CLORIS ON THE COUCH: QUIET MAP

 

Cloris: is this the way to therapy?

Botic: i believe so. it's hard to tell, this place is swallowed by the forest, a garden path circling around forever leading nowhere.

the two give each other a married kiss.

Botic: okay, Clo, i'll pick you up after the session, i gotta work on the bus.

Cloris: and i have to fix myself.

Cloris: oh, i was expecting Dr. Robbins.

Jean-Luc Picard: Dr. Robbins went into the forest and was never seen nor heard from again. don't worry, he'll come out when he figures things out. eh, close enough, we're both bald. now what seems to be the problem today, ma'am?

Cloris: i want to know why i'm happy. 

Jean-Luc: lie down on the red-felt couch, we're doing this old-skool.

Jean-Luc: what was the trigger in your life?

Cloris: i suppose it all came to a head last week. the recycle man forgot to take the recycle bin, the trash and weed was taken but not the recycling. a second truck-driver came barreling by and i lost all hope, i was crestfallen. then in a TWINK of my eyes in an instant, i just decided to see if i could catch the truck when it double-backed right at my house to turn around and go the other way down the street. Super Mario, that beautiful man restored my faith in humanity. without fuss or friction he actually stopped at my hand-waving.

Jean-Luc: hailing a truck is an art form. especially in the dead night of early morning.

Cloris: he was not stressed. i was the stressed one.

Jean-Luc: he probably ate a few shrooms for breakfast.

Cloris: he casually picked up the abandoned recycle bin with his claw and elevatored it up without a care in  the world, as if this was his breezy job, as it this was any other day on Earth. with a mustachioed smile and a gloved wave, he was on his way. that was the most meaningful human interaction i've ever had in my life.

convince: to get someone to come to your side through a con...

sourdough bread: not toasted, Storybook International-style...

Adalia: once you have a kid, you'll never sleep again...

Charlton Heston: i don't believe in violence. the only gun i use is that big-ass STEEL sour-cream gun at Taco Bell. 

Judy Garland: that sour-cream gun is the Tin Man's torso!!!

Clint Eastwood: sour cream makes tacos taste nasty.

Yankees/Mets Subway Series World Series: now THAT's Autumn in New York!!!

Isringhausen: best last name.

Grunewald: ...

Hamptons International Film Festival: for the REALLY exclusive films...

primary care physician: your street doctor for PCP.

Vanity Fair: don't forget the perfume card...

Cloris: in my dream...

Jean-Luc: oh goodie!!! this is my favorite thing to do!!!

Cloris: Billy Corgan was in a commercial on TV advertising Wonder bread but it was called Today bread.

Jean-Luc: your dream makes perfect sense. Billy Corgan isn't a bad omen, he's harmless, he's a harmless avatar of your sadness. 

Cloris: i have a love/hate relationship with Hershey's Special Dark.

Jean-Luc: yes. the taste is weird.

Cloris: it tastes like a metallic chocolate waterfall in your mouth. i want to love it to be sophisticated. 

Jean-Luc: bittersweet, the taste of sophisticates.

Cloris: young Robert Crumb looked like young Stephen Hawking. both were spacey.

Jean-Luc Picard: that goes without saying. but i'm still gonna charge you for saying it.

Knight of Cups.

Terrence Malick: get ready, YOU'RE FLYING IN A DREAM THIS ENTIRE FILM. nobody else does this, the sumptuous hypnotic POV, the romantic skies, always the beach, quiet introspective narration, it will SWALLOW you.

Terrence Malick: read Pilgrim's Progress, it really is a good book.

Teresa Palmer: fuck me like a rag doll.

Christian Bale: i don't feel any better.

Teresa: come on, dude.

Christian: what are you wearing?

Teresa: what does it matter? this is Hollywood. a Bridgerton ballroom gown, i'm on a soundstage...

Christian: where are you?

Teresa: no one knows where they're going. 

Mardith: tarot cards don't predict anything, but the artwork is wonderful...

Madame Pons: that hurts, daughter, that's generational pain.

Jillian Clare: The Squid and the Whale!!!

Christian Bale: i'm at the Joe Pera aquarium.

Christian Bale: can i come back as John Lithgow? he lived the perfect life.

John Lithgow: i want to die in my sleep in a happy dream.........wait, that's my life...

Christian: are you alone?

Teresa Palmer: we're all alone.

O.J. Simpson: ah, so this film takes place in 1994...

me: the beige white-sand pretzel highways, i miss Los Angeles.

Christian Bale: don't forget the tunnels. i always get a headache whenever i drive under a Los Angeles tunnel. i'm hoping that at the end of this thing the answer isn't that i'm Batman.

Terrence Malick: hushed tones, all scenes are a symbol, just when you're about to train your gaze on a scene to laser-focus on it, the scene changes, hiding the impactful bit of dialogue, not showing the reveal...

Randa Slim: didn't you know Eminem's mom was a peace negotiator?

Eminem: diplomats are dank.

Randa Slim: spaghetti ended the Cold War.

E.Z. Taylor: nobody goes to the beach in October...

Bjork: only i compose electronica on the beach...

Brooke Trantor: cuffing season for me is going into a strange man's Instagram Stories ONCE.

Stevie Nicks: i'm Elvira without the goth...

SpongeBob: get the Krabby Patty at Wendy's, i know it's weird with the pineapple circle but still get it.

Sandy Cheeks: proposing with a ring at a bodega, now THAT's how you do it.

Uzumaki Episode 3.

Vincent van Gogh: don't look at Starry Night!!!

Shuichi: don't worry, it's a Storybook International kiln...

Caterpillar smoking an opium hookah: mosquito coils don't affect me...

Jack Daniel: i use cave water in my whiskey. Hugh Hefner is not welcome in my cave anymore. don't worry, our charcoal-mellowing uses tubs that don't contain Uzumaki swirl dads.

Julie Patzwald: i don't drink coffin varnish, i rub it on my corrective shoes.

Ernest P. Worrell: ...

Regis Philbin: that's what you get, SNL, for never inviting me to host...

Jimmy Carter: what if you get sick during a presidential campaign? sick during the bid. what if the candidate comes down with a two-week cold? not a good time to be unwell. of course the candidate will get sick, this is a stressful thing to do.

Fancy Gap: Doryce's vagina.

Holt Hanley: show your teeth when you smile.

Ariana Araiza: never tell a woman that.

Lana Del Rey: we never fucked after we got married. 

Lana's husband: i gotta go to St. Petersburg to wrassle and wrangle the hurricane gators.

Lana: those alligators bite. they're angry from the storms.

Lana's husband: is it the Russia one or the Florida one?...

Jean-Luc Picard: how are you enjoying the light therapy?

Cloris: i don't feel a thing.

Jean-Luc: naturally, my dear, it's not heavy. not heavy on your skin, it's not a heavy treatment, not a hard treatment, easily applied. so. 

Cloris: so.

Jean-Luc: Gargamel.

Cloris: yes, he is the most lovable villain ever. look at that face, his face is PRECIOUS. an angelic contenance. his voice is so pleasant. remember at McDonald's when they had the glass cups? collect all 4.

Jean-Luc: yes. Gremlins would come out and you could collect all 4 Gremlins glass cups. for some reason the Gizmo and Phoebe Cates glass cups were the most popular...

CRESSET: A SPOONFUL OF SILENCE

 

it's quiet. so quiet. not the good Bjork kind of quiet. the field stretches to infinity. and the silence lasts.

me: it's an apocalypse. but you know during an apocalypse you still want to play a video game or two.

i retrace my steps to see if i can make it back to the library. i do but it's a double-edged sword, the downtown Carmel cute sidewalks and boutique streets are familiar but empty. there isn't a soul around anymore. the trees betray their loneliness as the wind shakes their limbs and leaves. all the shoppes are not shuttered, their glass doors are open wide, welcoming in any ghosts who may decide to show their foot.

the buses are on time, the spirit buses spiriting invisible folks away to the afterlife, where hopefully things are heard again.

in a hurricane-ravaged small studio in Florida, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. is putting the finishing touches on his Kurt tribute song "Let Me In" off Monster. 

Michael Stipe: this one's for you, Kurt Cobain, i hardly knew ye. which is to say i knew you so well i'm now your daughter Bean's father.

Michael Stipe douses Kurt Cobain's powder-blue electric guitar in cold melted butter, getting cold melted butter on all his fingers before he starts strumming, and adjusting the mic to his mouth, he pushes RECORD...

Ernest P. Worrell: i'm Pee-wee Herman for the South...

me: my throat is so parched, i'd do anything for one last drop of Shirley Temple 7 Up on my tongue.

Jerry Cantrell: you like alligator swamps?

Lana Del Rey: ...

Jerry Cantrell: i know a boggy depot...

Lana Del Rey: it's just a phase i'm going through...

Bindi Irwin: i'm not into your music.

Lana Del Rey: Taylor Swift?

Bindi: bring my dad back, lady...

Lana: how? 

Bindi: get a stingray tattoo on your butt, aren't you a witch?

Damon Albarn: Blur wasn't as big because we came out at the exact same time as Nirvana.

Kurt Cobain: look at us, we could be brothers. do you wear eyeglasses you don't need?

Damon: yes. that's what all eyeglasses are.

Kurt: i wish Nirvana's songs were short like Blur's songs. what electronica band would i be in?

Damon: Humanz. you're on Farfisa keyboards, Mordecai from Regular Show sings, Andy Warhol on Dreamachine and pushing buttons, William S. Burroughs on Moog drums, and Stan Lee does all the artwork.

Jars of Clay: would we have been a bigger rock band if we had incorporated more shamisen and kalimba?...

The Lathe of Heaven, PBS, 1980.

Margaret Avery and Bruce Davison in bed.

Margaret Avery: you are getting sleepy. you are getting heavy. especially your eyelids. but not that thing where you wake up but your body doesn't.

Bruce Davison: why are you talking that way? are we having sex?

Margaret: no, i'm recording the Calm app. you will dream naked and wake up well. we'll squeeze into a large mustard LEGO car and drive off. the aliens are Plan 9 from Outer Space aliens.

Margaret Avery and Bruce Davison in bed.

Bruce: Margaret, my beautiful wife. it wasn't a dream.

Jen R: that is YOUR dream when it comes to me.

me: *gulp*

Bruce: can we have sex?

Margaret: are these sheets metallic?

Bruce: but like, i was thinking, can we have, like, Foxy Brown sex?

Margaret: damn, man. well okay, white boy, do your thing. go for it, really get DEEP inside, this is your only chance in this dystopia. when a man sucks my butthole out, that's when i know it's true love. it's real, not a dream. go on, spread them cheeks, i got enough butt for the both of us.

Bruce: your butt is so big it covers my face and my gray face.

Margaret: both your heads. PBS is walking a tightrope, they are the arbiters of culture but they have to know that it's not real sci-fi unless there's a sex scene...

Kevin Conway: my Dr. Haber acting performance in this is a masterpiece, but i'm still only known as the Outer Limits voice...

Ringo: the Beatles song "With a Little Help from My Friends" as sung by Randy Newman...

Jack Tripper in the junque shoppe: oh my dystopian god, whoa, the Lathe of Heaven ending is the live-action version of the Flight of Dragons ending!!! 

Margaret: i'm not here to pawn.........away my future...

robot: you have time for a 15-minute eat break. the best humans don't push to ponder the larger questions...

Margaret: PBS's version of Coffy is Doctor Who tea...

Bruce: speaking of, can i take you to dinner?

Margaret: lead the way.

Bruce: dinner is a hot dog.

Margaret: served by a COOL-LOOKING vacuum robot.

Bruce: beautiful.

Margaret: yeah. but you can really slip on these steps with waterfalls...

Boc: going on an Autumn walk to get 6 bananas and a jug of apple juice is one of life's great joys.

Ian Curtis: one of life's great known pleasures.

the Kraken: i'm the oldest dinosaur...

CitiCar: the best electric car. the best way to deliver the mail...

me: in my dream we're all at church after having watched an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway, the old-skool one with Drew Carey. the rows are full on the other side but on this side in the rows are Sarah Palin in sweatpants and me.

Jen R: let me take it from here, if you can fuck Sarah Palin and get her to come to your side, she is the ultimate get.

me: yeah that's the thing, the only thing i'm worried about are my arguments. what flowery language can i use, what psychological soundness can i offer, to convince her. i list 10 things that make Sarah Palin become a Democrat.

Boc: going DEEP inside your butt with your scratching hand WHILE using your water-flosser, that's bliss. everyone should experience that.

Marianne Crebassa: if Amelie got out of her introvert shell and became an opera singer...

Orajel: yeah i mean you really just need a root canal...

Lyle Alzado: my '80s American Gladiators name WOULD have been Kyle...

Suzy Lu: doing my box in, not vulgar, Scottish.

Super Mario: do you understand at last?

me: i finally do.

Super Mario: you have to leave the recycling bin ON THE STREET, that's the only way my claw can elevator it up into the truck trash pile. if you leave it on the sidewalk...

me: you know Inspector Gadget?...

Adalia from Australia: there are benefits to waking up early...

me: oh what a BLESSING!!! congratulations to you and the baby!!! newborns, new magic.

Adalia: no the kid's still baking in the oven. i was talking about the Vaporwave Northern Lights that happen in the middle of October Australian nights. this kid ain't kicking, he's skateboarding up down and around in my tummy.

me: that kid's gonna be an elite skateboarder like you.

Adalia: you know how it is, "pregnancy sleep..."

me: and once again everyone is so far away. too far away...

the quiet has entered my brain and i am driven crazy. i'm at the Penitentes ice mountains. the snow spikes. i traveled the whole soft silent world on foot. my Stussy S Roman-mosaic coffee mug is buried in the ice but it's clear ice so i can see that it's deep enough that i can never have coffee again to slake my hot thirst. 

me: PLEASE!!! i'll do anything for another SOUND!!! frozen immovable ice, trapping music notes and only stories. surely these slippery Penitentes mountains have harrowing sob stories through the ages to tell. whisper them in my ear. no, SHOUT them to the heavens!!!

with my mittened arms to the frozen air i exclaim: i just want the world to say SO MUCH WASTED TIME!!!

  

  

CRESSET: THE FIELD IS NOT BORING

 

 

me: i have to admit it to myself, i am relieved. i can't be a monk. this green field is so QUIET. and so EXPANSIVE. there's no beginning. no end. no points. like the Swimming to Cambodia sea. it blends with the blue sky above forever.

murmurs. i start to hear faint murmurs coming from a distance. it takes me an hour in this eternal expanse to twig that they're coming from the library i just left.  

Judy Blume: come back to the library.........this is your only chance to make a difference before it's too late. the library is not the ovary, they're banning books. they're banning books, that sucks. the ACLU is against book-banning. remember freedom of speech?

Margaret: i'm not an atheist, i'm just interfaith!!!

Theo Huxtable: remember when the only thing we had to worry about was a bad shirt? don't worry, i'll just wear my ACLU shirt from now on.

Bobby McFerrin: dinna fash yersel. not a Scottish curse.

Suzy Lu: or curse word, a Scottish swear.

Bobby McFerrin: do the fish dinner yourself. the Oster Regent theatre only accepts actors who are retired, they're the only ones who have time. do you know what you should do in retirement? nothing.

President Biden: it's NOT the lead pipe but it is in the conservatory by that saucy Mrs. Peacock. i saved music programs in this country when Congress stalled and stooled in them. not just piano, flute.

Spalding Gray: GET BACK HERE, ASSHOLE!!! you forgot my Detrola Bakelite radio. it's the only way to hear Bud Collins call the tennis match on radio. 

Mr. Kotter: i stole that radio for my apartment heater during winter. but Spald got me back good when he mentioned me in a monologue...

i have to admit, the field is quiet.........TOO quiet. there's nothing to do here, there's nothing HERE. i stare down at my crumpled fingers, an hour later i get REALLY thirsty and a cup of coffee appears in those fingers. the cup is stone, with the Stussy S in Roman mosaic. you can't tell when night falls. there is no sun, no moon.

after a while a robot John McEnroe trudges along the field, slow and deliberate, dragging his toe across the line.

me: this green grass does evoke Wimbledon.

John McEnroe: the lineman problem is solved. but can you and the world handle me as a robot? you'll want me back as a human, there's something lost here.

me: your cynicism isn't landing as well.

John McEnroe: my humanity isn't showing anymore. underneath was my warm humanity. this is just John McEntoe.

The Lathe of Heaven, 1980, PBS.

Margaret Avery: i'm not Lisa Bonet's mom...

Freud: i had a dream i was a monk. i was chomping a cigar as i rode a horse down the monastic stone staircase.

Abbot Butt: we won't let you in, No Smoking.

Spock: that damn doctor just did a Spock on the guy's neck!!! there's no smog in Canada. this is Portlandia in the future.

Axl Rose: this movie inspired the "November Rain" and "Don't Cry" music videos... 

William Hurt: some Altered States pre-Colombian dream rituals. dream-sharing is allowed, it's 1980. 1980 was the year of goodness.

Dr. Haber: i'm making the world right. i'm voting for Kamala, tell that bureaucrat that. 

George Orr: jokes on you, doc, i don't like Belgian waffles.

Lelouch of Code Geass: now you know...

monks: overpopulation, never heard of it...

Bruce Davison: this movie was filmed in the abandoned Sherman Oaks Galleria...

Lucille Ball: your red hair is not like my red hair.

Conan O'Brien: ...

Conan: we gingers have hard lives, to make up for it we're actual leprechauns.

Lucy: we're both funny but not in the same way.

Conan: i'm pasty, your skin is like alabaster, can i touch it to feel its silky smoothness? what do you use?

Lucy: cocoa butter. we both got freckles on our butts.

Max Weinberg: i play the bongos.

Lucy: let's have some wine.

Conan: you do not want to see my King Kong feet.

Ernest P. Worrell: i drank all the varnish, now i gotta take Vanquish. Vern's face looks like the Worrell spiral from Uzumaki. 

Vern: i was ashamed to show my face around town. i gave up my standing to be your friend. and i'd do it again, that's how much i love you, Ern. when you talk about Ernest Goes to Camp with your classmates, they'll have no idea what you're talking about, and your teachers will give you strange looks.

Ellen: "The Puppy Episode"

Sailor Moon: yeah but we were doing that stuff in the '90s, too, WITH MEN!!!

Silver Millennium: Taj Mahal on the moon...

me: in my dream...

Jen R: not a Lathe dream that changes the world.........literally.

me: my precious cat Trinity gets out the front door. but he's teasing me, he doesn't run off into the street or to the next neighborhood, he stands on his paws and dances like Garfield the cat on the sidewalk.

Jen: he's hustling. he doesn't want food and water anymore, he wants lasagna and Abu Dhabi turkish coffee.

Melissa Maker: meet the makers. no, not Chad. local Carmel artists...

Fuerza: it's not about me...

Jean-Luc Picard: sunny but cold, think about it...

Bjork: "Ride a Black Swan" should have been called "Ride a Black Zwan."

Billy Corgan: i don't want to think about the Zwan days.

Bjork: your life and times...

Ringo: it should have been Aquamarine Submarine...

Corkscrew Cafe, Carmel: no wine here, it's a brothel.

Doc Harris: you're gonna have to wait for the next Dragon Ball for my next snarky recap. but i don't have to wait to run Snake Way...

Suzy Lu: if you want me to achieve orgasm, you have to do the Kamehameha Wave at the point of climax.

Steejo: ...

Suzy: it's not enough just to have kickboxer muscles.

Kakashi: i know how to Kamehameha, it's an old ninja technique, we all learned it in anime school.

i spend years, decades, centuries in that field. the quiet is both blissful and eternally frightening. 

me: i need SOME noise, the noise of a video game played once during the day after school.

soon i see the faint outlines of the First Level of Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo greybox.

me: i should know my way around pipes.

i get to the first Bottom Level, with the aquamarine-blue bricks.

me: that green pipe is a trip to go down.

voice: it's green for a reason.

the entire basement is cellar-to-ceiling french fries.

i make out the faint outline of.........omg it's BombPoppie!!!

me: BombPoppie!!! where the fuck have you been, girl?!!! i was SO worried about you. i thought you did something to yourself. when you don't hear from someone.........when they just STOP being on Instagram after 30 years.

BombPoppie: all the french fries you sent me via Instagram through the years, they didn't make me happy.

me: yeah sorry about that, i had nothing to talk to you about after you stopped making art.

BombPoppie: listen to me, mister, if it wasn't for hiking i wouldn't BE here right now!!! 

me: did you talk to Pacita?

BombPoppie: no. 

me: she understands Crumb in a way i could never. did you go on that date i set up for you?

BombPoppie: that guy was a turd, he spent the whole first date talking about BlueChew for 9 hours. next time YOU ask me out so i can reject you, it's more satisfying that way.

me: i'm tired of tits, i just want my friend back.

we hug for eternity. 

BombPoppie blushes for the first time in her life. she's a very stoic person you see.

BombPoppie not breaking the hug, slitting a smile: you still always got me with your constant "STREET TACOS!!!" DMs to my Instagram.

all the french fries turn into Taco Works chips.

 

  

CRESSET: ACCESS TO QUIET

 

i'm trying one more time here. i'm trying to see if they'll let me into the monastery somehow.

the first monk i encounter on the stone spiral staircase is Jean-Luc Picard!!!

me: wait, you're a monk now?!!!

Jean-Luc Picard: i already have the hair for it. this monk robe is itchy, i have to scratch my bald balls constantly. listen carefully, knave, free advice comes about once. cold tea is tricky.

me: i don't follow.

Jean-Luc Picard: of course you don't, you're not made of sterner stuff. it's not steeping the teabag in cold water, your body is not meant to drink such a ghastly concoction, you'll go crazy. you have to make tea as normal, hot tea. 4 minutes. then let it COOL for like an hour. THAT's cold tea that won't explode your stomach. it's cold hot tea. 

Abbot Butt: we don't let in 18-year-olds anymore. those fresh out of college, in their 20s after having watched Ellen, even if they want it bad. none of them persevere.

Bede: can you blame them? it's perverse. how can they endure ego death in here? that's all the young got. i was the only Brother who was cool. because i read up on it. ironically, the Bede bed is empty... 

Abbott Butt: you can't change the people around  you.........but you can change the people around you.........but not if you're a monk...

Yusuke Urameshi: the only people who become monks are those who can't talk to girls.

Abbott Butt: Brother John Luke, will you do the honors?

Jean-Luc Picard takes me roughly by the shoulders and drop-kicks me out the monastic window, that little slit in the turret tower. 

Jean-Luc Picard: i played football at Oxford.........the American kind........properly...

as i flit in and out of consciousness, one foot here and one foot in the nether region, i keep telling myself i have to get out of here...

me: i gotta get outta here.

this is my stock answer to anything when the going gets tough in my life. i am crushingly realizing that now i have nowhere to go to!!!...

when i come to i'm on the first corner of Downtown Carmel.

me: i've never been here.........ever. i know, LUSH Cosmetics is a few blocks down.

i wait three hours for the next bus to come. the driver is a cute spirited spunky tiny girl named Mary Tyler Less. so that distracts me with cheer a bit. she's adorable with that BIG bus-driver's cap that's WAY too big for her tiny head.

Mary Tyler Less: city bus. muni bus. blue bus.

me: Carmel is not a city.

as always, i have no friends, so i spend the rest of the trip at the WAY front talking to the driver to kill time.

me: what do i do now? i can't get in even if i wanted to. i'm a half-century. i've reached the age where soap doesn't soothe me like it used to.

Mary Tyler Less: you can still be softened. the monastery is like an Ivy League college, forget about it. you've got to live life by the minute, in batches of minutes. not by the hour.

me: i think i understand. i've never been able to live in the present. i always use the current moment to think about the '80s.

she drives the bus around the tricky corner, that steering wheel is 10 sizes her body weight.

me: there's so much noise pollution, you know? so much noise pollution all the time all around  me, how do i make it STOP?!!!

Mary Tyler Less: go to the Forest Library from 3PM-4PM.

me: gotcha. wait, isn't that when the kids get let out of school?

Mary Tyler Less: yes, that's just another kind of noise. those afterschool reading programs are no joke. i was in one, Hamlet can only be truly understood in French. trust me, the answer is in the library...

  

Boc: in order to walk effectively, walk your bike, don't RIDE your bike...

Ms. Krause: weren't you the fat lunch lady in the hairnet and gloves and industrial-size apron at St. Cyril's in the '80s? 

Leslie Sbrocco: yep. i was the first person to wear open-toed sandals. i loved food then and i love food now.

Ms. Krause: wow girl, you really did a glow-up on yourself.

Leslie: thanks. i learned how to move all my weight to my tits. now i can eat anything i want...

The Lathe of Heaven on PBS, 1980.

Freud: FINALLY. they show a man lying down on a psychiatrist's couch. that was the first time seeing my representation on TV.

me: i wish my therapy included that, i want to lie down on an ornate Austrian chaise longue, that would have helped me open up. my chakras AND problems. 

Krillin: when i'm in therapy i lie on an ottoman...

Freud: yeah but that was only done in psychiatry in that ten-year period, that Seinfeld '90s futon decade...

DMV: we're another doctor's office...

George Orwell: DAMN, girl. i see you. i see you, Ursula K. Le Guin. fucking your hot aunt. going straight for the hot-aunt tit-fondle. going straight for the family kink like that.

Ursula K. Le Guin: the rest of the world still doesn't recognize, Canada is hardcore about things.

Freud: if dreams could kill, we'd be in trouble as a species. but where do dreams come from?

Ursula: where thoughts come from.

Tom Baker of PBS in 1980: the universe is a hologram...

Freud: the thing is it did really happen, because the dreamworld is the real world...

diopter: the Beatles yellow submarine...

Meta Quest: yeah they won't actually let you don the Meta Quest Mask at the DMV...

Mark Zuckerberg: think of it like an electronic sleep mask...

Cynthia Cranz: my Botan voice is BUTTER. 

Jules Smith: like British butter but not British. Mid-Atlantic butter...

Ear Horn: i like your Japanese witch broom, dearie.

Botan: it's not a broom, it's a pizza peel...

Vernon Chatman: do NO interviews, that's the only way to survive.

John Lee: Chatman has left the chat.

overcast skies: these are the Autumn walks, people...

lucky penny: it's not a coincidence, it's dad, how could that penny have appeared by your foot unless you went for a walk this morning?...

Garry Shandling: we make these grand plans, and then she disappears.

Stevie Nicks: doing SNL this week, babe...

Bette Midler: why does Mary Hart go to EVERY Dodger game? i'm doing Beaches at the Bowl tonight, comm with me, commiserate with me about the state of the world.

Abstract art: just do anything...

Maiara Walsh: this glaze donut is more like a glaze pancake...

soul group: the New Age thing, not Earth, Wind & Fire...

Andy Warhol: you should fear L484.........do not accept Vanquish knockoffs.

Edgar Allan Poe: Davante Adams was the first goth. 

Davante Adams: The Adams Family.

Lana Del Rey: i married Bayou Billy because he's been lonely since the '80s, nobody talks about him anymore. we made love in a swamp. my next song is called "Alligator Man."

the Atari Pitfall guy: what about me?...

Here (2024): sorry, Wes Anderson, THIS is how you do a film that's a play...

Capp: for you guys, Instagram is fun and games. for me, Instagram is vital to my survival. those comments are crucial to my existence.

Uzumaki Episode 2.

school janitor: your son is not a snail, he's Falkor.

teacher: the DNA double-helix is a pentagram...

Aeon Flux: her hair, The Head, anyone?...

Family Guy: we're celebrating the show's 25th Anniversary, not Columbus Day...

Don Francisco: El Gordo y La Flaca is small potatoes, papas pequenas.

Lili Estefan: hey, small father, we're all in this together.

Raul De Molina: keep your mouth occupied with Poppi non-soda, Don Muchacho.

Don Francisco: fruit soda? Slice? that stuff was fizzless.

Lili: i looked up to Sabado Gigante. i wanted to be you, puto. you were hombre when Gloria was gone making sounds in Miami. thank Hesus i was never one of your girls, blowing that trumpet. i could kick your scrawny ass, i'm tall as a giraffe.

Raul: jirafa vs. jefe, my money's on the neck.

Scrawny Puppy: Skinny Puppy when they were fat and angry...

Hurricane Milton: the Florida paradise lost...

Lindsay Lohan: this hurricane is so fetch.

at the library i notice a cresset in the corner. i pull down on it and it lights up in a blue Vaporwave flame like a torch. the fourth wall with the Christina's World Andrew Wyeth painting on the wood panel slides to the left to reveal a wood spiral staircase down to the library's basement.

librarian: where do ice cream cones come from?

me: i don't like tendies, i prefer the nugget shape, it's more natural, more familiar.

librarian: no time for chickens.

i get to the foot of the stairs and there's another cresset. i pull up on it and a purple Vaporwave flame lights it. the stone wall slides to the left. outside there's a field...