The Kindergarten of Hell

"I have a memory of a daydream I had a few days ago. The daydream was based on two lines of
lyrics from a particular song ..."
My friend rolled his eyes. I have no idea why my friend still listens to me, but he has stuck
around with me for this long so yeah. I've tested all sorts of conversations on him. I've tried out all sorts
of obscenely absurd topics on him in the past (especially made-up ones, like goat-wrenching). These
days, I've been changing the topic at hand in increasingly haphazard ways. I no longer feel the need to
introduce a new topic. My friend said once that my conversations (well, he used the phrase
"performance monologues") resembled a rabid golden retriever being let off its leash. When I pressed
him on who it was that let go of the leash, he sighed and said - another rabid retriever. And where are
you in this metaphor? - I continued. He answered with another sigh: I'm the grass that the retrievers are
running and shitting on. And yet here he was again sipping his green tea with three white sugars at the
same old corner table, listening to my self-indulgent ramblings. Let's see where I go with this rambling
today:
"... do you remember the Matthew Good Band? You know, late 90's Canadian alternative radiorock band? They had that song "Load Me Up" ... it went, like, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dunnadun-dun ... 'picture yourself' ... well there's those two lines that go 'well, there's bodies in the water,
bodies in the basement'. Something about Matthew Good's voice during those two lines, something
about the quiver in his voice made those lines seem way less cliche. And his voice sounded kind of faroff and alone ... I tried to picture myself just floating there, y'know, in the water of some leaky basement.
Er. I don't know what I'm trying to tell you ..."
My friend absent-mindedly watched me tap my fingers on the table beside my second cup of
double-shot americano, no milk, one generous spoon of honey. My armpits moistened and I was getting
uncharacteristically nervous in front of him. My conversations had become trainwrecks before, but there
was something about the way my friend was subtly but noticeably grinding his teeth. He sniffed hard
with his left nostril, and coughed. I didn't wear deodorant today. No doubt that he could smell me.
I racked my brain: "... I'm ... sorry?"
The words just kind of came out. He slowly glanced into my eyes with his own which had brown
and red bags under them. His mouth opened and closed a couple centimeters at a time. He fiddled with
the handle of his mug. He said he hated me, which I already knew. He said he wanted to forcibly unload
his scalding hot tea onto my face. That comment for some reason casted away my apologetic mood and
I kind of laughed. No you won't, I said. But he did, god dammit. And the pain, the pain I cannot relay to
you in my typical verse. I must break into something more poetic.
*
Blue rare
Turquoise phoenix
An air jordan slam dunk
The backboard shatters bits of glass and plastic
Shatters, shitters, shutters, shot me down
A melting shotgun blast, bliss-ed, blessed
Guava smegma lava
Unmasked, re-masked, the original mask
Soap bubbles, suds, vacuous drain
Funneling Clorox into my left nostril
Tide into the right

Violent happenings and sharpenings of violet

Pangs of fangs, bludgeonings of sludge
Perfect certain exact scattering splinters tattering
Noting how nothing hinges on nothing
Never knew tranquility could be uncivil
That you could drop a bomb called calmness
That you could mince meat with peace
That a soothing tea could remove my face from me
Blackened, boiling, steaming demon
Calling the kettle something deeper than black
And then a laughing, silly desire
As my body vanishes and yet the matter is retained
The zippers of tents, and runny noses
The boniest of fingers, the tremblings of menial tasks
The kindergarten of hell
*

THE KINDERGARTEN OF HELL

A ONE-ACT PLAY BY ZED X. GEMINI
Enter man named Scalding, who previously had boiling hot green tea tossed in his face. He falls from
the ceiling and lands in the middle of a circle surrounded by small wax candles. He roughly lands on a
pile of alphabetized building blocks for babies. Scalding bellows in pain, yet finds the strength to get
up on his feet after a minute. Scalding surveys his surroundings while rubbing the part of his buttocks
where he landed. Hilarity may ensue.
SCALDING: Good lord! I feel scared. What in the Yeezus is this place? I mean, I know the title of this
section is "The Kindergarten of Hell", but does that even mean?
Scalding touches his face and realizes that it made purely of bone. Scalding shrieks accordingly.
SCALDING: For Pete's sake! This is absolutely terrifying. I know I talk a lot, but I think this is too
much of a punishment. How is my face even working without the proper muscle tissue? Can somebody
please explain this place to me?
Enter Satan, lusterless.
SATAN: Hello, my dearest fool. I really don't like you at all. There's no functional purpose for your
existence. I mean, you're a purely destructive force. That's gotta mean something for sure, coming from
Satan after all. But you want an explanation. Well, you're not going to get one. Ever. What you're going
to do is play with those baby blocks and spell some words for a while.
SCALDING: ... but, the only letter that's on any of these blocks is "K" ...
SATAN: Haha! You are correct, foolish dear. But depending on how you place the block, the "K" kind
of looks like a "V", or an "A" with its middle line trying to escape.

SCALDING: No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No

it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it
doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it
doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it
doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't! No it doesn't!
SATAN: Yeah it does.
SCALDING: ... yeah, I guess you're sort of right ...
SATAN: Of course I am. Because I'm better than you!
SCALDING: Oh yeah? Prove it!
SATAN: Hoo hah! The only way you can prove it is by answering my unanswerable question. It's a
question that doesn't not have an answer, unless you're better than me. In that impossible case, then you
would technically be better than me. But even in that non-existent possibility, I would still say I was
better than you. So you lose anyways!
SCALDING: Why don't you try asking it? What better things do you have to do?
SATAN: Fine, fluidless deer. Here you go: If jellyfishes wrecked several winking thermometers in the
gluteus maximus while transcending a loaf of vibrating castle ash, then how does a scroll of Yiddish
hurricanes delve in the music of a single nothing canister which would have something to do with yellow
hearing precipitated singer-songwriting carrier elves? Furthermore, if when where when why plate
daffodil dwarf-planets sinkholes? If so, elephant?
SCALDING: Ah ha! That's a trick question: Zany zombies zithers do not appalachian apple anxious
rutabaga. In subjective reality, seals used to disremember the website Angelfire. But in the modern
medieval age, plastic plated R.L. Stein juiced eighty rump bump stump grumpy McFrumps. Keeping in
mind, that Bill Clinton Nye ate nine. In conclusion, bort.
SATAN: ... Come with me.
Satan takes Scalding by the hand and guides him backstage. One of the stagehands, probably named
Ned, walks nervously onto stage with a rusty ladder about ten feet tall. He opens up up and climbs it.
When at the top step, he claps four and a half times, to which a rope drops from the ceiling. The rope
falls about five feet short of "Ned's" hands. He jumps, knocking down the ladder but he surprisingly
holds onto the rope. Because of the sudden weight on the rope, the rope with Ned attached to it falls to
the hard floor on top of the alphabetized baby building blocks. A television screen falls onto Ned from
the ceiling and turns on. On the television screen, Zed X. Gemini is typing on his friend's tiny laptop,
which is running Linux software, in a diner in Kapuskasing, Ontario. Gemini is on his third coffee, and
has been eating potato fries and muffins - dipping both into barbeque sauce (it tastes pretty good).
Then he went into the men's washroom stall and while stationed in the stall, he studied the Braille on
the Koala Kare baby-changing station. Then upon returning to his seating area chewed his fingers and
tried to figure out a way to end this charade of storytelling. So he thought of a memory of a daydream
he had a few days ago.
A Farewell Letter to a Gaslighter

Society cannot afford to lose me.

But upon entry, I was welcomed with misery and despair alone.
I hate to complain I really do.
Nobody can better enjoy liberty, nor submit gracefully to constraint like I can.
Nobody can be satisfied with not knowing the ending of things like I can.
I dream like the old, and see visions like the young.
Oh who even knows if this is the truth about me certainly they can't disprove me.
The world, to me, is a well-kept secret, which I desire to discover.
That's why it's so intimidating you have to admit something you don't know.
- even when you're old and gray and full of sleep nodding off by a fire
Yet still a part of me is optimistic about the future;
The source of which is borne from my recollection of childhood memories
- the feeling of being truly at square one
Where all of my ambitions seemed to be the most their most lawful and pure.
Too many days for my liking are spent walking about with my eyes locked on the pavement.
My dreams being undisturbed by reality, as I diligently search for some elixir of life (or philosopher's
stone).
I've developed a fine pane of glass, if you will, over time to preserve my dream state
- which could be thought of as my noblest offspring to date.
I think about the youthful glowing faces that pass me by.
With a natural electricity, like that of lightning.
Each of them appealing in a timeless, immortal way.
And behind these faces: the strong, stubborn will to avoid being pushed around.
Often, while walking about I get a sudden strange feeling;
(It is never so severe that I could not quickly recover from it)
But it stems from this particular idea of phony power.
And that the phoniness of it could only grow the less that it was discussed.
Although a part of me was pleased that I could react to this thought in a playful sort of way.
I knew that I mustn't lapse too far into these ideas even for a split second.
For I of course have duties that I must perform.
And who knows what kind of threshold-breaking laughter or tears would erupt, giving way to
poisonous wrath.
I saw you often staring at me, saying nothing.
Your face, how could I describe it?
Pale, thin, as if watching for nights on end.
Longing to rest only to sob upon awakening.
The center of a vast decision-making body.
But some aspect of your stare had engrained into it the greatest benevolence.

I know you were probably thinking I was trying to put something over on you.
But my intentions were to demonstrate my true piety towards the universal order
You said you could open the gates of the courtyard.
Allowing those with vows and costumes alike to enter.
But I must express today that ultimately I feel there's no need for me to be fixed up.
After feeling like I had to argue this perspective for a long time, I must make it clear that is now
something that I'm telling you as experiential fact.
One of us will most certainly be mystified by the result of this exchange, and the turns that its taken.
I maintain that one of us must have had some sort of astonishing power over the other perpetually
hesitating on how best to employ it.
Like an egg waiting months to hatch dormant.
But is this a beautiful power?
Will it last?
Is it even even wise to even dream of such a mysterious power or is mystery just an eloquent synonym
for phoniness?
Are the variety of feelings that surround this farcical power like a hurricane, indeed signifying nothing?
Power can indeed conceal, but only as well as the moon can eclipse the sun, and may indeed reveal
something else in lieu.
This is my belief, and it will become true if it is not already if of course I do not abandon it.
You may eventually not recognize me.
For I will be acquiring a newfound firmness of my nerves.
I will commit to a benevolent personal narrative
I will neither lead, not follow least of all blindly.
I know now that you are not from some outer world;
Your silence disquiets you; it is not tranquil you hide passion
My talking exists merely as the spice to your time here.
I am naked, but I shall find an unprecedented material to conceal myself with
- naked I shall not return