Math 108, MWF 11:40-12:50
Beginning Algebra
Mark has a hunch, and I guess I understand what it's about. See, he's
two steps closer to crazy than I am, and he's got eyeballs on nothing
less than the total scene. He wants to share, but he's riding a horse
named Patronizing, and he can't seem to climb on down.
Clip clop he rides about the room dispersing the truth, and you know, that fucking pony nips at your hair and it makes me want to say something because Mark just isn't fucking paying attention, at all, and his fucking horse is trying to bite my head. Mark is pissing me off.
Mark, hey, Mark, you want to back up just a bit there, pal? I don't need to get chafed by your saddlebags while you help the girl right next to me. That horse smell never comes out, I hear, and I'm not into, you know, smelling like Flicka for the rest of my life.
Mark's a sweetheart, though, a real cherry. He doesn't bat an eye. He turns his head, jams two fingers down his throat and vomits all over me, the desk and my books, and continues to help Sally figure out why her straight line ain't.
Fuck. This. Shit.
Mark, you're a fucking asshole, why the fuck did you barf on me? No response. The horse is antsy though, and I hook a stirrup with a hand I've finished wiping on the saddleblanket and give it a tug. Yo, shitheel, what gives? Mark's shirt splits down the back and I can see his skin, glossy white and also splitting, and with a shudder and a deep, inhuman groan, Mark emerges from his cocoon. The smell is terrible: blood, vomit and shit served up nice and hot and right in my face, and only too late I realize I'm still holding the stirrup, and so when the horse takes off, I'm hooked and I get to go along, too. For joy.
We bust out of one of the picture windows and sail out over the parking lot, riding a trail of fire that has set my pants ablaze, and the smell of my burning flesh is added to the olfactory menagerie that's going off across the street and making for Forest Ranch.
Once my legs burn off and the stumps are cauterized things get easier, but Mark whoops and hollers and we fly low to the highway, sizzling the paint off of cars, melting windows, scaring cattle, the usual I expect for this kind of thing. A Highway Patrolman stops and shoots at us with his service pistol, but we veer up and away from the road and head straight for the sliver of the moon that's still pretty high and clear in the blue sky.
Mark won't let me go, no matter how I plead. He's got a hold of my wrist with one gooey claw and we're so high now I can see my house, and then the whole state. I miss my legs. The fucking goddamn horse is slobbering napalm, which has thankfully missed me. I'm blubbering, wishing I could take it all back, not complain about the horse smell, or Mark talking to me like I'm a five year old, or the smell of the horse or the barf or any of it. We level off. Mark turns his horrible face to me, and he gets real close, and his mandible clicks and he just looks at me for a second. Then he lets go of my wrist, and legless, I free fall for, Jesus, twenty-thousand feet or so.
That's a good two minutes worth of falling, or so I estimate. It's not super accurate, but I wasn't counting One Mississippi in my head as I screamed in terror until my voice gave out. More pressing concerns, like trying not to burn up on reentry necessarily took the spotlight. Two minutes where your life passes before your eyes, and you think, Gee, I won't have to worry about the car, or working my ass off to pay for it; I don't have to worry about that test next week, because I'm pretty sure Mark has just failed me for the semester and this is his subtle way of letting me know; or maybe I could bounce like the Bumble and just lose all my teeth or something. Dentures are pretty nice these days; I could get some made out of platinum or something; but no, fuck, I'm going to go right through the highway. Maybe the kids on that bus I'm just barely going to miss will think it was a shooting star that took out that Honda Accord right in front of them.
At least I'll get remembered, Mark, you fucker.
Clip clop he rides about the room dispersing the truth, and you know, that fucking pony nips at your hair and it makes me want to say something because Mark just isn't fucking paying attention, at all, and his fucking horse is trying to bite my head. Mark is pissing me off.
Mark, hey, Mark, you want to back up just a bit there, pal? I don't need to get chafed by your saddlebags while you help the girl right next to me. That horse smell never comes out, I hear, and I'm not into, you know, smelling like Flicka for the rest of my life.
Mark's a sweetheart, though, a real cherry. He doesn't bat an eye. He turns his head, jams two fingers down his throat and vomits all over me, the desk and my books, and continues to help Sally figure out why her straight line ain't.
Fuck. This. Shit.
Mark, you're a fucking asshole, why the fuck did you barf on me? No response. The horse is antsy though, and I hook a stirrup with a hand I've finished wiping on the saddleblanket and give it a tug. Yo, shitheel, what gives? Mark's shirt splits down the back and I can see his skin, glossy white and also splitting, and with a shudder and a deep, inhuman groan, Mark emerges from his cocoon. The smell is terrible: blood, vomit and shit served up nice and hot and right in my face, and only too late I realize I'm still holding the stirrup, and so when the horse takes off, I'm hooked and I get to go along, too. For joy.
We bust out of one of the picture windows and sail out over the parking lot, riding a trail of fire that has set my pants ablaze, and the smell of my burning flesh is added to the olfactory menagerie that's going off across the street and making for Forest Ranch.
Once my legs burn off and the stumps are cauterized things get easier, but Mark whoops and hollers and we fly low to the highway, sizzling the paint off of cars, melting windows, scaring cattle, the usual I expect for this kind of thing. A Highway Patrolman stops and shoots at us with his service pistol, but we veer up and away from the road and head straight for the sliver of the moon that's still pretty high and clear in the blue sky.
Mark won't let me go, no matter how I plead. He's got a hold of my wrist with one gooey claw and we're so high now I can see my house, and then the whole state. I miss my legs. The fucking goddamn horse is slobbering napalm, which has thankfully missed me. I'm blubbering, wishing I could take it all back, not complain about the horse smell, or Mark talking to me like I'm a five year old, or the smell of the horse or the barf or any of it. We level off. Mark turns his horrible face to me, and he gets real close, and his mandible clicks and he just looks at me for a second. Then he lets go of my wrist, and legless, I free fall for, Jesus, twenty-thousand feet or so.
That's a good two minutes worth of falling, or so I estimate. It's not super accurate, but I wasn't counting One Mississippi in my head as I screamed in terror until my voice gave out. More pressing concerns, like trying not to burn up on reentry necessarily took the spotlight. Two minutes where your life passes before your eyes, and you think, Gee, I won't have to worry about the car, or working my ass off to pay for it; I don't have to worry about that test next week, because I'm pretty sure Mark has just failed me for the semester and this is his subtle way of letting me know; or maybe I could bounce like the Bumble and just lose all my teeth or something. Dentures are pretty nice these days; I could get some made out of platinum or something; but no, fuck, I'm going to go right through the highway. Maybe the kids on that bus I'm just barely going to miss will think it was a shooting star that took out that Honda Accord right in front of them.
At least I'll get remembered, Mark, you fucker.