Here's a story I wrote a few months ago for Kim Jaeger's publication '100 Years' accompanying her show of the same name at Craft Victoria. It's not really very fictional tbh...ready? here it goes....
RING RING!
DING DONG!
The doorbell and phone chimed together. Frank Nuggets stopped vacuuming and opened the door, which was located between his eyes and up a bit. There, washed up on the sandy iron doorstep of his mind, was a large timeless present. Parcel I mean. Plasticky blue and yellow. Franks knees buckled as he bent to pick it up and bring it inside. Which technically was outside now, on the side of his forehead visible to his friends and foes. He didn’t stop to wonder who the courier had been, and why he hadn’t needed to sign for it, he was too curious.
Stuck to the top of the package was an A4.13 golden yellow cardboard envelope. He tore it open using the convenient perforated strip provided. Inside was an electric blue notebook and a drawing of a camera photographing him with a flash. CLICK it said. To indicate the sound of the shutter.
The book was not the most electric blue you can possibly get, but about the second most electric blue you can get. Flicking through it appeared to be somebodies travel diary from the time they went to Ireland. The content was largely anecdotal. As a pure verified fact lover Frank showed little interest. He tossed it aside. It fell open to a page that said simply in a pointy black font BLACK THOUGHT, overlaid with some cursive orange pencil saying :
Can I tell you a slightly amazing story?
Weird. Thought Frank. He wasn’t used to this sort of open-ended puzzling mail. He wanted answers, STAT.
Undoing the drawstring he released the parcel from the thick blue plastic bag that surrounded it. An identical bag was underneath. He shed that one too. A layer of paper was also removed. Hello. He thought. What’s this.
There was a box inside, with tapes taped all round the perimeter. Like a crafty bomb laden with sonic analogue ammo, ripe for insertion into several simultaneous boomboxes. On top of the box was a Blondie vinyl 7”, Atomic. He pulled the tapes off to see the picture on the box. It was a double disco light, the kind with two rotating balls covered with iridescent glassy orifices that beam spinning colours around parties.
Hmmm. Was his next thought. This could really improve the ambience of my home club.
Excited to receive such a light he ripped the box open. Peering in his heart sank. There was no rotating party light inside. Just glossy black, the colour of trapped trash, soon to be dumped deep below see level and forgotten. Usually he didn’t dig through refuse, but seeing it had been presented so ceremoniously he opened the bag and took a look.
It was dark but a lot of glinting was going on. Was it junk? It was really hard to tell from that angle. Upturning the box Frank let a chaotic mountain of trash encrusted jewels fall onto the carpet. Layers of intricately wrapped petite packagettes became evident within the mother package.
The first thing to catch Franks eye was ruby red and wrapped in bubble wrap with a curly cord to secure it. Removing the cord and discarding the bubbles he found himself holding the lower lip of a novelty plastic lips phone. The part with numbers on buttons. But there was no top lip receiver to complete its function in sight. Rendering it useless as a stand-alone gift he put it behind him and reached for a small box with a gold ring image on the outside. Close inspection revealed it was wrapped in an old CD-R wrapper. Under that was a white jewellery box held shut with an invisible magnetic strip. Flipping it open Frank was surprised to see a pink, rainbow dot and silver foil orchid, deftly folded from a hundreds and thousands cookie packet. The trashy flower housed a generous crepe paper joint with a glowing coral tip in the position of its stamen. An aroma of coffee filled his nostrils.
Not sure whether to smoke it or squeal Frank took a moment to notice a new sensation that was emanating through his body. His atoms were vibrating rhythmically at an altogether unfamiliar all-pervasive frequency. It felt like there was a party going on, but he was all alone and couldn’t pinpoint its origin. Am I the venue? He wondered.
A golden envelope with an angular strip of navy blue electrical tape caught his attention. Tearing it open he found a book of gangsta philosophy by Ice T.
Huh. He thought. Opening it like an oracle he came to Ice’s musings on eroticism. Still pondering the notions on total submission Frank pulled another hard cover volume from the pile of flotsam. It was a novel by RZA. About Wu. He didn’t have time to read it. Too hungry.
It was then that Frank glimpsed the end of a packet of Old Gold dark chocolate in the cacophonous mix... with an intensity level of four cacao beans out of five. Foil glistening silver from it’s roughly torn edge. Pulling the silver free of the box Frank was disappointed to find no chocolate but a tightly coiled blue tinged photograph of a human torso in the foil. He threw it over his shoulder and unfurled some of the scrunched paper that had surfaced on the mound.
Oh man. He thought. What’s all this about. At the top of the page was a pencil drawing of an upright salt shaker with an upside-down crystal on it’s side. The salt shaker recurred in haphazard succession down the page, tumbling over and scattering salt, seasoning its own descent. As it tumbled the orientation of the crystal was also altered. At its lowest point, the shaker was completely upended and empty while the crystal was depicted upright and smiling. Curious. Thought Frank. Some loopy script emblazoned the drawing with these seven words :
We are pataphysicists of the highest order
Does that mean me? Thought Frank.
It was now that he remembered himself and picked up the phone, which had been ringing the whole time. Off the hook that is.
