A latter day work of
Written as a new chapter to “(t)h(i/e)m: exercise in fiction” [Entropy Press, 1998], on the occasion of it’s digital re-release by Macska Moksha Press [2015]. “Russ” was my nom d’arte for the project, so I took it on one more time for this addendum. I thank N. for inspiring the title.
Pinenuts in the cone (Photo by N.)
T. was in anguish. Again. But he knew the drill: wait it out. All emotions come and go. Even the ones that strike with an intensity that seems like they will last the rest of your life. The ones that arrive without warning (but do they ever really?) like a roaring storm on a calm day (does that ever actually happen?) pelting you with heavy drops of misery, whipping you with biting winds of despair, deafening you with the thunder of your insistent self-hatred. “Oh Jesus,” T. suddenly said out loud, interrupting his own thoughts. “How fucking melodramatic! Where do I get such pathetic, sophomoric, mopey shit?”
“Like a fucking cry-baby. That’s what I sound like. What the fuck?” He shook his head, but nothing went away.
A stirring in the branches above T. broke his spell. (He was right: wait it out and it goes away, but in this case, so sudden was the transition that he didn’t notice it and had no conscious realization that he was no longer in anguish.) He was on his hands and knees, under a Single-Needled Pinyon tree, harvesting pinenuts off the ground. He leaned out backwards to get his head beyond the drip-line and look up to see what was going on.
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