Not carter house
June 10, 2020

Act 1 emerging from early morning sober raves


Folds part and the oblong opens like an ovum. A growing, a bursting ensues. She pushes through the layers of door and steps from darkness into a dull light. Inhales the thickness, letting it coat respiratory membranes. She turns her head to spit glutinous muck into the barely visible past. Pulls her mask up over her mouth and nose and strolls into the concentrated unbreathable apocalypse.

Act 2 omg I have so much shit

In the before time, she was a bit of a collector of things. She collected coins from different countries in South America, Europe and Asia. She collected stoneware mugs, first-edition books and more than 100 pairs of shoes. Her house was packed with stuff from floor to ceiling. She collected newspapers and junk mail and cardboard boxes. She collected egg cartons and grocery bags and milk jugs. She collected interesting rocks she’d picked up on the beach. And shells. And seaworn buoys from fishing boats. She collected decks of tarot cards – her favorites included the Feng Shui deck, a steampunk deck and another based on the art of Klimt. Her prize was an antique replica of the Visconti-Sforza deck, missing the 10 of swords. She had traded for it at a Rainbow Gathering barter market in Pennsylvania. The guy had been up front about the missing card. “I can’t do a legit reading without the overkill card, the poor slob with 10 gleaming steel of the intellect in his back.”

The man maybe didn’t know that in the Visconti-Sforza deck, the 10 swords card was illustrated geometrically with sharp silver crisscrossed to create a diamond grid in the center. But how could he know this if the card was missing, had been missing, had not be rediscovered. Something about fifteenth century Italians and abstruse symbolism. Replica replica replica.

The man traded this imperfect deck for a pouch of nutritional yeast and a beaker of sodium chloride. Rainbow Gathering meals were hit and miss as can be the case with zesty or not vegan food. “I had no idea what salt could do.”

Intermission Ten of Swords – key words from thetarotguide.com

Backstabbing, betrayal, enemies, bitching, badmouthing, bitterness, doormat, failure, ruin, collapse/breakdown, exhaustion, inability to cope, curses, rock bottom, hitting a wall, dead end, severing ties, goodbyes, nail in the coffin, exaggeration, overly dramatic, martyr, attention seeker, playing victim, attack, violence

Act 3 just make a fire and burn it clean

When she left, she could take only what she could carry, mostly necessities – toothbrush, soap, pocket knife, solar radio and flashlight. Peanuts, Clif bars, two one-liter bottles of purified water. By this time, it was getting more important to boil the water. And masks, one for now and a 12-pack for later. You didn’t want to breathe that shit. She packed only a few items for the sake of nostalgia. The ring her son crafted for her in his jewelry and small metals class. Blank notebook and pens. Even in the face of humanity’s end, she wanted to tell its stories. That’s what her species does. At the last minute, she tossed in a wide bottle of gummy vitamins from Costco. When the gummies were gone, she’d be able to use the container for something. She was pretty sure of that.

She left a candle burning above the fireplace, near all the photos and ashes of loved ones. But it wouldn’t be enough, she realized. It could not be fast enough. She went to the garage for a red jug of flammable liquid. Glug glug glug went the contents onto the kitchen and living room floor. As she walked out, she lit crumpled newspaper on fire – the front page of The New York Times from 9/12/2001 because that’s what came to the fictive mind – and tossed it behind her.

Act 4 not all the way hard, there’s a word for that


She never thinks about the journey out of the city. Too much, too much.

Act 5 everything you wanted to do, there was a machine for it


After communal meals and the ceremony of holding hands and ohming into the evening, the kids gather to hear her stories. They marvel at a tall box that keeps food cold, for example, and others to wash clothes and even dishes and incredulous at the idea of a box with pictures and sound, telling stories, lining up minds like soldiers. They don’t believe a person could enjoy a game on such a much a dull surface. What could be more ridiculously entertaining, they’d ask, than playing as they do with super heroic bits crafted from materials found in the ruins? She agreed that these their games were viscerally superior. Yes, she was sorry so sorry for the kids in the before time. She felt no longings for mobile containers to move her temporal flesh across far distances. This was her place. Her place. Her place. She curled on cozy comforts, piled high against the study wall of story.