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| (visual by Jim Bowen via this license) |
dispatch eleven
Oikos by Adam Moorad
debuted 1 September 2009 | kept 1124 times | click to keep
behind-the-scenes footage 
“You’re always nervous,” Donny says. His eyes are glued to the television. With a sword he engages an alien from another dimension on a yellow brick road. Tries to save a princess from a burning battleship in a far-off galaxy. From a car accident. From ultraviolet radiation. From cancer. From armlessness.
Lamb looks around the apartment. He doesn’t know what to do. He cannot get comfortable. He looks at Donny, then at the television. Donny walks up a road, bombs exploding in far away places. Lamb watches the explosions from the safety of the sofa. They combust on another side of the world. There are yellow flames. The sun is out. The sky is blue. Things are on fire. Lamb imagines he’s on fire. Drowning in flames, death imminent. Amy’s plants are already dead. His mother is patiently looking down from heaven. Lamb is an excited tiny zygote.
Something is about to happen.
Donny says, “Maybe next time.”
“Suit yourself,” Lamb says.
“I need to get a job,” Donny says.
“Where’s Amy?” Lamb says.
“I don’t know,” Donny says.
“What are we supposed to do for dinner?” Lamb says. “Tonight?”
“I don’t know,” Donny says. “I don’t have any money.”
“You don’t need money,” Lamb says.
“I don’t know,” Donny says. “Are you going to call your dad?”
“Maybe,” Lamb says.
“What’s the difference between a preacher and a pastor?” Donny wonders.
“I don’t know,” Lamb says. He leans backward, crosses his legs, tries to maneuver his spine in a posture-supporting position. Looks at his fingernails. Smells the apartment. The paint and drywall and stagnancy of bottled air. Air particles bouncing against one another throughout the room. Against the floor. The ceiling. The television. Wanting to be released. Static crackles across the screen. The particles brush against Lamb’s skin. “Let’s go to that Mexican place,” he says. He closes his eyes. His body is in his apartment, feeling torn and calm. Split like a piece of firewood. It is the seventeenth century. Lamb, bearded, chops firewood. Buffalo roam the continent freely. He lives in a frontier log cabin with ten children. His wife has scarlet fever. He is chopping wood in the snow. His children watch him, his beard, the wood, the axe. He chops and chops until his hands blister and burst. The cold burns his skin. The axe handle is a bone—an extension of Lamb’s own body. His body stays one place, his mind another.
“Mexican food sucks,” Donny says.
“Then we should get sushi,” Lamb says.
Amy opens the door and walks into the apartment. She drops her keys on the kitchen table. Her face is tired.
“Welcome home,” Donny says. “Sushi sucks more.”
Amy looks around. Confused. “What?”
“Your boyfriend wants to take me on a date,” Donny says. “Are you jealous?” He looks at the television screen. Frowns. Says, “Not again, goddammit.”
Amy looks at Lamb, annoyed. “I wouldn’t be if he ever took me anyplace.”
Lamb shrugs. He tries to kiss her in passing but she resists.