POST-NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS

(The first thing to go through your mind when you look down and see that you’ve got a wide-open, gaping fly is a quick rewind of all the people you’ve encountered up until that moment.

At the corner of Cordova and Abbot at approximately 4:30 this afternoon it happened to me.

And I thought about the very talented and cute Vancouver painter who had just cycled past me, the down-n’-outers smoking weed in the back alley that I had short-cutted my way through (there was a sign on the door behind them that read “Canadian Perspectives”) and finally the hippie clerk who asked if I wouldn’t mind adding up my own bill for items I was getting at his curiosities shop. (the cash register had apparently turned on, tuned in and dropped out)

On reflection I realized there was an unknown element in their smiles. If I’d squinted a careful glimpse of their teeth, I might have seen a reflection of my ginch peaking out of my pants.

The first thing to go through my mind after I zipped up my folly was an image of a giant zipper unzipping to allow a musician to run on stage and rock out. A perfect image for today’s story…)

POST-NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS

Sam slept on his front and on his arms like a newborn baby. The sun sliced in through the curtains and onto his stubbly face. Dust motes danced in the morning light while Sam continued to dream.

In his dream he is waiting to go on stage, psyching himself up by wind-milling his Fender Stratocaster. “This is the show that’ll make you or break you,” comes a voice out of nowhere. The blackness in front of him slices open and he runs in the direction of thousands of screaming fans. He is on stage but when he turns to plug himself into his amp he sees that he has just run through a giant zipper. Laughter from thousands of mouths crashes into his back. He turns around to see thousands of people laughing at him behind their black sunglasses. Thousands of times over he sees his reflection wearing a giant penis atop a helmet that has suddenly appeared on his head.

He woke up with a start in the limelight of the morning.

He slowly rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes as he stretched himself up to a sitting position.

Another crazy dream, he thought to himself, as a viscous liquid oozed out of the flesh of his back and turned into solid paper form. “Kick me,” it read.

As he got out of bed and put on a shirt the paper evaporated through the cotton and found it’s way onto the outside of the No-Fear t-shirt.

Some unknown force had bullied him his entire life.

At the age of 92 he’d discover who.