what took place in or at the end of said foreign tunnel. Some spoke of pleasures beyond anything comprehensible, complete nirvana with delightful music to go along with it. This was the favorite scenario of the Cave-World clan, although it did seem just a wee bit too good to be true.

The more acceptable version ran something along the lines of this: The end of that second tunnel wasn’t the most splendid destination known to egg-kind, but nothing ever was, so you might as well rip that overly hopeful page out of your diary and get on with it. (Besides, commented the wisest of the Eggs, total happiness was not a good thing. Such bliss would lead to moral decay and the inevitable rise in substance abuse among the more affluent breeding components. It was much more desirable and stimulating to have a dash of sadness or insecurity thrown in to stimulate the mind and thereby activate baser survival instincts.)

Whatever your mindset, this not-so-perfect new land was still a rather jolly spot to find oneself in. Everything you needed was located within swimming distance, and if it happened to be further than that, you really didn’t need it anyway. In-laws were not allowed to live near their married offspring, no taxes were collected since everyone was so happy in general that government programs of any kind were not needed, and every single dwelling came equipped with the latest in cable television. Quite a good show, really.

But back in the fluid realms of the Cave World, there was a small contingent of radical Eggs who refused to believe this vision of nominal paradise in a place that was not here. (Members of this militant sorority could be identified by the presence of an odd extra chromosome in their genetic structure, should anyone bother to check, which no one ever did because healthcare is so expensive these days.) They would conduct very loud political rallies in opposition to this river business, saying there was no such thing as good picture reception at the end. It was all an incredible hoax orchestrated by the government in an effort to keep the population under control. (Hadn’t anyone ever seen the underground indie hit, “River of Illusion”, for womb’s sake?) We simply had to stop this bloodshed once and for all.

Needless to say, their pleading cries fell on relatively deaf ears, as most of the denialists were more interested in wondering when the next boat would steam into port. It was generally accepted that these rude radicals had been kept for too long in the nurseries before being sent out on the preliminary stage of their journey, the Fallopian Curve, the bunny slope of fertility. Besides, despite all the songs of joy and delight and daisy-picking, this place was pretty damn wet. It would be nice to live in a place with less humidity. And if the Other Side was less than expected, you’d think somebody would have sent a telegram by now.

Surprisingly, though, the foreboding harbingers of the militants came true one day and the bloodshed ceased. No one is sure how, for this is a dark and mostly missing section of the Cave World Folklore. There was apparently some type of invasion, a horrid event that abruptly changed the lives of all involved. An entire docket of singing ova was wiped out as they danced on the shores of the River of Departure, barely noticing the vengeful intruder until it was far too late. This creature, beastly in nature, was tremendously huge, far larger than anything in the collective ova memory. The hulking mass battered repeatedly at the walls of the temple. Pictures of courageous explorers and exemplary founding-mother ova crashed to the floor, and centuries of ovation religious artifacts were destroyed within seconds.

Still the carnage continued, as the vicious infidel plunged ever onward. Inner sanctums were penetrated, and thousands more perished in the onslaught. A graduating class of young ova buds, thrilled with having successfully navigated the first leg of the mythical journey, emerged from the tranquility of the Left Fallopian Curve, only to face a fear they had never dared imagine.

The beast had somehow burrowed even to these sacred depths, though it appeared to have hit some sort of snag at this point. It could not reach any further, although it diligently backed off and tried again for many minutes. Frustrated, it then released a powerful contingent of dedicated kamikaze fighters who poured out of the forward portal of the relentless beast.

These swarming soldiers, though tiny in stature compared to the frightened Eggs, had tremendous amounts of energy, and they focused their attentions on the innocent travelers milling about the exit of that Left Fallopian Curve. Realizing the imminent danger, the horrified Eggs turned and fled in mortal terror up the once peaceful venue.

The hateful mini invaders did not hesitate and quickly swam after them, further desecrating the worshipped pathway. The screaming but athletic Eggs thundered up the tube, hoping to reach the sanctity of the cherished nursery. They were almost completely successful, individually slipping into the fortified chamber, except for one lone Egg who suddenly turned to meet the rushing streams. (She had always been a slightly disturbed youngster, continually listening to the bitter music of Tori Eggmos on her headphones, so it was not all that unusual that she broke protocol, but sad just the same.)

Then the door to the nursery was slammed and solidly locked. As darkness descended on the desolate and desecrated thoroughfare, that lone angsty Egg made the sacrilegious decision to parlay with one of the enemies. Said conversation was discreetly recorded by another Egg, Lola Frittata, who was cowering on the secure side of the sealed portal. (Truth be told, Lola wasn’t really all that concerned with recording this shocking development for posterity. Instead, her focus was invested in finally having something of interest for her doctorate degree at Universidad de Huevos. Never trust anyone named Lola, as they are mainly showgirls. Still, record she did.)

Angsty Eggy: “Hey, stud. Whatcha doin’ up in this neck of the curve?”

Horny Spermy: “Just hangin’. ‘Sup with you?”

Angsty: “I’m bored and I’m ready to blow this joint. You got anything to light this cigarette?”

Spermy: “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Lotta fish up in this here sea.”

Angsty: “Don’t play games with me. I got what you want, you got what I need. Are we gonna dance or not?”

Spermy: “Gotta say, you look smokin’ with that Goth eyeliner and the Madonna rubber bracelets. You wanna go do it next to the trash dumpster behind the bowling alley?”

Angsty: “I thought you’d never ask. Lead the way.”

And ever since that day of questionable but apparently mutual violation, all those months ago, nary a young Egg has appeared to make the Journey of Life. The River of Discovery has completely dried up, although there are still regular appearances, off in the distance, of that irritating rush of a lighter, acrid fluid. No longer can one hear songs of happiness and triumph reverbing throughout the World of the Cave. The nurseries have closed, the boat never comes, and nothing is left, save for the memory of an echo of a dream, when the land was filled with fertility and grace.

Thusly ends the transcript of Judy the Obscure. She can no longer be reached for further commentary, as no one has heard from her since she decided to scale Mount Everest in the company of a pleasingly muscular Sherpa named Fred. Perhaps they grew enamored of each other and exchanged vows on a frigid summit. Perhaps they subsumed to low-oxygen mania and stabbed each other over a disagreement concerning pork rinds. We may never know. The critical factor here is that Judy is no longer relevant to our story, and we must move on.

Back to me.

In case it’s not clear with this travelogue, I’m the goth-eyed tramp who made a poor decision at a really inappropriate moment. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. I was raised in Oklahoma, where no one prepares you for anything. It was inevitable that I would be looking for love in all the wrong places. I would quickly learn that love is a battlefield and sometimes you get hit by gestating shrapnel.

The second station of the crossed (Did you remember that we were counting them? No?) occurred a few months later. I was already regretting my decisions, now that I was being forced to divide and multiply on a continual basis, transitioning from an innocent Egg into something else entirely. I was thoroughly unimpressed, as I could no longer fit into any of my cutely clever outfits, and I was forced to don cheap-ass couture from a wretched discount chain in the bad part of town because my girth kept increasingly girthing.

Anyway, I was innocently eating a bucket of ice cream and watching Lifetime reruns when my burgeoning ass overheard a conversation above my domicile. It went something like this…

“Honey, I really don’t think you should.”

“Baby doll, the doctor said it would be okay for a while, as long as we’re careful.”

“I don’t know, sugar plum. You get pretty wild sometimes. Like when we used the whipped cream and bananas.”

“No fruit, I promise.”

“…and that time with the clown mask and the trampoline when we both got concussions…”

“…no masks, baby, no masks…”

“…and of course the time when you made me bark, and then you started barking, and somebody called the pound, and we found dog biscuits in the mailbox for a week…”

“No animals, and no noises. I promise. And I’ll only put it in a little bit. Just a teeny little bit. And if it starts to hurt or not feel yummy fine, I’ll take it out right away…”

“…well…”

“Please baby, darlin’, sweetie pie, dumplin’. I been good for two whole days! I don’t know how much longer I can last! I’m going crazy with this burning need. It’s all I can think about for hours at a time. I been through every one of those damn magazines at least twenty times and-”

“Magazines?”

“-and I done pulled on it so much I swear it’s two inches longer… but I promise I won’t use those two inches right now… and I’m so fool crazy with desire that if you don’t let me in I’m afraid that the mailman will start lookin’ mighty attractive and…”

“Mailman, huh? Okay. I’ll raise the gauntlet.”

At that point there was some general shifting about, and suddenly it grew a little darker as something sprawled on top of my home. Lots of rubbing sounds and a couple of giggles. Then there was some activity at those storage facilities above my head, you know, those ones with the perky little bump in the middle. (I think I once heard said facilities referred to as “Georgia Peaches”, but I may have misunderstood the phrase, distracted as I was by re-watching the first season of “Twin Peaks” on DVD.)

Possible miscomprehension aside, it seems that large amounts of fluid were being applied to the storage tanks by this long, pointy thing that smelled like garlic and a decided lack of flossing. Then this thing started to mess around with the little bumps (gee, they didn’t seem to be so little anymore), like it was trying to get IN to the tanks. This really upset me. It says right here in my instruction manual, on page twenty-four, that those storage facilities are reserved for my personal use after this thing called “birthing”, although it says that the author prefers the term “forced expulsion”.

I started to raise my hand (because I was taught to be polite) and object to the ministration malfeasance, when my focus was distracted by the sound of what appeared to be the afternoon newspaper slapping wetly against my front door. Was it raining outside? And why was the newspaper coming so early? It usually took much longer for it to be delivered.

The voices started in again.

“Well, then. That was rather abrupt.”

“Sorry, baby. It’s been two days! But was it good for you?”

“Darlin’, it didn’t last long enough for me to form an opinion. Now, run get me a snack from the kitchen. Something that has pickles.”

I had no idea what was happening, but I already knew that you can’t trust anything that most people say. (Remember that guy “Spermy” from a few paragraphs ago? He said he would call me the next day and he never did. Bastard.) I went to get the newspaper, only to find that it hadn’t arrived, after all. Hmm. But why did my porch smell like bleach? I slammed the door and went to queue up the next season of “Twin Peaks”, unaware at the time that the moody, dissatisfied tone of the soundtrack would aptly apply to the next fifty years of my life.

Third Station of the Crossed: The Wretched Moment When I Learned All About Screaming Exertion and Bitter Disappointment.

Roughly 270 days after my poor choice behind the bowling alley, things reached a second climax, and a rather startling one at that. (And I must say: There was nothing in my “instruction manual” that prepared me for the developments, proving once again that authority figures who should do better rarely do. How to identify dual feeding tanks? That was there. How to randomly kick at the bladder of your birthing provider? Duly annotated and noted, with clever illustrations of exactly when and where to kick. (Prime moment? Two seconds after The Incubator has finally drifted into slumber after two nights of not achieving that status because she has a Buick in her belly.) The fact that you are about to be crammed through a tunnel the size of a plastic straw? Not mentioned at all.

So, there I was, doing the final editing on a new post, “Day 269: I’m So Bored That I’m Working on a Jigsaw Puzzle Involving Cats”, for my blog “It’s Always Wet Here and I Loathe My Life”. Despite my questionably neurotic need for some form of entertainment, I did not fully appreciate what transpired as I was dutifully arranging the hundreds of “these all look the same” border pieces of the puzzle. Before I could fully process the whys and wherefores, my ass was suddenly on the verge of hurtling down a viscous slip-and-slide and bursting forth from what I later learned was called a “womb”.

Okay, maybe I didn’t exactly burst. Oozed is more like it, a journey that proved exceedingly slow and annoying. And it kind of pissed me off that no one bothered to let me in on the unwelcome course of events that surprising day. One moment I’m diddling with how to make certain things fit in certain places with that damn puzzle (flashback to my moment of fumbling with a life choice, among other things, next to a trash dumpster that smelled like desperation) and the next thing you know the sky opened up and I was inundated with unexpected wetness.

My home was a complete mess, what with all that amniotic fluid having rushed through, dousing everything. (Have you ever tried to get that stuff out of fine linen? It simply won’t budge.) So, I’m running all over hell with the mop, which is no easy task these days with the size of apartments the way they are, and I’m trying to hide the empty beer bottles and all that. And every five minutes or so this woman somewhere is letting loose with some outlandish moaning routine, like she’s the one that has to deal with stained carpets and the tuna medley burning on the stove.

Then she starts in with this panting thing. Whoever told her that this would be an interesting and pleasant activity that is worth pursuing should be slapped. I do not enjoy hearing sounds which might lead one to believe that she is in the vicinity of rabid beavers who are engaged in a territorial dispute of some kind, one that involves aggressive respiration and tribal grunting. No one is ever pleased with beavers who don’t behave appropriately. This adage should be etched on stone monuments across the land. (Just say no!)

And then the earthquake happened. As if I needed further signs of The Apocalypse. The structural supports of my apartment vanished entirely, just like fake friends who run the opposite direction at the very moment when you need them, and I was quickly on my way to a destination that wasn’t San Jose. I was now plummeting from the crest of Mount Netherest, end goal unknown and measurably intimidating. Everything I thought I knew about life no longer mattered, one of the first signs that I would never really have any degree of control over the trajectory of my existence.

I spent roughly 36 hours in what I later learned was known as The Birthing Canal, with the pliant bones of my cranium crushing my brain in a rather rude manner. This is not something from which you ever fully recover, despite the narcotizing pills prescribed by future therapists who are less interested in your rehabilitation and more interested in gathering material for an article in a suspect magazine entitled “Broken Souls That I Pretended to Heal”.

At hour 37, something critical stopped impeding things, and I suddenly shot down the Exit Ramp and landed in the arms of a startled nurse named Beverly, who was only in the delivery room because she was covering a shift for her friend Delilah. (Apparently, said shiftless friend was currently off somewhere being enchanted by the romantic overtures of some guy she had bumped up against in Nantucket.) Also apparent? The fact that my mother had the capacity to expedite my arrival, but she chose instead to do all that beaver-breathing and skull-compression for far longer than necessary. This flight path would also factor in my future sessions with narcotizing therapists.

Beverly presented my dripping reality to the attending physician. “I think we’re done here.”

Said attending physician, who was both drunk and smoking a cigarette (it was 1965, nobody had any real concept of proper medical care), ignored my misshapen head and focused on something lower. “Ah, it’s a boy. Well, good. He has a better chance of getting elected to Congress.” He turned to my extremely dilated parental unit. “So, do you have a name for him? I have to fill out some paperwork later, once my buzz wears off.”

Mother, primly wiping away a smidge of placenta that had somehow landed on her forehead, as if modesty had any relevance in a setting wherein her violated venue looked like an exploded Georgia O’Keeffe painting: “I think we’ll call him Brian. But I sense that he’s already not particularly impressed with what life has to offer.”

And so it began…

And if you haven’t endured enough at this point, here’s the entry for this bit in my “Stories behind the Stories” closing section of the book:

This piece originally began its life journey as Chapter 17 in a questionable “mystery novel” I banged out in 1990. It was the third of three book efforts that I attempted in my early years, none of which went anywhere. (I actually sent this third book to a potential publisher, but the not-so-pretty response from said publisher immediately quashed my dreams, and I gave up after just the one submission. It was a time in my life when I had some self-worth issues, and I didn’t need any more rejection.)

For years, I thought I had lost this third manuscript, as was the fate of the previous two “books”. (There’s a long story behind those first two losses but suffice it to say that one should never trust a questionable and psychotically vindictive roommate named Marty.) The third loss was post-Marty, so I can’t really blame him. But something happened somewhere, in that time when I was constantly moving around due to financial situations and my fluctuating job at Verizon. I hadn’t seen that third novel in decades, so I assumed it was dust.

Then, in August of 2020, during a series of haphazard incidental discoveries, I suddenly realized that I must have a copy of that third book somewhere in my house. I did a bit of Nancy Drew tinkering and, lo and behold, I found my final draft of “Duck Sauce”. (Ignore the title. I was young and stupid and thought I was being artsy.) I ripped open the manuscript box (remember those?) and began perusing.

Final analysis? Holy cow, this thing was a mess. No wonder that distant publisher had turned his thumb down. Yikes.

Still, in the midst of the wretched mix, I found some seeds that just needed watering, so I did. And one of the resulting flowers (at least in my mind) is now this story, thirty-odd years later.

Story behind the opening photo: This is an image I snapped early one morning during our recent sojourn at Hidden Valley Ranch in Pecos, New Mexico. That bit of rainbow on the waterfall, just as the dawn was breaking, felt symbolic of how I started and where I’m still trying to go.

Your mission, should you accept: As the book is currently structured, there is a preamble and whatnot, but this is the first full story presented to the reader. Please let me know your thoughts, good or bad or indifferent, so that I can make some tweaking, should it be necessary.

Cheers.