FOR A SUN: VERNISSAGE

it's the story of a lovely lady. who had one son of her own. and this one son was her everything. her lone loneliness lighter. that is so cliche but in this case it was true. he was her pride and joy. for she had none. you always hear of parents saying, "you are the one thing i got right" to their children, the good ones anyway, and for Madchen Hartwin was her excuse to keep on. she poured her endless soul into him in hopes it might purify. she could look herself in the mirror and not expect the crack. everything she had to do, everyone she was escaping, she forgot the past for he had a future face. she could wrap her leaden arms around his tiny head and be swallowed up in a black hole of sublimation. she never understood him, what mother can, but she could always make sure to have the string cheese and saltine goldfish and Hi-C ready for him after school. she justified her existence, he was her yeah, but, he was her shoes. you live long enough and the cracks begin to show. your reasons lose enough threads and get deleted for being old. she is crazy. Mad is in the name. but he was the crazy one. accept he was able to live it whereas she feared it. and now he is gone. and that's the thing with death. the finality. words cannot paper over the caldera. whether you fancy or dumb it's over. there's no going back. for the hole is already white. dems the rules of the pubs, even in this age of magic. last words are the prettiest words, aren't they? what hurts the most is the love that carries on as if nothing has happened. that seems to operate on a separate track. parents are not supposed to bury their kids. because who could ever survive being buried alive?

Harfi: hey! hey! i'm still alive!

Harfi was put on the double-booked doublebill funeral of viking barge pyres cept she was still ticking. she gets out by the hair of her chinny chin chin as she douses her alight hair in the lakewater taking an unexpected underwater swim.

Harfi: (spitting out water like a fountain) is the Demi Moore shaved look for girls back?

speaking of hair, Colin Kaepernick rises his neck from his roots chair and approaches the podium as the last speaker. well the late speaker. he takes the mic from the silver-and-black coiled stand but before he can speak, all the congregants stand up and ovate him. he doesn't need to say a word, his fro glistens in the peeking peaking sun. unknown forces slide the chair from under him. Kaep falls, is removed, but he gets back up and takes a knee for the rest of the ceremony.

Harfi: i need an adult.

Lysander: (checking the scores on his new apple watch with ears buds and no cord) Cotard is in the Admont Abbey library.

Phelps: i think the other woman needs more.

Harfi: there can be more than one woman.

Lochte dances over to her and says, "i'm here."

Harfi: no not a big body but a big mind. and i don't mean smart i mean spiritual. where are the gurus? they have left their native country and taken the mandatory shuttle downtown. they have put on a suit. it's over for humanity. everyone knows that but i mean it's really over for humanity. i seek guidance and goo. salve and sauce. filling with the fire. not bread. i shall confer with the animals, they still get it.

Harfi leans over and begins an extensive conversation with the local coyote, who explains to her that he is a confusing symbol that can either be good or bad on the day you look at him. but he's always magic at night. amongst their topics of scintillation include: how a Trickster is needed to keep the serious King humble and human, meaning in a meaningless universe, and how the local Trickster Fox is his cousin.

at the insane asylum Edward Snowden is allowed to roam the halls freely.

Lieu: what up my nigga. how's it hangin? by a thread? what you in for? heehee. take your meds yet? i'm a shell without my afternoon dose of vanquishing vicodin.

Snowden: i'm not the real Snowden. i mean i am. but i'm not the one galavanting with Putin. that's the impulsive one. i'm the one who takes a thought before he acts. we all have two versions of ourselves. that's what the Stones have made manifest. that's the secret of humanity. and that's why the gods are jealous. the gods only have one version of themselves. boy it must really be nearing soon, the shit is hitting the smelter. i mean the Stones are actually creating two versions of each of us. we're not supposed to air our dirty laundry like this, we're supposed to keep both our selves safely behind the closed door of our one split personality. inside, not outside.

Lieu: i think it's just you, bro. you really need to take your morning meds. like coffee but stronger. now i don't take 'em cos i want to sleep. hey man you started all this and i thank you. we thank you. if we don't challenge the status quo we ain't no diff'rent from the animals ya herd. no worries, you'll get your lives back. next hype.

Snowden: this, too, you shall not pass. i read that in my fevered dream. dreams predict the future. or is it anticipate? i don't know where i'm going with all this. i feel like i'm already dead. i guess that's the feeling of being doomed. it's easy to see the beginning but never the ending. what, am i thinking?

Lieu: it's just a question. right? we're all in the same sinking boat together. how'd you like the film?

Snowden: remember when that Joseph kid was some anonymous annoying brat on that '70s alien show? now we have real aliens to deal with. anyway my voice isn't that low, is it?

at the Cream House Codrus is finishing up a meeting with Anderson. the Russian soldiers mix with the gift-card millionaires all stumbling around the card table counting cards and taking out cards from their digital wallets. they are betting their dirty stacks of captagon. they are playing for the drug of it. Codrus plays penny poker by himself on a different circle. the soldiers already sidelined wrap themselves in nori.

Russian soldiers being interviewed: (in Russian accents) love this stuff. we stole it off our conquest of the mysterious Eastern lands. in New Soviet Russia it's a seaweed wrap for your injured body but then it's a seaweed wrap for your hungry mouth. you eat it! you eat it after it's been drunk with all of your juices. keeps you feeling yourself. i love when it goes down and makes your stomach lining bleed worse.

Anderson gets up to shake all the hands. Codrus rubs Anderson's forehead.

Codrus: thank you, my happy pale friend, you did a fine job as moderator, media sir. we got lobbed all the softballs as planned. i was worried the idiot wouldn't remember his name. here you go.

Codrus still passes the envelope under the table for show. even though there are drones down there.

Anderson: hey this is monopoly money!

Codrus laughs heartily inbetween his swallowing and coughing up of clouds in the sky.

Bump is sulking in the corner.

Bump: post-presidential depression.

Codrus: Hilary, that's enough Honey Hole for today. give the Pope a rest, she needs to attend to matters of debateless state.

Hilary: (wiping her mouth) that was a good sammich.

Codrus: how's the Brexit Fixit going?

Hilary: you know you know. people are too impulsive these days. they really need to think before they send out their opinions.

Codrus: hey boy, i spy with my little third eye an intruder on your grass. and it is your grass, Mr. President. he has a worrying tan. he's an illegal, deport him.

Codrus points Bump's shoulders squarely out the window to a President hobbling around the rotunda from the shrapnel in his right leg.

Codrus: he has what you want. he has the ball. ever see his head? it's small and weirdly-shaped. his head is the ball.

Bump was never one to resist a trance. it's his favorite music. and Codrus is his favorite god. Bump washes away the oversize floor-model suits and long ties and one pair of soiled pants in his floordrobe and picks out his gold comb with the one broken pick. he walks methodically out the gate and approaches the President calmly.

the President: (looking like Pig-Pen) do your worst, fool. you already have and i'm still standing.

Bump: B, fellow B, sir, i respect yous. well i respect your post. i hope to succeed you. life is short. and so are your stubby legs.

Bump points the comb at the President's left leg and fires. BANG. the pick tine comes out in a puff of fired smoke and spears the President in the other leg. the President falls to the ground agonizing on the street like an aching homeless dog. a press junket has gathered from beyond the security line flashing and reeling away.

Bump looks up to the crowd, raises his arms in the air and shakes his hands.

Bump: told ya. nothing. ooooh i hate guns, they're icky.

the american flag perched on the Cream House front step transforms. the many white stars commingle and become one Golden Stones Star that shines hazily as a kind of porchlight in the approaching purple-red dusk. the white from Anderson's hair drains and becomes a snake that slithers its way over to Bump's toupee, finally turning Bump's golden hair grey, accentuating his orange skin making Bump more oompa-loompa. the sun is peach, the color it will remain till the end.

Bump: midnight in Murica. this job is really getting me.

back where it all started, water. the lake is becoming more like the river, which is becoming more like the sea. when the boat carrying Hartwin's battered bought body reaches the center, his motionless mannerisms are on full display. the sides of the pyre fall off and his body grows grows grows, soaking up all the water. he slowly becomes a giant. with one wing. at the sandy bottom. his clavicle and backbone bits fit perfectly into the lakebed, fossilizing in a hurry. the lake is being drained. but by Madchen.

she finds a private grotto and begins her ritual on the 2-miles-across plains of the Kilauea Crater. alone. of which she knows not of. she just starts dancing. freely. freestyley. without a script. for there is no script. but she is not free, she carries the biggest burden in the world. the huge heavy red plastic water cans that poor children in the jungle must carry if they want to survive. cept they do it to keep their families alive. so they can keep themselves alive. generation after generation. she is her generation. for Hartwin was a once-in-a-lifetime soul. she must generate. solely. "the last of her kind" is thrown around but this time it's true. she's been thrown around and for what? this is a different time. this is now. this is this time. and this time it's real. she spins around and twirls the dirt and slops herself in the mud like a pig. she tries to crumble the ground into her hair but it's too bone-dry parched to move. so quickly it has turned to stone. before her disbelieving eyes right in front of her. and turned in stone. she tries to jump but her feet have no more wings. this isn't her happy dance, this is the dance of the dead. and it must be taken seriously. that is what Hartwin would have wanted. or her precious child's soul is lost forever. she will do what she can, she will feed him his last meal. and then step back. she is done with the espionage. the spying. which is lying. her face betrays her calm pattern. her crooked lips and twitched nose and yellowed teeth and fire in her eyes are a jigsaw-puzzle reminder of a life of pain. putting one lanky leg in front of the other. she can barely sing the words out inbetween deep breaths of ash.

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she is building towards something. something is building towards her. something summoning from her summer of summoning. deep inside her betrayed by the shallowest of emotions. bubbling inside. but time is not right. she's not quite in sync.

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OH, AND THOSE RAGING RIVERS OF BLUE LAVA EVERYWHERE IN YOUR CIRCLE OF VIEW ARE NOT BLUE LAVA AT ALL, THEY ARE MADCHEN'S TEARS SUCKING UP ALL THE SALTWATER OF THE LAKE, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK