Mrs. Martinez, mother of Pvt. Martin Martinez, and presumed saint,

It is unfortunate that I must write this letter today, after months of throbbing guilt, and I admit a remaining element of hesitation.  It was at the insistence of my participating battalion that a letter like this never be written, and that insistence was only enhanced by a government issue M-16 pressed to my left temple.  With this in mind, I beg your forgiveness for the belated note.

Allow me to be frank: your son was a tremendous hindrance to our key operations overseas.  No one dare to question his loyalty to the United States Army, but most agreed that his sanity had become an issue.  Four days into combat, Pvt. Martinez was found sawing the head off of an Iraqi blast victim, clearly weeks after rigor mortis had set in, and decomposition had begun. The aforementioned head was brought back to camp and placed on a small nightstand adjacent to his cot, overlooking the rest of the barracks. 

Each night before sundown, the head was treated with a series of preservatives commonly used for hobby crafts and natural display.  The face began to exhibit a glossy texture, not unlike that of a preserved hornet’s nest, for which the artificial sprays were designed.  The eyes had presumably been removed by desert scavengers, but the hollow cavities remained visible to onlookers.

Initially, we accepted the situation with a restrained acknowledgement of his morbid patriotism.  The head became an unofficial mascot for the 22^nd Regiment, a stereotypical representation of the sand-nazis we were sent to destroy. A towel was involuntarily sacrificed to the cause by an unnamed private, wrapped tightly to create a makeshift turban that finalized the desired portrayal.  We called him ‘Allah Lockjaw,’ due to the gruesome and unrelenting position of his face, forever cemented in a primal scream.

After a week, many soldiers encouraged Pvt. Martinez to discard the severed head.  Pvt. Martinez passionately refused.  No report was filed with higher officers for fear of punishment toward the entire regiment, and plots began to form with intentions to remove the head.  All efforts were met with resistance from Pvt. Martinez, and on numerous occasions, bodily harm was promised to any man who dare touch the glossy crown. 

Rumors began to spread about Pvt. Martinez using the head as a sexual release, though no evidence can be found.  Furthermore, this remains highly unlikely do the position of ‘Lockjaw’s palate.  Numerous reports of Martinez speaking to, and in certain instances, with the head were frantically spread through camp.  Most ignored the accusation, and chalked it up to stress.

On November 17, 2008, four members of the 22^nd Regiment were assigned a patrol of the eastern line of Al Kut, including Pvt. Martinez and myself.  Within minutes of reaching the destination, enemy fire was received.  After several minutes of engagement, it was requested by a superior soldier that Pvt. Martinez open his pack for emergency medical supplies.  Inside, no supplies were found.  Only ‘Allah Lockjaw’ peered back into Major Dvorchek’s eyes.  Infuriated, the commanding officer threw the pack into enemy fire.  Without hesitation, Pvt. Martinez scaled the retaining wall to retrieve the pack, miraculously returning without injury.  Several moments later, all enemy fire had ceased.  The ride home that evening was filled with a biting silence of fear and loathing.

There are a great number of personal tragedies that become regimental concerns.  It is the duty of a soldier to understand his fellow warrior’s emotions and possible detriments.  Many soldiers, often young men of only eighteen years of age, have no more emotional stability than an adolescent girl with an emerging testicle.  But the issues raised by Pvt. Martinez were beyond the scope of any soldier in our force.  No amount of psychiatric counseling from on-base specialists could put his fellow soldiers at ease, especially when considering his combat duties would remain, despite the intervention.

November 28, 2008, seven members of the 22^nd Regiment were requested for surveillance of an unnamed territory west of Al Kut.  One casualty was reported: a Pvt. Martin Martinez.  Martinez suffered two shots to the back of the skull, three through the back, and one in the right hip.  No enemy casualties were reported, and a total of only six pieces of ammunition were fired.  Remains were accompanied by a Capt. Terrence Lawson. 

I have sent a package along with this letter, which should hopefully arrive correspondingly.  Inside you will find several items not shipped with Pvt. Martinez’s casualty notice.  There are several pictures of family, friends, and comrades, as well as a contact book.  And after several months of cold storage, and a proper treatment of a requested formaldehyde, I have brought your son’s murderer to you, for delayed justice.   His name is Allah Lockjaw.

Sincerely,

A Samaritan Soldier

Michael had ten beautiful fingers, each perfectly pudgy and strong, not unlike ten individual Olympic wrestlers. They looked delicious, to be honest. But Martha made meatloaf for dinner again, which Michael had specifically requested not be served, but sat in plain view to the entire room.  Meatloaf.  Again. 

And Michael looked down at his hand and moved his fingers back and forth, a rolling wave of peach-fuzzed knuckles floating over the dining room table.

“I’ll serve,” he said, standing to take the serving dish from the center.  Martha did not object.  And with great concentration, he sliced the meatloaf in half and placed it on Martha’s plate.

“Michael, that’s far too much for me!” she barked, throwing her hands up from the table as though she were being robbed. 

“You seem to like it. And you will eat it.  And when you are done, you may have the second half.”

“Michael, are you not eating?  Are you alright?”

Michael sat down at the end of his table and sliced off his ring finger.  The ring fell to the oak floor with a reverberating clang.  Then he sliced off his index finger, and the rest on his left hand, leaving a lonely thumb to waggle and jitter like a maggot in an icebox.

And he positioned them on his plate, in the same order they were accustomed to, and looked down with a smile of satisfaction.  Returning the knife to the center of the table, he said a short prayer before picking up his silverware.

Four meaty fingers on china.  A fork to keep them restrained, and a steak knife to dissect.  And with a delicate pick at his pinky on the left, he took a taste, then wiped the blood from his chin with a cloth napkin, before draping it over his nub.

He looked up at Martha, paralyzed with shock, hands still in position to cut her first piece of meat.

“A bit rare,” Michael said with a focused nod. “How’s yours?”

I cry before I sleep.
But do the angels hear me weep?
I hope so,
But must fear not.
To think –
Their ears are all I’ve sought.

My brother claims he smelt an angel in the room.  “Like butterscotch,” he said.  “Aunt Julie smelled like butterscotch.”  Aunt Julie did smell like butterscotch.  But butterscotch also smells like butterscotch, I remind him, and he frowns a mournful frown.  “You can’t smell angels,” I said, staring down into the bathroom sink, washing away the stray hairs that had clung to the porcelain.  “They may be around us, with us even, but they don’t share our senses.  They don’t share our dimension. Our things.”

My brother looked up as I did and smiled.  We smiled.  And we got out our toothbrushes and floss and cue tips, laying them across the edge of the sink. 

“You make me so sad, sometimes.  But I like you.”  And I opened up my brother, reached into his chest, and took another handful of pills.

I couldn’t sleep.  For as tired as I was, and as closed as my eyes remained, I knew I had left two rotting bananas in a bag next to the door.  Two bananas that had not been chosen from the bunch, and had instead come to rest at the bottom of a shopping bag, tied tightly, from over three weeks before.

The gnats swarm to it like vultures.  Pesky little vultures that prefer the stained carpet of a disheveled bedroom to the bleached sands of a California pit.  And with company like me, who can blame them.

I’ve tossed and turned for several nights thinking about those bananas.  What they look like now, decomposing at the other end of the room, starting to smell just strong enough that a dousing of Oust won’t disguise their presence. And the gnats that won’t leave me alone.

Tonight I fell asleep for several minutes before I awoke and took a quick shave.  The gnats followed to the bathroom and hovered next to the mirror.  And as quickly as I clap my hands to crush them, quicker than any other movement I have made for months, I seem to never catch them between my palms.  They merely disappear for a moment.  Then they hover round once more.

And when I returned to bed, the stumbling baton for the marching band of gnats, I found myself nearly disgusted with my own mind.

“It’s 3:38, Alex.  And do you hear the crunching?  The crunching of a sack, being outgrown, left behind, like the shell of an ambitious locust.  You can pretend you don’t hear it, but you do.  And what’s inside the bag?  Bananas?  Not anymore.  Your bananas disappeared long ago, the unfortunate victims of decomposition – and feast. 

“But for whom?  The pesky little gnats?  Merely foot-soldiers to a larger revolution.  But you’re about to meet the leader of the band.”

And the sack would tip over, and I would sit up in my bed, squinting through the darkness.  The sound of a thousand gnats lifting off would try desperately to muffle the sound of what I fear most from across the room. 

Across papers it would squirm.  My clothes, my socks, my shoes, taking precious time to travel, and leaving a putrid trail of disgust with every wretch it calls a step. 

A maggot.  Two to three foot long.  I can hear it squirm across the floor as though it were squirming right between my ears and tunneling to my brain to suck at the frontal lobe.  The segmented, careless body chugging toward my bed, and I can’t move.  I can’t think.  I can only faintly see it getting closer, without thought, to the source of the rotten bananas.

And there it will sit at the foot of my bed, moving just enough to hear, the squishy, wet smack of a living tail pounding against the carpet.  And I will never leave my room again.  I will never sleep.  Held hostage by a maggot of my own creation – perhaps nature’s most primitive vomit – an eyeless, brainless, thoughtless character of desire.  A yellow shit that feeds on shit in great hoards of yellow shits.  Sitting at the foot of my bed.  And I have to wait for evolution. A maggot to a fly.  Or I’ll die tired and afraid, the most sophisticated life form paralyzed by a peon in the system.  A lowly yellow shit. 

Yes, I’ve tossed and turned for several nights thinking of those bananas.  And my palms have bruised from swatting gnats.  But the dumpster’s several hundred yards away, and it’s cold for mid-October.  Too cold for mid-October.  And too cold for giant maggots.

            Today’s one of those days that is completely controlled by the twitching of my fingers.  One of those days that I could really use a cigarette – and I don’t even smoke.  My legs are pumping like pistons in a 35cc and every few moments I find my hand going through the drawers of an empty desk, looking for something, or nothing, or anything, or everything.  Or a fucking cigarette.

            And all the while I’ve been making kissy faces at this brunette in the library, trading giggles and valuable time, as I peck away at an economics plan for a community college micro course.  I’m supposed to fix the economy.  I can’t even fix the broken window in my apartment, letting every particle of evaporated glacier take a shit on my bed.  And what’s my plan to tackle that one?  Spend less time in my room.  Which is exactly why I’m in a tug of war with this brunette, over which one of us is actually going to give up first, and whether or not I’m going to have to account for my sins as a male.  Put it on my tab. 
          
  And again, instead of running through scenarios for green-level SUVs or government label sedans, I’m searching through my mental data files as to whether I need to apologize to anyone today.  Maybe I should buy my mom some flowers. Wouldn’t that be nice.  Or maybe I should give that brunette some flowers.  Maybe this entire scribble should be an apology to anyone that reads it, a demographic that is becoming increasingly more hostile, and have requested that I kill myself on numerous occasions.  And believe me, I would if I had the time!  But I’ve got to seduce a girl I’ve never met, send my mom flowers, and fix the economy, all in time for the Bears game this evening.
                       
Cry baby blues.  I need a new pair of shoes.  And a hat made of alligator, too.  Boo-hoo.

837,594 people have committed suicide this year.  I like to keep track on a daily basis, for silly reasons.  As a matter of fact, it’s the best reason not to commit suicide, this tracking fetish.  The last thing a person on the edge wants is to become another statistic.  It’s statistics we’re all running away from.

Besides that, it’s too dark outside to be productive.  The wind howls just loudly enough to cover my roommate’s snore.  So I watch the ticker clock the amount of suicides on a Tuesday morning.  It must be raining in Seattle.

“They tried to get me – I got them first!”  Some poet said that back in the thirties right before drinking a quart of Lysol.  I drank a bit of Agent Orange when I was a kid, but I couldn’t imagine finishing a quart of it for any reason – even eternal despair.

I used to keep track of how many people have told me to kill myself, but it got to be a trendy thing to say a couple years ago and I lost count.  I found a request addressed to me yesterday, and a couple in my inbox last week.  Note to self: When telling people to kill themselves, remember to hand write the letter.  Emoticons do no justice to cruelty.

The people that claim it’s the coward’s way out are obviously the ones that have something to live for.  When you hit skeleton low, cowardice and care take a backseat to relief.  Anesthesia is the coward’s way out, too.  But Jesus do I hate watching them slice through my giblets when I could enjoy a nice nap, instead. 
Speaking of naps and suicide, Ernest Hemingway is a good way to tie the two together: “I love sleep.  My life has a tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”  Years later, he partook in the longest nap.

I can’t wag my finger in the faces of the self-destructive.  People get old.  Love dries up.  Sometimes, you have to cut your losses – or your throat.  No, I can’t wag my finger in the faces of the self-destructive.

837,663.

The sun gets up every morning and pisses in someone’s face.  

SMILE. 

(10.19.08)

(Sweden — Friday) Barack Obama has just won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Not even realizing he was a finalist for the award, he woke to the news in shock.  While it’s not EXACTLY obvious as to why he was the UNANIMOUS choice, among the reasons suggested are: uniting an entire nation (to vote for Barack Obama,) helping to ease racial tension in the United States (in accompaniment for voting for Barack Obama,) and for promising future strides in world peace and economics (that have yet to unfold.)  All in…a few months work…right?

What most people don’t know is that this signals a new beginning for the Nobel Prize board.  A new encouragement for underachievement, some would say, while others, (winners,) claim it is now a much more realistic goal to strive for.  Did you know Gandhi never got one of these things?  Well, in future years, look for his corpse to receive the prize for not causing any problems in the afterlife.

With this new mission in order, the rest of the recipients have been named.  And for your enjoyment…they will be listed…

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS:

 Dwight Howard: For his outstanding achievements of being bigger than all the other players on his team, and most other players in the league, as well as his contributions to jumping higher than the average male, and for doing a bunch of whack-ass crazy shit in dunk contests.  The Nobel Board salutes your contributions.

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY:

 Colonel Sanders: A posthumous award, Sanders is recognized for his achievements in the perfect recipe for fried chicken.   Though the ingredients have not been revealed, (and only two people know the secret to this day,) Sanders’ contributions to deliciousness and widespread obesity can not go ignored.  (Several members of the board seem to believe they know the secret ingredient: everything nice.)

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE:

Jeff Mondlock: My former roommate, Jeff, doesn’t actually know he’s won the award yet, and even if I told him, I don’t think he’d put down the new Batman: Arkham Asylum game to accept it.  For his outstanding achievement of actually reading Upton Sinclair’s “The Fliver King” for his history class last semester, despite all odds and distractions that included, but were not limited to, video games, Coca-Cola, and a Filipino roommate, Mondlock wins his first Nobel Prize – but it will certainly not be his last.

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE:

 Keith Richards: After fifty years of incredible drug use, (something that almost deserves an award in itself,) researchers began to wonder how Richards was still breathing, let alone touring with the Stones.  After months of study, it was found that Richards actually died in 1986.  Someone forget to tell him.  The award is in recognition of his CONTINUED drug use, which seems to be some kind of fountain of use, and certainly a positive model for youth across the nation.

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS:

 Michael Jackson/Joe Jackson (Shared Award): The award goes to Joe Jackson for obvious reasons: Even in the aftermath of his son’s tragic death, Joe was able to keep his composure and maintain business as business, helping to promote the albums on his label for as long as CNN would let him.  And Michael Jackson’s contribution to economics?  Discovering the only foolproof way out of bankruptcy: death.

Maybe next year you’ll win an award! 

-Denison (10.9.09)

“You think the dead we love ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble?”

For centuries upon centuries, the presence of ghosts and the supernatural had to be accepted from eyewitness accounts.  With no concrete form of documentation, and without great strides in the investigation of the afterlife, the existence of ghosts was as difficult to prove as disprove.  But in the mid-19^th Century, alongside the rise of Spiritualism, mediums, and the séance, spirit photography was born.  And as technology has progressed, and photography has evolved, the ability to prey on the mourning and the mystified is easier than ever before.
          
  Though the first photographs of “ghosts” were merely accidents, a number of photographers noticed that the business of capturing spirits on film could be an extremely lucrative practice.  Without suggesting that every photo that depicts a ghost is doctored, it is more realistic to press that a great number of these photographs are hoaxes, made for profit, fame, or for any other number of devious reasons.  In his book, The Stereoscope, the 19^th Century optical scientist David Brewster perhaps said it best: “For the purpose of amusement, the photographer may carry us even into the realms of the supernatural” (American Museum of Photography).  It would be childish to think that all photographs of spirits are genuine, and that the evils of greed would not dare seep into the touchy subject of the supernatural. 
          
  With this in mind, it is impossible not to mention William Mumler, though not the first to take pictures of “ghosts”, but certainly the first to offer his services as a medium through photography.  Although many of his photographs were investigated at the time and found to be inexplicable, the most convincing evidence for his fraudulent practices comes not from any of the investigations into his business, but rather the clientele.  It is no coincidence that the people most interested in seeking Mumler’s services were also the most desperate to reach out to lost loved ones.  And although it may seem logical that those with lost loved ones would have the best chance of attracting the spirits they desire, it’s even more logical to believe that someone is willing to exploit the dead for a buck.  In the case of William Mumler, it was ten bucks per photograph (The Haunted Museum). 

It's creepy and it's cooky. But all together...spooky?

           The best example of Mumler and spirit photography’s treachery may also be the most famous.  When Mary Todd Lincoln came to Mumler for a photograph, (allegedly under a false name,) the photographer was able to provide a remarkable picture of the woman with the former president, Abraham Lincoln, lingering over her shoulder, perfectly recognizable.  Despite arguments that Mumler didn’t realize who she was until the photo was taken, after years of producing images for mourning families that showed nothing but blurred figures later claimed to be “ghosts”, this obvious presentation of Lincoln is more than extraordinary.  Putting aside the perceived mysteries of photography for the 19^th Century public, it’s interesting that this photograph would allow for such a striking portrait of the former president, among the most photographed men of his time, while others were seen as nothing but blurs.  But again, the intricacies of the photos themselves are not as important as those who sought them out.  Mary Todd Lincoln, a woman who had lost most of her children and a dearly beloved husband, and who was by most accounts mentally deranged following his murder, came seeking comfort, or perhaps closure, from a spirit photographer.  And for the right price, it was provided. 
           
Furthermore, as photography has improved, its use in supernatural persuasion has broadened.  In Daniel Wojcik’s piece, “Polaroids From Heaven”, he said that in such a technological age, it should not be a surprise to find cameras being used as “divinatory devices” (133).  Moreover, digital photography has even stretched the parameters of what will be accepted as a ghost, and for what purpose.  Orbs, the fuzzy circles found in numbers of digital photographs, are now considered everything from ghosts to angels, and used for equally misleading reasons as the profitable photos from the 1800s.  Among them, religious promotion, such as Max Greiner’s website “Angel Orb Miracles,” which not only claims that orbs are actually angels, but that they are most prominent in Christian settings.  “I believe God wanted me to provide a Christian explanation of Orbs on our website,” Greiner says (2).  What better time to encourage a person to bring God into their life than after the loss of a loved one.  This marketing of Christianity comes through a simple pitch: the acceptance of God into your life will bring you closer to the dead that you miss, as evidenced by some photographs of worshippers in the presence of angels. 
           
The business of spirit photography, a literal business if there has ever been one, varies on overall goal, but remains similar in approach.  People will always be interested and mystified by the afterlife, and specifically, the state of their loved ones.  Whether we stay here to intervene in daily lives or depart to heaven, hell, or elsewhere, the fascination with the supernatural cannot be matched by any other.  And as with all commodities, spirit photographs, in the end, seem to always generate some kind of profit.  The only question left is whether the comfort some receive from these images is worth the inescapable lies and fraud that accompany so much of the topic.  

(10.8.09 : Haunting & Healing.)

Do you know of the Mona Lisa?  Perhaps you think you do.  Somewhere inside your fertile mind there is an image that is processing.  Still processing.  Wait for it – Got it?  Delete it.  Because like those four years you wasted learning the entire Pokemon catalogue, it is not only pointless, but questionably absurd.

Why?

Because it isn’t real.  It doesn’t exist.  That image inside your mind was self-created, self-indulgent, and self-diluted.  And might I add, unflattering. But you’re confused – where did it go?  It didn’t go anywhere, sweetheart. For it never was.  

And out of an eggshell crawls an idea of certainty, and of absolute helplessness at the same time. Or have you lost it, already? Allow me to explain.

Your brain has a section, directly behind the eye, that captures images of things you see.  You know what a McDonalds is, and you associate it with the golden arches for a reason: visual memory.  And in some ancient combative arts, it is believed that if you snatch out the left eyeball fast enough – SNATCH – you may be able to pull that cortex apart from the rest of the brain.  No more eyeball.  No more visual memory.  You’ll be able to see, but you won’t be able to remember seeing it.  Or that.  Or anything. 

And in the land of the blind, the one eyed man with the snatched visual cortex is on a relatively level playing field, for his joy at sight is short-lived due to his lack of memory.  Got me, Confucius?

There are no kings when it comes to brutal mind-theft.

Well, I just dug my grubby little fingers into your eye socket and pulled out a heaping wad of insanity.  You can’t have it back.  And whatever warbled vision you had of a pleasant world is gone forever.  Into the burlap sack with a few magician’s toys and a live cougar. 

…And memory’s worst enemies are my fingers and a live cougar.