Friday, February 13, 2009

You died when reality became a busted old TV set

Maybe we've all got it, deep down, that need to recreate the sense of wonder Rick Moranis gave us towards the end of the 80s, but regardless, that piece of shit you "invented" up in your wife's parents' attic was, OK, admittedly it was impressive for the fact that it did anything at all, considering you bought the guts from a clairvoyant hobo whose claim to the supernatural realm was being able to foretell the death of every stray animal that would ever die in an American Saddlery bear-trap--however what the good folks at Disney failed to tell you is that goofy science-related misadventures such as this normally end up on the messier side, like The Fly, and not so much the zany General Exhibition antics of swimming around in a bowl of Cheerios.

* * *

Honey, I Fucked With the Vertical Hold was fun for about 2 seconds until you started getting deathly nauseous, not to mention just plain injured after repeatedly passing through roof tiles, ceiling insulation, and floorboards. The idea of pummeling yourself to get to the off switch was even less appealing when it occured to you that there was no off switch, since after all all you needed was the big red button to make the laser beam go, and if it started cutting through your flesh or sending your organs back to colonial times, well you'd just have to wait until it was finished.

Each cycle consisted of traveling upwards from a central point for a few metres, vanishing, then reappearing equidistant from that central point only from underneath, and continuing upwards. This is what made you think, in a moment of desperation, that jumping out the window wouldn't kill you, since it was more than three metres from the finality of your father-in-laws concrete slab, for the extension that never was to be. You would just float at that same frequency, hovering above the ground in the freedom of the outdoors like Superman caught in one of those dreams of performance anxiety, where he can't quite take off to go save the busload of cheerleaders and all he can do is hate himself for it. But what really happened was much worse.

Apparently gravity still had a say. You did make it to the gardenias, which broke your fall, keeping you alive long enough for one last look at the void between up and down.

It sent you away to a place overwhelmed with the feeling of one of those monolithic wood-encased television sets, switched on in the next room with the sound muted and the door left open. The feeling in your feet as you ascended was like standing over the warm static of rounded glass glowing colours melting through your skin. In Heaven, radiation can't do shit to you and so you are free to enjoy it's comforting breeze all you want. Stand in front of the microwave pregnant all day. Feed your dead kids uranium sticks. It's all quite pleasant when you don't have mortality constantly there to screw things up.

* * *

When your body popped back into existence, grave-deep beneath your in-laws modest vegetable garden, the force ripped you through the earth with no reservations. Whether it was the wind or just some variation in the interference guiding your damaged remains, you were moving in slight horizontal increments with each cycle, tearing through the soil until you made it to the footpath and it didn't bother slowing down one bit. It didn't take many violent eruptions from this unforgiving surface to leave your body an amalgam of shredded soft parts and bone wrapped in clothing, until your remains returned to the lawn, where you managed to disrupt the septic system, and uproot "Colby", the red heeler that was there for your wife through so much of her difficult childhood.

When your in-laws returned home from their afternoon drive of trying to convince their daughter to finally leave you (due to that whole thing with you living in their home for the last three years whilst trying to pitch ideas to late-night-home-shopping networks rather than getting a real job), your body had made its way down to the neighbours paddock where a fire truck had arrived on the scene. And yes, they did try spraying you down with the hose.