6: Ganglia

Quackers -------- several small flocks of ducks had gathered together as one they came from villages across the county and chose to settle at the small pond in the town of sternum where they landed on the mayday bank holiday dr lawrence pardner the local gp as well as a self-styled duck doctor in his spare time was actually quite perturbed to their coming fearing that he no longer had the simple task he had set himself attending to the needs of the old family of ducks from his beloved bench situated by the pond and faced with what he felt was now really an infestation of ducks one afternoon he cupped carefully in his hands so as to avoid spilling any not only the usual high quality grains he fed his favorite birds but also mixed in with the dark spoiled rye he had collected and preserved from his dawn walks the previous year all in the hope of inducing in the new arrivals something like convulsive ergotism but for ducks however far from creating gangrenous wings feet and shanks as he had hoped the duck seemed to display signs of what he considered on reflection to be a psychedelic awakening now what does such a thing look like in ducks you may ask does a duck begin acting in similar ways to that of humans under such an influence do they even question what is happening why are they already living in the light of a divine grace that many people report during and after such experiences to something greater an encounter beyond that must be exposed to the duck petitioner already versed in the beautific surely this would be the next stage or rather leap so to speak towards that final precipice you shrug of course as you the wise listener know this is all the human mind entertaining itself in the playground of thought rolling off to hide from sight in the middle of the tunnel set inside the grass mound the wonderful glittering red slide rests on sheltered it can begin to secrete the strange substance that has the same consistency as almond oil and oozes from the apothecary gland a small bud located deep within the basal ganglia then the mind vibrates more of a continuous rhythmical shadow really and that creates a hum within the corrugated cylinder which acts as a somewhat desperate summons for a pair of hands to come to its aid for a mind on its own lacks such tools yet needs them to have the oil gently massaged back into its own soft yearning tissues these hands are nearly always owned by one of the wandering parents of the playing mines who patrol listlessly the perimeters of the play area watching with glazed eyes the unfolding chaos surrounding them picking up his pen to note the dramatic changes in the ducks he had seen that first evening dr partner did exactly this the thinking part of course not giving an oily mind massage to a disembodied brain-like entity the mountain of scribble drawings that his secretary mr chatride found while clearing the doctor's desk after the christmas break with a culmination of what began that evening and included amongst the plethora an elaborate mime to be undertaken having been both tarred and feathered by the ducks themselves these images were bordered with further intricate explanations and pointed to how he was planning to perform it at next year's summer solstice fair every movement and gesture was reproduced in a finely crafted flick book placed on its own in an unlocked medicine cabinet in the basement of his surgery and on animating it mr chaz right recognized it at once as the same mime he and many others saw the doctor practice in the shallows of the pond on all saints day in the midst of the dawn chorus and the cacophony of quacking ducks a scene which led to the now infamous headline in the sternum gazette pardoning me are doctor goes quackers so from the point of the first solitary thought about the duck's behaviour that meandered wistfully into the doctor's consciousness it all rapidly swelled and flowed slowly soaking into every spare second of his life a multitude flooding the landscape of his working day drowning all his conversations with friends and patients rushing towards the teetering defenses sleeping hastily constructed in a last desperate attempt to protect the final vestige for clarity in his befuddled sentience yet that too succumbed and left the dark tide finally to crash without any more resistance into his dreams Type of Man ----------- what type of man am i i'm i'm the type of man that sets a timer to cook his pizza i say hey siri set a timer to cook my pizza siri says for how long say how long do you think siri says i'm not sure i can help with that is there anything else after a pause i say no siri says fine i say fine it's fine really the smoke alarm wakes me up i use a silicon oven glove to frisbee the charcoal disk out my kitchen window onto the community compost heap and shove a revolver into my salivating mouth i try to say siri how should i angle the barrel of a gun in my mouth if i truly intend to end my life but it comes out as ... siri says i'm not sure i can help with that foreign noticed the tennis racket on her shoulder as she opened the door of the car it must have caught the light it was the branding flinging down the back she sat adjusted the mirrors and seat turned on the radio then proceeded to start the engine pausing she picked up a phone to scroll swiping across oddly enough the cars excited two people doing exactly the same thing all three of them running together made a spatter and g minor chord and they were joined soon by two other vehicles who added the ninth mother and i overwhelmed by the seat in front of us began to reach sporadically then in full full time with a firm rooted first piece as we all knew together after an hour of this both regretted our choice of breakfast and decided to skip branch