The Violent Experience of How

Squid turns every object in the room on end. His friends chalk this up to a childhood spent among entertainers. Among people who know which punch line belongs with which river delta. And what to do should you drop your spoon. They absorb the proper procedures the way ants absorb their moisture from the surrounding terrain. They simply stumble through it. They turn their minds into basic navigational machines. The lectures come from all quarters, stressing the demise of the onyx. The need for regulation. For pillows with cartoon characters stitched into their cases. We remember a time when our closest acquaintances pummeled one another until the blood flowed like ginger ale. Sometimes we would meet at the town pool and act as if we weren’t that interested in the girls who had oddly-shaped birth marks on their shoulders. Or ears that didn’t align properly. We’d glance at them out of the corner of our eyes, hoping both that they would notice and that they would fail to notice all at the same time.