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This Project was created as an exercise for a Poetics Lab class at Pratt Institute in the Spring of 2023. This class was instructed by Jennifer Miller, Ira Livingston, and Duncan Hamilton. The class was a mixture of professor-led projects and student-led projects that encouraged making through play and using play as a principal factor in creative development. This particular writing came from an exercise run by Grace Florence. It’s a long format exquisite corpse experiment that saw 12-14 papers passed around a circle. The participants were given 10 seconds to read the last sentence the person had written and were required to write additions to it for one minute before passing the papers back along. After each writing was finished, the participants were grouped off and asked to combine the writings they finished with by adding a sentence or two to tie them together. This process was repeated until we had one long scroll of an exquisite corpse. Special thanks to all who participated in this writing: Oliver Ray, Paden Spencer, Angelina Dorry, Anna Wilson, Grace Florence, Sage Ryan, Natalie Gonzalez, Wes Wellner, Donna Dimitrova, Max, Yige Bai, Jessica Tasmin, Ekaterina Maisheva, Skylar Shields, Jaya Sullivan, Sirce Guevera, Samuel Lasiter, Jennifer Miller, Ira Livingston, and Duncan Hamilton.
Imagine you’re biking, it’s a cool dark spring night. It’s silent. You have Freebird stuck in your head but it’s not playing in your headphones. If you weren’t on the bike pedaling, you would be cold, but you’re working just hard enough to stay warm. Still present and enjoying the commute. You’re heading somewhere in Brooklyn. The headlight on your bike is slanted downward, so the pavement under the parked cars is illuminated by it as you pass by, revealing… a severed hand, with a huge diamond. WTF. I hopped off my bike and went to take a look. All of a sudden a rat scampered over my foot and grabbed the hand, dragging it – scrambling backwards with the hand clamped in its jaws. I was able to glimpse its determined expression and crazed red eyes briefly before it disappeared into a drain. In that moment, however, the diamond caught on the edge of the drain and pinged loose. A piercing sound rang out each time the diamond hit the edge of the pipe. It seemed to travel for quite some time, ping ting ping ting ping ting ping ting. No jumping needed, I’ll just have someone carry me on their shoulders. So I can see the view, ahead toward the land where I wish to go. She looked out the window and saw a tall, thin figure in the distance. She couldn’t make out what it was, and couldn’t possibly guess why it was here. The tree branches rusted outside as the figure was eating a bacon egg and cheese. She was confused when she remembered that her pet pig, chicken, and cow had all gone missing yesterday. This couldn’t be a coincidence. She had to confront the figure. With slight hesitation she screamed from her window, “Hey! You! You’re the one who stole my animals!” With surprise the figure looked up and started to speak, “Who, me?” The girl was in shock! It had a British accent! When the girl sees the person she exclaims, “Father!? Why are you here?” “Daughter!” he screamed. “I have traveled far and wide to make it back to you.” “But why did you steal my animals? And why do you have a British accent!? I can hardly recognize you!” “We have much to catch up on!” said the father. “I have a body in the basement!” Screamed the daughter. “Oh no.” Said the father, and then he left to go buy some cigarettes. Afterwards, she was left alone, just her and the body. She decided to chop up the remains and feed them to the pigs! One of the pigs started fat shaming the other one:
Pig 1 - You do this all the time!
Pig 2- Fuck you!
Pig 1 - Wow… :/ … Don’t talk to me.
Pig 2 - *leaves chat* *calls uber to their house*
Pig 1 - What are you doing at my house!?
Pig 2 - Sorry
Pig 1 - Can’t you see I don’t want you here?
Pig 2 - But I love you!
Pig 1 - You don’t love me.
Pig 2 - Yes I do! Please eat the heart shaped cookie I brought you. It’s so heavy I can’t hold it anymore.
Then, Paul dropped the cookie on the floor and stomped on it repeatedly, he yelled at the top of his lungs, “GOD WHY!?” And decided to go and drown his sorrows with three slices of pizza. After eating the three slices, he realized it wasn’t nearly enough. He had to commit to the whole damn thing. Paul ate a whole pepperoni pizza that night and 2 hours later proceeded to throw it all up. After getting it all out of his system, he fell asleep on the couch. He had the strangest dream. He was a girl in this dream, about the same age as he is now. But something was off. This is how he told it: My roommate came home – she said she saw me today walking – “You were with a tiny, scary looking white girl, who was she?” How would I know, I haven’t left the house at all today! “Yes, I saw you outside, you were wearing the jacket you always wear.” What the fuck are you talking about I was literally here all day. After that particular interaction I decided to go outside and get a bagel with cream cheese at the bodega, and I saw the girl that looked exactly like me. It was like staring at my reflection in the mirror, except her eyes were black and she had a scowl. Terror began to overtake me. What the fuck did I just see. Is there something wrong with me? Am I possessed? How could this be happening? Were my eyes playing tricks on me? I started spinning in circles so fast. I was going crazy. Quickly my rapid spinning overtook me and I was lifted into the air. The spinning kept increasing speed and soon, I was in a mini tornado looking over the city. I knew destruction would ensue but I couldn’t stop. I took down anything in my path – buildings, cars, trees, and people. I needed to find a way to stop but how? She stopped and thought for a while… so… she stopped… It’s amazing. “It’s easier than I thought! I just need to find some more trees!” The forest was dense with tall pine trees and hidden caves. There were flowers blooming from the most unexpected places. How did the flowers have enough sun to grow when the pine trees covered the forest floor with their shade? Because they are sunflowers they will produce sunlight automatically for resisting zombies… “Zombies?” You yell to your group of friends. You get lost in the book you were reading about flowers and didn’t realize a horde of zombies were making their way to your campsite. You run back to your group of friends, hoping everyone is alright, but one of them is impaled with a very pointy snowcone. The zombies are snow cone zombies that shoot ice cream out of their fingertips. You lick it and it tastes pretty good. But then… oh no, you turn into a snow cone snowman, dragonblood flavor. You’re highly allergic to dragonblood. And your friend who was impaled had your epipen. You’re stuck as a snow cone snowman. Unless some magician could release you. But there are no magicians in sight as you lie on the floor like Gregor Samsa in that old Kafka story. You hear the scuttling of tiny feet, only to turn and discover that a family of ferrets has wandered in and begun to nibble. But they give you a chance to convert to Judaism and they will spare your life. That day I converted without hesitation. Many years have passed by, and now I can share my story. Some years ago, I began to study the Torah. As my facility with the text grew, I pursued the Midrashic literature of the rabbis, and interpretations of the classic medieval commentators. Eventually, I began to inquire about the mystical commentaries on the Torah. One day, about this time, I had tea with a scholar of the Zohar I will identify here only as professor X. There are a few hours in life more agreeable than that conversation. There was something about his calm insight, his scholarly knowledge and the incredible snacks that made that conversation transcendent. Well transcendent is really really challenging. So many of my assumptions were revealed as just assumptions. But what were his feelings? I found it hard to read his face, his physical responses. Everything about his outward relationship to the world seemed so complex. On his off day I began to follow him around. Tuesday he would go to the park and race toy race cars, while a strange hobby, he could drive the car back and forth through the small patch of grass. On Thursdays he would visit 1237 Patchorock drive with flowers and a bag of groceries. I didn’t like roses really… feels too generic. They make great lipstick colors on the other hand. Red like blood! I wonder if blood donation banks go towards vampires? I knew a vampire once who got his blood from the regular bank. After he robbed them, he’d drink the blood of all the tellers, the guards, and if he was really hungry he would even derive the blood of the other customers. His favorite blood though, was dragonblood. I first discovered my love for dragonblood at a summer camp from two brothers named Seesaw and Jackhammer. One summer two brothers decided to go to summer camp. Their parents dropped them off and they immediately knew something was wrong. One of the boy’s socks was missing which was a sure sign that paranormal activity was about to take place. Seesaw’s sock had disappeared, and beneath the sock was ten thousand dollars, tied to Seesaw’s foot. Jackhammer and Seesaw lost their minds at the sight. They had never seen so much money at this point in their lives. You will find out later that this changes after adolescence. They had to hide this money or they would certainly become the victims of thieves. So they decided to tape the bills to their bodies using latex surgical tape, then proceeded to get dressed and went out and sat on the front porch to contemplate their next move. It was then that a family of fetters came sauntering across the yard. Seesaw and Jackhammer had seen this family around and gave them no mind. Was that their first mistake? Little did they know in another part of town, down by the train tracks and the scrappy warehouses (place’s avoided by regular folk) a small hunched figure staggered from door to door. Louie had been casing the bank for a week now, he knew when the security guard left that he did not have to pay. How does one pay when you work for others, for your money to be given to other types of work? People should just exchange goods/services… that’s what money buys! So why not be more direct? It would be a lot easier if all the money was replaced with jelly beans – it would make a lot more sense too. We could just eat all the money and then we wouldn’t even have to worry about it anymore. Just us and our bellies full of jellybeans with no cares about money or power. If the jelly bean currency was implemented there would be no war or hunger – a complete utopia! And people could get any flavor of jelly beans whenever they wanted. Jelly bean currency does have its downsides though. People might be tempted to eat their money, or worse, their dog could get into the jelly beans and accidentally leave their owner broke. The dog could also die from consuming too many jelly beans. In reality, if you needed to get rid of your dog, this may be a route to take (but it would be very mean). Or maybe chocolate beans would work better, not for money though. Meanwhile with a table full of jelly beans, Sal, Peg, Will and Sue talk:
Sal - Turn that TV down!
Peg - Pass me the sloppy joes.
Sue - Can I go now?
Will - Will everyone please SHUT UP!?
Sal - Turn that fucking TV off!
Peg - Yum.
Sue - I have a date hurry up – DAMMIT you spilled sloppy joe on me UGHH!
Sal - The baby is crying! Turn it down.
Peg - I’ll get her.
At that moment everything changed. Cast stores of energy, accumulated over years in the earth beneath the town of middle were released below. A silence was heard through the town and a huge wind storm began to race through the air, small particles beating against the windows. A cloud and my body began to ascend… I felt nothing and everything all at once. It was matter and air. One with the universe. I had no body. But I could feel all the sound waves rush through me. Is this where we all return to after death? This all consuming nothingness that I dreamed of – no longer able to think of anything except how fast my blood could pound inside my skull until I was finally nothing. A blissful release washed over my body, and I was at the bottom of a deep pit, but it felt quite calm. No expectations or responsibilities, just me and the vast darkness wrapping me like a blanket. I dreamt off to sleep, remembering the journey I would have to take the next day when I woke up. There was a forest that stood in the valley of a steep hill, and on that hill there was a castle. Once every 7 years, the castle rumbled and the rooms shifted ever so slightly. At first it was hard to notice this change but over the years the rooms shifted enough that the castle would be entirely unrecognizable to the first people who lived there. The castle was made of marshmallows. Over time it melted and transformed with elements. Although there were many layers of thick, sturdy marshmallows, the castle was nearing its collapse. The people of the city joined together to go out into the unknown to find the magical marshmallow troll who built the castle centuries ago. He lived deep in the forest. He lit a fire and set his sword aflame. It will cause extra damage now, he thought. “This sword is the key to uncovering the truths of the castle!” Said a knight. “Who will come with me on this journey to find the marshmallow troll?” A few people raised their hands and off they went. But it didn’t align with their schedule, because Larry’s to-do list got in the way. This is his list - To Do: 1. Get up late, 2. Miss class from being stuck in traffic caused by a huge blob of slime. For some reason you decide to abandon your car and walk to class. You’ve already missed 3 days, one more and it’ll lower your grade. As you walk you notice the streets get empire and a fog covers your surroundings. There’s something lurking behind a trash can. It’s a cat and his name is Connecticut. He offers you a six pack if you beat him at a game of tic tac toe. But if you lose you have to join the secret society of spy cats. Unfortunately, the game is rigged, but Special Agent Connecticut still holds up his end of the bargain and hands you a six pack anyways. He explains to you how they meet behind this trash can every third Wednesday of the month at 11 PM EST. When the third Wednesday of the month finally rolls around, you make your way back to the trash can. There you discover that a dozen or so participants have already arrived, including a family of ferrets and the cast of A Streetcar Named Desire. Meanwhile, sitting quietly in the cinema just down the block was Sal, finally escaping from the chaos of family life, just taking in a film and trying to quiet his mind. That whole dinner scene was such chaos. I don’t need fancy food, I don’t need anybody, just gimme bread. I love bread so much, I want to marry someone who can cook, simply because I’m not good at it. I can make a good breakfast! Or buy lunch for people I cherish. I hear a lot of crunching around me, I wonder what others hear. Can they hear how my teeth have started to crack with each bite I take? They’ve been hurting for a while now but I don’t know what to do about it. I’m scared of the dentist and can’t remember the last time I went – but I can’t bring myself to go even as my teeth get wobblier. I figured that once the pain becomes unbearable I will just take them out myself with pliers. And maybe 3D print new ones, shinier and prettier. I think I will go for a walk today and find a man who will bake me a nice loaf of bread. That should be easy on my teeth, right? Would I be the first person to 3D print teeth? That could be awesome. I could start some fuck ass revolution in the dental community. But then I realized that 3D printers didn’t even exist yet. If I were to 3D print teeth, I would first have to invent the 3D printer. Not only would I be a revolutionary in the dental community, but among engineers as well. I hate teeth. Why all this teeth talk? I hate the dentist most though. But I enjoy how sterile it is. Like I know I could never get sick there. That reminds me of a story my dentist once told me about a ferret… Once upon a time there was a ferret named Sloppy Joe. Joe loved to fish and be ferrel and frolic in fields of four leaf clovers. He lived in a tree, obviously. I can’t believe I even have to tell you that. This is the story about how this particular ferret got his name – Sloppy Joe. He was born into a family of other ferrets, not unlike yours. Assuming that you, reading this, are of ferret descent. One day, though, a boy wandering through the weeds happened upon his den, and like many human boys, understood what he found as his own personal playground to do with whatever he chooses. The ferrets were used to this, young boys strolling about in the forest, some with a long piece of grass dangling from their lips, dreaming about boys they had crushes on and choices they were avoiding. Boys will be boys. Of course the ferrets didn’t develop this idea. To them the boys were giants. In fact, these boys were unusual. They were tall but the torso was only about 2 feet long and their arms reached down to their feet. These boys would hunt ferrets together and because of their long arms they could easily catch them. They would bring them back and cook a feast of ferret hotdogs and Sloppy Joes, chopping and cutting the ferrets and boiling them alive. One of the hotdogs rolled off the table and slithered into the distance. It stopped beneath a tree where it realized it didn’t know who or what it was… so… there was a hotdog. The hotdog doesn’t have a name YET, but the hotdog loves mustard. Not only does the hotdog love consuming mustard, but the hotdog loves being covered and dressed in mustard. One day, the hotdog was on a bun and had a spark of creativity – “I KNOW MY NAME!” He called himself Dave. Dave loved his new name. The next day he forgot his name and so he decided to go outside to find his new name. In the morning he comes to the hospital. He checks himself into the hospital to uncover the truth as to why he forgot his name. Detective Ketchup goes up to “Dave” and introduces herself. Apparently everyone in town has forgotten their names, except for her. So ketchup knew she was actually not a human, she was a condiment. Red sticky slime slowly started to ooze out from beneath her button-up shirt. God forbid someone came along with an undressed hotdog. Detective Ketchup decides she wants to leave this town behind, hit the open road, camp under the stars and go where no ketchup has gone before.
THE END