The
Origin of Species
Life on Earth began as a gum wrapper made of aluminum,
lying on a sidewalk; several stalks of peppermint grew inside
it.
Human life began as a series of interruptions in global telecommunications—later
explained as Sun spots. Our primary line of flight extends from
a point (a mole on god’s face) and eventually intersects
with a moment where it properly becomes an actual line of flight
instead of a romantic novel:
a caterpillar is simply a caterpillar—it’s not a moth.
The Moon was not a goddess until a few tribes settled along a
river with abundant deposits of clay. Then, she had a mother and
a father who hid deep in space and never showed their faces. The
wrinkled man with white, bristly hair didn’t give them any
reason to hide.
Several generations later a group of children around a dying fire
decided the moon was very ugly and that her parents were ashamed.
Then, she pursued the handsome Sun—but would only show her
face after dark. Couples fucked in the fields and feasted on suckling
pigs on the day the moon could be seen in the sky at noon. She’s
finally built up her courage, met her love face to face and he
did not reject her.
Our arms came from strands of hair,
which is why my fingers feel so at home brushing corn silk.
I feel the smell of jasmine after midnight
under my fingernails.
The comet that killed the dinosaurs carved four holes in our skulls.
That’s why I can smell and see.
An average-sized pile of maggots was once several people who thought
wearing white after labor day was a good idea. Stairwells are
a field of free movement. Sometimes, Baby Jesus leaves a roller
skate out. You’ll have to excuse him—
divinities don’t have the attention spans
they used to. That’s why they have to die.
A salmon that spends its life in a lake will propagate its species.
But, after a generation or two
their offspring will develop fur
and then horns. Herds of bison shake
water out of their coats and make the ground at Yellowstone thunder
when they’re spooked.
At one point in history geysers may have been as common as gas
stations and served as giant soup pots: our earliest invention
was the spoon. The wheel came as a result of a very human desire
for “bigger and better” alongside a nomadic lifestyle.
The first monument was built in honor of the consumption of boiled
meat. The first capitalist was a frond curling up from the back
of a boar with an inner-ear problem.
He detached himself and too a nice stroll to orient himself to
his new surroundings. Happily, he realized that thick clumps of
palms were easy to deal with when there are dim memories of bristly
hairs in that section at the back of your mind that you’re
not even sure belongs to you. It took that man a week to start
selling fire wood. After inventing money, he fucked a sow. He
grew rich and drank from the sweat pouring from his children’s
brows.
Over time, our ears shortened
and started protruding from the sides
of our heads. A space grew
between our teeth. We didn’t have a worry
in the world. That’s why our tail fell
off—why we grew a couple of thumbs.
Our dominant culture, composed largely of stress inducing stimuli,
is carefully constructed each morning before we wake up. We remember
riding between ferns and know, deep down, we could devour ourselves—bones
and all.
Most buildings grew teeth so slowly that no one really noticed.
Since they did not simultaneously develops mouths they keep their
molars inside of their walls. La-Z Boy manufactures the finest
files. At birth, we’re each given a bundle of wires—we
can keep them as sharp as needles. We can always sew up the small
wounds that develop when our beds slowly grow nails.
Plato made some observations about this in an un-translated work
that, for a while, was considered the basis for all horticulture.
Recently, it has been discovered that farming really started several
years after the first ploughshare was forged—it was our
earliest instrument of torture.
Socrates has a ridge of hair
growing down his spine—when he was angry
he dropped down
on all fours and those hairs bristled.
His canines had grown into fine tusks
by the date of his death.
Nietzsche was also born half-pig,
but had the decency to file
his fangs to stubs. However, he spent
the rest of his life writing about the pain. A cup of water on
his bedside table exploded. Shards of glass pierced the philosopher
and made him bleed. For years, he survived by sucking at his own
wrist.
Every once and a while, he heard his mother whispering from a
hollow spot in a tree—a maple in full bloom. Later, when
he told his therapist what she’d said (that he should spend
less money on pants), the old man shook his head and answered,
“Friedrich, we musn’t talk about such things.”
The ducks who take wing when a man who will never be old skips
a pebble across their pond may turn into kings or world-class
mountaineers—when they grow up.
Written by M. Alan Cox
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