Friday, January 2, 2015

falling

illustrations by pete palomine




joey looked out the window at danny's falling body

the neighborhood had been exhaustively gentrified

he heard laughter in the next room

he could tell ralph was just getting wound up

joey's brain began to congeal

the way had betty had made fun of him last night....

it was one thing to do it when they were alone

but in front of all the guys...

and in front of marco!

he had no more juice in his orange

why was everything so complicated?

there was a phone on the table under the wndow he had never noticed before

danny must have put it there before he jumped


he picked it up and called benny's market

"benny's market" a girl's voice answered

joey imagined himself on a beach with the girl, five thousand miles away, and no other humans for miles around

maybe a monkey to bring them drinks

"benny's market, can i help you," the girl's voice repeated

"i need some juice for my orange"

"we have an excellent selection of fresh oranges today, and an even better selection of pomegranates"


"i don't like pomegranates. people who like pomegranates are pretentious assholes who should go back where they came from"

"i am sorry you feel that way, but if you are not a pretentious asshole, we have a deli special today on grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and also on peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches"

joey realized that the girl was not real, that the voice was a robot

a robot just like all the other creeps and dickheads and ballbusting bitches he had to deal with in this fuckedup modern world

he turned the phone off and put it back on the table in front of the window danny had jumped out of


danny must have hit the sidewalk by now

he heard a siren

danny... what was he going to do without danny... his best friend since preschool...

he thought of all the good times they had had together

a furious tsunami of melancholy crashed through joey's soul and his body began to shake uncontrollably



No comments:

Post a Comment