Roundabout

Spider Moon

This book is work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's twisted imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Geelong Plowman

Copyright © 2011 by Spider Moon

Published by M.H. Dartos

at Smashwords

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*****

I was numb from it all, literally, the entire and sum totality of all life had tossed me up until that point. Each day found me dragging one or more limbs about trying without fervor to shake them from their lassitude yet not being obtuse enough to believe it would actually transpire. A litany of potential symptoms attends this relapsing remitting pattern:

1. Weakness of one or more extremities

2. Paralysis of one or more extremities

3. Tremor of one or more extremities

4. Muscle spasticity (uncontrollable spasm of muscle groups)

5. Muscle atrophy

6. Movement, dysfunctional - slowly progressive; beginning in the legs

7. Numbness or abnormal sensation in any area

8. Tingling

9. Facial pain

10. Extremity pain

11. Loss of vision—usually affects one eye at a time

12. Double vision

13. Eye discomfort

14. Uncontrollable rapid eye movements

15. Eye symptoms worsen on movement of the eyes

16. Decreased coordination

17. Loss of balance

A list without end and at half its length. I hoped that (1) and (11) would not occur or at least not simultaneously. But all was not a rosy park as I was already experiencing (1), (6 - 8), (16) and (17). Every cloud has a silver lining, I said automatically, and each year thousands are killed by lightning. The least trouble of all was my head. It fell off each morning as I rose (5).

A simple set up and slap down was all it took to return my head to its rightful perch. Then again there was more to consider when one discusses problems with the cranium and its topology, for instance:

1. Trouble sleeping or excessive sleeping

2. A dramatic change in appetite, often with weight gain or loss

3. Fatigue and lack of energy

4. Feelings of worthlessness, self-hate, and inappropriate guilt

5. Extreme difficulty concentrating

6. Agitation, restlessness, and irritability

7. Inactivity and withdrawal from usual activities

8. Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness

9. Recurring thoughts of death or suicide

I was quite familiar with (1 – 4) and (6 – 8) steady companions as they were but (9) had drifted ashore and built a hut on land at last report.

My legs conversely were contumacious and not frolicsome. 32 bones, 39 joints, over 100 muscles in the feet and legs combined and when they conspire to agitation with the associated neurological systems their strength is formidable (6). There was a day I remember or thought I did when my limbs were as lively as lively knew, the frolicsomeness in my day could teach lively a thing or two as to the de facto definition of lively ala OED. But then again I am no longer sure.

10. Decreased memory

Maybe a hallucination imitating life in the gulag or the Crimean wars, the British and French struggling to take Sevastopol. Never am I slam dunk clean sure anymore.

11. Decreased judgment

12. Dementia

Of course I could recount certain key scenes from my variegated past like thick summer days of Sticky Black and White Rice with Papaya and Toasted Fresh Shaved Coconut and through convocation arrive at solidarity with the universal heaviness. But then what was the point. Sex and death are lonely places. Today as all others in close proximity I sit on the porch rocking in my rickety rocking chair swigging and swinging by my rickety self making rickety racket upon rickety racket accompanied by sounds of croaking creaks, a veritable batrachian mating fest. Cricket sound overwhelms. Life underwhelms. The lemonade tastes nebbish. Or maybe insipid.

13. Decreased spontaneity

Anyway it tasted something not right. I had even noticed that the corner eatery—a place I frequented in the day of the frolic— no longer appeared to have on their menu the Tiramisu, Lady Fingers, Mascarpone Cream, Espresso, or Kahlua Cake. Far too much was changing for intractable limbs. Even the dog had begun in its doggedly empathetic canine way to mimic sympathy paralysis, dragging its hind legs behind it like an animal headed for the rapid relief of a rifle discharge. Why are dogs always staring at me? And the lemonade tasted nebbish. Not elementary level nebbish but advanced level nebbish bordering on vaporous. Perhaps a dribble of Vodka to cure what ails.

14. Self medication

Grandpa’s favorite concoction sold in town to town across the nation from the back of a rickety multicolored wreck wagon: Doctor Kerplumpkins Fog Peeler. Swore by it he did although if memory can be trusted Grandpa swore more because of it. Crazy old bird. His doors were always painted green, basic forest green, no other color was tolerated. I never asked but just knew the boundaries I must live within when Grandpa was about, especially when he had got hold of a batch of Doctor Kerplumpkins Fog Peeler. It was then I understood the origin of the phrase "all hell breaking loose" much like my head did each morning so a certain resonance was achieved, a thing I exalted above all else. Resononance. Above all else. And even now after all these years the thought springs to mind of Grandpa and my head gets to resonating like an electromagnetic tuning fork.

I most probably as of late feel okay in the sense of no recurring numbness, but if I hadn’t been suddenly and without any warning or otherwise—although one can never prepare for such a thing—been trampled by a recent layoff, and this after all indicators showed me making great advances in the organization. Little did I know I was making great advances toward the EXIT door! So it has tumbled like this: lose your job lose your legs. Just like that. Now I get to sit on my porch listening to the death of childhood in the schoolyard across the way, the cheering laughing screaming breathless sounds of wingding childhood struck dead each time the bell rings them back to class, each voice faltering shrinking finally dying as gravity returns to claim their joy. Oh fiddledy dee. Would that childhood never ends.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects approximately 1 out of 1,000 people. More women are affected than men. Luckily I upped the men’s ratio. At least I had that going for me.

The exact cause of the inflammation associated with MS is unknown.

At this rate I will go on kvetching into the next millennium and being as my reserves are a bit on the lean my energy just is not what it used to be and…so…I drift into a black and shapeless sleep and relive the glorious days of a life gone by all too quickly and effortlessly as I ponder the significance of…

"My name is Jonathan Betty U.S. Texas Senator. The President selected me so them red-eyed bastards would have a target to launch their imperialist wisdom toward. Do I know you Manhattan?"

He glanced at me with those big fisheye bulbs that hung from his face. I thought I would wretch or scream. I did neither. He continued unheeded.

"I was only thirty in the fifties. If you think on it long enough you will find that I am one complicated shaped newspaper. You think you raise Texas flags by blankity blanking your FedEx packaging, answering telephones, and clacking typewriters? You will. Then you'll hang your head regrettably to maximize college exposure while you snot your nosey ass in here to cause some infernal trouble."

His words scribbled from my badly worn pencil, etching and scraping across the paper as I struggled to keep up.

"You know you're one boot scuffed monkey butt," he continued. "Shit!! You look about twenty! I'll bet you know just enough to be dangerous."

I smiled faintly, nodding as if I agreed with his caustic remark. His verbiage ranged unmolested.

"Now look at the President. He found out that the phone had been left ringing untended alongside of some pointy-headed man from Geelong some 30 minutes after he had delivered a speech about politicians being a little soft around the butt. You getting all this down son? It was the dangdest thing around here to see the President's razor-sharp head smoke up like a forty dollar chimneystack. Now you think he was fit to be tied then? Hell! Before long he'll see that nasty written stuff he threw into the hatchery where they said he was growing and selling cotton for Taylor Mundee."

I had only been working with the man three days. They were indeed the longest yet most nauseatingly rewarding days of my young life. What could come blind around the curves of his brilliant and insatiably demented twisting logic was always a surprise. Just like the tirade he was now in the midst of weaving, all started over the price of eggrolls at the Hoochie House downtown.

Just then, Dora, a girl with a knockout punch for a face was having a cup of coffee while she talked textiles and wildlife legislation. "For an office written about for its flat hair and fat women passengers," she said "it's advancing the bill across the floor as was figured. I think Data Inc. effectively has the status to block the door on this one."

There was a faint hum over the loudspeakers concerning a coming luncheon, something about meat curing outside the golden box.

"They always serve in a most analytically childish manner," Dora said. "You about ready for lunch Mr. Hill?"

The homosexual spoke out quickly, for behind every thorny issue there was always lurking a smooth young newspaper slammer.

"It is not a bad career," Mr. Hill said, "this series of serving what's on demand for ambassadors from distant lands. I just wonder if it's really worth all that...in the final analysis."

Just then a voice from the door said, "The man is fierce around Ward Witter's vegetable garden. And you should see who's shining up into his face right now! All with such uneven presence that for a better culinary life your citizens will demand a banquet in the very shape that suggests a big dirt bowl with air padding. And how special will a low head storm measure in the darkness of great thought then?"

"I know," Betty said, his wrinkles and innocence of malice flashing in the light of pure bullshit. "But thanks to Amanda, that chairman spoke truths that all present tracked to Grafton... black and white. J.D. Ambrose heads the pack. And while his hair is up, anything that resembles Jonathan Betty or something beyond a maple leaf larger than life or 40,000 unemployed actors endorses and celebrates an amount of 20 million dollars, camera shots courtesy of Oral Tanker." He scratched at his blistered hairline. "She, as you may recall, was involved in that government sting where Flemish monkey lips painted purple and fried in bacon fat were inspected for traces of the blood of Missouri Anderson. It was during those moments that she had a revelation that she could possess air. And let me tell you, the way that woman looks she CAN possess things: long things, big things, even GIANT things."

He spun around to face the drooling horde. Then, perhaps repulsed by the monstrosity his rambling locution had created, turned back to face the glowing windowlight, watching instead the groundskeeper chasing the President's "canine furrball of ungodly defecation habits" across the palatial lawns. He sighed, and his voice quavered as he proceeded.