P008 → Mayhem // Antimayhem: Short Fiction
the the the
pressure built up over many years many many years of collapsed probability
waves opportunity branch simplification and narrower and narrow er avenues of possibility
cannot remember how to make or if I want tacos or a hamburger
what what did I promise my children
tacos
or
ham burger
like a play like the meaning of drama it is not drama if four people are eating dinner at a table but it is drama if it is revealed that there is a bomb ticking away underneath the table and they do not know about it and there
is a plot if one of them gets up and leaves I am the table the bomb the three guests and the
man who leaves
how close are the tomatoes
I can make chili but it is making me cry to think about
I am weeping onto this can of refried beans
it it
is just. all the extra ingredients that I have to consider it’s not a compromise between tacos and hamburgers chili is just no such compromise it is a metastasis of
both
into a
grotesque chimera
of
Let me set the context. While I can. Let me bring back order, grammar and punctuation, while I’m willing. Okay let’s go.
I am in the store. I am holding in my hand a can of refried beans, but I am thinking of a tomato. I am standing in front of a display of Old El Paso taco shells, but I cannot remember the shortest route to the refrigerated case that holds the Kraft American Singles. And where are the buns? Or the jars of salsa? I cannot calculate the difference in dead weight between the amount of ground beef I would need for chili vs. tacos vs. hamburgers. My psyche is cleaving or rather it is cleaved save for a thread here and there binding structure and substance together.
The colors of the Old El Paso label are activating a Mayhem // Antimayhem field. The saturation levels of the yellow and the red are reaching a Parco threshold that both will and has already reverted the space immediately around me into a state of Antimayhem. Because time is only a human sense, it does not exist as a physical constraint truly and gramatical tense is a fiction.
I waited on line to enter this store. I waited six feet behind the person in front of me and six feet in front of the person behind me. I waited for a really long time because there can only be a few people at a time in the store. It’s important to know what you’re going in for. You can’t waste time. You can’t be inside for too long because who knows who’s sick.
You have.
To know.
What.
You need.
You get in and you get out. You can’t get handsy with the fruit and vegetables. You can’t touch something and put it back. Even with gloves on.
I waited on line for a long time for this and I just can’t do this to other people but my capacity to choose is depleted, the mechanism is bent. The screws have losened and are spilling into the manifold. It is not a pleasant sound. I am weeping onto the can of refried beans. My face is most likely twisted by my efforts to look like I’m not crying. My mask should help hide what’s going on, but I think it makes it worse. It is wet with snot. It’s homemade, a desperate attempt at cheerful crafting, a shambolic grope at this ‘hygge’ thing that Instagram needs me to like. It is not ‘hygge’ at all. It is terrifyingly non-hyggous. Pretend everything is okay.
There is a woman at the other end of the aisle. She sees me. She knows I’m not okay. Her eyes are showing a lot of white. She is trapped: behind her someone waits to enter the aisle. In front of her is me. With six or seven feet between us we are uncomfortably close. Uncomfortable too because I am utterly loosing my shit. I look away. The tears I got all over the can of refried beans forced my hand. I snatch a box of taco shells from the shelf. I still can’t figure out what else I need for tacos. I lurch out of the aisle, turn right, wait for another shopper to cross my path, uncomfortably close.
I move forward, now two other shoppers wait for me to pass. I make a left into the vegetable aisle and come up short not three feet away from another shopper. I’m startled, I let out a yip. My fellow vegetable shopper flinches a look at me and goes back to selecting carrots. He is selecting! I am not happy with him. There is no selecting! Get in and get out! I take a deep breath and hold it so I don’t have to breathe inside of this collapsed safety zone between us. I move past him—within 2 feet of him—and lunge successfully for a tomato. I back out quickly. I am close to the register, it is wide open, no line. I hand my tomato, taco shells and can of refried beans through the thick clear vinyl drapery in front of the register to the girl behind the counter. She is wearing a mask that Instagram would say is ‘hygge.’ It has a cartoon cat face on it and it looks soft and comfortable. I made mine from an old pair of jeans and scraps of twine. Her eyes also show a lot of white when she looks up at me. I’m almost done.
I have touched the things I am buying, they have undoubtedly been touched by many other people, and breathed on just the same. I had to touch my wallet and the credit card in it. I’m wearing gloves, but that’s silly because while I can throw the gloves out I can’t throw my wallet out or my credit card, or my pants. While I wait for the girl to ring me up, an itch on my forehead triggers an involuntary scratch and as soon as I touch my forhead I flinch my hand away and drop my card on the floor. Where does Covid go when it falls through the air? The floor. I pick up my card. Dead man walking. Dead man paying. Dead man receiving the plastic bag filled with three items, none of them meat. Dead man leaving the store.
It’s okay. My chidren are not with me tonight. They are with their mother. I told her I’m not well and she needs to keep them. I’m not safe to be around I can’t cook. I now forget to turn burners off. And I can’t scream into pillows when they are with me. I take my gloves off and throw them into the trash. Pantomime care not to touch the outsides of the gloves. I’m desperately hungry. Feeding myself is not easy. I don’t have an appetite but I’m desperately hungry. I open the box of taco shells. I finish them all within the two block walk home to my apartment. I am parched. I hope to remember to prepare the refried beans and the tomato as nicely as I can. I hope that when I get home I will understand how to use a can opener. I hope I will retain the knowledge of how to dice a tomato.
This has taken me a lot of effort to tell you this within the constraints of time, the organizing principles of grammar and the backpressure of all of my previous life choices. Before I surrender though, there is something important that I need to let you in on. It concerns the nature of consciousness, time, and probability. And the Mobilettes, Cleptographs, and Weaponettes I’ve designed to transform Antimayhem back into Mayhem, or, rather, revert choice back into possibility. To uncollapse probabiilty.
Everything is possible before a choice is made. The universe exists in a state of Mayhem. Once a consciousness is confronted by and makes a choice, the universe surrounding that choice collapses into a state of Antimayhem. Time is a function of the frequency of Mayhemic collapse. The relative and subjective speed of the passing of time is merely the perception of the rhythm of the interaction between consciousness and Mayhem and Antimayhem. Perception can change! Perspective. Can. Change! Mayhem plus Conscious Choice results in Antimayhem. But that does not have to be a One Way Street! I know it doesn’t because I have proven so.
I founded a multinationaltemporal corporation with branch offices in moments and locations in history that host the most brilliant accountants, compounders, metalurgists, philosophers astronomers and whores. It is the biggest corporation ever known. My products will shake existence. I am close to a deal with Amazon.
The key is activating contrasting colorfrequencies in hyperbaric suspension assembly stacks. I call them Parco Stacks. Building from where Julio Le Parc left off. See it’s this. Like I said. Or haven’t said yet. I have found a way to convert Antimayhem back into Mayhem. I have found a way to reverse choice. To effect cause. To re-choose any choice you have ever made. Through the manipulation of Mayhemic physics—specifically hypervibrant harmonized chroma, which I studied decades ago at The Cooper Union pursuing a self guided doctorate in color theory and quantum mechanics, I have created the means to reverse my so-called mid-life crisis. And I can show you how but unfortunately I can no longer
keep it together
eep it gether
r
r
I leave you with my t
echnical drawings p it geth for Parco Stacks, Mobilettes, Weapoertogethenettes, and other togethertogethertogethertogethertogether
and all the tools you will need to
to
refried beans
© 2024 Elan M Cole