LAND SPAGHETTI

 

Out there, is sea spaghetti. It’s a seaweed that resembles a dark green cooked spaghetti, and can be eaten as such. It is wild, organic, salty, tangled in the dark depths. It’s free range.

===

It was revealed to me in a dream- there is a hole in the ground, deep. It is night time. Stood looking down into the hole is my father and an associate; a younger man, very tall, in a denim shirt, who is smoking. My father decides something about the hole, reaches into his jacket and pulls out a little revolver. He passes the gun to his associate, who languidly aims the barrel into the hole. That’s when I see what looks strange for a moment; eight pale emergences, grubs or worms? No- they are fingertips, just visible over the rim of the hole, the hole must be very deep, deeper than a man with his arms stretched up high above his head. These are the fingertips of a man who isn’t using his arms to climb out of the hole, or dig the hole, but he could’ve been doing that until he saw the gun- those are the fingertips of a man begging for his life, his hands high above his head.

===

“Land mate” the ancient creature gasps. “know what done?” it’s eyes roll above the course of the waves, raking the sky, settling on Jacques. “know what done á eternity?” A plume of salty, bloody mist shoots out of its blowhole. A guttural rumble echoes through its throat. “brothers once, broke now. Eternity- halved! Oh…p…pain!” the creatures eyes roll fast into its head, as the bulk of its body begins to rise to float dead on the surface. “know what done- no! no…” a crewman comes besides Jacques with a marking flag on a harpoon, which he throws at the dead beast. “plenty a’ meat on that ‘un”, he tells Jacques.

===

Joey Tribiani looks out the floor to ceiling windows. It’s raining at night in the city; he wears a dressing gown and swirls his brandy in its glass. His voice drifts from the television, as he plays a vhs of days of our lives, featuring himself as Dr Drake Ramoray. Lightning illuminates his apartment, overfilled with expensive sculptures, for an instant. He stares down at the vehicle filled streets, and utters “I piss on you from a height, and tell you it’s rain.” He swigs his liquor, turning away. “and you all believe me.”

Under the floorboards Matt le Blanc’s skeleton rests.

===

"Thanks NHS!" He screams, his finger pulling so hard on the trigger of the assault rifle his fingernails go paper white, a blitzkrieg of bullets vaporizing the ward hallway and all in it. Sweat rolls off of him. "Protect the NHS!" he feverishly yells, smashing office windows in the childrens ward with the butt of the gun; he realises its out of ammo and drops it in favor of two pistols, which he shoots without aiming, randomly, at patients, doctors, nurses, porters... He stops for a moment, screams and moans and alarm bells finally audible with no gunfire. He whispers, "clap for carers," and pulls the pin on the grenade, clutching it tightly to his chest.

===

"Oh goody! You're awake, we can watch Downton Abbey!" He starts doing an excited little jig. You reel around in confusion. "who- who are you?!" you demand. He stops to regard you, head cocked, arms by his sides, smiling. "Me? Why, I'm Delighted!" Sweating and breathless, you look around. You are surrounded by desert.

===

Kennedy is bored but waves anyway as the motorcade trundles on- and then stops. Everything stops. Birds hang in the sky. The crowd is frozen in cheer, the car not moving, even Jackie next to him is glassy, solid, unmoving. “Hello.” He turns- crouched on the back of the car is Dewey Wilkerson, the youngest brother from Malcolm in the Middle, portrayed by Erik Per Sullivan. Though just a young boy, Kennedy is startled silent by an overpowering sense of omnipotence. “This is already written.” Dewey lifts his left hand in the air, in front of JFKs face. “I’m sorry. There’s no choice. It’ll make sense in a century. But-“ he gently touches JFKs forehead, causing it to explode.

Dewey disappears

Time unfreezes

Jackie Kennedy is sprayed with her husband’s, the president’s, brains.

===

You are Fuller from Home Alone. On the night before your family goes to Paris for Christmas, you drink a Pepsi, knowing that it makes you wet the bed and that you have to share a bed with Kevin that night. You smile at him across the room.

You are woken up in the night by a scraggly figure struggling to breathe in the room. You find your glasses and look. It is Macaulay caulkin aged 28. He catches his breath, then tells you “this night changes absolutely everything... every atom... every choice...” he looks hard at you, his unshaven and lined face a mask, his long blond hair like straw. He inhales and disappears as he reaches out to your cheek.

Your bed is soaked in piss because you drank a Pepsi earlier.

===

Boris Johnson leans against the wall in the dark and exhales his cigarette smoke. He lets his head hang back. He's tired. "So, what did you think?" Quampf looks at him with his one eye. Before Quampf can say anything, he sneezes out his other liver. He doesn't care, and soon replies anyway; "QUAMPF!!!!" Johnson smiles. "Thanks buddy. You've been a great help." "QUAMPF!!!!!" Quampf makes an obscure gesture with his stubby green arms. "I know. I know."

"QUAMPF!!!!"

===

You pick the juniper berries off of the prickly twig. ‘Delightful.’ You gently take your huge hairy form through your Forest home. ‘It is good to be alive’ you think, and hum an ancient Sasquatch song to yourself. Then you see it- a human! You’re so excited, it’s been over a century! You clear your throat; you hope they still speak French. It looks a little rattled... what’s that metal thing in its paw?

===

you're getting sick of Eblfetz daemon of the rot crashing at your place, eating all your cereal and watching cartoons all day. you sit on the sofa and pick up the remote. "put on Garfield" he says through a mouthful of coco pops, "or i'll make you Garfield." You sigh, cycling through the channels. "It's not on" you say. "I-I h-hate M-Mondays" you say. "L-l-l-l-l-lasa- lasagna" you say.

===

You are walking on your ancestral lands. It's mid-morning, so the desert sun is building up to searing, but the occasional rocky shade is cool and clean. "<gentle, tigre,>" you say to your dog in Diné. You follow the ancient path down around a rocky carapace, humming a Navajo tune to yourself. The cacti come in to view, dusty and wind battered. Tigre stiffens, and you notice a few footprints in the dust. You unshoulder your rifle, and creep further among the cacti, and finally see him. A white guy with a beard is naked, on a yoga mat, holding his big toes with his legs stretched wide and his asshole pointed at the sun. He has a classic 'tribal' design bicep tattoo, and also a tattoo of a dreamcatcher. He sees you, and says "my dude! Morning! Just gotta absorb some of that sunlight dude! Gotta sunbathe my perineum!" You think about shooting him with the rifle but beat him to death with the rifle butt instead.

===

They have him cornered. "Make him say the shibboleth." One of them steps forward and unbuckles his holster. "Say 'telephone.'" The man breaks into a sweat. "te...tell.... teleRAG N' BONE!!!" No sooner has he said it than the little device is pointed at his head. "please no! don't send me back to the zone!" But it's too late, they press the button on the anti-cockney device and send the cockney back to cockneyland.

===

You get home upset and run to your room crying. You bury your Face in your pillow and think of all the problems that would be solved if only you had that big Mack truck.

Your mother starts to go upstairs to comfort you, but your father grabs her arm.

“Leave him ma, leave him to think about that big Mack truck.”

 ===

He emerges from the shore. Tangled in bladderwrack and kelp, covered in whelks and wriggling things, his moustache green. From his clothes, his hat, we can see that he is a 19^th century Italian peasant. The seaside town freezes, as everyone stares, their mouths agape as he makes his way up the mainstreet.

He sits outside a restaurant, crosses his legs, and picks up a menu. He studies it, then puts it down shocked. “Spaghetti… from the land… Land Spaghetti?!”