Elves Included – James Ezra Krendel-Clark

August 22, 2019

so i was scratching my head for the frickin solution when BAM they tell me about this brand new meditation center and i’m like “SHIT MAN, I’M THERE” and there i AM just signing up for an entire one month retreat, maybe this goddamn pain in my neck will finally go away, they tell me it’s easy you just have to follow your breath – – – – so there i am, in a room draped with cushions, this wonky electronic music is playing and smoke clouds of incense filter through my lungs and pretty soon it’s working i think, the mantra they gave me, i can really feel the pulse, this… expansive, yes, expansive feeling in my… mind, i can feel the focus YES the focus it’s really kicking in, meeting with the guru, he tells me to forget everything i know, BAM, done, no problem, “ALL YOUR THOUGHTS ARE JUST CHEMICALS AND ELECTRICITY” he tells me, “YES” i nod “YOU MUST HAVE THOUSANDS OF THOUGHTS A DAY,” “YES”, “THEY’RE MEANINGLESS, IT’S ALL ABOUT JUST BEING H E R E , N O W , AFTER ALL, W H O A R E Y O U ?” and of course i have no answer to a question as profound as that and so he rings a bell and it’s back to the cushion to the cushion back to the cushion god i hope this pain in my neck will pass soon i concentrate REALLY hard cocking my eye in the direction of that shiny plastic buddha in the corner, it looks so peaceful, i’m rocking back and forth with concentration and the monks appreciate the intensity, they all seem to be egging me on, sweat beads form on my forehead, insect-erect my spine flexes and just clicks into place, my piranhas of prana chew every chakra, my neck is finally starting to relax “JUST BE” shouts the zen master the next time i see him “DON’T THINK ABOUT IT, SERIOUSLY” i follow his instructions, nodding like a retard, i don’t think i don’t think i don’t think i don’t think “YES!” i think, “NOW I UNDERSTAND” it just clicks like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers, the red energy pulsing in my skull with all the force of the murderous epiphany of a manic, sex-crazed serial killer and my neck is going CRAAAZY but i’m soooooo focused i think i’m on to something for sure “JUST RELAX” says the zen master “YOU’RE DOING F I N E , THIS ISN’T LIKE REGULAR LIFE, H E R E , A T T H I S C E N T E R , YOU HAVE TO J U S T B E , COUNT YOUR B R E A T H , IT CAN TAKE Y E A R S FOR IT TO S I N K I N , YOUR B R A I N IS JUST A BUNCH OF S Y N A P S E S , IT’S ALL M E A N I N G L E S S , JUST C O U N T Y O U R B R E A T H , O N E D A Y Y O U W I L L U N D E R S T A N D ” shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck, shit, shit, fuck, yeah, yeah, shit, yeah, yeah i think i get it now yeah, yeah, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, yeah, ooh, F U U U U C K ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a n d m y n e c k h a s n e v e r f e l t b e t t e r , a perverted pineal ooze of prostate as i inhale the vapors real sharp-like “snnnkkk” and do a quick snap-to and look up at the other meditators, surveying them with suspicious, serpentine eyes, but now they all have t h e i r eyes firmly closed and their faces fastened shut too as if such a fucking thing were possible, hard to put my finger on what t h e y might be thinking. ECH, SO WHAT. S O F U C K I N G W H A T M A N . that goddamn buddha statue, c h e a p a s f u c k , probably a knockoff, buy it for less than 50 bucks i bet… bet i can find one on amazon for like 25 bucks max fuck fuck gotta focus tho ohboy come onnn fuck fuckkk

 

and then it hit me like a shard of sculpted thunderbolt…

 

my right ear elongated and blossomed, opened-out like the flowering bell of a trumpet and INTO it slithered SOMETHING, oh, it must have been at least seven feet long, my skull must have expanded to the filling of it, SNAKING around the opening to my EAR, slithering, SLIMY film c o a t i n g the interior of the ear like a gooey s n a k e just riding the fuck down like it’s a delightful carnival for brainsnakes, a roller-coaster, d e e p down, smug as a fairytale, and it’s carrying a message too, that’s for sure, glib and chipper as a mailman, that fucking snake, devilish, it was determined too, and it doesn’t just whisper its message like normal, noo it I M P L A N T S that motherfucker deep deep deep deep deep down in the innermost interior orifice of my B R A I N , a .zip file containing god-knows-what, and that snake-thing i can feel its breath, the very vibration of its luciferian b e i n g , peeling back layer after layer of tissue of tissue of tissue of cortex and, i am one blue scientific blob with a torn face buddha, my ear ripped off i can hear this incredible DIN and then my LEFT ear now, now something is sitting on the R I M of my left ear, it’s like gravity has been flipped to the right and the HOLE of my ear is now pointing “down” and also W I D E N I N G , it’s a thing ooh it’s a t h i n g and it’s just s i t t i n g on the r i m and it’s taking a l o n g shit, it’s reading the newspaper and it’s just taking a MASSIVE fucking SHIT in the hole of my LEFT EAR like my ear’s a TOILET, a F U C K I N G T O I L E T, and then it just F L U S H E S . . .

 

but the zen master tells me it’s perfectly normal to have this kind of hallusssssination. “THE BRAIN AND ITS SSSSYNAPSSSESSSS HOLD MANY SSSNAKESSSSS, BUT WE MUSSST NOT LISSSTEN” i thought i detected a slither in the way he was smiling if not also in his speech but then that gong ((((BONG))))) pushing me out of the room and WOOSH back into my seat PLOP, CLICK into place like toast goes into a toaster i’m shivering and i’m sweating but i’m not about to quit now, no fucking way, no way josé, that ain’t my style man, i’m gonna sit this motherfucker right the fuck out, or my name ain’t

 

but this time it’s my face that’s burning, on frickin fire, it’s the face of another, THE other, and it wants to off it off it wants off my face it RRRR my face it MPH peeling away from flesh flipped in front my face coughing and sliced right down the middle my red, rigid face off like a frickin mirror image this horrible [[[ TT HH II NN GG !!! I T I S M Y F A C E C L O N E™ !!! W E S H A R E T H E S A M E D . N . A . !!! ]]] is frowning in front of me AT me frowning staring me down grinding its teeth and clucking its tongue and hissing like a homunculus in heat and then yells raspily at me spitting as it speaks: “YOU FUCKING IDIOT YOU W I L L N E V E R GET PAST THE LOWEST LEVEL OF M E D I O C R I T Y IN LIFE, YOU HEAR ME? WHY YOU THINK SO HARD ABOUT SILLY INNUENDO SPEECH ACT SUPEREGO SIGNIFIER STRUCTURES?!! WHO THE FUCK CARES?!! NO ONE OUT GET YOU, YOU YOU YOU JUST MUCH MUCH MUCH THINK MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH TOO HARD SYNAPSE OKAY? OKAY?! OKAY?!! IS ANIMAL IN FOREST ANGRY?! ME NO THINK SO! WHY YOU GET SO HARD TO THINK ABOUT ZEN IN BRAIN FACE BRAIN FACE BRAIN FACE?!! JESUS!”

 

annnnnnnnnnd shivering back into my body i said i definitely needed a drink of water, bow politely out and excuse myself, stumble off and then stumble back on in stupidly and later on the zen master hits me with this tasty little nugget of oriental truth:

 

“A DRAGON HOWLS IN A HIDDEN CAVE; HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE STILL. A TIGER ROARS ON A PRECIPITOUS CLIFF; THE COLD VALLEY WARMS.”

 

i stare back emptily, at this point devoid of any empathy.

 

“WHEN YOU HAVE UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THIS, EXPLAIN IT TO ME. UNTIL THEN, YOU MEDITATE UNTIL YOUR EYEBALLS MELT AND DRIP DOWN THE FRONT OF YOUR STUPID FACE YOU MISERABLE ENCYSTMENT OF STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID S T U P I D SLIME, OKAY?! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE UNTIL YOU’VE FIGURED OUT WHAT THAT STUFF ABOUT THE DRAGON AND TIGER MEANS!”

 

(((((BONG)))))

 

small, glib, obnoxious, flamboyant voices read random numbers into both my ears simultaneously. left ear: “7, 8, 4, 5, 53, 28, 90, 505”, right ear: “5000, 42, 3, 8, 16, 99”, etc, this just goes on continual-like, the voices turn from glib to straight up sarcasm, like obnoxious little twerp accountants trying to infect me with t h e i r stupid number-obsession, well… it a i n ‘ t f u c k i n g working, i fucking HATE numbers and NOTHING will change that, this RAGE that fills me whenever i even so much as THINK about numbers so SO WHAT if the dragon howls in a hidden cave, NOTHING is going to alter my hatred of numbers, and furthermore,

 

and then it dawns on me like {{{BING}}} S O O B V I O U S !!! like one of those cartoon brainlightbulbs going on, that it was just p r e c i s e l y my dislike of numbers and my obsession with l a n g u a g e as opposed to math that was stopping me from C O U N T I N G my B R E A T H like the zen master S A I D i should do !!!! from that point on i counted f u r i o u s l y , f r a n t i c a l l y , f a s t i d i o u s l y . . . even in spite of the fact that my spring-loaded face kept popping off and smashing into the other monks, even though the miniature elves controlling my hands [[and somehow also most of my thoughts, every now and then one of my own thoughts slipped out of their tight grip, but for the most part the elves clamped down and pushed their own thoughts through, usually against my will, although i must admit there were moments in which i enjoyed being controlled by the elves, i admit this with great shame, but it’s true]] jeered at me from windows located at each of my knucklejoints, winking and whistling, catcalling, jeering, taunting me, and even though the even weirder wizards who saw with my eyes and tasted with my tongue and were in charge of the hardness or flaccidity of my penis (depending on their whim) could tamper with every tendon and trick my muscles into contracting at the most inappropriate times and these schizophrenic tendencies interfered with every motion i made, threw out of wack every act i tried to perform, and even with the pathetic, paltry notes i desperately tried to jot down about what was happening to me (i had come up with a provisional title: “my ordeal”, but who knows if it will ever see publication) on little measly scraps of paper that i had scrounged together out of the trash (for that was taken care of, controlled, puppeteered by a troublesome interior brain-troll who called himself “TRITON” a.k.a. the-write-it-down-guy, a.k.a. MC OMNISCIENT, a.k.a. Mr. Sribble-Scrabble, a.k.a. DA FURIOUS FINGERS OF FICTION, a.k.a. DR. LANGUAGE) and i tried to get a grip on my cushion or chair or whatever it was where i sat but the earthquakes got worse and worse and so did my irritable bowel syndrome and my persistent genital arousal disorder and the girl on the cushion across from me kept making lascivious lip-motions in my direction, wet, COVERGIRL air smooches like “MWAH!” (but silently, fluttering her incredibly long false eyelashes which seemed totally inappropriate for a zen monastery), but then all of the sudden like magic it was time for the daily zen chant so i sat up out of my seat and we all said simultaneously (reading from a sheet of paper that i gripped in my oh-so-tender but oh-so-suspicious ironic meta-grip, my shifty sneering sassy ghost-grasp, or “my precious paranoid pinch” as DR. LANGUAGE suggested mischeviously in an undertone from within my own skull, and i had to hand it to him that this was a well-coined turn of phrase):

 

NO EYES NO EARS NO MIND [((((BONG)))) went the gong]
NO LIPS NO MOUTH NO TEETH NO MOUTH NO EYES [((((BONG))))]
NO MOUTH NO TEETH NO EYES NO EARS [((((BONG))))]
NO MIND NO MIND NO MIND MIND MIND [((((BONG))))]
NO BRAIN NO SYNAPSE NERVE OR CELL [((((BONG))))]
NO TITS NO ASS NO COCK NO BALLS [((((BONG))))]
NO NECK NO LIPS NO NIPPLES HARD [((((BONG))))]
NO CUNT TO FUCK OR SUCK OR EAT [((((BONG))))]
NO FACE NO THOUGHTS NO FAN-TA-SIES [((((BONG))))]
NO ELVES CON-TROLLING ALL YOUR THOUGHTS [((((BONG))))]
NO TROLL OF FICTION WRITING DOWN [((((BONG))))]
YOUR ME-DI-O-CRE PO-E-TRY [((((BONG))))]

 

at this point TRITON broke out of my skull like Athena high-tailing it out of Zeus’ big ol mythomaniacal wacktacular noggin, and got to doin a tip-top tap-dance spectacular that just made everyone crack the fuck out into hysterical giggles and epileptic shards of modern dance moves (think Trisha Brown circa 1978 but get this: on crack), and finally the zen master himself just came on out from behind the curtain, cracked his knuckles and just straight up informed us that it was all O V E R, and would we please all file into the next room to be debriefed by the C.I.A. agents who had apparently arranged the whole damn thing, elves included.