Diner / Coffee & Crack / Cigarettes & Apocalypse

the two of them,
her and him,
are talking, as i listen,
alone in the adjacent stall,
wired from the coffee i am drinking,
the cigarettes i am smoking,
senses,
supernaturally heightened,
hanging on to every word that is said,
dumbstruck!

the story is, as far as i can tell,
of a party,
neither of which can remember,
due to the long, long, passage of time,
and the general level of drunken stupor each was in,
before and after the moment in question
but is being recounted,
by each,
as heard from two,
mutually held acquaintances,
but on different occasions,
of the doings of the other therein.

she,
From her former lover,
a soviet spy,
a femme fatale,
who had seen her stolen,
from her arms
by him,
with his dashing smile,
his enormous muscles,
his perfectly sculpted buttocks.

"fireworks!"

she exclaims in her monologue,
"exploded from your nipples,
your comely belt buckle,
the shape of an atom,
proudly proclaiming your allegiance to science,
and your boots made of chupacabra fur,
as you kicked the door from its' hinges.

next, you set a gallon of gasoline on fire,
drank it in a single swallow,
exhaling only once,
a diamond perfectly formed,
flawless in every way,
hardened to impenetrability,
but which melted into millions of hits
of the most potent hallucinogens,
as yet discovered by man,
after,
you confidently strode,
across the dance floor,
and inserted it fully,
into my mouth."

"It, the Diamond" she giggles,
at his comic misunderstanding of her pronouns.

the soviet,
sensing the end of their affair,
had seen the ego fall from her eyes,
upon administration of the drug
and knew their love would never recover.

he,
nonchalantly,
dismisses this narration as mere rumor,
conjecture at best,
outright fabrication at worst,
certainly nothing to be believed.

i must admit,
at this point the crack,
packed into the stem of a glass rose,
incinerated, inhaled and released,
in the parking lot outside of the diner,
is mixing, intensely,
with the strip of acid eaten in the alley,
handed to me by two hippies,
on their way up the one,
along with five dollars
and some well wishes
and so now the interior of the restaurant,
is shifting and swarming alarmingly,
the exterior world becomes painted in blood,
as the sun comes crashing from the sky,
stars flaming behind it,
and i am melting into the booth beneath me,
a plastic-rubber puddle of slime
but am still following,
the story of these two demigods,
as the man,
this chiseled genius,
explains,
by way of her now defunct biographer and ex-manager,
deported to Brazil,
after word of his betrayal became publicly known
but whom he,
had benevolently bailed out of prison
and with whom had shared drinks
and stories of the old days.

“You arrive with you entourage of unicorns,”
he says after she demands to hear what he has heard,
"followed closely by the paparazzi,
who were desperate for your picture,
after your third album went to number one in the lunar colonies."

"the unicorns, whom,
after packing a bowl of pungent weed,
flints sparking,
reflected in their aviator shades,
muscles gleaming from their supernatural iridescence,
their scruffy five-o-clock shadows,
seeped in smoke,
which coursed over tattoos of
Jolly rogers,
Iron crosses
and Swastikas
combed,
thoroughly through,
the subterranean maze,
the jackalope bounce room,
the elephant bone treehouse,
the teleportation chamber,
the sonic rave cave,
the rainforest orgy tsunami,
and the psychedelic cathedral,
and,
having telekinetically determined,
all the guest,
being of the highest quality,
and free from malicious intentions,
that you were in no danger,
folded themselves into a tessarect
and vanished,
bidding you call if you needed anything."

my stomach has suddenly turned itself inside out,
and my insides threaten to burst to the outside,
and i am running to the restroom,
but as i pass,
i see her face,
she is smiling,
enjoying the description of her unicorn nazi bodyguards,
and the party,
and i notice for the first time,
how incredibly beautiful she is,
how the soft round lines of her face meet,
creating an unbelievable smoothness,
how the mole atop her lip,
is the lone, perfect, beautiful imperfection,
on her porcelain skin,
i notice these things as i rush past her to the bathroom.

inside there is a horrible rancid smell,
a zombie is chewing on the face of a man,
his legs still twitching,
entrails splattered over the face of the zombie,
the urinal and the walls behind.

i have experience in these situations,
i know the best thing for it,
is to ignore the situation completely,
i walk into the stall
but am not in there three minutes,
alternating between kneeling and squatting,
shitting and puking into the clogged,
rapidly filling toilet,
when i see it,
the crusty, scabbed, flaccid penis
of the zombie protrudes,
windmilling through the glory hole,
inches from my face.

i rush out of the stall,
past the dead man,
his devourer,
and back into the restaurant where
he,
is finishing the biographer's account of the night,
she,
listening with rapt attention,
i,
meanwhile,
slip back into my booth,
try and look invisible
as i pick flecks of vomit out of my shaggy beard,
the manager looks across the room
and at that moment there is a massive earthquake,
meteorites begin to fall from the sky,
nearly half the people are thrown from their chairs.

"As the night went on,
each man in turn,

shocked

by your beauty,
approached you in turn,
hoping,
most in vain,
for a second of your time,
a mere instant of your affection,
most,
those you found pedantic,
the trilionaires,
the autocrats,
the anarchists and the sophists,
you dismissed,
swiftly and brutally,
tearing away fresh from limbs,
heads from bodies,
eyes from sockets,
and feasting upon their meaty flesh
but some,
those considered uncouth by society,
the deranged heretic,
the drugged addled astronaut,
the megalomaniac conjoined twins,
you allowed a single kiss,
devouring completely,
the essence of that lucky soul,
whose life-force you consumed,
spreading in glittery fractal patterns,
across you lips and eyes,
nevertheless, undeterred,
the men come for miles,
gladly willing to throw down their lives,
for a taste of your lips."

i am sweating and shaking now,
the sweat particles running down my dirty forehead,
onto my patchy overcoat,
smelling of body oder,
cigarettes and indian food,
making myself and the booth slimy and toxic
as outside the rapture begins in earnest,
planes fall from the sky,
dark riders roam the streets,
claiming the souls of the just and unjust alike,
another giant earthquake hits
and the earth is torn asunder,
inside an eerie calm falls over the patrons,
all of whom,
continue their conversations in frantic whispers,
perhaps hoping,
that delicate inattention to their own demise can save them,
all except the two,
these two perfect children,
these elegant, radiant beings of light,
who sing to each other of that night and each other,
whose voices intertwine,
envelope one another,
in perfect harmony,
one than the other,

"you punched that indignant giraffe in the face"
"you made those amish reject their beliefs"
"you pulled the very stars from the heavens,
mixed them up, wrote my name in the sky"
"you picked me up,
carried me across the ocean on your back,
made passionate, violent love to me on your private island"
"baby you made me cum harder than i ever have before."

and as they sing their song,
their voices become supernaturally beautiful,
their skin glows with an arcane violet fire,
they are lifted up into the air
and as they are lifted up,
above the now panicking customers,
up above the thronging turbulent masses,
up over the smoldering linoleum benches,
up through the bombed out roof
of the poor,
demolished diner,
up into the sky
and as they are raised they embrace
and as they embrace far, far away in the hideous sky,
their glowing skin looks like two tiny lanterns,
they kiss
and win they kiss,
the sky explodes in a nuclear holocaust,
a blinding white light,
everything is covered in flames,
most run clutching their smoldering skin,
screaming.

i am however,
left miraculously unharmed,
lying on the floor
but sick again,
retching into the crater where my booth used to be,
clutching my gut,
crying a little
and the manager,
who,
earlier i had made eye contact with,
is walking over and grabbing me by the shoulder,
hands burnt and blistered,
missing thumbs, a pinky,
remaining fingernails cracked and smoking,
hair flaming,
face melting,
dead, cooked, yellow eyes,
bulging from empty sockets,
tongue wagging,
through a mouth missing lips,
and saying
"yes this was the end of days"
and,
"yes"
he would rather be at home with his family,
but,
"this was still the united states of america"
and he,
"was running a business god-damn-it"
and.
"he couldn't let every random bum from off the street,
get sick all over his restaurant,
and ruin the experience,
for the paying customers"

and he is throwing me out into the street,
out through the skeletal arch,
where once the doors used to be.