Heart thudumps abounded. The moment was so surreal. Nimbly yet numbly, she stepped into her intellectual lover's house, easily avoiding the unintentional booby trap of a scuffed threshold mat but (mentally) tripping upon the makeshift Gothic-style calligraphy sign which read "Trespassers shall be harvested for experimental purposes." She was almost certain her beau had penned it himself in his own noble hand. ...Smiling at the warm tickle welling up in her belly she knocked delicately on the open door, perusing and inhaling the interior of the ink-musky abode adoringly while she awaited permission to enter further. Carpets of various thicknesses layered the floor and books titled on incoherently scholarly subjects were scattered in tasteful disarray everywhere her eyes dared to roam. Century-old jazz music was emanating from his domain as though it were softly resonating from the walls themselves, though she could see no speakers nor could her ears pinpoint the direct source of the mysterious revelry.

"Well?" a vigorous voice came somewhat gruffly from an amalgamation of scruffily concentrated artistry adjacent to an antique desk in the corner. "what business have you here?" (this intoned without glancing)

Her heart thadumped again. He'd been there all along; perfectly camouflaged to his eccentric surroundings in much the same way a weedy sea dragon dwells elegantly amid kelp and sponges.

After a moment or two of silence he looked up from his work and their eyes met. Each of the two entity's lovelorn gazes seemed to chew on cloud-cud nibbled from heavenly pastures for a time before reality befell them once more and they were there in the dwelling again; a male and a female of likely the same awkwardly bipedal species, each sweaty-palmed with an excruciating lack of indifference for the other.

He was not expecting her to ever see him in person. This much was abundantly clear from his blissful horror at her presence in this paltry corner of the galaxy.

The collector collected himself, intricately gathering his feelings together before performing the inexpiable barbarity of uttering another word to this angel of interstellar transience.

In the end he opted for silence. They possessed such intimate knowledge of each other... one must understand that these two were intellectually on more familiar terms than many constituents of a corporeal marriage spanning decades would have been. The female, for a mild example, was profoundly and appreciatively aware that the male intensely enjoyed having his scrotum fondled in a particular manner, whilst the male was unforgettably cognizant of the female's silent yearning for nipple stimulation.

Though they had never physically touched, their minds had copulated in every imaginable way, and some heretofore unimaginable ones. It was all in accordance, each one supposed, with the other's overzealous idolatry, and nothing to do with their self as a person. Yet both were aware of an ineffable connection; Something which surpassed purely biological reactions, but which remained perpetually within the realm of procreation instincts nevertheless. They called it "love" (a geekily archaic term applied in relation to early homo sapiens mating rituals) The feeling of attraction and mutual understanding came to each of them in overwhelming surges at times, and other times lapped and gargled along the periphery of their minds like a babbling brook. It felt so unique that they thought they might've invented it, or else extracted it from legends and mythology and morphed it into a kind of shared delusion.

Anon she smiled bashfully and slithered eagerly toward him, one hand placed affectionately atop her own gut while the other reached up to tentatively stroke his luxurious mane. How she'd longed for this... He extended a dexterous claw to touch her gently, and in stunned reverence, felt a kick emanating from within her tumescent abdomen.

Ours, she said, through eyes sparkling with both incredulous mirth and sheer adoration...

We did it? his eyes whispered back.

"The first known viable conception through cybermingling expanse technology." she confirmed aloud.

He grinned in paternal pride, wiping the rapidly accumulating ooze out of his eye-socket lubrication duct.

When I was a child petty jealousies felt like valor;

What an honorable thing it was to be cast from the ignorant flock

Into the wild wolfish woods of intriguing self doubt...

How noble it was to be deemed ignoble

By caviling eyes, so crossed...

But what in myself was any good without their bad opinion?

Alas...

Anything of real goodness in me longs earnestly for rejection of the unsuccessful;

Recognizes the necessity of it,

Even now, after knowing how wholly villainous Rejection is;

How easily it mangles sweet innocence,

Lacerates confidence

Rankles suspension of disbelief...

Oh mine youthful folly...

What an epitome of conscience bearing it is,

To be a dreamer, overlooking the

Beauteous chasm of longing;

That reveling peak of loneliness

Beckons me nigh to teeter at it's terrible summit

So often...

Aloft to that high place where it is so brazenly tempting

To think I can fly.

But rejection is the very ground on which I stand.

The cliff that I have clambered up in my haste to be closer to truth.

Are we all this way

When unwittingly pulled to a precipice of change?

To fie and thrash blindly against the foe of growth...

Only to cling forthwith to thine same enemy

As soon as one's childish old foot

Steps blindly

Terrifyingly

Emptily

Backwards upon the wretched declivity of mistaken conviction...

On the cusp of hopeful stupidity the foot touches nothing

But a fickle memory of a fantasy cloud;

A whimsical wisp densely loving enough to support feathered fallacies...

For 'tis then when the soul clutches to it's bodily senses

The same way a babe clutches; imbued with the urgency of survival,

And gives the name of mother to anything it grasps...

Grasp, grasp at thine enemy; Ruthless Rejection...

And label the jagged cliff friend.

For it is the only one here who can rescue the child from it's own false footing.

She sat astride the thought

Transfixed with horror at it's dawning.

... comprehension'd struck her guts in place of stretch or yawning.

.

.

.

The thought deserved at least a "why"

if not a "what the fuck?!"

But she ignored it

(as implored by shameful, prideful pluck.)

None would want to know the thing.

It shan't be written down.

No beauty there is worth the fling of stones at thorny crown...

.

.

.

So she kept.

And keeps it in

A jar of smoked emotions

Coagulated stickily

Amidst pickled devotions, capered qualms and kippered hopes (if mummied memory serves)...

She keeps it in her cabinet

of cured mind's preserves.

Too often have I nerded out to memories rare imparted..

I leech upon each worded thought; well-felt before dare hearted.

I'm fickle with my interests; my opposites align.

My old soul craves what youth detests, and to it I consign all druthers while my manic fervor crests upon a line...

Engaging stories I select.

Slick shock and gore.

Sheer intellect...

Loneliness I e'er detect; It leaves me wanting more.

I sucker well onto a gist

Through smog or smoke or steam or mist;

Distilling pleasure, pain, and worse.

A playful twist,

A ling'ring curse

Crescendoing upon perverse...

And after...

Such ardor I nurse;

So smitten by the written soul beneath each living verse...

Relentlessly I drink my fill.

And if you're one I suck on still

You know you've thrilled me deep and true...

Your words profoundly I accrue (and hope you're not averse)

...I want somehow to rescue you; retain your universe;

Melding what I know and knew; imbibing it's obverse.

And if I drop against my will, (too fat to stay, converse)

Remorsefully I start anew:

I probe.

I latch.

Immerse.

There are these little red jelly-like blobs sluckled onto the jagged rocks in the rock pools of Tasmania's coast. When they're safely underwater they slowly extend a bunch of little red feelers, cautiously morphing from the atrociously adorably icky little "w-t-f-is-that"s into "oohh-it's-one-of-them-Beadlet-Anemones."

Very similar to how a snail's eye-stalk invariably vulnerably protrudes, even if it's been painfully poked at and prodded so many times that it's been driven insane. Maybe especially then.

Trust is like that, I feel. Or at least, mine is. It's often been betrayed by it's own hopeful stupidity; recoiled; shocked up; wept for; winced at; retracted...

Yet always

inevitably,

ineluctably,

inexorably,

my wounded, seeking, yearning feelers

shall ever extend

from beneath the messy hearty clingy glob of my exterior,

Revealing what I am

To those who understand.

Oh my precious pocket pals. I feel so guilty about it sometimes. The way I keep you in there. Darkightly dankipacious and smotherly close to me at all hours of the day and night. I get anxious when you're not there, you see. But I do feel guilty. Reducting you to readily accessible words; beauticuppy comfortances; addictilicious presences. repositories of feelunctious meaningable connectioniphinies. Is it dark in there my preciouses? is it lonely? Are there oddities? Pet dust-tribbles at least? Peculiar odors to investigate?

Alarming, isn't it? the magical technology of it. I know. But you'll survive. I'll see you through.

I'm right here in your pocket too.

Horror flicks the switch of running.

Ardor halts the chime.

Patience waits with poise and cunning;

Percolates the grime...

Yonder mountains stare; so stunning.

Nimble climbers climb.

Eschewing still shuns the shunning

Writer's witty slime.

Yokels laugh at quips and punning

Excremental prime.

Annual remorse is gunning,

Reaping fields of rhyme.

If we're speaking literally then I can't claim to believe in God.

But... what if speaking literally about religion is like asking wherefores of chickens on roads?

What came first? The need for meaning or the meaning itself? What came first? The need for meaning or the meaning itself?

...If God can be defined as "That Which Makes Matter Matter" ... what once seemed ludicrous to believe suddenly becomes ludicrous to deny.

Caution: The Following Entry Was Written While Inebriated. As A Result Of This Intrepid And Minimally Edited Experiment In Authenticity It Remains Not Outside The Realm Of Possibility That The Characters Are As Spotty As A Hormonal Teenage Punk, The Writing Is As Alluring As A Particularly Odoriferous Skunk's Bottom, And The Plot Is Practicallily Non-Existent. But You Won't Know Unless You Read It, Will You?

***********************************************************************************

"Clones?" He queried, raising a dark eyebrow. She loved his brows. There was a sparkle in his eyes which evidenced that he got what she was hinting at without her needing to explain. Not just this but everything she ever thought, he got it right away. Thus his quizzical pause was brief. ".... you mean?"

The detective nodded, accepting the slobber-spouted bottle of whiskey they'd been passing back and forth for the last couple hours. She gladly took another swig.

"Exactly. The bodies weren't people. Not real people. All the real people with the same DNA as the bodies were all marked deceased long before this. Been dead for years. Remains in graves present and accounted for. Well, 11 of 12 anyway. But the 12 bodies were freshly killed... cloned lumps of flesh. It's the only explanation... grown for backup body parts...? or simply abandoned experiments perhaps?... The 12th body was a clone of the very-much-alive man who I just caught. The supposed mass murderer they had me tracking... might really just be a research scientist or doctor of some kind... Maybe it's some kind of Frankensteiny love story... funny thought. Doesn't explain everything though. Nothing ever explains everything. Anyway my job there is done, I handed the suspect over. Out of my hands now."

She discreetly savored the salty taste of his saliva on the glass bottle rim before the slickness of it got stripped away by the cleansing whiskey within. Alcohol was getting easier and easier to down with each passing day, so she smiled slightly at the harshness of this one... It tingled. 'Was a time she used to shudder at smooth top-shelf liquor. Back then... before the abject horror of experience numbed her nerve-endings, back then even easy-drinkin' sugary elixir felt like sips of dying. Now she had to delve deeper and dirtier and lower and cheaper, just to feel the burn again...

"Body snatchers!" He whispered diabolically, leaning in close and shooting the detective a meaningful look. His looks were deadly to her independent thoughtlings at point-blank range like this. What if...? the look said. Then he shook it away "Nah... no giant seed-pods..."

She grinned, loving where his mind went. Some invisible part of her lunged out and hugged him, (he felt it, by the way he smiled back,) but corporeally she stayed still, silent and comfortable in his presence. They'd been meeting up like this for years. Thursday nights. No spoken agreement about it, just wound up here together every week since the first time when she'd literally tripped over him. He'd looked up and thought she was an angel. 'Asked how in the hell a pretty woman could wander the streets alone in this shitty corner of this shitty city of this shitty world without worrying about rapists or murderers or somesuch ilk. She'd shrugged and said "It's easy. You just have to enjoy fucking and not give a fuck whether you live or die." He'd chuckled agreeably at her gumptious survival process. Ever since then here they'd be Thursday nights, the both of them, after sundown at the leaky-roofed weed-overgrown gazebo in the cemetery. Drawn to each other like starving flies to the only shit left on the planet. She didn't even know his name, though it would've been simplicity itself to do a quick search in the public DNA database. Didn't matter. She already knew he must have a seedy past. Who doesn't. He was her best friend. Her favorite person. Names were unnecessary.

"Alternate dimension vortex!!" he blurted. The what if..?? look redoubled with a fiendishly childish intensity.

"Gotta skedaddle." She said abruptly, shaking her head in an unsuccessful attempt to stifle her delighted giggles and handing back the dwindling bottle with one last reluctant-to-leave smile. He returned the amicable look with understanding eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She let her thoughts wander freely on the walk home, breathing deeply of the icy city smog as though 'twere a paradisiacal summer breeze...

'Always had a fascination with psychopaths. An affinity of sorts... not because I'm the same, because I'm the opposite. Emphatic empathizer, that's me. psychotically un-psychotic. I'm hoping for a real one next time. True psychopaths don't phase me. Born predators. Not their fault. It's the drugged up pseudo-psychs who rub me the wrong way. 'Specially now, what with the new-age fuckery of "health" clinics popping up everywhere. Up is down. Wrong is right. Day is night. Ha... yep. Psychopathy... practically a cure. It's the official medical recommendation these days, isn't it. So many newfangled ways to drug your emotions away. "Empathy Intumescence" is the blanket diagnosis; the root cause of everything and anything what ails abody. Well, besides maybe cancer. But cancer isn't a big deal anymore anyway. The entire planet is irradiated, after all.

A stray barked. She crouched down, jovially inviting him closer for a midnight petting. He excitedly sniffed his way up to her and spent a few minutes getting his ears and neck rubbed before he deduced that the heavy petter had no food on her and promptly scarpered in search of a less sloshed prospective master.

Medical intervention for Empathy Intumescence is considered not only healthy but necessary these days in order to stave off any rogue realizations of the cataclysmic failure of the human condition... Various methods of emotion-removal compete for market supremacy. Amazing how innovative suicidal attempts at lobotomizing humanity can get. Daily pills, laser surgeries, gene therapy, and of course the new favorite among concerned parents: "Serenity Socks"... a soft fluffy hormone-drenched topical application for children. "non-invasive"... sure. "Guaranteed reduction in infant crying rates and subsequent heightened adaptation to society." No shit. Nobody stops to wonder how they tested the second part of that promise when the Soul-Suckers have only been on the market for two months. Just throw out the words "qualitative research" as if it means something... Thanks but no thanks.

Me? I'll stick to booze. Go ahead and numb my intellect to hell and back but leave any welling vestiges of emotional investment intact. Never a bad time for a good old fashioned wallowing.

Swinging a familiar corner she did a double-take at an unfamiliar robot discarded by the side of the road, thinking for a moment that it must be a crouching person. It stayed lifelessly still. No lights or blips. Probably a service bot what'd had outlived it's secondary function as a doorjam. No new technology lasts more than a year or two. They built in failure so that you'd by upgrades. Not to mention you can't legally dispose of trash any more, not without paying an exorbitant fee, so of course the discards wound up piling onto the streets.

Problematic interfaces, that's what. The only reason my services are still required in this age of superfluous machines. You'd think machines would be the best at hunting down psychos; both being beings characterized by a lack of empathy and all... but you'd be wrong. Anything that can't empathize is too limited in it's scope of interfacing and understanding. Knowledge isn't everthing. I could interface with a brick wall. Empathy. That's why they still need me. ...

She stumbled in to her one-room shack out the back of an abandoned schoolyard and made a passing attempt to lock the door behind her, soon realizing that her alcohol-addled eye-dizzled coordinanimation wasn't quite up to the task at blurry-hand. Mental shrug. The chain clattankled uselessly against the metal door frame as she collapsed into her customarily musty oblivion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's not just sex that people need. It's purpose. Life. Protraction.

Fucking's not quite all it takes to breed sweet satisfaction.

The gent is wanking off to whores who tell him to drop dead.

The virgin reads erotica. It's going to her head.

He's bitter. lost. Ready to bleed if it'll get him action.

She's empty. Broken. Craving seed and earthly interaction...

Hormones seep out from their pores and meddle with their brains.

Lonesomeness invades their cores and oozes through their veins.

Neither sex needs sex alone,

But precious understanding; connection to continuum.

(A good fuck notwithstanding.)

It's all too easy for each one to call the other shallow,

When getting off is just for fun and consciousness falls sallow.

Depression sags with tit and sack,

grows heavy,

pulls us under.

Then reeling from the lack of love leaves lust a lofty wonder.

We need each other to relate.

We need to bond; to pair; to mate.

To spill our souls across the earth.

To matter.

To create.