the bugging watch & other exhibits
kim gek lin short
Advance Praise for The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits An exciting, mysterious, sometimes macabre new narrative, The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits is a zany futuristic gothic opera of prose poems threaded with magic, potions, passion, a “concert of hair,” and a “hazmat of holes.” With its incantations of quantum teleology, its footnotes & sources, it is a magnificent work. Irresistible! —Norma Cole This small unsettling book first proposes a stiflingly sweet symbiosis between two shut-in innamorati, and then lets its queer world subdivide in a theater of exfoliating roles. Most shocking in this miniature is the Rosebud at its center, a muse who breaks with her mate only to reinvent him out of bugs, ink and sugarwater. Like a Victorian photo collage mounting, say, the head of Prince Albert on a croquet mallet or umbrella handle, this seemingly innocuous work both conceals and reveals its morbidity, its twisted thirsts. —Joyelle McSweeney
the bugging watch & other exhibits
the bugging watch & other exhibits by Kim Gek Lin Short
Tarpaulin Sky Press 2010
Grafton, Vermont
The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits Š 2010 Kim Gek Lin Short First edition, May 2010 ISBN: 9780982541616 Printed and bound in the USA Library of Congress Control Number: 2009943308 Art: Daniel Rhodes Book design: Christian Peet & Kim Gek Lin Short Text is in Jenson; titles are in Mona Lisa
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For Jim and BrontĂŤ
Contents A Day in the Night of Fiber-Philanthropia
1
The Exhibits All the Mason Jars in the World Saved The Miracles FAQ The Changeling The Tiny Book of Instructions The Girl with the Seven Cables The Treasure Hunt Bug Powder for the Soul The Zeitgeist The Vow of Aloof The Oblong Enchanted Hour Toland-in-Heaven The Synchronicity The Yarn
5 6 7 8 10 12 13 15 17 18 19 20 21 23 25
The Bugging Watch Harlan Audition Homage “Pretty” 8 & 1/2 Mittens Costume The List
29 31 32 33 34 35 36
Sources: Selections from Toland’s Datebook My Feeling for Fame Potlatch Villain Ms. Chatterley Glacier Clone The Romance The Crime Bug Soup The Different Place Circus Search Warrant Death Certificate
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
Acknowledgements About the Author
55 57
A Day in the Night of Fiber-Philanthropia One winter night during Toland’s convalescence Harlan sewed for them an entire sheet of fiber-philanthropists in his most special broken needle. “Here,” said Harlan, putting onto Toland’s fingers ten thimble-sized hats he had knitted out of cockroach legs, “now you can visit my most special broken needle ten times.” Toland through sleep closed with her hooded fingers the eyes of Harlan’s very important needles, and saved them in a halo-lined hairdo for their Summer Cloudside Wedding and Real Live Music. It grew late and a smiling Harlan climbed into an exit with Toland. “Goodbye,” he said, kissing her under the blinking light. Goodbye, she gushed, as the sheet slid off the icy bedskirt. “Goodbye, goodbye,” they waved, as Harlan reworked under his wisp the wet eyes.
The Bugging Watch
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The Exhibits
All the Mason Jars in the World There once lived like fur forgotten in a basement corner the girl who touched everything. Her body like a ball of yarn unwound and fell from the bed into the basement, from the basement into the drain, and met with many accidents, where it did touch many things. Where it spanned itself the 385 square feet fuzzed and fraying in Harlan’s house, so unwound it could not if Harlan had all the mason jars in the world get Toland back again, no matter how many times with the tailor’s chalk Harlan marked. So many more than a hundred times did this poor Harlan weep, upset. That one day he coined in scientific terms “stem-threads” and obtained a grant, and taped the permit on the basement door, where it stayed for all the colors of a Denver Fall he worked. And in all the mason jars in the world set Harlan to cure his broken Toland, and lined up with labels the things Toland touched. But Toland touched everything, and all the mason jars in the world were not enough. And in the basement forever inside him, Harlan prepared the threads of yarn, wrapping the lesions in rice paper, taking many steps backwards many times, before submitting his Toland to the empty jars forever and ever.
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Saved Toland said she was saving herself because she could not help thinking that when they have their baby she would find it in the kitchen bloody with her blood or bloody with knifeblood or bloody with the stenciled blood of everlasting sleep, which is why she stopped sleeping. Harlan told her to wrap her head in aluminum foil, but she must not have done it tightly enough, because there was still that voice of the baby bloody with clanging metal fingers the scratching scab of neglect. She wondered, do you hear it? He did. Harlan wrapped his head in wet wingpaper, but it did not work because there in the waves he saw the voice gurgling through. After that, Harlan saved himself. Once they were both saved, Harlan and Toland only saw the miracles. The bed twitching miracles. The skin swishing miracles. The pelvis squeaking miracles. They told everyone to listen.
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The Miracles “Experts say,” explained Harlan, standing Toland on her head, “that three out of four experts use this method.” Toland in atypical agreement maintained the very stiff posture for a very long time, until all the October pumpkins on the front porch began to turn into babies, and something, she said, must be done. Harlan carefully let go of her legs, and went outside to gather, if he could, all the babies into his skinny arms. When he brought them inside Toland exclaimed, What miracles! and began one by one to wrap them in blankets. But soon Toland ran out of blankets, so Harlan sewed from her thin arm a twig soft quilt. But it was not nearly enough. So Harlan searched the house. He searched in pipes and recessed lighting and then he searched Toland’s purse where he found the disk of pills, and he returned to the loud crying room. Toland saw the pink disk in Harlan’s hand, and she knew they did not need the blanket. They did not, in fact, need any of the blankets. One by one the babies began to disappear. Then the blankets. Then Toland’s arm once again assumed its limp place at her side.
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FAQ There was something about the way Toland just hung there in the closet that suggested to Harlan she had for him some very good news. Is it my hair? she asked. Harlan looked at its fetish of brown loops and decided it was not, after all, her hair that made him think she had for him some very good news. Is it my wrists? She held out like breadsticks her two pale arms. Harlan braced himself. He paced the dark room and soul-searched, and when that did not work he sought diversion in a kit of unrequited thread Toland had provocatively arranged in his trousers. Is it my knees? she asked, bending like unset wax the pleats of her legs. But Harlan just stood in front of the wide empty closet and stared. Is it, she asked finally, the miracle? So Harlan held the crying ball of yarn that Toland had winters ago wound in her abdomen. And he thread into a needle its puzzle of body and sewed from it garments of hair, wrists, and knees, and then hung them one by one on the naked hangers. But something was incomplete. Is it my hips? Toland whispered, not wanting to wake the miracles. Harlan sewed a garment of hips. Is it my ankles? Is it my mouth? Harlan sewed a garment of ankles and mouth. He sewed and sewed until he had hanging in his empty closet all the parts of his Toland. But something was incomplete. Is it my heart? Only one tiny thread of miracle remained, so Harlan sewed with it all her parts together, and in her chest inserted a box of crayons. But something was incomplete. The Bugging Watch ~ 8 ~ and Other Exhibits
Is it my lungs? she coughed, gasping for air, and Harlan opened like a shimmering clam his Toland and inserted next to the crayons a wheel. The wheel began to spin. So Harlan spun. Together they made in their spinning a hive of buzzing colors. So Harlan said, “Let’s celebrate!” and they named one by one all their different colors. But there was one color they could not name. Is it red? mouthed Toland. Harlan picked her up with his two knitting needles and held her like a tissue to his face. “No,” he said, “it isn’t.” Toland smiled. In the whole wide world there never again was a question that didn’t make Harlan think of the very good news.
The Bugging Watch
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The Changeling “I’m very concerned,” whispered Harlan, “about a mate and switch.” Toland noticed he put an emphasis on the word I’m, but she hid under the bed with him anyway. “There has been since Monday,” warned Harlan, peeking out through the blackberry of bedskirt,“much mating and no switching, so the time will soon be upon us.” Toland agreed, in her own way, and saw everywhere the scars of Monday, and marveled at Harlan squinting through his octagonal eyelids at a warped box in his datebook. What’s that? she asked, and Harlan blew as best he could the bedskirt like a summer dandelion, and a fragile piece of the June afternoon brightened for a moment the warped black box. “Monday,” he answered. Toland agreed, in her own way, and together they hid under the bed from the scars of Monday, the way they might if they had survived together as young lovers some Monday long ago. A chink of junelight escaped the bramble of bedskirt, and for a moment alighted the tangled geometry of body next to him, and Harlan tried very hard not to think about mating. He thought of sunflowers, warm and wavering, and bright winter suns, and made sure with the datebook that all his hands were accounted for. But it was not his hands, not any of them, that suddenly entered his Toland. And it was not his hands, not any of them, that thought without pause about mating. Harlan knew it was too late. Through a slit in the hanging fabric swung The Bugging Watch ~ 10 ~ and Other Exhibits
down from on top of the bed a pair of feet. Who is that? she asked, not recognizing herself. But Harlan could not answer. Harlan looked at his Toland beside him under the bed, and then down at her missing feet. I’ll have to carry her, he thought, crawling her into all of his arms, away from the dangling feet, further and further away from the light, crawling. Where are we going? she asked. “Tuesday,” Harlan whispered, “Tuesday, with sunflowers tall as true suns,” as he carried her further and further and further under the bed.
The Bugging Watch
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Acknowledgements Work from this collection was published in Caketrain Journal, Drunken Boat, 42 Opus, Mad Poet’s Review, No Tell Motel, Shattered Wig Review, SoMa Literary Review, Tarpaulin Sky and Wicked Alice. “The Exhibits” was published as a chapbook entitled The Residents (dancing girl press). Parts of “The Bugging Watch” were published in the anthology narrative (dis)continuities: prose experiments by younger american writers (Recycled Karma Press). Many thanks to the journal and press editors who have published the work herein, especially Kristy Bowen, Elena Georgiou and Christian Peet. For their performances of “The Bugging Watch,” special thanks to Chris Collision, Ryan Eckes and Mytili Jagannathan. For being visual, thanks especially to Daniel Rhodes. Balloons to John Toland whose work The Great Dirigibles, Their Triumphs and Disasters (Dover, 1972) gave rise to my heroine’s name and much of the language in my poem “The Great Dirigibles.” Most of all, thanks to Jim and Brontë.
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About the Author Kim Gek Lin Short is the author of China Cowboy (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2011) and two chapbooks, The Residents (dancing girl press) and Run (Rope-a-Dope). She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.
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TARPAULIN SKY PRESS Current & Forthcoming Titles FULL-LENGTH BOOKS Jenny Boully, [one love affair]* Jenny Boully, not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them Ana Božičević, Stars of the Night Commute Traci O Connor, Recipes for Endangered Species Mark Cunningham, Body Language Danielle Dutton, Attempts at a Life Johannes Göransson, Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate Noah Eli Gordon & Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Figures for a Darkroom Voice Gordon Massman, The Essential Numbers 1991 - 2008 Joyelle McSweeney, Nylund, The Sarcographer Joanna Ruocco, Man’s Companions Kim Gek Lin Short, The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits Shelly Taylor, Black-Eyed Heifer Max Winter, The Pictures Andrew Zornoza, Where I Stay
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