Put Your Hand
In The Hand of the Man
With His Hand in the Hand of the Man
With His Hand in the Windmills of Your Mind
Picture a McIntosh apple pulling away from your seven year old mouth. In the background, break dancers spin their faces on contraband pieces of cardboard. The McIntosh has one of your teeth embedded in its pulp. I put that there, you think. I did that.
Yo' man
what do you expect,
the guy's a gigolo, man!
You know wha' I mean?
Picture you picturing a McIntosh apple stuffed with broken teeth that snake around the cores like spare change. A rich source of calcium, consonants and quarters but don't eat the skin because it will serrate your stomach lining and you will bleed to death without even knowing it. You hurl the apple into the air and you wait for it to come down and you don't really care when it doesn't.
***
Picture a boy who likes the Eurythmics. He talks about a hotel with revolving doors that lead into swirling yellow nitrogen storms. He is unsure of what lies beyond these storms--possibly mutant panthers or abandoned ice cream trucks. He insists this is not about magic.
I like to.
Listen to.
Beethoven.
Picture a dream where this boy's fingers are secretly locked over your lungs. He sits in class with the stubs of his hands looking like melting apples, the skins falling off in messy, red strands. He asks if anyone has seen his fingers but everyone says no.
***
Picture a summer with no apples because of pesticides that may cause children to turn into fish when they are 37 years old. The sky is pockmarked with cancer-enriched sunlight. You are not allowed outside, not because of the cancer but because you are brown enough as it is.
Julie Gerond
with the golden blonde hair
rides the polka-dot pony
at the summer-long fair
Picture you picturing Julie Gerond at the summer-long fair. Strangers ask if they can take her picture and she laughs and says oh my God, are you serious? This is so embarrassing, are you serious? Are you for real? Ok, sure I guess, I mean, are you serious? Oh my God! Someone gives her a tub of strawberry ice cream which just sits there in the heat of the summer-long fair but doesn't melt.
***
Picture a mouthbreather who decorates the church parking lot with drawings of nuclear reactor signs that look like windmills. You are sure she has killed someone, possibly with a short knife or a plastic bag. I'm not smart, says the mouthbreather. But I'm super-talented.
Pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem
She tells you she is allergic to everything, even apples. If she eats an apple, her throat will swell up. You believe that McIntoshes would be exceptionally deadly, causing her eyes to melt into slicks of silver. Tiny blue birds with scissors for beaks would appear on the rims of her eye sockets but you don't tell her any of this.
***
Picture a McIntosh apple spinning silently in space. This nutritious yet delicious snack takes twenty three years to smash into your right temple where it imbeds broken teeth into your brain like old, violent friends.
Since I left Plumtree,
down in Tennessee,
it's the first time
I've been warm
Right before the end, you meet someone who looks a lot like Annie Lennox but not really. And now, for the absolute win, she says. What is borborygmi? It's a kind of hobbit, you say. It is characterized by a disposition to sing the Rolling Stones for no reason. In certain cultures, it is regarded as a demon. Not-Really-Annie-Lennox says no but she says it kindly, like it doesn't really matter and so it doesn't hurt that much.
*
Ekleksographia:
Wave Two
March, 2010
Fiction
Kuzhali Manickavel
Kuzhali Manickavel's collection Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings is available from Blaft Publications and can be found at Powell's Books and Amazon.com. Her work can also be found in Best American Fantasy 3, Subtropics, Per Contra, anderbo, Quick Fiction, Caketrain, The Café Irreal, FRiGG and Eyeshot. She lives in a small temple town on the coast of South India and blogs at thirdworldghettovampire.blogspot.com.