"Are you crazy?" he said.
"No," I said. And I shattered his power to doubt me. I transported him to his school and then to his teacher's mouth and then to a lingerie clothing store dressing room and then to the surface of the Sun, where the flames could not consume him - and then back to his desk again.
The poor young kid crashed to his knees. He reminded me of something, though I could not discern exactly what.
As he cowered there, I transported him to the inside of Carolyn's breast, had him contemplate the infertile egg of a Bermuda Ern (in Bermuda). I took him from there to the town of my childhood. I put him in a circus crowd there. I had him see a man with locomotor ataxia and a woman with an ass as big as a tree trunk.
I got out of his cellphone. I did it noisily, so his ears would tell him a lot about his Creator, even if he was unwilling to use his eyes. I slammed the cellphone firmly.
I stopped with the tips of my shoes on the rim of the narrow field of his downcast eyes. "Jake, I love you," I said gently. "I have broken your mind and body to pieces. I want to make it whole. I want you to feel a wholeness and innner harmony such as I have never allowed you to feel before. I want you to raise your eyes, to look at what I have in my hand."
"Jake - Jake -" I said, "I hold in my hand a symbol of wholeness and harmony and nourishment. It is Oriental in its simplicity, but we are Tinies, Jake, and not Normals. We Tinies require symbols which are richly colored and three-dimensional and juicy. Most of all, we hunger for symbols which have not been poisoned by great sins our nation has committed, such as slavery and genocide and criminal neglect, or by tinhorn commercial greed and cunning."
"I am approaching my last birthday, Jake," I said. "I am cleansing and renewing myself for the very different sorts of years to come. I am going to set at liberty all the literary characters who have served me so loyally during my writing career, if you could call it one."
"You are the only one I am telling. For the others, tonight will be a night like any other night. Arise, Jake, you are free, you are free."
He arose shamblingly.
I might have shaken his hand, but fuck it
"Goodbye," I said. I disappeared.
Jake's cries to me faded as the distance between us increased.
His voice was my father's voice. I heard my father - and I saw my mother in the void.
A small hand mirror floated by. I neglected it.
Here was what Jake cried out to me in my father's voice: "Make me normal-sized, make me normal-sized, make me normal-sized!"
"No," I said. And I shattered his power to doubt me. I transported him to his school and then to his teacher's mouth and then to a lingerie clothing store dressing room and then to the surface of the Sun, where the flames could not consume him - and then back to his desk again.
The poor young kid crashed to his knees. He reminded me of something, though I could not discern exactly what.
As he cowered there, I transported him to the inside of Carolyn's breast, had him contemplate the infertile egg of a Bermuda Ern (in Bermuda). I took him from there to the town of my childhood. I put him in a circus crowd there. I had him see a man with locomotor ataxia and a woman with an ass as big as a tree trunk.
. . .
I got out of his cellphone. I did it noisily, so his ears would tell him a lot about his Creator, even if he was unwilling to use his eyes. I slammed the cellphone firmly.
I stopped with the tips of my shoes on the rim of the narrow field of his downcast eyes. "Jake, I love you," I said gently. "I have broken your mind and body to pieces. I want to make it whole. I want you to feel a wholeness and innner harmony such as I have never allowed you to feel before. I want you to raise your eyes, to look at what I have in my hand."
"Jake - Jake -" I said, "I hold in my hand a symbol of wholeness and harmony and nourishment. It is Oriental in its simplicity, but we are Tinies, Jake, and not Normals. We Tinies require symbols which are richly colored and three-dimensional and juicy. Most of all, we hunger for symbols which have not been poisoned by great sins our nation has committed, such as slavery and genocide and criminal neglect, or by tinhorn commercial greed and cunning."
. . .
"I am approaching my last birthday, Jake," I said. "I am cleansing and renewing myself for the very different sorts of years to come. I am going to set at liberty all the literary characters who have served me so loyally during my writing career, if you could call it one."
"You are the only one I am telling. For the others, tonight will be a night like any other night. Arise, Jake, you are free, you are free."
He arose shamblingly.
I might have shaken his hand, but fuck it
"Goodbye," I said. I disappeared.
. . .
Jake's cries to me faded as the distance between us increased.
His voice was my father's voice. I heard my father - and I saw my mother in the void.
A small hand mirror floated by. I neglected it.
Here was what Jake cried out to me in my father's voice: "Make me normal-sized, make me normal-sized, make me normal-sized!"
Etc
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May 12, 2023
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