Barstow

[Robert Crisman]

The sound came eddying out of the canyon, up from ten miles below the earth's crust, and I heard my voice and the millions of others rasping and mewling as last bits of flesh melted from us, to be stirred  in a pot and made soup for the Kings past the Styx where Charon got jacked--some say by Ike Turner--and our raft diverted toward Bedlam.

I am a ghost up here on the earth with the millions, and I heard a guy say once that ghosts have the best of it really, especially the ones who went looking for love in all the wrong places and wound up in Barstow alone, staring up at the sun, as if that's where she'd gone without so much as good-bye; death came as a favor to them, after all, and it's now a done deal, and all that is left is to fly off toward Bethlehem laughing.

See, all tricks spoon corn out of Sweet Sally's shit and would like to believe that they eat just like kings.

But the guy missed the point, because ghosts do not die, and the tears that they shed are for sundry tomorrows that wind up in Barstow sun-blinded, where memory points through the desert to some cheap cafe where you were to meet her and hire a car that would take you--at last!--to Nirvana.

And meanwhile, flesh melts...

And I can't help but wonder if flesh was the least of the problem, and if roadmaps exist toward the day when men cede belief to breathe the free air that was given the morning they first stepped out of the trees...

[Robert Crisman]

@Angela: well, not Sweet Sally anyway...

[Angela]

So many powerful phrases, Robert.  And the breathing of free air.  Seems slightly impossible, but then again, maybe not.

Clearly, Nirvana does not depend on another person.  Am I right to gather this from your post?

[Bill Floyd]

This has the feel of some demented country song.  The final line rings righteous and beautiful.  

[Joey Delgado]

The second line of the piece is a stunner. '...death came as a favor to them, after all, and it's now a done deal, and all that is left is to fly off toward Bethlehem laughing.'

Flesh seems to be a running theme through your pieces, whether it's the sins of, the melting of, and I wonder why it's such a touchstone for you. Is it because flesh is so vulnerable, so temporarily erotic? This is some good writing. 

[Robert Crisman]

@Gita: some say Ike was the Devil...

[Gita]

yeah, but Charon?  Ol' Charon woulda seen Ike coming 10 kilometers away... I mean, he'd seen Torquemada in his day...

[Robert Crisman]

@Gita: Actually, Ike jacked a lot of guys. He was famous for it. 

[Gita]

Ike Turner was a woman beater and therefore a coward, so while I love the thought, I don't think Charon got jacked by Ike. 

As for "men cede belief to breathe the free air that was given the morning they first stepped out of the trees..."   humans seem to be getting ever more wed to their belief systems -- fundamentalists everywhere you look  -- that it doesn't seem likely we will ever cede beliefs and breathe free. But again, I love the thought. Good writing.