A PLACE OF OUR OWN

Cotard: dancing makes me horny!

Codrus: what? and why are you so close to my face? i need my personal space.

Cotard: it seems the further we get from one another the more we realize space is an illusion.

the two cosmic wanderlusters move within their bubble to the Asteroid Field.

Cotard: i thought we were going to the Sun. and are we driving the bubble or is the bubble driving us?

Codrus: not exactly sure but i'll know one day. it's like a ouija thing. i always get those two heavenly bodies confused, the Sun and Jupiter.

Codrus has split his hands into eight legs and is sucking the life out of Cotard's poor right shoulder, the one that lodged the knife into Codrus. literally. there's fluid everywhere that spills then ascends.

Cotard: octopussy move.

there's not much to do as the two ride their space car on the final frontier. they regale each other the best they can with tales that may or may not be true. they reach the first outerband of asteroids. there's one that stands out from the rest cos it's more greenish, like there's signs of life on this floating rock. a garden hose materializes from the leftover Moondust occupying the bottom floor of the bubble. the dust has since formed into pebbles and has become decidely pointed.

Cotard: shag carpet is always a must.

Cotard sprays the water from the hose forcibly in Codrus's face, shooing him away for a nanosecond. Cotard then takes a drink of water from the hose, breathing erratically, making a satisfied sucking sound with his big intaking lips.

Cotard: natural at its finest. hey have you seen my drawings? i like to sketch. well i've thought about sketching for years. i was the best drawer in the world when i was a kid. i had no one to compare it to being an only child but i was the best. i wanted to draw the world, i said as much to a priest one confession and impressed the fuck out of him. i've never seen a priest smile so wide since. then as i unfortunately grew up, shit like tests and dates made me concentrate on my performance anxiety more than my pencil. i shifted to stories i didn't have time to illustrate also anymore. oh but the last couple of years i've been itchin' to get back to the central craft. words can only take you so far, they're too constricting, too derivative of ancient cultures, contained in strangling syntax and garrulous grammar. if you use too many of your own made-up words and neologisms, no one will understand what you're saying. and what is the purpose of unshared art? but drawing is truly the one that aligns with unlimited imagination. the line is just the start, begging to be crayoned over to enter the space outside which goes on forever. have a looksee at my booksee.

Codrus: that's very good. nice linework. of course the cover is your mother. that Fuerza, you don't have to like her but you gotta respect her.

Cotard: that's good advice. wish i had. i just want to be an artist that matters. it's so hard to get noticed. everyone's the same tortured soul. everyone has an original idea that's the same as the other guy's original idea. both guys are naturally fighting over the same gal. the gal's ideas will remain covered up and never broadcast. it's never about the art itself. all art is the delightful consequence of desperately trying to get laid.

Codrus: sex is all. everytime i say that word i get all jinglyjangly inside.

Cotard: sex?

Codrus: all. hey look at the green asteroid over there. now watch me manipulate my eight fingers and turn the crag into a smooth sleek upside-down pyramid.

Codrus: HEYUMP!

Codrus: *ah* *ahhhhh* see? perfect. i'm nothing if not symbolic. the plane surface of the upside-down pyramid is the stage upon which any show can be produced and performed. i have the money...

Cotard: and i have the acting chops. hey how do you think i became the most sought-after religious figure after Alberto Cutie according to Forbes? this was before the internet and Pope heels. Jesus wasn't just the Son of God, He had charisma, too.

Codrus: take a look at what's on the asteroid, it's the cast of Wizard of Oz, the original one, 1939. they were so professional back then, the show is going swimmingly. it's like you're looking at a movie but it's real life. those poor Munchkins. and poor Judy Garland, sweet child who has to grow up. each of these asteroids represents another stage in which the Collective Creative Soul takes another opportunity to iterate itself again. see there, other authors taking on the challenge of coming up with characters that are of this life but living in worlds that are like ours but not. i think i see the Aldous Asteroid in the back there.

Cotard: Huxley?

Codrus: Snow. speaking of, this place desperately needs to get wet.

Codrus lifts his eight webbed fingers and it starts to snow in space on top of the Field.

Codrus: look at the Sun. watch as i guide my hand and bring the Sun towards us. see? it's moving to the Field. i know, i know, one more nanoinch and everything burns to a crisp. i think that's where Hell comes from. what are the chances we get another Earth? all of the infinitesimal permutations that took place to form the exact eventful chain. and to be spaced perfectly. that's the key, that space is perfect. the answer is Kepler. Hell is simply the state of not being precise.

Cotard: whoa there, cowboy, if not for me we'dve evaporated before you'd get off that soliloquy. the tragedy is not in the human condition but in that we'd never know your final words. tragedy on stage. i pushed the Sun back.

Codrus: *ahem*, as i was saying, look at the Wizard cast, i'm slowly cooking them, everything must die to make room for the sequel, they won't live but their work is granted eternal life as ash scattered into outer space. the stars become stars. outer space is really just one big netflix database conveniently catalogued awaiting the aliens to come and choose a payment plan for our services. it's always time to chill in space, it's freezing.

Cotard: NO! never again. never forget. i won't let you burn people anymore. i don't see what you get out of this, shouldn't gods be above getting their jollies?

Codrus: should but it sounds so boring. you can think of a thing but what's the point if you can't feel the thing?

Cotard: you are cooking them, sure, but i'm making sure you're cooking them till they're nice and brown, dipped in, sauteed in, soaking in, drowned in the juices of their painful history. they're simmering with resentment but also have a glaze coated onto them, a shield of strength that you can't get without centuries of reduction. look.

in the place of the 1939 cast of the Wizard of Oz on the asteroid stage stands the cast of The Wiz.

Cotard: what a Monday that was! i hate Mondays, too, usually. the first one, the original one, October 21, 1974. reviews said the acting was wooden, the Tin Man's brilliant performance. Mechanic Theatre, where mechanics of the Creative Soul tinkered away, turning the grey dough of their minds into a real baguette that their mouths could feel.

Cotard and Codrus travel inward to the darker more intense rows of rocks in the Field.

Codrus: here are the masters, who are also the lifers, the good kind of misfits, the geniuses of their truth, the asteroids more set in their ways after years of the powers that be forcing them to circle the wagons of their orbit, coarser, harder to work with, harder to melt though the son has tried, every once in a while one of them leaves their orbit to see what it's like never to be heard from again. Galileo and Jobs, i see Eisenstein and Tarantino, Cam Newton with his black boot stamping on Tom Brady's face which remains model-handsome, Kurosawa holding a blazing samurai sword in the sky that's making it hard for me to see anyone else. ah, here is the Lucas stage on that asteroid to the far right.

Cotard: Spielberg is not gonna be happy about this.

Codrus: look at the craftsmanship of that asteroid! i don't think i could make it smoother. this stage is hard as a rock. here they all are: the two robots, Luke, Han Solo on a space plane, a woman that tastes like cinnamon buns, and a badass dude who does not need to be cooked anymore, he's set in his ways. oh, and there's some weird jinglyjangly alien with a longass tongue that's creeping me out. and some new faces i don't know obscured by lens flares. Star Wars---of course it's in space!---is the Ultimate Iteration of the Creative Soul. it's the perfect instance of the Creative Soul going all out and fulfilling itself to the upper hilt of what it can be, what it can achieve, cutting through all threads. it's humanity at its most charged.

Cotard: i have a feeling a lot of this will be coming back soon. what's that square?

Codrus: look at the Sun. see those three people in the square? the weird old man is Gora, his wife is Vara, their child is Tror. Tror came out of Vara's vagina and he's the first human in history who remembers that experience so he's a happy man. Tror is also Gora's father but that's not important now. see all this time for millennia and aeons these people have thought that all the light they saw around them constantly was divine. they thought they were in Heaven. but they were just in my clear box, made from the same substance as our bubble, inside the Sun! *snort snort giggle giggle snicker Snickers Muttley laugh* perspective is everything, eh? there are no facts, just interpretations. *heheheheheh* ahh, what fools these immortals be!

Fuerza enters the clear box and ushers Gora, Vara, and their mankid out and into Fuerza's box.

Fuerza: ah, i can't see anything, it's too bright!

Cotard: Ma, you left the lights on again! how many times i gotta tell you!

Fuerza: file in, folks, i'll tell you a story of the Old Country to while the time, we got plenty of it.

Gora: stories?

Vara: time?

Tror: both.

Cotard: see? this is exactly how it would always play out. i'm trying to draw and Ma distracts me with stories.

Cotard feels his remembered anger draining out an unknown hole in his body. he doesn't feel the hot of the sun but the warm. he's been in a bubble this entire time but this is the first he feels inside a cocoon.

FUERZA BEGINS HER TALE AT THE BEGINNING, WHEN WOMEN WERE LEGEND AND MEN HAD TAILS, WHERE SHE BIRTHED AND BATHED, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

Codrus, a little miffed, dimly tries to pull up a ray of the Sun but is blocked by an unknown force.

Codrus: what the...?

the Sun transforms into an outline of stars dotting the sky. they form an outline of a woman that has a shape but no face. she radiates a tired beauty and an old, wellworn strength. Yayray comes up from the hole where her heart should be, he comes out of his human-match shape and explodes everytime he smiles.

Yayray: the rays! hello, you magnificent bastard, and you are a bastard. you'll never hurt my family again. you'll never hurt anyone again! i'm just getting started. it's like when you think you're coming to the end of the movie but it's a fake ending and the damn movie drags on for another 15 minutes. and then there's another false ending before the real one. Lord of the Saturn Rings. meet my Grandmama, ain't she wonderful?

Binny and Quinny form the two eyes of Grandmama with the head of Yayray's match forming the third eye. Quinny is fiddling with an ipad mini.

Quinny: it never ends, does it?

Binny: go for it. it's the exact opposite on the other side. what are you waiting for? learn!

Quinny: i'm waiting for my tablet to update. everything we've ever known now needs a Kepler patch. you can't say Dick Durrance is the best skier anymore cos what about the ones on Kepler?

Binny: just point me in the direction of their green version of Chapstick Chaffee. hurry, my lips are getting chapped out here.

Yayray: i've never been more proud to be black. black being. i love my black anger, it's so righteous and earned. i love my black in the black of space. i have space to beatdown you. i never forget. a short burst of anger beats years of training. the gun destroyed karate. you in the hood now, punk, the paved streets, dis be my turf.

Yayray glistening with shards of the Stones in his empty belly transforms into the Elephant's Trunk Nebula and screams into an orange fireball of glory which lights up all of space for a short while like a dying star going supernova. the force knocks Codrus and the bubble and Cotard flying into the next county.

Yayray: sorry, man.

as Cotard is knocked back, or knocked forward rather, he quietly fistpumps under his invisible robe.

Cotard (gums flapping in the space wind): no prob, my bro. i understand. collateral damage. can't be helped. for we are all one.

Codrus spots two comets on either side of him and thinks about holding onto them as railings to smooth out his slide.

Codrus: i just need one good stroke.

but Codrus is too scared the two comets are Yayray's legs and he'd get kicked in the balls. or worse yet, they're Yayray's arms and Codrus would have to touch Yayray's shoulder.

three pillars loom ahead which bring a frosty fright into Codrus's heart, a dampening distraction from the chaos of spinning in a ball out of control. it's a jolt from a heart attack more than it is a skip.

Codrus: i want mundane now, i need to hear myself think. the world is getting majestic. i'm getting menacing.