rock heals brings it every wednesday: The Origin of Paranoia As a Heated Mole Suit

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March 29, 2006

The Origin of Paranoia As a Heated Mole Suit

Rupert Wondolowski

Hear Rupert read "The Origin of Paranoia As a Heated Mole Suit," from the i.e. reading series in Baltimore.

     I woke with a start in the leather armchair, my
knees pumping, realizing my sister was having better
dreams than me. I mean, our mother joining her in the
shower and then turning into a skeleton - classic!
     A pastiche of state ideology, tender airline
stewardesses and dismantled binaries kept me up most
of the night. The day was taken up with dour lurching
and watching a galaxy form in a pot of Ramen noodles.
     Somewhere between inertia and a feeding frenzy,
between a cloudy password and a slender cling lies the
magnetic undermind.
     It's the loneliest Halloween ever, Charlie Brown.
I'm packing my bags for the Patsy Cline Institute for
the Emotionally Disabled as chunks of nations are
being swallowed or washed away like mashed bananas in
a baby's cereal bowl. New Jersey's slated to be the
next Atlantis and the sky's been more full of clumps
and substance than the earth, filling heads and
sinuses with wet wind and symptom clusters.
     Children pass me on the darkened side streets at
night, carrying candy baskets carved from my meat
covered lightbulb head. Their costumes and pitchforks
against the lone streetlight create grotesque shadow
plays of dining politicians and college boys drunk on
entitlement.
     I see the ghost of Rod McKuen under an elm tree,
decked out in his Disney version of rough trade,
having a daiquiri with a Pekinese. He's telling it
the spooky tale of the potato that grew eyes in The
Little Kingdom of Rubber Tires, but he's not making
much of an impression. The toy dog distractedly
sniffs at where the lunch comes out, where the love is
made.
     As I sit alone in my heated mole suit, watching a
midnight showing of the George Kuchar cinematic
classic, "Hold Me While I'm Naked", clutching a
Tootsie Roll I stole from the girl in the raspberry
devil suit and high heels I have an epiphany. All I
want is some flatbed resonance, a slightly burned
picnic table, a clean giddy life of grass stains.
     As Granny always used to say: "Saying 'I love
you' isn't necessarily giving the recipient of said
phrase a license to torture." Of course she used to
also always say "Bag up your own walnuts around here,
I'm through."