The anomaly of controlling time can be felt in near death experiences – time slows down and sometimes reverses. But it is only after death that time can be controlled effectively, human bodies are very much restricted by time – they age/de-age.
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Oddly enough Ferrí encountered the phenomenon of de-ageing when she landed in New England. It was on the first day after having a particularly emotional and turbulent plane flight that she met up with one of America’s famous holiday traditions – Halloween.
Though Halloween has pretty much lost all its religious overtones it is still a highly spiritual time of year – especially for the satanists. It still holds all the naive concepts that conservative Americans like to cherish so much – hell, monsters that come out at ‘night’ and the eradication of things that are different in everyday society by prescribing them one time a year of acceptance.
Ferrí was staying with a family. There were two girls, both around Ferrí’s age and a boy who was younger but had a crush on Ferrí as soon as he met her. The two girls and boy chattered feverishly as they told Ferrí all about Halloween – she was a Halloween virgin. Dressing up as pimps and prostitutes was the latest trend – a new approach to the ghosts and ghouls of Halloweens past. Ferrí dressed up as a fifties housewife (not quite a prostitute), she wore a nineteen fifties amber dress and drew freckles on her cheeks with a marker.
They went out into the street and made their way to a cornfield where the celebrations were. A bonfire was being lit and the celebrations were in motion – children were screaming and scaring each other, and the quasi-liberal parents drank apple cider in plastic cups. Overhead the light was fading into an orange glow as the sun hid away and the street lights flickered on. Ferrí looked around wide-eyed at the happenings around her; she drank it all in then closed her eyes to galvanise it.
"Boo!"
Ferrí screamed. A boy had leapt out of a hedge; he was wearing a demented bunny mask of the likes of ‘Donnie Darko’.
"Ferrí!" the boy shouted hugging her. He took off his mask and Ferrí recognised him at once, it was someone she knew. It was Method.
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Of all the names in the world the most common names for a builder are the ones beginning with ‘J’.
Through the centuries names have become synonymous with jobs. As surnames were slowly introduced and eventually made mandatory by the various state governments of the world, people were forced to add themselves another name, so mostly they called themselves by their job description. That is why it’s not surprising that people with the same last name are similar, as it is most likely their ancestors were in the same business.
First names are different - they are randomly appointed. There is some order; parents tend to name their children after someone meaningful to them. However one would think that a name should have no major effect on how one turns out (unless you named your child Jesus of course).
Method had noticed a trend in his relationships to people and their names. His relationships seemed to follow these rules: If the person’s name started with an E then they will have a crush on him. If their name started with a C or a K then Method will have a crush on them and if their name ended with an I they would sleep together. It seemed like there was some higher meaning to the uncanniness of people with similar names having the same kind of involvement in Method’s life… game theory probably had something to do with it.
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Down to his boxers and a shirt, Method was playing poker with some friends. They weren’t playing strip poker – as much as Method pleaded them to – but ‘real’ poker with real money. He had decided to take his pants off to put them off the game but that hadn’t seemed to work. He was still loosing money, money that he needed to last him the rest of the year (he only had two hundred left in the bank). His only consolation was the quick glances from the females – he liked catching them perving on him.
Di was there, but not with him (she was definitely not perving on him). She had decided that somehow dating his friend would help patch up their friendship. Strangely it did. At least she was sleeping with someone who he knew would be good to her. The only reason he had been hostile towards her when she was interested in other guys was that he knew they wouldn’t treat her right – good girls always fall in love with the bad boy. Laurel wasn’t a bad guy he was a good guy, plus there was a bonus to their infatuation for each other – they were losing the poker game worse than Method.
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Later that night Method broke and weary, made his way back home. The poker had been at one of his female friend’s house – it wasn’t that far from his house but it was an uphill walk all the way. He stumbled along – he was fairly drunk – he had been mixing cocktails. Passing his old high school he stared at the fluorescent lights that he could see lighting the corridors – what a waste of electricity. He stopped and swayed there was nothing but emptiness all around him. Method looked down at his watch – it was big blue and ugly – but he didn’t care because it was a symbol of his hate towards organised fashion – no one else would be seen dead wearing this watch. It wasn’t on his wrist.
Where the hell is it? He must of left it at home. No he never left it at home. Method scanned the concrete around him fixing his gaze on a bubbler; it’ll turn up. Staring at the bubbler he realised he really needed to piss. He found a nearby tree or bush – it was dark he couldn’t tell – and released the liquid from his bladder. He shook his penis dry – it grew. Method cupped his penis in his hand, it was warm and the night was cold. He looked over his shoulder – the night was still empty. He began walking home again; he closed his eyes and began stroking it, counting the number of steps he could make before he was forced to open his eyes. Method moved his hand faster the higher the counting got. He stumbled from the footpath onto the road a couple of times but was vigil to not opening his eyes.
Two hundred and thirty-four… he was wet and slippery
Thirty-five… the ground roughened
Thirty-six… the ground smoothed out
Thirty-seven… the pressure built up
Thirty-eight… he was coming he was coming!
Thirty-nineeeee… he walked into a pole.
Method opened his eyes; the sticky white slime was all over the ground. He buttoned up and went home.
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Underwear goes through a lot of rough treatment. It encounters piss, shit, blood and various other bodily juices. And still it remains the least washed piece of clothing – for guys at least. But somehow in some mysterious way it is also the sexiest piece of clothing.
The only time Method had bought underwear it had been for someone else – Di. For her eighteenth he had bought and made her eighteen presents – a bit overwhelming – she never wore the underwear but the book he gave her, Wuthering Heights, became her favourite.
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Click-click, click-click, in his bed Method listened to his clock. It was an analog clock in the shape of a sailing boat given to him by Juxta’s mother. He listened again; there was a click but not a clock. He turned and his eyes blurred into focus - it was four forty-six. The second-hand remained motionless. Why is it that clocks seem to freeze whenever you look at them? Method thought, waiting for it to move. Finally the second-hand moved but then fell back to where it had been – a feeble effort on the clock’s behalf – he would have to get some batteries. Method reached down to scratch his leg – it had been irritating him all night. There he found his wristwatch – it was wrapped around the ankle. He took it off.
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Ken was Method’s best friend. They had been friends since year one. Even though they had both gone to different schools from year three onwards they had stayed in touch - mostly from Ken’s efforts – and it was high time they went and did something together.
It was tight-ass Tuesday at the movies, which meant cheap tickets so they organised to see a post-modern noir. Ken picked him up in his Mack-daddy mobile and they drove together into town – it was dead like always. Inside the theatre complex it was bustling – the premiere of a local film – it seemed more like the premiere of a major attraction than an Indy film.
"I can see why it’s so dead outside – everyone’s in here!" Method said his face glazed for no apparent reason.
"So why did Di break up with you?" Ken said, he was a little out of the loop and was eager to get back in.
"Huh?.. That was a little while ago and it’s all fixed now – she’s going out with Laurel!"
"What when did that happen?!"
"I don’t know, when she stopped talking to me…"
"I still don’t know why she stopped talking to you."
"Well… It happened like this: I decided to make a pact so we would stay close. I suggested that we tell each other a secret that no one else knows."
"How does that make you stay close?"
"I don’t know… anyway I was talking to her over the phone. So I told her my secret and she told me hers. She told me she liked someone else, which kind of stabbed me in the heart because we hadn’t officially broken up." Method watched the line slowly move forward. "Anyway it still had nothing on mine – she was speechless when I told her. But what made her not speak to me was that I said I kind of did something to her that was like the secret I told her."
"What was the secret?"
"I can’t really tell you, there’s too many people around…"
"Come on it can’t be that bad."
"It involves a cousin and a sexual act."
"Oh… you probably shouldn’t then," Ken said looking down at some excited children.
"She still doesn’t know what I did."
"What do you mean?"
"I just told her that I did something to her like what I did to the cousin - she wouldn’t let me tell her what I actually did."
"Why not?"
"I was too embarrassed to tell her over the phone and when I saw her in public she just ran away saying she already knew and she didn’t want to know – all I got was the letter."
"So she wasn’t going to speak to you because you did something to her and she doesn’t know what it is"
"She has a good idea"
"Still…"
They went inside the theatre and watched the film – it was a good film.
After the film, they went back to Method’s house and talked. Method told the secret – he had watched his cousin changing and jerked off while doing it.
"What did you do to Di then?"
"I…" Method stalled, he felt so bad for having done it and it was weird telling Ken – usually he kept his sexual forays private from him.
"…"
"We were on the phone and I was watching TV and something raunchy came on and I jerked off." Method said quickly.
"What? Is that it? I thought it was going to be much worse than that."
"Really?"
"Yeah – she’s just a drama queen."
"I guess she is," said Method, relieved at Ken’s ambivalence towards Method’s exploits. They talked on through the night. It was the best conversation Method had ever had with Ken. Ken claimed he understood most people’s id - he really did.
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Smells subtly manipulate one’s emotions. Pheromones whisk people in and out of love - they are the base attraction overriding looks and personality. Method once had strong feelings whenever the smell of Di wafted by – usually it was in the oddest of places; a bus stop perhaps. But as time went on and her aroma diluted so did his feelings and his memory of her essence – he was only fond of her by the time Laurel intervened. Ferrí on the other hand had left his room drenched in her odour. It was so overpowering that when his room had finally absorbed it he couldn’t tell if it smelt like him, her or some kind of invisible hybrid lovechild.
The lovechild’s presence overcame him as he slept, forcing its way into his dreams. He woke lucidly into a world of erotic phantasms that manifested themselves from chimeras that hid in the grey shadows of his peripheral vision. The sounds of a hundred voices echoed in his brain, their burbling matched the jungle of entities that assaulted his eyes. They exposed themselves then mutated into one another, creeping towards and through him. He hid his face under his arm and began making out with the flesh that engulfed him. When he was exhausted of the flesh he looked up to see the ceiling endlessly falling away and his body turning and twisting – tumbling. He was a doll he was loved and hated and used.
Water ran down Method’s face washing away the stale scent of life from his body. The sounds of ghosts called out to him from down the drain. He couldn’t make out the words but they seemed desperate and longing like sailors drowning in a submarine. He looked down. There was his penis. He started crying. There was nothing wrong with it – it was a good size, perhaps a little lopsided, but overall a fine organ. The bottom of the tub turned rosé as the water mixed with blood and poured down the drain – his eyes were crying blood. Method sobbed and ran his fingers through his hair – they turned bloody red too. Then Method realised that it wasn’t blood – yesterday he had tried to dye his hair red. It hadn’t turned red though; it had stayed its wet black, dry brown colour. Method laughed maniacally – his life was so melodramatic.
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Hours later incense burnt in his room. He lay on his bed reading ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ – the incense licked him into a state of forgotten euphoria, brining back a time lost but encapsulated in the collective memories of a hundred million lives - kimonos, tea ceremonies and miso-soup swam in his mind. His pocket vibrated - a blue light glowed through his jeans. Method answered.
"Hello?"
"Why do people answer the phone with Hello?" The voice down the line sounded like they were inside a fridge covered with kitsch magnets of American states.
"I don’t know – they say Mushi Mushi in Japan." Method said, unsure whom he was speaking to.
"Mmm they do don’t they…"
"Who is this?"
"Ferrí!"
"Oh, hey, wow, I wasn’t expecting you."
"Yeah I was just ringing my mum and I thought I’d ring you too."
"Isn’t this costing you heaps?"
"Nah, I have a phone card its like five cents a minute."
"Oh ok," method was the semi-unintentional master at killing conversations. Silence.
"So what are you doing?" She said, too fast for Methods silence to take effect.
"Talking to you."
"Besides that."
"Well I had a shower before and I was just reading then."
"What were you reading?"
"Memoirs of a Geisha – it’s pretty good. It’s about this girl growing up and becoming a geisha."
"Is that the book with the red lips with the white on the front?"
"Yeah."
"I haven’t read it."
"You should."
"I’ve got so many books I should read. I was reading this book on the plane over about this girl who fell in love with this swimming coach guy called Yves but then she has an accident and only remembered this other guy Jake who’s a chef. It’s really interesting, I can really relate to the girl – she’s called Ferrí too."
They spoke for several more minutes until Ferrí said,
"You have the sexiest voice I’ve ever heard."
"Why thank you very much," Method said with a bad Elvis voice.
Ferrí giggled and then said something like ‘I love you’ (it could have been ‘I love rugby’) quickly hanging up before Method could click.
"Clock" went his sailing boat clock.
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Origami: the art of folding paper – square paper that is. Method remembered a story he’d read or heard about a girl folding a thousand paper cranes to protest about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. Method decided that he wanted to do something ‘arty’. He had one of his mother’s old magazines lying on top of a dead turntable - he had been saving it for an artistic urge just like this. He cut out all the pages into six by six centimetre squares, found an old origami book his grandmother had given his sister but had somehow found its way into his cupboard and followed the instructions on how to make paper cranes. He made about five thousand of them. They were colourful and trashy, and shimmered with a glossy beauty that only a consumer could truly appreciate. By the end of the creative purge his room was swamped in silent birds. He then let them be free and they flew to Ferrí.
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Random numbers picked by a computer and then printed in size ten font onto a receipt like strip of paper. Method bought the lottery ticket to give to his mother. She had been in hospital for about a week now. A back pain had turned potentially fatal causing her to almost lose nerve sensation in the lower part of her body. She deserved some luck Method figured, after the trauma she’d been through – the loss of Juxta and now this, the near loss of her ability to walk. In a way it was serendipitous that she got into hospital so soon. Even though her back problem was extreme there was still a six-month waiting list for an operation. And the only reason she got to bypass the six-month waiting list was because of a severe allergic reaction that she had to the pain-killers the callous doctors had prescribed her.
Method took the elevator up to floor six – the neurosurgery ward – he walked to her room – she was sharing it with a motorcycle accident victim. There was a screen like a shower curtain that blocked their view of each other but Method could hear the other patient’s TV – a garble of game-show bells and deep soapy voices declaring their undying love for thirteen-year-old boys. His mother was completely zoned-out on morphine. He held her hand and she opened her eyes.
"Hello," she said in a slow distant voice.
"Hi mum… you’re looking out of it"
"I feel great… and tired… Juxta came by." Poor woman, she was completely delirious.
"Did he now," Method said, "I brought you a lottery ticket"
"Aww thankyou."
"No problems – I figured it’s about time you had some luck."
"It is… ha ha ha," her laughter gurgled out of her throat.
He stayed a few more minutes then said his goodbyes. As he walked down the hall he could hear numbers being called out from a TV at the nurses station.
"You’ve won!" shouted a man who sounded familiar.
Method turned around but it was no one he knew, just one of the nurses.
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Elevators go up and elevators go down. When they’re stuck in the middle they cause a frown. Not unless you’d taken the trip with a girl – that was the excitement for Method’s pearl. She knew him and he knew her, they went to university together. And to his surprise she liked him, she was hot and he was in. She pulled down her pants and they both went down. And separately they left when they reached the ground. Into the brilliance Method went, and back inside his mother slept.
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