Revolt of the Neurons 1.docx

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Revoltof the Neurons

Jack Galmitz



Revolt of the Neurons



Jack Galmitz


Copyright © 2013 Jack Galmitz

ImPress

N.Y., N.Y.






Third Day

It was the third day of my topography course. We had handed in our first

assignment- a route from the school to our homes. I had not left time

enough to do a proper job, so I downloaded from Google Earth the area

and used a ruler to draw a straight line between the two points.

The professor decided to make a lesson from my laxity. He mentioned myname, projected my plan, and asked me to explain the dynamics. I told the

class that when I reached a group of assembled buildings, I flew over them

to the marshland on the other side. From there I tied some broken

branches together with rope I had with me, shaved down a piece of wood

for an oar, and paddled to the other side. From there, I crawled in an

exposed underground pipe to my neighborhood and after that I was home

free.

“Do you expect us to believe that?” asked the professor.

“Well, I certainly hope not,” I replied. “You’d have to stretch you credulity a

bit much.”

“So explain how your route actually works.”



I explained that I hailed a cab and the driver was a Sikh. He had

transcended physical reality. He carried me on his back and in the ether we

were at my home in minutes. The class laughed. The professor frowned.

“Are you mocking me?” he asked.

No, sir. It’s a well-known fact that devotees often travel through other

realms. It was mere serendipity that I found one that night.

The Last

I was panicking. I couldn’t find the final writing assignment for an English

course. It is vague whether it was one question or a series of questions, but

I had about four or five notebooks and I couldn’t find what I had written. I

had just written something on golf and was about to discuss the equipmentas the next paragraph of the developing theme.

I desperately looked from one notebook to another. Not only could I not

find it, but I couldn’t find anything I had written for the assignment.

Everyone, including my professor, her husband, also a professor, and others

on their way to schools to begin their profession, were on my side, assuring

me it didn’t matter, as I already had the certification and degrees I needed

without passing the course. But, I was too methodical a personality to be

swayed.

There was this small impish young man I knew who was enjoying how

distraught I was. I forget his name, but he was puckish, tiny featured and

jumping around in joy at my loss. If I wasn’t so bent on finding what I had

written, I would have grabbed him and given him a beating.



All I could say to my colleagues was maybe I was simply not academic

material. I explained to them that my writing was going well, there was no

doubt about it, but as to talking in the manner of a gentleman, knowing

references to all the writers over the centuries, well, I wasn’t very

convincing.

The factor of time was the terror. It had run out. They were only allowing

me to continue my useless hunt out of friendship.

And where had that puckish person gone? I had thought he took it. He was

nowhere to be found. The thought occurred to me that he had no place

there, so why had I seen him trollop about. Had I imagined him as an

excuse? No, I couldn’t be Puck, no way.

Two

I was one of conjoined twins. As we shared internal organs, we could not

be separated and had to live our life joined together. To make matters

worse, my parents had named my twin Harry and me Tim, as if we were

two ordinary kids on the block. Let me tell you, it’s not easy getting along

with a headstrong conjoined twin. Harry had a fixed idea about everything

and as it was we had to cooperate to do anything. We were awarded Social

Security Disability from the start, but as we grew older we had to

supplement our income in order to survive. As we each had one arm, we

had to work together. We decided to paste rhinestones on plated rings at a

ten cents a ring. We eventually mastered it- he put on the glue and I set it

in the ring.

We had separate brains and I have to admit he was the smarter. We soon

were making enough money from our venture to stay even with inflation.

Harold, against my will, applied to a college and with financial aid, we were

admitted. He studied math and science. I liked the arts. I was stuck listening

to lectures that tormented me with boredom, not to mention the hours

spent at a desk with him reading.

Oddly, Harold had a way with women. He had many girlfriends at school

and enjoyed sex in our bed. Since we each had our own brain and sexual



organs, I felt no pleasure and was forced to endure the bucking of my body,

the moans, the screams of passion, the spastic brut art of orgasm.

Finally, I had had enough of it all and told him I was leaving. I chose our

clothes, and pulled him outside in my chosen direction. I brought him to

MOMA, bought some books on artists I admired and told him I wanted to

split. I knew for a fact that he had voted Republican down the line, which

was anathema to me, that he repeatedly told his psychiatrist how he hated

our parents, and how he despised my presence during his sexual bouts.

I pulled and pulled with all my strength to wrench free of him. He

snickered. I had to realize we were stuck with each other for life. I hated

him, but our bodies were essentially one and harming him would be

harming myself.



Letter

To the Black Hole:

I’m afraid I don’t know who else to write to.

The fire is brightest where the sun holds its hands.



Where I was born is a long way from here.

I’ll never get back there.

A baritone voice booms in a language I don’t speak.

Is home everywhere. It cannot be. It’s a mass or

a revel of forest dwellers worshipping death.

I’m not prejudiced. I sing along. Help me.

The chorus gets louder and the trees tremble,

drop their leaves, pull up their roots, and run like deer.

I run with them. I fall in quicksand. I sink. I’m being

pulled in. When only my head is above the murk

I begin to see I never did exist. It was a twist,

my brain, the revolt of neurons.

All the same help me. Help me.

Nothing else is.

The Change

She swam her laps the length of the pool, alternating between the crawl,

the breaststroke, the backstroke, the sidestroke. She wore a white bikini

and it reflected the sun even in the crystalline water, so that you could see

the arrow of her perfect body as it whizzed forward. In her turns, her head



emerged, black hair, pale face. She worked her whole body for nearly an

hour and then decided to climb out and rest.

When she was halfway up the ladder, she felt something different about

her ability to move. She looked and she was shocked. The lower part of

her body was that of a fish. She had become a mermaid. It was not

possible, she thought, but then she realized she had to find a way to

commandeer her way to her poolside lounge chair and cover her bottom

with a long terrycloth robe. She swam to the other side and slipped

through the people who were all so engaged in activity that they didn’t

notice her. With her robe on she felt safer, but still terrified.

She had to think and think quickly. Her husband was at a table playing high

stakes poker with some other men, and he didn’t once look over to whereshe was. She had to make it through the pool grounds, out to the parking

lot, and then into the bay, which fortuitously was at high tide.

She shimmied her way out without being noticed. She made it to the

parking lot, then the rocks, and then descended into the bay. Oddly, there

was she felt she was where she belonged for the first time in her life. She

swam under water at great speed with the ease of her large slapping tail

and reached the bluffs of an old army outpost. She surfaced and rested on

a rock. She would head to the ocean. Were there others like her, shewondered. Were there mermen in the sea, so she could have

companionship. She was not at all unhappy about leaving her past life. Her

husband was a narcissist and she had no children. If there were others of

her kind, would they turn out to be more communal than humans. As she

dove back in, she headed to the sea with trepidation and elation, things she

hadn’t felt for a very long time.



Where

I couldn’t find my way home. Every day after work now it was the same

thing. The city (I supposed) had deconstructed the one train that left me a



bus ride from my home. There were gaping holes and twisted, teetering

steel beams where before there had been a subway line.

Looking for an alternative route, I would constantly end up lost in another

borough. The trains looked different, from a different time, squatter, less

cars, with letters designated them I had never saw before. I would scream

to people inside and invariably they would say yes and once I hopped

aboard I soon found out I was only being led deeper into the wrong

borough.

The views from these elevated stations were spectacular, yet frightening.

There were monuments and buildings all built in the totalitarian style of the

1930s- huge, imposing, threatening buildings and sculptures that conveyed

the power of the regime. I had never seen these before and while intrigued,I felt what I was meant to feel- fear.

Then, I would go to the streets and there everyone just waited for taxis, all

gypsy taxis, just cars that charged to take people to their destinations.

There were no taxi stands, no hailing them, just impromptu appearances

and everyone waving and running to get in. There were also buses that

some people said would take us to where we wanted to go, but as they

approached those in the know would shake their heads and say no, that’s

not the right one.

I would always end up back in the bowels of the subway speaking to an

agent, who would suggest something, or tell me entry was forbidden

beyond his point and he would turn his back to me.

I don’t know what happened. I made it home, if at all, at late night hours,

fell immediately asleep to wake to a repetition of the same series of events.



Upon a Time

She had tattoos of stars colored in luminous white on her breasts, along her

back, near her tailbone, around her belly and down.



When we turned off the lights, she shone enough so that we could make

love under their light.

We were the nut and bolt that riveted held the universe up.

I was a stargazer, a star chaser, a star cataloguer.

She was shiny paper and I an inkjet.

We made art.

It was not for sale.

It was for life.

When people said I should keep my feet on the earth,

I thought they must walk on all fours.

What else is there but the silhouette of a woman

And the burning brilliance of the stars to clutch.



A Laugh



To make extra income for my family, particularly with the view of having

enough money to send our two children to college, I did work on weekends

as a party clown. I wore a loose silk body suit of white with large blue polka

dots, large floppy shoes, a red wild hair piece, red bulb of a nose, white

painted face, and naturally painted a gigantic black smile around my thinlips. I had studied how to make animals shapes out of balloons, and

otherwise I was present to pat the children on the head, clap my hands,

and sometimes do silly dances.

The money was not bad, but the abuse a clown takes from children and

their mothers is more than is usually reported. The mothers always want

more, the children like to step on your feet and try to pull on your nose

(which is glued to your real nose), and otherwise make enough noise to

break your inner ear drum.

After about a year of it, I had saved $15,000.00. However, it was

depressing me. There’s nothing quite as humiliating as being a clown.

Especially for a loan officer at an international bank.

One night I came home after a birthday party and when I pulled the wig off

it wouldn’t come free. It is rubber and hot inside and I thought it had just

formed suction to my nearly bald head. I decided to remove the nose, but

that also wouldn’t come free. I couldn’t remove the shoes or the suit. I satdown on the bed and began to panic inside. I waited a good while, tried to

wash off the white paint, but it was stuck to my face.

I had become a clown.

How was I going to go to the bank the next morning? Put on a gray suit,

white shirt, red tie, over a clown suit, with a red wig and bulbous nose and

white smiling face? I think I had overdone it. There was no way back. I

thought I’d have to run away and join a circus.



Laughter

He asked his wife if she wanted to go dancing. “It’s ladies’ night, drinks for

women half price at one of the local bars.” “I don’t think so, darling. I’m



not going dancing with a three-legged man. It’s too embarrassing.” “What

do you mean by that?” “You know very well. All you have to do is have a

passing sexual thought and it hangs down like a donkey’s in heat. Christ, it

nearly reaches the floor.”

“Well, that explains why I’ve always been an ass man,” he chuckled. She

fought back laughter and punched him a few times in his chest and then

cuddled her head there.

“Well, we can go miniature golfing,” he said. We can use my member as

the putter. “No way,” she burst out laughing. “We can play stickball,” he

said, “but you’ll have to stroke it so it’s hard enough to hit the rubber ball

with.” She remained silent.

“How about a movie. No one can see my extra leg there and you know how

you like buttered popcorn.” “What’s playing?” “A remake of King Kong.

Remember when you used to call me Kong?” “Very funny.”

“All right. Let’s watch the history channel on PBS. That always shrinks me

down to normal size.”

“Good idea,” she answered. And I’ll make us some popcorn.

“Afterwards we can make love,” he suggested. “That will do it for a while”

“Bray,” she answered.







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Revolt of the Neurons 1.docx