4.01.2025

Named the upstairs neighbor Mondieu the Noisy, Breaker of Sleep Cycles, Rival of Mastodons. Something about thunder and dumb myths we pretended to believe as kids. Angels don't move furniture you stupid child. Angels are several-eyed wheels of terror with feathers for some reason (look it up).

Scouring the sad studio. Double strength vinegar job. Spots proliferate like photophages under a flashlight. If I have to I will write a piece about that place and call it Heroin Canape. The rust-brown stains all over the sofa definitely look like blood, the kind that leaks or shoots out of arm holes.

Canape means couch. Accent aigu.

I pile everything onto my person: green soft-shelled steamer trunk, backpack, cloth shopping bag, yoga mat slung over it all as an afterthought and I punch the door code and hear the whine and grind of the automated lock, always keeping you guessing: will it complete the cycle, or seal you inside like a mummy's servant or strand you out in the hallway which, aside from the whimsical carnivalish Cirqe du Soleil New Wave framed film posters is decidedly a worse place to be stuck? Well?

The rumble from the steamer's wheels startles pigeons and a blind woman stops on my approach uncertain of the source and if it means her end. My shoulders ache and the yoga mat dangles everywhere except where I want it to like a big blue rolled up gnat buzzing around my head.

In silhouette I am a WW2 soldier humping his pack across the Pyrenees. I proceed downhill toward the Plateau and it's cold and bright and there's a wind to the face to remind you that spring is for the weak.

Guest Artist: BK, from the series 'An Organized Trainwreck'
https://www.instagram.com/design__by__bk?igsh=cXBpZXpyem9najdh
(artist bio appears in the 3.28.2025 Weekly Digest)