2008

This is the very last song that I remember hearing:

1969

This is the very first song I remember hearing:

Allium Amber

It goes like this:

Chew up a mouthful of garlic.

Now bite down as hard as you can on a nine-volt battery while at the same time you have a very attractive friend who smells a little bit like lavender hit you right between the eyes with the round side of a ball-peen hammer as hard as they can.

When manage to wake up, have your friend offer you a choice of orange juice or coffee. Pick the coffee and pour it down your shirt. Have your friend hand you another cup of coffee and pour some of that one into your mouth and note the existential confusion as your tongue remembers a thing that your brain doesn't:

heat.

Pour the rest of that one into your lap and hand the empty cup to your attractive friend who smells a little bit like lavender.

Your friend is a little too good looking, the way a chick bartender with big tatas is a little too good looking. There's a reason they're both very attractive, you dig? The bartender is very attractive because it helps redistribute some of the wealth in your pocket to her pocket. But why is your friend so good looking? The bartender pays the rent with her looks, see? That's why she has a job like that.

But what do your friend's looks have to do with the job she does, to ask people to eat garlic and batteries while hitting them as hard as she can in the head with a hammer?

It was obvious the very second you met her, remember? Ah, no... probably not. That's the hammer part. Well, if you did remember meeting her, you'd probably remember looking up at her from your wheelchair and shaking her hand when she introduced herself. You'd probably also remember her smiling warmly and looking right at you with her beautiful eyes when you said your name, and then watching her articulate her pretty, light pink lips sweetly as she said your name back to you to make sure she remembered. You'd not be able to remember hers by the way, whether or not she'd been hitting you in the head with hammers.

Then you'd remember, while still holding your shaking hand warmly with both of hers, her asking if you'd like to hop up onto the gurney so they could hook up all the cables they need to make sure you stay alive. You'd remember hopping up onto the gurney, swiveling on your butt and lying back, absently rubbing your wrists under the sleeves of your gown, pensive, wondering when the restraints would make their usual sudden appearance.

And then you'd remember realizing that they'd been there the entire time.

That's why she's so pretty, get it? Do you remember now? Do you remember the garlic zap? And do you remember what you wrote back then? I remember what it was:

"She was worse than a straitjacket, that monstrous woman. A straitjacket robs you of movement, but a pill and a pretty face rob you of will to resist"

You could have just as easily been writing about sirens.

So, to put it under a nice little bow with v-cut tails, here is the question again:

What do your friend's looks have to do with the job she does, to ask people to eat garlic and batteries while hitting them as hard as she can in the head with a hammer?

And here is the answer:

To make sure they'll say yes.



e.s.a.: 2 -- k, ktb