Trading Genes like Pokemon Cards

You don't die in the same world you are born

Only 10% of addicts beat their addiction in rehab. As a kid, I did everything half-sure yet whole-heartedly. I would push my dinner to the side of the plate to make it look like I ate more than I did, just to get my slice of God for dessert. My closest friends were vitamins and minerals; the kid that ate fossilized pizza and had a 99 cent store laugh. Words would weave their way into my mind. Give me more than just a sentence. The back roads made Shakespeare more accessible and I feared calm, not crazy. My first encounter with abstract reasoning was when I made $31.08 over the summer, circa 1995. I fabricated a lemonade stand in front of my house but I didn’t sell lemonade to the neighborhood humans. I sold them the electromagnetic spectrum for $1.25 - it was like a global hotbox of sorts. Even to this day, I still have a reckless disregard for the truth. Over the next few years of life, I spent most of my time mapping out my brain and eating polygraph tests. If the glove doesn’t fit, then you must acquit. My humans sent me to a university in Spain that changed their whole curriculum when I offered my suggestions. The reason education is failing our youth is because they aren’t learning things with all 5 senses. I explained that much like the concept of immersion to learn a new language, students should be immersed into their studies with more than just their eyes and ears. Shake the camera a little bit. Quit chewing vegetarian gum and reload the gun of idiosyncrasy. Voir dire. I watched the running of the bulls. The worst part is pretending to be ok. There was something in the water.

I pull myself out of a recycle bin filled with narcoleptic rubber bands. I’m on board a plane whose passengers are a mix of Japanese cattle ranchers and hedonistic fishermen. I’m not going to dress like a fisherman if I want to attract dentists. The flight attendant takes role. Here. Here. Here. Heroin. Here. Here. My cones don’t work as well at night but I manage to read that I’m flying with the Malaysian Airlines. It doesn’t depend on anything. It depends on something. I take a seat next to a dense fisherman who’s living vicariously through his meal. What do you season placenta with? He tells me that the survivors of Chernobyl were all drunk, paralytic drunk. Half my life is just waiting, interpret that however you’d like. Over the intercom, a female voice casually informs us that we’ll make meaning together. 1000. 1. 1000. 1. Vendors walk down the aisle selling cans of cake and unscented candles. A fellow sitting 3 seats in front of me buys a candle. What a cold, calculated decision. A band pulls up next to our plane in a fog of deconstructed hornet’s nests. I appreciate the danger but don’t cave in when the flight crew abandons us and start to swim into the band’s wagon. Everyone but me swims into the band’s wagon. I stay in the plane. Motionless. Emotionless. When plots are not linear it’s best to pick your poison.

Morality has changed. The other day happens every day. Others say he was no longer Gage. The only place this writing exists is in your mind. The irony of being innocent in prison while someone who is guilty lives in the outside world. Who blinks first? I clap my hands to signify that I agree with what Dr. Bedlam is trying to explain. He’s a comical psychologist who holds grudges like babies. Good stuff is my fault and bad stuff is their fault. I sleepwalk into society. Psychology is the science of pulling habits out of rats. The point is for you to feel something. Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean the feelings I feel aren’t real. I set up shop next to an actual lemonade stand. My stand is selling nervous breakdowns for $1.21. When it comes to money, principles go out the window. The girl tries to compete with my profits but prices herself out of the market. I’m shooting in the dark. I am dark when I shoot. Homicide is Latin, croissant is French.

When you shock my senses you are just delaying the death of the Little Albert Experiment. I live in a body where the root of suffering is attachment. Negative numbers were once called absurd. We dwell on the past when there isn’t much future left. Trading genes like Pokemon cards. The silence is deafening, like an amphetamine withdrawal. I watch myself stack blocks of ripe sarcasm. There’s a microwave in the oven and the numbers are in baby talk. I look into it’s reflection and see a glimpse at an older me. I deliver a smile. I watch experiences running down the streets of Spain. They look like bulls.

© 2016 Gaston Villanueva

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!

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Rana

I felt this was really different from your other stories, with a beautiful warm shade interlacing the vibrant. I absolutely admire the work, and found best the second paragraph, it's so uniquely vivid, rich in variety of techniques and the whole imaginative experience in the to-be lost-plane was excitingly refreshingly to dive into. I found a few things I had never seen put in words before albeit I'd known or noticed em subconsciously. I love the term "my humans". i thought that maybe if you meant immersion and immersed. The last lines make up for a very beautiful ending, a striking simile. Altogether wonderful :)