Maggot Moon

You see, the what ifs are as boundless as the stars.

I collect words--they are sweets in the mouth of sound.

Doubt is a great worm in a crispy, red apple.

There are train-track thinkers, then there's you, Standish, a breeze in the park of imagination.

Tú me diste botas espaciales para que pudiera caminar por otros planetas. Sin ti me siento perdido. No sé si tirar a la derecha o la izquierda. No veo el mañana, sólo kilómetros y kilómetros de ayeres. Ahora que te he encontrado, ya no me importa lo que ocurra. Por eso he venido hasta aquí. Por ti. Porque te quiero.

He says nothing but I know he is listening. Words are the only medicine I have. ‘You make sense of a world that is senseless. You gave me space boots so that I could walk on other planets. Without you, I’m lost. There’s no left, no right. No tomorrow, only miles of yesterdays. It doesn’t matter what happens now because I’ve found you. That’s why I’m here. Because of you. You who I love. My best friend. My brother.

He coughs. Not a good sound. Too deep, too full of coffins. Why is mankind so fucking cruel? Why?

In another country where the buildings don't stop rising until they pinthe clouds to the sky.

It's the fricking reality that destroys plans.

¿Qué ocurriría si nos quedáramos aquí quietos sin movernos, sin hacer nada? ¿Acaso el tiempo se olvidaría de nosotros, pasaría de largo? Que bajen el telón. Que salgan los créditos. Fin.

No se le permitió a nadie perderse el parestésico paréntesis de aquel histórico día en que los despiadados seres puros de la raza inhumana enviaban un hombre a la luna.

Ya no soñaba despierto. Había demasiada realidad alrededor.

I’m wondering what if. What if the football hadn’t gone over the wall. What if Hector had never gone looking for it. What if he hadn’t kept the dark secret to himself. What if . . . Then I suppose I would be telling myself another story. You see, the what ifs are as boundless as the stars.

Well, you could have knocked me sideways with a feather.

That summer, in the wilderness of crumbling bricks and mortar, white roses had appeared in those derelict suburbs. Gramps said that if man was mad enough to destroy itself, at least the rats and cockroaches would have front-row seats, be able to enjoy the sight of Mother Nature reclaiming the earth. Outside

No matter how bad things looked, Gramps had always seemed a giant to me. He wasn’t made up of any monstrous parts.

You make sense of a world that is senseless. You gave me space boots so that I could walk on other planets. Without you, I’m lost. There’s no left, no right. No tomorrow, only miles of yesterdays. It doesn’t matter what happens now because I’ve found you. That’s why I’m here. Because of you. You who I love. My best friend. My brother.” Hector

Gramps had the radio on, tuned to the only station that the authorities allowed us mere lava mites to listen to. Dripple for the workers of the Motherland. They sang it loud, they sang it clear: “And once those feet did tread upon silver sand And footprints deep marked out new moons of Motherland Which all salute with upraised hand.” I went upstairs and put on my school uniform. Every part of me dead. Limp. Dead.

am driving us home to Mrs. Lush in her shiny kitchen with a checked tablecloth in a house where the grass looks as if it’s been Hoovered. You see, only in the land of Croca-Colas does the sun shine in Technicolor. Life lived at the end of the rainbow.

But that’s her problem, not mine. No, my problem is elephantine. How do you eat an elephant, sir? Bit by tiny bit.