- More Days Than Nights
Tiresias sits alone chewing gum like Lolita. Her dog, Little St. James, sleeps on her lap. Even though her implants are hurting, she soldiers on and will tease the disaster out of the moment. The other passengers have drawn pictures of their genitals, knowing their best lives await them on the island. In an abundance of caution, agents storm the plane. They collect the crayons and drawings, then throw the evidence into the wine-dark sea.
- That’s a Great Question
The lawyers huddle together holding their briefs. The size of the massage table is not contested. In her squeaky voice, Tiresias claims to love the sinner but hates the sin. The interrogation of sin is a show trial for systemic askism, she claims in a voice slowly regaining its husky core. God is in the hands of angry sinners.
- Truckers Know Where to Eat
Tiresias hired me after reading my Craigslist ad. She is a world-class prophet and I am a monologist, editor, and personal trainer. On first meeting her, she claimed that “it is what it is” depends on the definition of what “is is,” and how it interacts with truth’s standing among all competing truths. Words matter full stop.
- Plantar Fasciitis on the Mormon Trail
Our work arrangement allowed me time to work on my writing when I was not marching around the island in support of “is is,” which was without a strategic purpose. If she was virtue signaling, she did not identify the virtue and no one was watching, an overwhelming yet often ignored difficulty. By the time we left the island, I was exhausted from dragging our suitcases through the sand.
- Elvis Stole More Than Music
Tiresias challenged the authenticity of my referrals. In my defense, I said the “is what it is” of “is is” has emerged out of the “it” factor of evolutionary fitness and finds itself in the binary of is and “is is.” It accurately replicates the performative hip rolling of gamey (gamed) gametes when they are mediated by the “is is” in its dystopian propagation, which is unabashedly pro-life in its embrace of lite rock. The decline or absence of the “it” factor in humans results in subjects being put down for bad hips. Elvis, for example, would have been euthanized if he hadn’t had a timely passing on the can. This is not to be confused with eugenics and the sperm samples given by tech moguls in or on their gift bags.
- Yet Another Narrative — Yeah No!
The claim (without evidence) that Tiresias uses a teleprompter strapped to a deus ex machina is deep-state disinformation, a tunnel effluent. She says we won’t give up on the visual, even if appearances vanish. The creation of distant planets will be abandoned without libertarian funding. She wants to use the tunnels to rehab as we develop new sense organs that will grow out of our faces and help us negotiate the collapse of the sense world. I’m not always sure what crisis Tiresias thinks she is addressing. Her range of emotions is limited. She may be parodying my ideas which I rethink daily to stay ahead of self-censure.
- Moral Panic
The moral arc of history is an instant classic. This is a claim Tiresias makes but then admits that she is arc-phobic. Another moral arc lives rent-free in ark simulacra and its public relations empire. Yet another moral arc bends toward a billionaire and one thousand clapping robots. All known arcs end in swamps. When the swamps are drained, the harvested contents will be laid out upon a table. As such, they cannot be identified or walked back to the right side of history and its thrum of chiseled flourishing.
- Debbie Does it on the Grassy Knoll
Tiresias wants to busk in a globalist tunnel. She plans to use her prophetic material for songs of protest, even if they are no longer timely. She has a guitar, but the few chords she knows do not work with her boisterous atonality. Unfortunately, she has the wrong idea about life in the tunnels after the pederasts were driven out. They are now a safe place to raise a family, attend church, and shop in strip malls. I’ve lived in the tunnels and only left to post Craigslist ads and check my writing submissions. If Tiresias hadn’t responded to my ad, I would still be shredding in the tunnels, drainage permitting.
- Coughing During the Requiem
The tunnels encourage the use of garish nouns where they are freely recited in rituals of product placement. The nouns are kept out of reach of the chattering class and coastal elites. The criticism that garish nouns suppurate on the sentence’s surface is a bad faith intersection (and result) of is and “is is.” As the production of nouns moved from our heartland to child-labor countries, prayer was reclassified as work but has yet to produce a paycheck. Noun profits have paid for ginormous yachts the length of a working liar’s nose. With the launching of the yachts, the tide rose and sank all the boats ferrying the dead home from their temp work. The eulogies for the drowned are fraught with language cribbed from the public relations work done for oil spills. After listening to hours of eulogy on YouTube, Tiresias concludes that when a temp worker is dead, why say anything?
- Totally
The appreciation of Tiresias’ work is long overdue. The Book Award for her tell-all, “At the End of the Day,” is sponsored by a shadowy front group. Tiresias is thrilled but confesses she does not remember writing a book. I assure her that a text slipping from memory is a common occurrence, especially for those suffering from the trauma of prophecy and its fact checkers. The book will give her the acclaim and audience she deserves, even if there is a problem with its authenticity.
- The Banker’s Contrition
I accompany Tiresias to the ceremony and use the boozing hour to schmooze and present my aesthetic theory even though it is a work in progress. When we are well into the drinks, I tout the alchemical placement of a single biscuit of hardtack between mirrors and ab machines for the unpredictable reaction that leads to preserving individual talent and the support of personalities. Of course, many traditional creative practices still have value. They are available at your regional MFA franchise, staffed by the writers and agents attending the banquet. Scholarships are available.
- Jug Jug The Zoom Call
At the end of the banquet, I’m asked to accept the position of hardtack czar, a position charged with unpacking the hardtack hack, a drunken play on words. I propose workshops for memoir writing without having a curriculum in mind. Until then, I’m prepared to land, lean, and propose an equitable and timely feeding schedule for all hierarchical spaces that have succumbed to the noise of infinite apologies, a job for AI. One robot blaming, another apologizing, as long as there are batteries.
13. Nutrient Barn
Used as a supplement, hardtack stopped the voices of dead authors mumbling in the white noise that is consciousness as I know it. This is not meant to be yet another theory of consciousness. Rather, it’s what it is like to be a context influencer with unlimited narratives colliding in a safe environment. As a creative process, it will mature into a restorative brand and lifestyle. Tiresias loves it!
- One Hundred Percent
The next level narrative thanks you for your service in restoring the low-hanging fruit for those suffering from answerism, which drove Tiresias out of Ibiza. She worked as a DJ in a club spinning discs and moaning for multiple choice. Her undoing was confusing riffing for prophecy. This led to her firing and years of unresolved wandering until my employment and our relocating to Los Angeles, a harrowing journey through the urban tunnels. Above ground, Tiresias is keen on reinventing herself and working on her abs. I’ve stopped trying to steelman her infatuation with celebrities. I’m more concerned with remaining employed despite not having been paid. Tiresias claims she hasn’t been paid and is distraught after learning that her book was pulped and her award was a sham.
- Neocons in Spin Class
We rented an apartment in a black site with a Starbucks and a tunnel entrance manned by beefy guys at the velvet rope. The apartment has a water bed, a kitchenette, but not windows. Tiresias likes the heavy metal sound pumped into the units all hours of the day. In this dark atmosphere, we tried to teach our dog to bark rather than moan. When the overdetermined moaning gets too loud, our neighbor pounds on the wall and tells us to stop watching porn.The manager has acknowledged that the dog’s moaning masks the misunderstood moaning from the workrooms, where the agents gather intel in live shows.
16. Instrumental Reason
The bottom falling out of a bucket is a non-event. Are there fewer minds than selves? Who has the training and enough moral high ground to monitor false flag events such as gender reveal? Tiresias plans to use these tropes in a TED talk, which we work on obsessively over smoothies and giant bags of theater popcorn. When I’m tired of her talking and nagging, I take her for a stim treatment. She doesn’t mind that the car battery and cables aren’t sanitized after sessions with the sweaty and skanky club members. She loves the class and leaves believing she is tied to a mast in a perfect storm. The rope burns on her arms have no explanation and are often mistaken for self-abuse. This is not inconsistent with a prophet’s profile but it’s embarrassing when we have spinach salads in Santa Monica with her wounded Popeye forearms flopping on the café table. The mad prophet act is hard to dress and harder to monetize.
17. Oddyseus Does the Downward Dog
Out of an abundance of caution, Tiresias insists on using a grammar-checking program on the text of her TED talk. An end to her tortured syntax is near. She will become a public figure and subject to ridicule and cancellation. I scour her adolescent messaging for offensive posts, skid marks, and self-harm rants. We believe in this program and AI’s potential for prophecy. Tiresias begs me to stay even though we’ve had disagreements. She needs me to find her favorite hot yoga studio in the tunnels. If we become destitute, I know how to set up a tent. As a gesture of loyalty, I agree to work as a barista in our Starbucks until she is paid for her TED talk.
- Friends of the Library
Agents have bugged our apartment in their dogged pursuit of the apocryphal Book of Names, believed to be held by someone from the Little St. James diaspora. As a ploy, they express interest in my Book of Nouns and offer to publish it as a chapbook. They believe I will eventually give them the names, if not the book. Even though every runaway in the tunnels has a chapbook, I hope they will publish mine, now that I’m above ground.
- A Primer Mover Clogged with Body Parts
The week of the TED talk, Tiresias surprised me with a cache of dick pics she claims were taken on the island. She will not say how she got them or if we are safe having them. One picture has been blown up and the pixels reveal a map for the Second Coming of Christ. Tiresias says the immediacy of Chrit’s return has been confirmed by her contacts in the Pentecostal prophecy world. The return is always in the works, which is half the fun. But this time the return is a sure thing.
- Pump the Brakes
We move to a boutique hotel across the alley from another black site where the eschatological fire escape is bolted to the brick wall. Tiresias keeps watch as she does yoga on the hotel balcony. Her asanas are losing form and our credit cards are maxed. We can no longer order takeout. We are living off the complementary fruit and pastries from the lobby, but I haven’t seen Tiresias this happy since she climbed on the cabana roof at Little St. James and held forth on depravity. The prince was sweating like a pig. Fornication stopped for a moment then commenced with vigor.
- That’s Another Great Question
Christ climbs out of a window onto the fire escape, waving to us. Tiresias runs across the alley with a hotel chair. She shamelessly asks Christ to listen to her TED talk. If I can get to Christ, I’ll ask if he needs a guide for the tunnels and a secretary to record his teachings as they are given. I’ll advise against miracles — they’re for rubes at county fairs. Tiresias uses the chair to climb to the balcony where Christ is waiting. There is a pool and bar on the roof. Christ may be an agent after the book, but I have to follow. Happy hour is approaching. I hope he has some cash. Hold on tight.
~
David Gilbert has published stories and poetry in Mississippi Review Online, Blip, New World Writing, First Intensity, In Posse, Caliban, Screens and Tasted Parallels, and other magazines. He has coedited with Karl Roeseler two collections of stories: Here Lies and 2000andWhat? He is the author of four books and eBooks of stories: I Shot the Hairdresser, Overland, A Third Bridge, and Central Casting. He has also authored Five Happiness, an obstruction-driven narrative.