PostScript

Now that the story has ended, I wanted to follow up with some of my thoughts on the story and “the process”. Basically, what’s up here is a first draft. There are a few kinks I want to work out namely:


• Developing Lennie’s character more


• Figuring out a more realistic way for Dexir to be distributed (for example, it would need to go through the FDA and whomever else before they would just mass distribute) and describe how that would happen. I would probably need to do a little research for this.


• Describing the nature of the beast in more detail—I wanted the “afflicted” to be indistinguishable during the day (I think this is scarier); more scenes showing how this plays out


• Clarify what exactly happened to Lennie: unbeknownst to the reader until Lennie’s demise, the “afflicted” not only seem normal during the day but retain daytime memories after nightfall. Michael had ingested some Dexir before meeting Lennie, but it hadn’t taken effect until the third day. Presumably, he went to go find something (food, supplies, etc.) and went too far, choosing somewhere else to rest for the night. Then, he reanimated but was not mindless—he remembered that Lennie was around and probably returned to the barn to kill her. Not finding her there, he went to her house.


• Give Lennie a nicer death, or at least close the story with a nice memory of hers—the one I was considering was of her riding on the Coney Island Cyclone on a teenage first date


It’s a work in progress!

The End of Lennie

Three days later, Lennie was back at her house. Her stay with Michael had been relatively uneventful. The first night, they’d slept in separate rooms with the doors locked, paying tribute to the mantra that swept through the country in its death throws: “total isolation in a secure setting”. The next night, they drank half of the Jack Daniels handle Michael had taken from McCrary’s and ended up passing out in the living room.

A good fifteen years younger, Michael was passably handsome and good company—at this point, Lennie had mused, even a Labrador retriever would have been good company—but neither of them had felt up to the task of any sort of sexual entanglement. Lennie had always found that frenzied post-apocalyptic fucking ridiculous—the Medieval orgies behind gated walls while the bubonic plague raged outside; the silver screen strangers desperately smashing their bodies together while zombies broke down the front door. For her, sex was about focus and all she saw when she closed her eyes was Milo’s missing cheek.

Even so, in one boozy moment, Lennie looked fondly at Michael and wondered if anything might happen between them. She must have fallen asleep shortly after. When she woke up the next morning, mouth dry and head throbbing, Michael was gone. She had called out for him and waited until the sun had arched more than halfway across the sky before leaving the barn and heading home. Still slightly dazed, she tried not to consider where Michael had gone—for all she knew, he was out running errands and would stumble back in moments before the sunset, with some delicacy like fresh fruit in tow. She couldn’t risk finding out if something worse had happened.

Pulling her bike up to the house, Lennie surveyed the property, which looked undisturbed. She reached the back door and found it still locked, and in one panicked moment thought she’d left the key. Fortunately, after a few moments of fishing, she found it and sunk it into the lock—the shadows were already beginning to fall. She re-boarded up the door and went up to her room, shut the door and lay down in bed.

Suddenly, she was dreaming again. She was whizzing through town on her bike, waving to people as she passed. Everything was back to normal—she saw Norm Callaway mowing his lawn and, passing the playground, all of the swings were in use. The sounds of the living! She’d forgotten the music, the lifetime of background noise she’d taken for granted.

A faint banging noise, like a nail gun, grew louder as she approached the source. She turned the corner and saw Tracy Horton, Michael’s mother, fussing over something, bringing her fist down on something again and again. She got closer and was about to call out to her before seeing that the fist was covered in blood. Tracy had someone’s head on her lap, and she was punching their face repeatedly. The limp body moved only with the force of each impact.

Lennie opened her eyes but the banging didn’t stop. She rushed to her bedroom door only to have it fly open in her face: Michael burst into the room towards her. He had something in his hand but Lennie shut her eyes before she could see what it was. She prayed it would be fast and luckily, for her, the first blow to her head knocked her unconscious, saving her from the terror that lay ahead.

Ok, ok, there will be one more after this...

Occasionally, Lennie would hear someone walking outside her house. In those moments, she would freeze completely, holding her breath and not making a sound. She tried never to draw attention to her home—she’d been living off canned goods for a while now, so there was no need for fires, and, it being September, it was still warm. Last time this year, the leaf peepers started to show up in droves, booking all the rooms at Rosy Inn Bed and Breakfast. Lennie remembered one year when she nearly hit one of them with her car: camera glued to his face, the peeper was completely unaware of his brush with death, looking up only after Lennie honked to remind him that he was standing in the middle of the street. She’d been impatient that day but, looking up at the maple hanging overhead, with leaves of crimson and pumpkin pie, she’d understood. What she would give to see that peeper now! What she would give to see a face not warped by terror or fury.


Over the past few weeks, a knot had begun twisting in Lennie’s stomach: food was running low. Her pantry shelves slowly emptied, despite her efforts to conserve every tiny pea at the bottom of the can, each tiny morsel. She would have to venture out soon, probably to McCrary’s, assuming it hadn’t been completely plundered already. If she cut through the Adams’ back yard, it was only about a mile from her house. Taking her car was out of the question—the roads were choked with abandoned cars and other apocalyptic detritus—so she would have to go on foot, or risk taking her bike on the road. She decided to take the bike: if anything happened, she’d be able to get away faster. Plus, she’d be able to bring back more food in her bike basket, as opposed to just in her backpack.


Lennie had always been a biker. A former advertising executive and native New Yorker, she’d sought out Croydon, New Hampshire for its tiny population (724) and seclusion. Roughly the same time “Meat Me” was taking place, Lennie sat in her living room with a class of champagne: she’d successfully escaped the city for one year. She’d plowed (helmet on, head down) through Manhattan streets and enjoyed the constant battle between taxis, horse-drawn carriages, and those detestable rickshaw offspring that took up the bike lane. She called them the SUVs of the bicycling community—tourist limbs spilling out from all sides, they were usually manned by cocky young men who ignored you when you rang your bell to pass.


Though she missed her two-wheeling street combat, nothing compared to the long bike rides she took in Croydon. Sometimes going 20 or 30 miles, biking on those empty, flat streets that first autumn was like a slow sip of cool water—it breathed air into Lennie, made her feel alive. She would fly past the changing trees so quickly they looked like they were burning, the colors so vibrant against the clear blue sky.


Lennie closed her eyes, inhaling her stale bedroom air. Mentally, she traced her route and made a list of the essentials. Finally, she forced herself to stand and walk downstairs. Her bike was in the foyer, with her helmet. She breathed deeply again before heading through the kitchen to the back door, where, after peeking out through the cracks to ensure no one was around, she began removing the boards. Her stomach turned as each one came down. Obviously, she would lock the door, but if anyone knew she was in there, they would come for her regardless. She also considered the fact that, if anyone chased her home, the time it took to unlock the door might cost her life.


Wearing leggings and a tight black shirt, she hopped on her bike and began to weave through the streets towards McCrary’s. She tried to keep her eyes on the road while looking for any movement. Although the symptoms only manifested during the night, her former life had collapsed and the world was in chaos—people, afflicted or not, couldn’t be counted on not to act like animals. Halfway there, Lennie had to walk her bike through the intersection of Main and North Street: there was a four-car pileup. As the fall breeze blew through a shattered windshield, a rotting arm slumped out of the front passenger seat. Lennie’s heart stopped before she realized that the puppetry of the draft was behind its animation.


Finally, McCrary’s came into view, and Lennie was almost surprised not to see little Milo, missing cheek and all. She walked her bike into the store and leaned it against the front wall. She needed to check if she was alone. The thick silence of the store should have fortified her confidence, but instead it spooked her further. The scene was too familiar to her nightmare. The McCrary’s of her dreams was much better organized, however, with way more options. Lennie smirked at her dark joke, feeling a little more comfortable. She took her backpack off and went to the canned foods aisle.


Lennie was loading the last can of ancient SPAM into her backpack when she heard someone enter the store. She froze.
“Hello?” a young man’s voice echoed through the empty store. “I know you’re here. I saw you come in.” Lennie crouched petrified. The intruder walked further into the store, and she heard his footsteps first before his face came into view, “Lennie Hammerstien!” exclaimed Michael Horton. Suddenly, he suspended his excitement and said, “You’re not one of them, are you?”
Lennie swallowed, “Are you?”
Smiling reassuringly, he said, “I’ve been hiding out across the street,” Michael continued walking closer and Lennie tensed, her fingers tightening around some canned corn. He stopped his advance, held his hands up and said, “I’ve been vegan since college.” Lennie smiled and then started to cry.


“We have to go! We have to get out of here,” she said, glancing to the sky and quietly noting the advancing dusk. She wanted to invite him over, to talk to someone, have another body in the house, but she was afraid. She remembered the locked door, the vulnerability.


“Come stay with me tonight. It’s so close—” he paused, searching for words, “and it’s safe! I promise.” Lennie grabbed her bike and they scuttled across the street, Michael’s arms full of another load of cans.


Deep down, Lennie knew it was a bad idea, but she couldn’t turn away company after so much time alone. After seeing Michael, she couldn’t bear the thought of another silent night, her terrified thoughts rousing her from sleep over and over again. He hadn’t been a friend, but, in such s small town, people just know each other. Because she was new, everyone knew Lennie. She’d known Michael’s mother, Tracy, relatively well. She didn’t dare ask about her.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Ok, so I said this would be the last one, but things are playing out a little differently than I thought they would, so there will be one more. After that, no disembodied arms, murder or meat discussion for a bit...

Third Installment of "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes": The How

As the incidents of nocturnal violence increased, so did police presence—that is, until it became clear anyone, regardless of age, race, job or sex, could be the next perpetrator. People were advised to stay indoors, but then more families ended up killing each other. The last televised warning advised, “total isolation in a secure setting” i.e. no one, not even your toddler son or ancient grandmother, was to be trusted.

The general public didn't know how the information fingering Dexir was released, but by the time it was common knowledge—roughly three months after “Meat Me”—more than three-fourths of the American population had ingested Dexir in some way: used on nearly all commercial livestock, the chemical was not only in the beef, but in the chicken, the milk, the eggs.

At first globally assumed to be a contagious pathogen afflicting Americans, the rest of the world was hesitant to step in. These fears were increased by episodes like the group of Americans visiting Paris who, in the middle of the night, brutally murdered the front desk staff at their hotel. Again, they claimed not to remember anything, but after a handful more of similar occurrences—traveling Americans committing horrific nighttime crimes—the country was put on lock down.

The real difficulty with identifying the source of the problem was that, during the day, everyone was “normal”. The symptoms only emerged while the afflicted was asleep. Sleep was recognized as the enemy fairly quickly: stores sold out of No-Doze and pharmacies were looted for amphetamines. However, the necessity of sleep was impossible to deny and the population sought other solutions. One man handcuffed himself to his bed—neighbors found him several days later, having bled out after ripping his arm out of the socket and chewing it free. That is how the final solution became “total isolation in a secure setting”: protect yourself from everyone and protect everyone from you. If afflicted, the least thing you could do was take yourself out.

Not all vegetarians were safe—if you drank milk or ate eggs, you were vulnerable—but most vegans were. And, of course, there was the small contingent that only ate organic. Still, towards the end, before American television went dark, it became clear that it was something in the animal products. This message echoed through Terrence Grummer’s penthouse, images of the carnage flickering across the television screen as he ran to his computer—the internet held out about as long as cell phones—to send an email. The windows rattled as the loud banging on his bedroom door became fiercer, more desperate. He threw himself under the bed, laptop and all, typing quickly, his mind racing, trying to simplify the science of what was happening into a format that everyone would understand. His bedroom door began to splinter as he finished the email, sending it to the news station he’d been watching. He closed his computer quietly, hearing his wife finally break through the door, covered in blood from the effort but undeterred. Terrence had just started to pray—“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”—when his wife grabbed his leg, pulling him out from under the bed. They made eye contact. She was holding a brick.

TO BE CONTINUED

note: there will probably only be one more installation

Second Installment of "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes": The Why

Painting 1946, Francis Bacon

"If I go into a butcher's shop I always think it's surprising I wasn't there instead of the animal" --Francis Bacon

“The key question we have,” projected Nancy Carolin, President of Beef Producers of America (BOPA), “is will it change the taste of the meat?” Affirming murmurs echoed through the conference center as she returned to her seat.

“It will,” answered a commanding voice from the podium. Terrence Grummer, the scientist behind the chemical in question, raised his arms to silence the outcry that erupted after his answer. “It will enhance the flavor of the meat, not detract from it.”

This conference (“Meat Me in America”) in Tulsa, OK, would permanently alter the lives of every American—and eventually every person on the planet—but very few of them knew or cared about the introduction of the new chemical, Dx32h, or “dexir”, in American meat processing. It was a miracle drug, part antibiotic, part vitamin-laced elixir, designed to improve the quality and taste of the product. As “The Food Movement” advanced, introducing newer, more palatable competition—free-range hens; organic beef; acorn-fed ham—the larger industrial counterparts were suffering. Dexir was designed to allow them to sell meats equally tasty to the organic/hand-fed/hand-massaged product for half the price.

Needless to say Dexir was a hit. All the meat served at the conference was Dexir-infused, but there were also blind tasting stations scattered throughout the room so the representatives could see for themselves the astonishing effects. Of course, there were also stations explaining, with daunting charts and thick booklets of scientific evidence, how the drug worked, but those stations went mostly unvisited in favor of the widely popular “Foie-Gras” and “Veal Cutlet” posts.

Basically, using incomprehensibly complex science, Dexir affected the neuro-receptors of both the animals it was used on and those who consumed it. It employed the brain as well as the usual suspects—the stomach, liver, intestines—in the digestive process. The difficulty in explanation was far outweighed by the extremity of its effectiveness—factory-produced, low quality pork treated with Dexir was rendered as delicious as that snobby Spanish Jamón ibérico. It was the fairy godmother of the meat processing industry and the unwitting angel of death for the rest of us.

Dexir was not extensively tested on humans. They used dogs, rats and pigs, mostly, to test the effects it had on the brain, digestive system and body as a whole. In that way, the attendees of “Meat Me in America” were the first human guinea pigs of the Dexir experiment. One of these guinea pigs was chemical engineer, John Temmor, hailing from Jupiter Island, Florida. He would go on to murder his family in his sleep ten days after the conference. Another attendee was Marianne Dupre, of Ridgewood, New Jersey who, an evening just over a week after “Meat Me”, killed 13 motel guests and herself. In fact, all of the instigators of that night-time violence were somehow connected to thefirst batch of Dexir consumers. However, by the time those dots were connected, most of America was riding the Dexir train unbeknownst: it was widely introduced into the majority of meat producing plants just three days after “Meat Me in America”.

TO BE CONTINUED

Creature Feature

In the past month, I went to see a Hitchcock film at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery; watched countless horror movies—including, but not limited to, Killer Klowns from Outerspace, Terror Train and Delicatessen—and begun devouring The Living Dead, a collection of short stories about zombies. A hallmark of this season for me are these late-night thrills, something about the balmy weather drawing me to the macabre more than any other time of year.


Today, my one and only sent me “How to Structure Your Short Story” by UK author Nick Daws. He writes:

“A short story is not just a very short novel but a distinctive literary form in its own right. To write stories that sell, you need to understand short story structure ' in other words, what makes a short story tick…. I believe that, to be successful, a short story requires four essential ingredients: characters, conflict, crisis and change.”

Employing Daws’ strategy, I wanted to pay tribute to the ghouls, mutants and undead that populate my summer nights…

"Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes"

In her dream, Lennie’s back on the old Schwinn, cutting through damp morning air as the dew flies from the tires, wetting her legs. Sometimes she’s wearing a dress—it changes—but her clothes are inconsequential compared to the miracle of being able to bike freely, without protection—an activity taken for granted before The Change. Pulling up to McCrary’s Groceries, she doesn’t even bother locking her bike—that’s how carefree she feels! Even before reality melted away—the familiar yet unrecognizable faces contorted with feral hunger, the fires, the stink of death everywhere—she never left her bike unlocked.


The bells tickle as she walks into the store, basket in hand. It’s half full—fresh peaches! Annie’s homemade ricotta! Filet mignon!—before Lennie realizes that the place is completely empty. She turns around slowly—no customers, no managers, no one at the cash register.

“Hello?” she shouts.

Something’s wrong, she thinks, shifting the basket into her left hand and raising her right to her mouth, to bite her nails. A rank smell wafts up and Lennie suddenly drops the basket. All that fresh food! It’s gone bad, covered in maggots and smelling of rot. As she stares down at her ruined goods, there’s a thud behind her, something hitting the front window of McCrary’s. Her heart in her throat, Lennie begins walking toward the sound, and this is when the dream slows down to a snail’s pace. She tries to walk faster and quieter—or turn away and run—but she can’t speed up, and instead keeps knocking cans off the shelves, drawing attention to herself. The front window is almost in view and every fiber of her being is telling her to run but some silly voice is pushing her to see what the sound is, and, besides, reminding her she forgot to lock her bike.


What feels like hours later, the front window finally comes into view and Lennie feels silly for being so scared: it’s just Milo McCrary, the McCrary’s youngest son! Six years old with a bowl cut and huge blue eyes, he’s throwing a ball against the front window. Happy to see someone else, Lennie smiles and pushes open the front door, calling to him, “Hey Milo! You scared me half to death, I thought—” Milo turns, the left side of his face isn’t right. Her vision focuses and the world stops making sense again. A chunk of his chubby cheek is missing and she can see all his teeth, those little baby teeth. He’s caked in dirt and blood and his tiny fist is gripping the ball, which he throws at her smiling—or what looks like smiling, it’s hard to tell with his face like that. She catches it but it’s too malleable, too sticky. Lennie uncurls her fingers to reveal one of Milo’s big blue eyeballs.


The dream always ends there as the day always begins with Lennie bolting up in bed, gripping the .45 she sleeps with now. Those beautiful bay windows, one of the selling points her realtor kept harping on, were boarded up now. All the windows and doors in the house were. For the first few days after The Change, she hadn’t dared leave her room, even after she’d nailed and boarded the rest of the world out. She was lucky her house hadn’t been set on fire—she’d heard her neighbors’ screams, first as they began to burn before running out into the street, and then as they were torn to pieces by the awaiting mob. Either no one had known she was in her house or the loud explosion from the gas station down the street had distracted them, but no one came for her.


The world fell to shit in days, but Lennie remembered the first report in the weeks before the chaos: “Man Who Murdered Wife and Children Claims He Was Sleepwalking”:

Jupiter Island, FLA--John Temmor claims that he woke up last Thursday morning with no recollection of the atrocities he committed the night before. Temmor, 44, called the police himself and they arrived to a scene fit for a horror film. The bodies of Virginia Temmor, 41, Mark Temmor, 13, and Lara Temmor, 10, were strewn throughout the house, not only having appeared to have been dismembered, but also cannibalized by Temmor. He is being held, without bail, by local authorities who have refused to comment. Temmor appeared distraught and shouted to reporters as he was taken away, “I didn’t do this!” Friends of his, who requested to remain anonymous, said they were shocked at the carnage and would never have though Temmor, a “soft-spoken engineer and family man”, would be capable of committing such crimes.

Temmor was the first, but soon more and more cases like his—extreme, senseless violence after sundown—began emerging: “New Jersey Woman Slaughters Motel Guests, Disembowels Herself”; “Late-Night Hollywood Club Turns Into a Blood Bath”; “Five-Year-Old Shot After Gruesome Attack”. By the time everyone figured out what was happening and why, it was too late.


TO BE CONTINUED

Thoughts, suggestions, criticisms all welcome! Back tomorrow with either a middle or an end.

Beneath the Lilies

The qualities [to be sought in work] are: a meaningful coherence of form and content; the subtle but precise deployment of detail in the service of that meaning; vigor and clarity of expression; and seriousness of purpose.

- Daniel Mendelsohn How Beautiful it is and How Easily it Can Be Broken

I had the pleasure of watching the award winning film Water Lilies (Naissance des Pieuvres) recently. Using critic (and one of my personal heroes) Daniel Mendelsohn’s formula, I thought I’d try my hand at reviewing the film. Spoilers ahead…

Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, watching Water Lilies is akin to taking leisurely swim, sliding your face beneath the surface and opening your eyes. Much of the movie takes place in, under and around chlorinated water, but it’s the emotional aspect of the film that is most like the underwater world, where sight and sound are muddled and the need to rise—relieve the pressure, breathe, be free—is paramount.

The movie follows the ellipses of three adolescent girls—Marie (Pauline Acquart), Anne (Louise Blachère) and Floriane (Adèle Haenel)—as they respond to their nascent sexuality. Floriane and Anne are both on the synchronized swimming team that Marie aspires to be a part of, though Floriane is at a higher level. In the first scene, we see Marie, a tom-boyish looking brunette, watching the dips and spins of the swimmers longingly. The camera then switches to slightly chubby, short-haired Anne lingering in the locker room, waiting to disrobe till everyone has left. As Marie awaits in the hallway, we get our first glimpse of Floriane, a sultry blonde, and the two make eye contact before she brushes by. Meanwhile, in the now-empty locker room, Anne quickly removes her bathing suit only to have a side-door fly open to reveal a started Françoise (Warren Jacquin). Their eyes meet at, one assumes, the precise moment that Floriane and Marie make contact, and the world seems to stop as he takes her in, then quickly shuts the door.

Thus, within the first ten minutes of the film, the two feature romances are identified—that of Marie and Floriane, and, to a lesser degree, Françoise and Anne. Throughout the movie, these four characters bounce off each other, helplessly led by the ebb and flow of raging hormones.

As Marie and Floriane grow closer, a wedge forms between the Marie and Anne, as she tires of Anne’s “childishness”, emphasized by her shoplifting and adamancy to get a happy meal: “I want the toy!” she insists as Marie looks on, full of embarrassment and disapproval. In the end, it is Anne who ventures into adult sexuality first, losing her virginity to Françoise, who comes to her house after Floriane refuses to sleep with him.

Floriane’s character was especially tragic: called “a slut” because of all the male attention she receives, she defines herself by her sexuality, dancing seductively in several scenes and making out with strangers, as that is the role pushed upon her from all sides. For example, there’s this conversation between Floriane and Marie:

“FLORIANE: One day I was training alone, holding my breath under water and I saw two hairy legs appear. And…(laughing) he’d got his cock out, showing it to me. I suppose a hard-on in cold water is flattering.

MARIE: Gross

FLORIANE: That’s life. (pause) You must have stories like that. (pause, Marie looks down) Go on, tell. (pause) Really? Nothing? (pause, Floriane looks lovingly at Marie) You’re lucky, Marie. (pause) Very lucky.”

Initially in opposite roles, Anne, despite being younger and much less experienced, becomes Floriane’s guardian, stepping in and preventing her from having backseat sex after a night clubbing in one scene and “taking” her virginity in another. Marie initially refuses Floriane’s deflowering request:

“FLORIANE: I want to ask you something…not quite normal.

MARIE: Who cares about being normal?

FLORIANE: (long pause, Floriane grabs Marie’s hand) It should be you. (pause, they look into each others eyes) I would like…you to be the first. You get rid of it—remove it for me. Then it’ll be real.

MARIE: (shaking her head) I can’t do that.

FLORIANE: Please, Marie.

MARIE: (shaking her head, then softly) No (she turns and pries her hand from Floriane’s)”

Eventually, Marie agrees and, in silence, does something beneath the sheets—presumably breaks Floriane’s hymen—ridding Floriane of the barrier between who she is and who her peers assume her to be*.

As a woman watching the film, it’s impossible not to relate to at least one, or all, of the characters—Anne, the outcast still growing into her body; Marie, the underdeveloped and inexperienced; Floriane, beautiful and lacking self-identity. Watching them float and flounder, trying to come to terms with a tide of new emotions and a changing body’s demands and desires, takes you back to murky teenage years when you thought all the pressure and confusion meant you would never surface.

One of my favorite scenes is when Marie and Floriane are lying in bed, looking at the ceiling. Marie is wearing a sequined bathing suit, a gift from Floriane, over her clothes:

“MARIE: The ceiling is probably the last thing most people see. For at least 90% of people that die. For sure. And when you die, the last thing you see is printed in your eye. Like a photo. (pause) Imagine the number of people with ceilings in their eyes.

FLORIANE: (turning to look at Marie, then returning her eyes to the ceiling). Ceilings will never seem the same.”

After reviewing Water Lilies, I feel that, for me, pools might never seem the same.

*that is, a girl who has sex—to them, “a slut”

Seasonal Gypsy Influences

“I tried on the summer sun,
Felt good.
Nice and warm -- knew it would.
Tried the grass beneath bare feet,
Felt neat.”
- Shel Silverstein



When I was in my early teens, I became really interested in “the occult” (don’t we all, at some point?). Although—full disclosure—I planned to use dark magic to find a boyfriend, those pre-Harry Potter days were filled with genuine spell casting and a shadowed belief in something “out there” beyond the accepted. My wizarding days, though year-round, always bring back humid summer air, thick with the smell of skin-so-soft and sunscreen.


Paging through some of my old spell books (yes, I still have them…) I came across the spell “For a Life Filled with Sunshine”:

St.-John’s-wort, a golden flower that smells like turpentine, is regarded as an emblem of the sun.
Light an orange candle and place a bunch of St. John’s-wort beside it. Make a wish, then hang the bunch of St.-John’s-wort over an entrance door to your home. Leave the candle to extinguish itself. It will bring you your wish and ward off evil too.

‘If only it was that easy!’, I thought when I read it, but maybe it is?

They have another spell for “Curing Depression”, involving garlic and white vinegar.

“Romany philosophy is that depression attracts depression like a vibration. To ward it off, play happy music or mix with happy people. Alternatively, walk to a hilltop to literally rise above your problem. Looking down on roads, cards, houses and people makes them appear in better perspective”


There have been several recent studies stating the contagiousness of both loneliness and depression. Upon reading about the Romany philosophy, I was reminded of University of Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo’s work on how lonely people interact with others:

"When you feel lonely, you have more negative interactions than non-lonely people," says Cacioppo, who directs the University of Chicago's Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. "If you're in a more negative mood, you're more likely to interact with someone else in a more negative way, and that person is more likely to interact in a negative way."

A little more research turned up this article in Pyschology Today and this one on ABC, both which present facts like:

“We can mimic other people's facial expressions," Galynker said. "When we mimic other people's facial expressions, we also can adopt the mood that these people are in. It affects us, even on a superficial level."

But such mimicry can go beyond the superficial and become emotional. Studies in which monitors track brain activity while a subject is shown smiling or frowning faces show that the areas associated with happy or sad emotions are active when the subject is presented with the corresponding face.”

In college, I used to drive up to Mt. Baldy when I was feeling stressed or upset about something. I wonder if the echoes of Romany philosophy propelled me upwards years later?


It’s undeniably summer now, hot days filled with farmer’s market’s cherries and hilltop picnics. From where I sit now I can see banana trees and olive branches. I can hear the birds and traffic outside surround sound through all the open doors and windows. Summer reminds me of Shel Silverstein, Romany caravans and chlorine in my hair. It’s hard to believe that I thumbed right past mighty spells for curing depression and a life full of happiness in search of the recipe for “Romance Magnet Oil”.

Just Another Spongey Tuesday

It’s been one of those days: searching for things to write about, I came upon an article titled “Grieving Chihuahua Becomes Mom to 9 Kittens” and began tearing up. For me, the term “writer’s block” is too dry to describe the dull, headachey feeling I get—it’s more like “writer’s sponge filled with dirty water”. Emotionally charged in a bland way, these moods are boring for everyone involved. So rather than try to whack away, machete-style, at my lack of inspiration and produce something mediocre, I wanted to revisit a story I wrote about buying shoes in China.

Initially, I was positive I’d typed it up when I was back in the US, but when I checked my old emails, I saw I must have written it either on my last day in Chengdu or during my time in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. In the former, I was constantly busy, either exploring the city by myself, teaching or having dinner with my geologist coworkers. Things were different in Baotou, where there was less to do and fewer people to do it with—I did a lot of writing then and way too much self-reflection. I probably wrote this in my hotel room, wearing a facemask, smoking a Chunghwa cigarette and drinking rose tea.

If the Shoe Fits...

I stared down at my feet. My poor toes hung over the front of the pink plastic sandals like a pre-braces overbite and my heels jutted inches past the ends. The time I spent in China was complex, frustrating and invigorating, but the image of my feet, suddenly reestablished as freakishly large in those too-small flip flops has burned itself into my memory as an emblem of myself abroad.

Each shopping mall I went to had a stunning array of clothes, knickknacks and electronics. The shoe selection was no different: electric blue pumps stood aloof next to trendy leather gladiator flats which slumped lazily against patent leather heels and so on. The last time I was in China, I had this repeated disheartening experience: carefully combing over a selection to find the perfect shoe, showing the sales person and asking for my size, and then watching her nod slowly and disappear only to return with a man’s shoe. Sometimes I was spared the beige loafer or black tie up and given, instead, hysterical laughter or simple desertion.

This time, I swore off buying shoes in China. Let them have their tiny, prejudiced heels. I had brought an ample collection of footwear. Unfortunately, my first weekend in muggy Chengdu was soaked in rain. The wet weather combined with my stubborness to go and “explore the city” led to my token pair of flats being water-logged and fragrant, to put it kindly. This left a gaping hole in my foot attire that demanded immediate attention. I decided to forgo the embargo on shoe shopping and I set out into the city, my feet preparing themselves for the onslaught.

After two hours of unsuccessful mall shopping, my toes were rubbed raw from being forced into shoes several sizes too small. Needing a break, I went to pick up a dress I’d had altered. I was a bit early so I asked them if they knew a place that sold shoes my size, and then told them the dreaded number. Whispers ensued and directions were written down. I was put in a cab and whisked away. Beautiful shoes danced in my head and I asked myself, Should I go for two pairs maybe, if they’re really great? I imagined responding, Oh these? I got them in China at a special boutique in response to the many compliments I would get on my silver pumps/snakeskin kitten heels/leather sandals.

The cab ride was by far the longest and most expensive in the trip so far, but I knew we’d arrived when we pulled up to a store bearing the name, translated from Chinese, Your Big Feet. I hastily paid the cab and burst into the store, only to be greeted indifferently by rows and rows of orthopeodic shoes. Boring browns and blacks and the occasional mustard yellow stared me into the face and seemed to taunt, try me on. I dare you. Needless to say, I left empty handed.

As I left, I contemplated the pros and cons of footbinding, all the while my monstrous feet carrying me away from Your Big Shoes and the fog of disappointment. Each gigantic toe endured the pressure of my thankless head upon its set of slumping shoulders. My confidence shut down for the time being, the wide soles and flat arches soldiered on and suddenly I was glad for my big feet. Smaller ones would surely be unable to bear the weight of so much foolishness.

Vampires and the Dry Life Revisited

On January 17th, 2009 I was at the tale-end of my trip to Paris, where my sister was studying for the year. The day before, she and I had taken the train from Hendaye, an off-season vacation town at the southern-most tip of France. Spain was just fifteen minutes away and we spent a day in San Sebastian, though our visit was poorly timed—the season and siesta hour limited our options. We were only in Hendaye for a couple days but one drunken solipsistic conversation resulted in us swearing off drugs, alcohol and—for me—cigarettes, for life. We ceremoniously whispered our intentions to sea rocks and then through them back into the water. I think we may have also attempted to burn a piece of paper that said “alcohol, drugs and cigarettes”.


These rituals took place on our last day and we were both hung over—dehydrated and broke with a lot of extra time on our hands, we walked the couple miles to the train that would take us back to Paris. The night of our arrival we went to the Pompidou for a late-night showing of Werner Hertzog’s Nosferatu. Sitting outside while my sister smoked a cigarette—she hadn’t given them up, and my cigarette abandonment, the first of many, lasted only a few months—we talked about how difficult life would be without alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.


As I sat in the theater watching the gloom of Dracula-induced mayhem flicker across the screen, I prayed for a token to symbolize my sobriety in this French museum, something I could squeeze between my fingers to remind me of how daunting I believed the approaching abstemious years to be. Steven King’s vampire in Salem’s Lot instantly brought me back to this prayer eight months later with the line: “Without faith, the cross is only wood”. I was reading in bed at a B&B in Woodstock, Vermont and was suddenly smelling Parisian cigarettes and pondering symbols' lack of inherent power without faith.


I’ve begun to realize that I’ve been subconsciously collecting tokens in lieu of the one I lacked that night—lines from books, old photographs, even an “11-month” sobriety chip a friend fashioned with a poker chip and a sharpie. Nearly a year and a half into my booze-less existence, I wonder about the test of time on these keepsakes—if they’ll be dropped and lost along the way or end up in a giant hope chest I keep within reach. Am I immortalizing them here or will they get lost in the consistent roaring chatter of the world wide web? Dramatic, but aren’t these things supposed to be?

Stick Your Nose in This and Taste It!

“Corporations will grow, deliver, and cook your food for you and (just like your mother) beg you to eat it. That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into your mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so” – Wendell Berry



McDonald’s was responsible for exposing the public to the Olfactagram through their New Happy Meals, but the machine originated in upscale weight-loss spas, a fact which was not lost on the media: the day McDonald’s opened their first New Happy Meals centers across the country, the headlines screamed “McDonald’s Brings Spa Cuisine to the Masses” and “The New Happy Meals’ Fancy Roots”.


The New Happy Meals venture was risky, but something had to be done: the combination of the soaring prices of fossil fuels—a key ingredient in the chemical fertilizers and pesticides that treated the cheap crops needed to produce inexpensive food—and the Great Bovine Die-Off of 2020 was killing the fast food industry. By 2025, Taco Bell and Burger King had both declared bankruptcy. McDonald’s was suffering greatly: the company had bought out nearly all their franchises—which accepted bargain prices after being bankrupted in droves—and shut the majority, maintaining only the best locations in an effort to keep prices low and cut overhead costs. The problem was simple: scarcity of low-cost meats and crops made the fast food industry’s model unprofitable. The majority of MacDonald’s customers could no longer afford to eat there, and those who could were opting for higher-quality food.


Scrambling, McDonald’s executives seized the Olfactagram opportunity and moved quickly. The Olfactagram used a combination of olfactory triggers and leptin injections to trick dieters into eating a tasteless nutrition bar in lieu of a meal. The science behind the smell-taste interaction is complicated and best explained by author Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food Nation:

“Taste buds offer a limited means of detection…compared with the human olfactory system, which can perceive thousands of different chemical aromas. Indeed, "flavor" is primarily the smell of gases being released by the chemicals you've just put in your mouth. The aroma of a food can be responsible for as much as 90 percent of its taste…

…Your brain combines the complex smell signals from your olfactory epithelium with the simple taste signals from your tongue, assigns a flavor to what's in your mouth, and decides if it's something you want to eat.”

In other words, dieters’ brains were tricked into thinking the cardboard-like nutrition bar, chock full of all the vitamins and nutrients the human body needs to function, was delicious. The simultaneous leptin injections—leptin being one of the hormones that signals “fullness” to the brain—satiated users hunger.


For McDonald’s, which already had all their flavors in stock, the key challenge was figuring out how to get the leptin into their customer’s systems. Fortunately, they were able to synthesize a form of leptin called Fc-leptin into all of their beverages, which they administered to customers—free of charge—before giving them their meal. The original Olfactagram involved an elaborate nose piece, akin to the gas masks used in dentist’s offices. With their still-formidable financial resources, the McDonald’s Research and Development team created a less intrusive, albeit lower quality, nose piece made of plastic that hooked behind customer’s ears and ran across their faces beneath the nostrils. They called it the McMask, eventually releasing various themed McMasks in campaigns identical to those used with the toys in the original Happy Meals.


The size of a card deck and weighing only three ounces, the nutrition bars McDonald’s used were less healthful than their spa predecessors, but leagues better for customers’ bodies than the salty, high fat burgers and fries they used to peddle. They were also incredibly cheap to make, allowing the company to return to its prices of the early 21st century: for the first time in 15 years, you could get a Big Mac for under four dollars.


The rapid weight loss of McDonald’s customers was evident weeks after the New Happy Meals debuted, and the company stock soared, allowing them to re-open their closed shops and even expand. Further, the New Happy Meals centers were completely mechanic, decimating both the McDonald’s human workforce and the company’s costs. Although the company took a public relations hit for the massive lay-offs, the societal benefit of the New Happy Meals was undeniable and they were soon forgiven.


Olfactagram use spread as the machines were heralded as the answer to world hunger. Fancy restaurants began offering Olfactagram options (dubbed “factos”) on their menus and chicer nose pieces began to appear, each one boasting more flavor options, such as “truffle” and “oyster”. Restaurants closed as people no longer needed to leave their houses—they would just key in an identification code on their machines and enjoy their pancakes/burrito/sashimi. At the height of the “facto craze”, Olfactagrams were in nearly every household—in the wealthier ones the ratio was 1:1, machine to human.


The drawbacks of the Olfactagram-use began to emerge after their first few years of widespread application. Overwhelmed by the consistent barrage of the strong, artificial aromas, people’s noses started shutting down. The worst-case scenario, only seen in about ten percent of reports, was anosmia, the complete loss of smell. The lesser, more common affliction was the loss of selective scents. Because each element of the food perfume was essential to the whole, this rendered Olfactagrams useless—the incomplete compounds either revealed the true taste of the nutrition bar to the user or applied a different, unpalatable taste to the bar.


In the months after these unpleasant discoveries, discarded Olfactagrams littered the sidewalks. The once-clean New Happy Meal centers were defaced with graffiti and surrounded by protesters pinching their noses and carrying signs that said things like “We Smell a McRat” and “McDonald’s Hates Our Noses”. The public was convinced McDonald’s had known about the dangers. Ronald McDonald effigies were burned and customers entering a New Happy Meal center were screamed at as if crossing the picket line.


While McDonald stock floundered and the company eventually closed its doors amidst endless lawsuits and government inquiries, the public returned home hungry with nowhere to eat. Tasteless nutrition bars lined pantry shelves, no longer satiating without their leptin infusion. Sad children pulled endless bars from brown paper bags at lunchtime, nibbling the edges and dreaming of flavor. On the streets, passersby’s’ bellies growled threateningly as their nostrils flared uselessly.


Hope materialized in the form of heirloom seed packets found in attics and antique shops. Community gardens began popping up on urban rooftops and in town centers as the public began to regain their senses, literally and figuratively. Distrusting of the large corporations that nearly wiped out their fondest olfactory memories, a mantra took form, at first whispered through tomato vines and eventually yelled from coconut tree tops: “be the source”.


You can still find the nutrition bars in specialty stores sold as collectibles—stock full of preservatives, they have stood the test of time quite well, though few would dare eat them. Even a few Olfactagrams still exist, mostly in museums as a relic of dark times and dry mouth. They sit behind glass, gathering dust, usually adjacent to another artifact so widely despised that extra security is required to prevent vandalism: those sunny yellow arches.


* * *

This story was conceived during a sleepless night atop Mt. Baldy after reading Michael Pollan’s article “The Food Movement, Rising” in the latest New York Review of Books. Though I struggled to root some of the science in fact, the Olfactagram is thankfully rooted in fantasy.

6/15/10: I made the edits (in italics) to address the issue of McDonald's franchise structure, per the excellent advice of another hero, Paul Steiger

From Brazil to Monterey or Where My Bowels Have Been

A few weeks ago, I took a tiny plane up north to Monterey. Exhausted and running on empty I found myself at the wrong terminal at LAX and hustled myself in with other harried travelers on the shuttle around the airport, accidentally striking up a conversation with a woman whose flight to New Orleans via Houston had been cancelled twice. Perhaps it’s the New Yorker in me, but I always assume these momentary acquaintances to understand that they are just that—temporary—but by the end of the seven-minute trip, when she reached for her cell phone to get my phone number, I realized once again that these flash friends do not always share this assumption.

Shoes off, laptop out, boarding pass in tow I made it through security and was on the plane, passing out before take-off. Traveling has always presented certain challenges for me. My senior year of college, I returned to New York from South America with an unpleasant gastrointestinal souvenir. I saw a doctor who, thinking it could be a parasite, gave me a do-it-yourself stool sample kit, where you swap, package and send your fecal matter to professionals for analysis. I was flying back to California in two days, and the 48 hours of packing and goodbyes had prevented my DIY endeavor, so I packed the unopened kit into my carry-on, planning to “take care of business” on the west coast.

As I stood in line for security, I began to worry that the kit might look like some sort of do-it-yourself bomb. I hadn’t opened it, so I wasn’t sure what it looked like, but I imagined it to be highly technical and full of small parts. My anxiety increased as I approached the front of the line. I passed through the metal detector easily but my bag was held up. I saw several guards gathering around the monitor, examining the lethal weapon that was, in fact, my stool sample kit. I looked into the faces of those in line behind me and I saw the sheer hatred of being made to wait by someone who, they assumed, had packed her over-three-ounce-container of deep conditioner or complete knife-set in her carry-on luggage. Finally, it was too much to handle.

“Um, excuse me?” My voice cracked as I signaled the guard closest to me.

“Yeah?” He said, walking over. He was a tall black man, on the heavy side with cornrows. I could tell he thought I was, at worst, at terrorist, and at best, obnoxious.

“Well, I noticed you’re spending a lot of time looking at my bag, and I think I know why. You see, I have a stool sample kit in there.”

His eyebrows raised, “A what?”

“A stool sample kit,” I explained, “You know, you poop in bag and send it off? I was recently in Panama and Brazil and I’ve been having, you know, some digestive problems,” I looked at him, nodding knowingly, “and my doctor thought I might have some sort of parasite...”

He interrupted me, “Do you also have some sort of,” he mimed a shape around his neck with his hands, “some sort of neck pillow in there?”

“Oh! Yes I do.”

“Oh. Well that’s what’s setting off the alarms.” He stared at me. I stared back, in shock. What do you say to a stranger with whom you just discussed, unsolicited, the recent history of your bowel movements? But I digress.

In Carmel, I found myself at a book signing party surrounded by dogs—of the owner and of my host, a wonderful friend of the family who took me in despite my travel worn clothes and unwashed hair—and an audience of mostly woman who were at least thirty years my senior. I helped man the book table, where we sold copies of Phyllis Theroux’s memoir The Journal Keeper. I met Phyllis, a sharp-witted San Franciscan with east-coast sensibilities, and admitted I hadn’t yet read her novel, though I was planning to and knew I’d love it. She looked me in the eye and said, “You might be too young, but who knows.” I liked her instantly.

Hours later I sat around a fire pit wrapped in a poncho, surrounded by my host, Phyllis and their friends. They inquired about my generation’s perspective of the internet and its effect on the way we communicate and I tried to articulate myself well as an ambassador of the nineties. I was more interested in what they had to say as they told stories about their lives and their grandchildren, one my favorites being Phyllis’ about a questionably homeless man she took in as a young mother. Compelled partially by Catholic guilt and her own boundless generosity—a hidden virtue I didn’t expect, given her dry humor—she offered him the guest room and a shower (he only took her up on the former). This being the pre-cell phone age, her husband was shocked to discover an unwashed youth a wall away from his toddlers. At his insistence, they sent the young man off into the blustery mid-winter night, never knowing he would emerge once again in smoke of a northern California dusk.

To avoid rambling on further, I’ll end with a quote from The Journal Keeper which aligns with the subjects we discussed then and which I write about here:

“I cannot be in real time without wondering what other people have done or said in virtual time. Before voice mail and the Internet, there was a decent interval between cause and effect; one was forced to wait patiently on the other side of the door until someone opened it. But now, with time and distance being reduced to a nanosecond, my ability to delay gratification is weakened” – Phyllis Theroux