Chunks of Flesh
This morning was a classic early spring morning in the SF Bay Area. The Berkeley Hills were slighty damp and freezing cold as the sun had not yet topped the ridge. The air was clear as a bell, and snappish in that refreshing way that makes nightcrawlers late sleepers wave their hands in derision and make the vomit sign with their forefinger. That's OK. As Neal Cassady said, never knock the way the other cat swings. Or , as he supposedly said. Anyway, a morning like this makes you feel good.
I was striding down the road, enjoying the smells of grass, flowers, and a breakfast being cooked somewhere. Dogs were barking in Live Oak Park. Crows were swooping around looking for some nice succulent garbage. Then I saw the squirrels skittering around, running from me, and after each other. Perhaps one had a golden acorn. Then a dark image took hold, and I haven't been able to shake it yet. A picture arose in my mind of a fence line topped with perhaps fifty squirrels, all cute and cuddly and staring at me. All of them. I was seized by a hypnotic force and backed up to a parked car, against my will. Try as I might I couldn't break away. I stared at them, and they stared at me. Then an especially fat and malevolent squirrel began that horrible ragged chirping noise they sometimes make. All the squirrels joined in. The racket became intolerable. Suddenly I knew what was coming next but I couldn't move. I was to be the object of sacrifice for 4 dozen squirrels to appease whatever god they worship. They leapt down from the fence en masse, and before I knew it, great chunks of my flesh were being stripped off my legs by the leaping fat, furry little devils. I screamed even but could barely hear myself above the horrible chirping and squeaking. I went down swinging, finally able to move. Squirrels flew in every direction and the crows swooped down to take them as they hit the pavement. Ah yes, crows are my friends. The squirrels scattered, squeaking in fear as the corvids fell on them with relish. When I recover I will moblize an army of them and ravage the squirrel population from Richmond to Oakland. I will have my revenge, and the crows will have a feast. Ahhhh hahahahahhahaaaaa....
I was striding down the road, enjoying the smells of grass, flowers, and a breakfast being cooked somewhere. Dogs were barking in Live Oak Park. Crows were swooping around looking for some nice succulent garbage. Then I saw the squirrels skittering around, running from me, and after each other. Perhaps one had a golden acorn. Then a dark image took hold, and I haven't been able to shake it yet. A picture arose in my mind of a fence line topped with perhaps fifty squirrels, all cute and cuddly and staring at me. All of them. I was seized by a hypnotic force and backed up to a parked car, against my will. Try as I might I couldn't break away. I stared at them, and they stared at me. Then an especially fat and malevolent squirrel began that horrible ragged chirping noise they sometimes make. All the squirrels joined in. The racket became intolerable. Suddenly I knew what was coming next but I couldn't move. I was to be the object of sacrifice for 4 dozen squirrels to appease whatever god they worship. They leapt down from the fence en masse, and before I knew it, great chunks of my flesh were being stripped off my legs by the leaping fat, furry little devils. I screamed even but could barely hear myself above the horrible chirping and squeaking. I went down swinging, finally able to move. Squirrels flew in every direction and the crows swooped down to take them as they hit the pavement. Ah yes, crows are my friends. The squirrels scattered, squeaking in fear as the corvids fell on them with relish. When I recover I will moblize an army of them and ravage the squirrel population from Richmond to Oakland. I will have my revenge, and the crows will have a feast. Ahhhh hahahahahhahaaaaa....
posted by Harry at 8:51 AM
8 Comments:
Uh, I'm right behind you in the hairless department there, Roy.
I haven't read Jung in so long, I barely remember his ideas. Can you suggest a good book on that?
Ah yes. I knew that title, and completely forgot it. thanks for the reminder.
I actually don't teach. I am a Doktor of Bureaucracy. I am the coordinator for the Ph.D. students in Anthropology at Berkeley. As Hunter Thompson might have termed it, a "brutal fixer."
Wiggy, always avoid Shattuck Avenue if possible, especially in the Gourmet Ghetto between Vine and Cedar. Very bad in there, no one paying attention to anything except themselves as they eat groovy food; double parked delivery vans; and yuppies driving like maniacs. Use Oxford. Much easier on the nerves if you're going north-south.
By they way, what does your daughter study?
You all and my recent visit to the old village are making me homesick.
Anyway I used to interpret my wife's dreams but that seems to have tapered off -- either they don't make sense any more, or I just can't follow like I used to, or she isn't bothering to tell me, or something. But for dreams and art to spring from the same unspoken abstract symbol language -- this makes sense. Partly from that, religion also sprang. (What is this about religion? I seem to have a need to apply a reductive analysis until it disappears. Well, I love Mankind, making religion disappear is the least I can do.)
I may indeed be part malevolent squirrel. Either that, or I feel the oncoming revenge of nature and I symbolize selfish humanity. Roy's take on it was good, about Man turning nature upon itself. I'll have to read Jung and see what else comes out. I always thought of myself more as part three toed sloth, or maybe see turtle in my more wishful moments.
Thanks, Wiggy. Lunacy at Noon just came to me when I realized I needed to come up with a name. It was a dichotomy that attracted me. Or maybe that isn't the right word. In astronomy it refers to the half of the moon that faces earth and is illuminated. I was thinking at the time that we don't see the moon at Noon, but its there nonetheless. Perhaps that reflects my wishful thinking that I may not see things in my writing that are there, but I'll see them later. Or something along those lines.
Not to say that Upper Sproul at Noon isn't full of lunacy, but I'm generally in the pool then, trying to escape the lunacy of my office.
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