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| (visual by via this license) |
dispatch eleven
Oikos by Adam Moorad
debuted 1 September 2009 | kept 1057 times | click to keep
behind-the-scenes footage 
Lamb is shivering. Donny and Amy walk into the bar. He follows them in. Looks around. The bar is full of blue neon with many people talking, screaming, and laughing. Singing together. Enjoying themselves. The company of others. Lamb feels alive and suddenly wants to die. The bar is crowded and there is no place to sit. Everyone looks happy. What should he do to feel the way the people in the bar look? Lamb thinks he should have stayed in. He has work in the morning and doesn’t want to feel hungover. He thinks he should quit his job and move to the country. He hopes Donny and Amy will only want one drink. Donny and Amy talk to one another and Lamb doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to speak. Impassioned murmurs surround him. Lamb can’t hear anything clearly. He hopes no one asks him any questions and thinks about calling his father. He wonders what he’d say. Loses his train of thought. Counts the seconds as they pass. Loses count. Feels awkward and antisocial. Tries to think of a way to participate. Donny, how is the job search going? Amy, I like your shoes. Hey guys, how do you feel about buying a Webber grill for the balcony?
People swarm around the bar. John Cougar Mellencamp sings, “Come on baby make it hurt so good.” There is only one bartender on duty. His shirt has a palm tree on the chest. Its branches look tired. He ignores Donny hunched over the bar waving cash in the blue neon light. Donny says curse words to himself out loud. Amy looks around the barroom at other girls. Jealously. Touching her earrings. Looking at her shoes. There is no place to move. Lamb looks around. Sees a television. Candlelight. There are strange animal taxidermy hanging from the walls. A fish. A deer. A buffalo. He rubs his eyes. He keeps rubbing. Lamb tells Amy he will be right back. He walks to the bathroom through a labyrinth of amorphous forms. At the sink, he furiously scrubs his hands. The bathroom is dark and messy. There are no paper towels or soap.
Lamb looks at himself in the mirror. His face is still where it should be. His eyes. His ears. In place. He looks at his hair. Feels greasy. Less nauseous. He can hear John Cougar Mellencamp singing, “You don’t have to be so exciting.” He moves his feet and realizes he is standing in a puddle of water. Disgusted, he stands still in it. He doesn’t want to move. He is a volcanic island, pushed through the earth’s crust by the geothermal energy. Again he looks at his reflection and wonders how to erupt. He longs to erupt. He will erupt. John Cougar Mellencamp says, “Sometimes love don’t feel like it should.” Lamb runs his fingers through his hair. He looks at the soap suds on the sink, popping, running down the drain. He presses his arms together. This body is decomposing. This skin is withering. He looks at his hands. His skin. He feels tired. He is dying. He will die in the Baptist hospital downtown. Someone knocks on the bathroom door. Lamb looks at himself and then away. He feels removed from everything he touches. Tired. Sick. His fingers are miles away. The door knob is in a different galaxy. The mirror is a different time zone. Lamb steps out of the puddle slowly. Splashes. Ripples glance off the soles of his shoes. He coughs. He coughs again. He spits. Sees a roadside in his reflection. A steeple. His building. Brick. Balconies. A chainsaw. An alcoholic water bottle from long ago. Dries his hands on his t-shirt. Opens the door. There is a fat man standing outside. He is wearing a cowboy hat. Sweating. Lamb gives him a half smile. The fat man has no face. Lamb passes. Disappears into the crowd of people. Lamb looks around. The bar is dark. The air is opaque. His vision blurs. There is cigarette smoke. Blue neon light. He is alone. He will remain this way, suspended, dying, alone with everyone.
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Adam Moorad's writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in 3AM Magazine, the Emprise Review, Storyglossia, and Underground Voices. He lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing. |