What’s Won
Shot from behind the chat window. Wonders if campers have a monopoly on that.
thepowerofonions: wtf keep repairing me
mark007: dude ur fuking horrible
thepowerofonions: so what
At spawn, he uses the extra scope on his rifle to tag infantry from across the map. They jump and swerve…I’m an assassin of ice skaters.
She walks her two fingers alongside the college halls.
“Wish I didn’t mention it,” he says.
“But, you really do look like him. Especially when you wear the leather jacket like he does.”
“That thing barely fits, you know.”
“Then you should look for one exactly like it.”
They never kissed. Driving home from the theater, he notices the sunset has colored the sky just like in a shot from the movie. But it’s beautiful every day, so there’s no need to make a note of it.
Cinematography
I’m indulging in failure again, because my rationality is only rationale.
“Why are you taking a picture of me, son?”
“I’m actually filming you.”
“Why are you filming me?”
“To edit some shots of the house together, because it’s homework.”
“And you didn’t ask me to put some pants on?”
“It’s a close-up of your bald head.”
“That’s worse.”
My father’s eyes have emptied. The expression isn’t gone from his face, but the activity in his eyes is only concerned with pure face value. There isn’t the self-aware play, nor the genuine questioning from them any longer. I don’t know if that’s the weight of old age, or its folly, but I can’t help but find all the shots I have of him as too explicit.
This is another one. I’ve taken too many of him. But he’s the most authentic furniture.
His skin is smooth, if a bit baked.
The noise coming from an overeager commercial in the background. This noise, added to anything, seemingly mobilizes it as a critique of capitalism.
“Michael Phelps won another gold.”
“Maybe they should—Dad. Dad.”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe they should rename swimming to Michael Phelps.”
“Funny.”
The camera pointed at the television only produces lines of static. Does that only happen with the cheap ones?
It’s not doing that with my computer monitor. Huh.
Pseudo-Hitchcock
Not raising the mouth to its lips. It’s not drinking the rest of it.
“I say, Slothrop, you’ve already got one in your mouth—”
“Nervous,” it’s lighting up anyway.
“Well, not mine,” it pleads.
“Two at a time, see?” making them point down like comic book fangs.
***
“You’re the first time I’ve been at Riverside in awhile.”
“Yeah. Wayne is way better for me.”
Bloomingdale’s.
That price is too high. The owners are so greedy, because.
There’s actually an antique shop in this mall.
Must be near the place where. Because I don’t.
“You have any sense of direction, getting around here?”
“I think we’re going to go it. I think it’s the best place here,” it says.
Who Shot the Sheriff
A complete courthouse aesthetic spread across grey high-top apartment buildings.
And I haven’t sat in brick as ossified as in his apartment. And my nails haven’t felt as cold as they have pawing the sheets on his mattress. I haven’t left yet.
For the Jimbo office look. The one thing he understands is a good post-bedroom Mexican stand-off, with Roosevelt knees.
No Contest
Mr. Secaucus has a personality that forces anyone in contact with him to know each “word” and treat any real annoyance—an upturned way, a heady affectedness—as an obvious read in-between the lines study. He’s timidly “read,” and therefore gets the “respect” of being known for how he’s dealt with.
He’s “taking notes.” He’s “watching intently.” I’m “just going to check up on the coffee.” Except no one actually made any of these “pacts” with Chris.
“Black only.”
“Kindly.”
There are a few distinct kinds of red glazes on television screens, unbeknownst to most people. There’s glazes like in that Terminator 2 film scene, which edges out like beef casserole. Then ones like in SNES games, which glass up the entire room to no notice because players are too busy with just having lost a life or something (no retro games tackle this kind of hazard backwardness).
Four televisions ride up the sea from a jewelry advertisement dressed in red wedding ring boxes, to the worn economy of 20 people in a Best Buy’s electronics section.
How High
“Paramus is a very specific word.”
“No, it isn’t. You wanna foot-fuck me, or you wanna sit up straight?”
“Plaza is another word.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You’d have to ask me if I had money for plaza shit. I can ass it out all I want.”
For definitely-nots, simultaneously twiddling your toes means you shouldn’t wait to fuck. A phantom materializing…fuck off.
No, it’s rather happening again. I have five show your definitively-not stacks. I’ll type them in for safekeeping.
Mobile Suit Ready
A colorized space station rather points to optic Kaiser.
[“Do they really think they can cure that delinquent by taking her into space?”]
Resolution
Except the battery running out. No way…near lunchtime anymore.
Once in a while, the pixelization hits a body monitor square and creates a visual effect like the way one tells the difference between one identical tree panning against a second one. I’m a psychologically surgical person, but it’s one of the few ways my brow is de-secured from me.
“There’s cookies in the box,” someone said the last time this happened. I look away and pass it to her, wanting to know if she were smiling or not. For the devil from the sun, really.
Not Trying
She was listening to her fingers tap the bump of the car more than the radio. Her red polish took on a sinister every offbeat.
“…may be…”
“Young…get weary.”
“Wearing…yeah, yeah.”
My head kept bopping, canted to her.
Careless, Careless
“Yeah…I’m getting…”
He…each waving something…fool’s gold.
“Tonight…so loud.”
“…wish…lose this crowd.”
Maybe…better this way…want to say.
“…”
***
Two men exit the bathroom with identical green lights glaring kids in the face from their iPhones. Well, iPhones don’t look that way, whatever. Infectious laughing.
All-In
Half the people who wear all-black cape their arms strangling the china across from me with a suited sort of intention. The other kind wear their fingers only, performing the same action, looking down.
Oh, I just sit in the corner. I don’t get to wear anything, except “just the creep over there.”
No Unicorn
When you have access to their mental imagery, the colors and shape of those things take on a tense and affect with the same courage and stand-hope by which they jerk and stand their bodies.
The keychain’s black took on a sport that lasted after the man got in the car, and every circus object around me took on the stay of book covers, like of the manual next to me.
Gantz: Oh
The confidence we were forced to draw from the suits came from the same heart as entering a Chanel store with no cash.
Marienbad
A black tree is fuzzened next to others one square away, in the post-hoc yards.
John Charles Wolf is from New Jersey.
