Rain Drawing by Akinori Towma
Trash Mountain
It’s funny how some people drag you down. You’ll be climbing up a mountain of trash. Is it pristine at the very top… really beautiful air? No. There’s just less garbage there. It’ll get harder and harder. Each foot feels like it has concrete blocks attached to it. So, you look down. There you’ll discover a person hanging off each of your legs. And not like any small-type humans, but big ones. They are fat too, but not in an obvious way. They look skinny like Calvin Klein models with cheeks sunken in and jeans that fit loosely on their hips. But they are real heavy. So, you drag those sons of bitches up to the top of the mountain with you. When you get there and let your guard down to appreciate the less trash area, they jump you and toss your ass back down the mountain.
The above is a true story. It happened to me. I told it saying “you” because it felt more distant and allowed me to tell it. The moral of this story is that you need people you trust around you. If you have a friend climbing with you, they can help you fight the Calvin Klein models. One problem you may run into is if your friend also has two people attached to his or her ankles. Then the fight becomes four versus two and those are also not very good odds. So, you might think the solution is more friends. But they have sons of bitches attached to them too. Still, the best thing to do is gather your friends, climb, and fight those fat-ass, skinny models.
Even if you can’t overpower the sons of bitches, at least you will be with your friends fighting, and tumbling down trash mountain, and climbing up together again. Being together may not be much but it’s something. And you never know, maybe you can win the fight out of sheer damn persistence. Or better yet, maybe that tenacity touches the small hearts of the skinny models and their hearts grow big and they become your friends.
The One-Legged Woman
Somewhere in this country…
There’s a one-legged woman being left behind by her man for a woman with two legs. He doesn’t factor in that she lost that limb at war. Or cared for his kids from his first marriage for nine years.
And his story when he leaves doesn’t make no damn sense either. He says he loves this woman with two legs. He says he’s no longer attracted to one-leg. Of course, he is fat and he doesn’t bathe very well. This fatness meets malodor has been overlooked by the one-legged lady because she is nice and shy. Sometimes she sprayed air freshener near her fat man but always pretended the odor was something else. Like maybe it was the dog or his kids or just somehow the smell just lived in the
couch near him through no fault of his own. She had a whole philosophy, nearly a religion, that she created regarding how stinky smells can come from nothing and grow in couches through the fault of no one but fate and the gods.
The fat man justifies his having the affair and destroying their family to her by saying that all that matters is being happy since life… who knows how long he’s got? The one-legged woman wonders if her happiness matters considering how long she’s got? Or what about the contentment of the kids they have been raising together?
Before this betrayal, if the one-legged lady was asked the fat man’s best quality, she would say he was very loyal, and dedicated to his children. What happened to the fat man? How does one suddenly become a pathological asshole with no empathy or care for anyone but oneself? No one really knows. But there are a couple of theories percolating in areas of the country not yet completely tamed by corporate pharmaceutical companies. One idea is that he didn’t have the religion. If he had the religion, he’d have better structures to keep him doing right and fear of the devil burning his fat ass to keep him from doing wrong. Another idea is that he was sold the idea that happiness is all that really matters, and that this notion was implanted by complex forces, defined as the corporate/government nexus, in order to keep him consuming bullshit he doesn’t really need at all costs. And the fat man’s application of this faulty notion to his relationship with the one-legged woman was simply collateral damage.
And this story holds special significance in the USA and anywhere because we are all the one-legged woman. Our friends didn’t even tell us he was no good. Because they didn’t know. Because, how could they? He seemed a mostly nice, normal man until he wasn’t. He just kept eating bullshit he didn’t need for so many years that he turned into bullshit. Yeah, our kids are crying and we’re all alone with one-leg but it’s a pretty strong leg because it’s our only one and we don’t need to live a lie because the truth is hard but helps and we can all build a better future together without the fat man.
The Well-Worn Guitar Strap
The country singer sang his old song. It was about how the heart will always stay with you no matter what.
But then he realized he was not crooning that tune at all. Instead, it was his partner, Wilma, the woman he loved for twenty-some years. She was singing the song he had written for her. And Wilma was on stage at the tavern they used to play at each week together. How was he there because he remembered dying? In that moment he became aware he had been reincarnated into his guitar strap she had taken as her own.
About the author:
Kevin Del Principe is a writer and film director. The son of a snowplow truck driver and a school nurse, Kevin grew up outside of Buffalo. He now makes his home in Memphis. I Animal is Kevin’s debut novel. He directed and co-wrote the feature film UP ON THE GLASS.
In the artist’s words:
Akinori Towma. I often collaborate with Natural Forces. I would like to call this painting “Rain Drawing” because my stroke is changed by Natural force “Rain”