All The Nice & Lovely Things

The Prefaces (Pre-Chapter One)

~SHOULD BE READ BEFORE "MONSTERS," FOLLOWED BY "CRAZY?! NO NO NO..."~

The Prefaces

Chateau De L'Humanite

  

There once was a man, and his name was God.  There was another God, but we don’t talk about him.

There once was a boy from Germany who wouldn’t be able to make up his mind.

There once was a girl from a town far-off who’d lost hers.

There once was a house were lilies would grow, and there once was a father who would pick them.

There once was a little monster who told stories.

There once was a time without circles.

There once were worlds of people who couldn’t die.

I am not a weak human.

In the dreams I don’t have, I do nothing but sleep.

In my dreams, I think of a town without water, and wonder how far I’d get to it before I’d have to sleep again.

In my dreams, I can remember when my clothes were taken from me.

And in my dreams, I am not a weak human.

When I wake, I find my hands empty of fingernails.

I can’t dream anymore. Not since I was taken and my clothes were taken from me.  Sometimes, you forget in your dreams.  Forget, yessir!  Sometimes, you don’t.  There is a gamble to sleep.  Then sometimes there isn’t.  The out comes, the rest doesn’t.  Yet, sleep always comes, every night when the owls come on and the hall light goes off.

A lamp on at night now, a touch-sensitive one because I hate to fumble, and let it rest all through the dark at low, low, lowest.  Feel sleepy.  I’m eighteen now; my birthday was spent at the park in town, farmed by bastard ants that tried to carry my cupcake away, if it weren’t for a neighbour, who swatted each with his old finger.  That night, I rejected an exquisite boyfriend with an eager pair of shorts, told him to go fuck himself hard with his fist, and ran home.  That night, my clothes were taken from me.  Nice ones, expensive ones, brand ones, a pair of sneakers I grieved for.  Actually! – calm down - it was after two, so it was the morning after.  This gives me some reprieve, the fact that it wasn’t on my birthday.  I have regrets, that the boyfriend won’t see me over his jam-red mortification, that I didn’t hide, that I didn’t run fast.

The people of Gnash, live small, important lives.  I watch and listen as they move and talk and buy and eat and drink and live, all safe, all sound.  They go to God on Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings, have their graves rebooked and blessed almost every month, light the Sabbath Torch in the vegetable patch every week, treat visitors with the kindest of regards.  They own their businesses, work their farms, remain in these gorgeous little lives that they lead.

I lost my clothes and my fingernails on the day after my birthday.

They take their children to school; I used to bum lifts.  They pay their mortgage; I look forward to my own.  They do their own taxes.  They gather coupons.  They smoke too much.  They buy 4x4’s for December.  They believe every sin is counted.  They believe in Hell, and the power to go there.  They believe, with every fibre of their being, in the power of gossip, and they believe vehemently that the girl who’d wandered out of the lake without her clothes had taken too much Rescue Remedy on the rocks, and that no one’s reputation needed to be scarred by one beautiful, lying drunk.  And, despite my best efforts since my return, they have yet to believe that aliens had come to their town.