Exorsicism - Short Story by Jim Meirose

 

Exorsicism - Short Story by Jim Meirose                                                                                        

You are insane, Rat, cried Mouse weakly.

What did you expect my son? No cure worth going goes easily.

But college has driven you insane! If I didn’t need to study here, I would leave and hope to not no never see you again—so shut up you have had your fun leave me alone. I need to concentrate.

All right, be that way Mouse-man, go on cramming that brain candy cramming that brain candy over and again, enabling it to success in its kamikaze mission of carving out maximum cavities in your dangerously fatty medulla oblongata and also elsewhere hey!

Rat I do not hear you. You are slowly improving my ability to block away your bullshit from my ears—hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I can’t hear you no yes not as—hmmmmmmmm—

Mouse, you are a cold cold young man.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

The grind of whacking away futilely at the closed gates of every accessible orifice in Mouse’s God-given Playtex Living Glove-like custom made bodyshell, quieted Rat. Knowing that every solidly frozen wintertime gives way to the melt of a new fresh spring by virtue of the inexorable eternal interaction of the Sun and the Earth and some undiscovered as yet shit too, Rat dormented down and stepped through his computer screen to resume his addiction to mining up meaningless bullshit; plus, related to the Hare of the old turtle-down so quick you must lose in the end story as he was, the looming test date did not exist deep down the dark mineshaft of the machine where the interlude of sweet deep cold slow vichyssoisian music was endlessly performed as per the very savior’s wishes, as performed for painfully long periods of super-slowtime by Kimiko Douglass-Ishizakaon, nicknamed appropriately, Mister Wait Up Not So Fast Man, you Thundering Piano Guy.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

Okay Mouse man. I give up. Let’s knuckle down. Don’t disturb, I am searching.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—okay Rat. Thanks for laying off. Sometimes you are almost obnoxious—mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

Obnoxious? You calling me obnoxious?

No, no! I said almost, weren’t you paying attention—hey, realize I feel I must be almost obnoxious too. For example, can you believe I have an uncontrollable urge to once more tell you, for what probably seems like the two dozenth time, you’d think they’d wait a bit before hitting us with some incomprehensible crap that’s impossible to solve!

—dead candy in morning—

Mouse, Mouse, Mouse—you mean, you also realize how I feel, which is that you are an incurably irritating no-patience complainer? That is good to know—that means you have mounted the first of one million steps in the Super Annoying Perpetually Obsessive Complainer’s half mail order half online but never in person Rehab Process. And it only took around two decades. That is most admirable. At this rate you will be free of your particular back-monkey in only twenty million years—but don’t worry about dying before getting there—the program is so super-miraculous that it can continue into corpsehood and through skeletonization dissolution and dustification and goneness and the hard-packed years plus the years of six feet of dirt is no problem for it and even the kind of global catastrophe like that which killed the super-strong dinosaurs has been planned ahead for and is threaded subtly and seamlessly through all the successively smaller millions of needle holes of the program; as in the great big song, Great Seamstress in Heaven Keep on Stitching Out Time—you heard of that song, Mousie-Mouse, hey hey—Great Seamstress in Heaven Keep on Stitching Out Time Great Seamstress in Heaven Keep on Stitching Out Time—

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

Great Seamstress in Heaven Keep on Stitching Out Time yah Great Seamstress in Heaven Keep on Stitching Out Time—

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

Hey this tune’s super-boppable yeah hey Mouse get it?

—at this time the curtain closed over the long physical performance of Elisabeth Farnese, the elderly queen of Philip V of Spain—

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

Okay. So, yes I got it; the fear of mathematics infects you; the fear of mathematics infects you; the power of mathematics infects you; the body of Christ infects you; the power of Christ compels you; the power of Christ compels you!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

The power of Christ compels you!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—you started it Mouse. You started it and I’ll finish it. You know how I get—Mmmmmmmmmmmm—

The power of Christ compels you!

Well—wait. How about this? We could; ut, gulp; dog feces urp ah mmmmmmmmmmm—

The power of Christ compels you!

—mmmmmmmmmmmmmm—but not to read no—mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

The power of Christ compels you!

—mmmmmmm yes no not churn out reams and reams but not to read no—mmmmmmmmmm—

The power of a variation in six eight meter suggesting several possible Baroque dances compels you!

—mmmm ut? What? Off the rails no fair taking short-cut off the rails Gimmy—mmmmmmmm—

The power of the fact that in nineteen seventy-four when scholars discovered Bach's own copy of the first printing of the Goldberg Variations, they noted that over this variation Bach had added the heading al tempo di Giga plus in tiny little print, the words, the power of Christ compels you!

—mmmmmmmmmmm off rails round steel knives dig in the dirt slow and finally tumble you end over end and it’s your fault smart ass—mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—

Accept the truth Satan—that the implications of this discovery for modern performance have turned out to be less clear than was at first assumed meaning the power of Christ continues to compel you!

—mmm—there you go we hope you learn your lesson from what will hit you when your present end over end tumble succumbs to gravity crunches you down hard onto the waydown flatrock so I just got to wait out the next few milliseconds of life you’ve remaining—mmmmmmmmmmmm—

Ha ho the crash air bags deployed the world’s a cushy gassed-up pillow no Takata takka-takka takka-takka luckily in his book The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach after the crash still alive we shall read how the quite alive scholar and blazing-fast keyboardist David Schulenberg will come to the end of his tumbledown upright and able to note even without ball point pen or legal pad that the discovery surprised in that manner of a big upset win of a high school basketball championship regional final in a superheated sweaty stinky echoing gymnasium how foolish the twentieth-century commentators who supposed gigues were always fast and fleeting had been in that dark brutish and short past time all the while within which the power of Christ has been compelling you!

—mmm—wait you may have a point there, Rat, in that you’ve unearthed proof that despite the Italian terminology, this is a much less fleet French gigue so I guess I can full stop here.

—whew—

Yes, but guess is not good enough, you must know as he knew and went on to note that the dotted rhythmic pattern of this variation is very similar to that of the gigue from Bach's second French suite and the gigue of the French Overture so we must continue to apply the mental hot compress of the now-a-shriek yell out loud, that the power of Christ compels you!

No, no more—the fear has—my God Rat there is no fear I can’t find it! Ho!

This kind of gigue is known as a canary, based on the rhythm of a dance which originated from the Canary Islands; no fear Mousie? The last test is—you fear no more of what?

I—I can’t remember, something was terrible but it seems to never have been.

Go and be cured then son. Go and be cured right now.

Which was always the point anyway.

Whew!

Jim Meirose's short work has appeared in numerous venues. His novels include "Sunday Dinner with Father Dwyer"(Optional Books), "Understanding Franklin Thompson"(JEF), "Le Overgivers au Club de la Résurrection"(Mannequin Haus), and "No and Maybe - Maybe and No"(Pski's Porch). Info: www.jimmeirose.com @jwmeirose