karl is keeping himself busy in the library
K: i am genius
hard absorbed heartily storing all this knowledge away in an easily accessible part of my face
stacking panalogic boxes in an endless mental tetris tetragram
stringing logic loops thru data points stuck like thumbtacks perched—pointing inwards—on the walls inside my mind
cat's cradle these lists of reality
i create combinations of yarn to build quilts so my brain stays un-icicled during the cold lonely moments sans hearth
i do this work to make myself learn, certainly
but i learn to feel the electric burn, a sensation of neurologic elation to serve as purpose
when the gloom and doom of the evergrey worldly haze dims normal bright rays to worthless stray disconnected single protons
this is why i keep on keeping on: to provide my eyes with inner light when the fires outside stop their flickering, sight gone again missing but all these tapestries will still hang round my skull
i find loneliness hopeful
and not only as the soul is warming for the sight of others but that it gives openings—posts—for our hearts to fill fully for the betterment of others
ergo cogito so much—
a commotion at the front desk draws his attention
I: hey lady what's the holdup?
R: look miss you're not going any further into this building before i see some ID from you
flash that campus key card, please
otherwise i'll have to ask you to leave
I: gee whiz my apologies ma'am
of course i'll acquiesce
you must forgive me: i didn't know brown v board of ed
hadn't gotten to harmony quite yet
R: excuse me?
I: no excuse me and my dumb presumptuous mocha ass for believing that being a student here meant i could stride between halls freely without the need to keep my fucking keys around my neck like a canine-ass choker
R: well
I: is this a joke? which part of me's suspicious looking? my backpack? my hoodie? my glasses?
is it the books i carry?
or is it not my things but my me that's scary—
hair a cornrowed poof of coarse & fibrous keratin, maybe skin that's pitched a little dark—
are you afraid of my melanin?
R: how dare—
I: i pop your perfect bubble of an alabaster world?
the earth's getting browner, miss; no matter how you give your eyes a twirl my appearance is increasingly normal
meanwhile the grimly white reaper of Caucasian people lose importance and belligerence just a little bit every day but before your dry ass bones turn to totally immotile stone i need your help finding a certain book, ma'am
i've got the dewey decimal account; just point me, please where i should look?
R: of course: do you have it on an index card?
I: yes right here
R: well perfect, let me see...
yep, it's in the back left shelves
before the bathrooms but just after the big vertical carousel
should be under the last name of this first author, Yakamoto
I: okay thanks for the directions, ma'am; i think i'm glad i ran into you
R: oh me too! i'm sorry for subjecting your intentions to interrogations
it's just that of late there's an open investigation to a recent spate of vandalism
I: here? in fog top county community college's hallowed-ass halls?
R: i agree w/ the surprise in your sentiments expressed
i'd never seen your face before but your voice shakes out a relucent impression
i feel like in hindsight i've always seen you around
like you belong in this town
I: damn, straight; harmony born & raised
now, excuse me, this talking's been great but i must get back to back to all this writin'n'studyin'n'other academic stuff
R: yes good me i've taken from you too much time, miss...
I: –morse; call me IZ, tho; class of 1969
K: and the year right now is '68, here in Alphabet County, PA
i am Karl Bagon, local genius, sitting pretty in the library in earnest invested in all this—
look how many books i have open at once
it's apparent to any the many hours i spend here, midst the lit'ra-cher, nose rubbed raw from the speed which i blur cross these tomes
not that it matters but these books are biological in nature
concerning all the teeny weeny processes the turn the clock of organism by the hour & the minute & the half-second handily
right here's a book on half-lives in space
how different elements—organic & otherwise!—decay when bombarded by cosmic rays
and here's another one, on the iron-sulfur world hypotheses
haven't started reading it yet (TBH) but i've heard great things about its pictorial appendices
so it goes without saying i belong here
a noble occupation for a regal monk much like myself
on a quest for knowledge sent w/an unsatiable slaking in my throat
dry like parchment
so i'll quench it w/ parchment
how ironic yet triumphantly i perch, high secure in this ivy tower
I: excuse me; do you know eric flowers?
K: come again
I: eric flowers,
have you seen him around? i'm a friend of a friend and i've gotta snag something from him
he knows where i can find a book i need for a class i'm in
and i heard that he studies 'round here kinda often
have you seen eric flowers?
K: sorry. what does he look like?
I: never mind, i guess i'm going w/ Plan B
P: and in her hand as she turns
K: i can see the card scrawled w/pink sharpie hieroglyphics
i recognize the font, but from this angle the word's none too intelligible
'oh' do i mutter; 'it can't be'
as she hove from my saccadic view i pull a card from my bag, too, with similar cuneiform inscribed around some digits of nine and some dots plus that familiar superscripted title: we are definitely knots!
all surrounded in curlicues of hot-pink'ly ink'd skink tails
depicts a salamander queen on argent background regal
the infinite newt loop, Dave call the helix hoop decal
and if she has it too that would mean she's here to...
ah, shit
P: and he peels off to the stacks after her, delving deep thru these dis- & reassembled tree lines
mr bagon in desperate sylvan search to undo his error
K: how could i have been so blind to what blooming crawled right across my eyelids
he catches up with iz w/in the stacks
she faces him in tense, about-to-beat-it stance
K: um excuse me
i am eric flowers
iz dismisses him almost immediately, out of instinct
I: don't kid, kid
you just said you'd never seen him before, before
K: well that's b/c i didn't see that card in your hand
he shows her his card in turn
she relaxes, visibly
K: my name's karl
sorry
you're not my usual dude so i reverse-assumed—
I: oh yeah, jose? he's out & @ home w/ the flu
so i picked up his shift
K: sorry 'bout the confusion
I: never mind it.
Dave said you'd be wanting a q, then?
K: yes, and
[soliloquy]
this is where i'll first cop to a habitt
i habitually cop some of this sweet stuff
the thin strings, the beautifully hued strands
oh please as if this thing is any less nice than what you have selected as a vice
when i'm not cooped up in here
i need an outlet for the cravings that my legs develop
jitters spinning every listless way
so i churn & burn & up my yearns a little stronger
is that really any wronger than how you live your life?
I: a Q, swell
sixty sweet greenbacks, please
she brings out the goods: a little mauve box w/a windy set of substances
—four tiny topiarettes, around four toothpick-stems spun,
all the ivy covered in bright crystals—
purplish to the point of translucent, in a certain light, the all of it
E: it's an engrossing display, even these 3 years down still for Karl; the presentation of the articles
the strings like christmas decorations, in every season palatable
K: this tree swap i undertake sets me back a full week of work's pay but it's worth it for certain by math of inordinate systems
in the long term such a trade is total positive growth for what i'm hoping to accomplish
how much farther along it'll get me in these problem sets
how much closer to the end, i'm betting quite a bit
he unpacks three crumpled racksons from his pocket
tries to straighten them
but can't
meanwhile she is playing with the bag between her fingers
flipping nonchalant quasi-magic tricks of handy sleight
just practicing
I: ya know i heard that these flakes of grass are directly from danada
K: no way, jose
I: not my name
K: force of habit
I: as i was saying this bush is called the great white northern hope shark
K: have you smoked it before?
I: ha—pshaw, many times, brah
many times, and it's the shit
let me promise ya straight-up: that it will knock your flippin' socks off
alright i gotta run, boss, but you have a good day w/ this sweet sauce. real quick, come here
she takes the money from his awkward-dancing hands
pulls him in for the clumsy embrace of two strangers who never knew they were about to make out
then she is kissing him all klutzy-esque
he is flabbergasted
then she stuffs the cube down the front of his shirt
to rest it nestled against his neck's front hollowing
she breaks lips
and whispers soft in his ear
I: sorry, dude; i had to make it look real for all the onlookers
i mean, if it weren't for love, why would i come all the way down here?
then embracing ends
and she is facing him
P: w/ a wide-mouth'd stance and honestly self-apparent a volume, she stage-speaks to him
I: i'll see you, boo
K: and like a wisp of smoke she self-envelops and dissipates thru the books
i'm left standing by myself to be found not quite dumb but something nonetheless stuck tween my heart & my throat
the ephemeral lump jumps out when i hear the doors close
the box falls into his hand
i think i'm in love
but how can i know?
an uncomfortable moment as his face contorts through emotional coasters rolling roughly
he returns pen to paper, reasserts his focus and reorients his brain
P: reinforcing his urge to get through the math more than shortly is the invitational spectre of him returning shortly (therefore, thereafter) and winding two or three of these cor-strings round his own brain and lighting all ablaze and letting all the worries go
to think of finding a job, the next day
always tomorrow
to know the envelope will arrive in the post with the next check and problem set in the meantime, to have a future to portend himself to
this the representative element of the ivy that he clings to, of any opacity bright enough to reflect the light forward, willful wending of refractive choice
K: i am an active decision maker
a complex character who has undergone many changes
interacted with other entities and altered my behavior accordingly
i am striving toward a something hidden in these data, these formulae that'll show me it only guideposts
i the inquisitor, an informative genius to the extremest
and along the strings i impel my journey evermore forward, heel-kicking my bootstraps
E: he returns to the equations, furious to finish what he can before the stacks close
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