Jill Angus (A Story)

Back from the abyss of nothingness, occluded by rainclouds the wide day through. Like walking in the rain, like yesterday, and this arrives –

Jill Angus reached down and pulled an orange creamsicle from the freezer case. She dropped two quarters on the cashier’s counter and stepped out through the open door into the midday sun. Cross here or walk to the crosswalk she wondered silently, the crazily active brain of hers pumping up the only-she-hears-it volume again, her tongue snaking out to catch the first orange drip of the day. We exude who we are, she thought, and we are what we eat. I’m a creamsicle. Oh, and the boys down the block from her apartment. Can you say losers? Never mind, and man, is this cold goodness or what? You rule Jules. The dream, fading away as she hauled herself from the overnight bed, came back now. Flying through an alien sky on the back of something like an ostrich. A scout, sure she was a scout. But scouting what or for whom? – No clue. We are what we dream. Creamsicles and ostriches.

And then there is the ever-present this: Jill is always trying to catch up to the happiness she had half an hour ago. Which makes more sense than it sounds, but isn’t where she’s headed, that space and place which may be alien related or ice cream related or exotic animal related, but it is the space/place in which she, Jill, is always trying to catch up with the happiness she’s gonna have half an hour from now. Like she always says, alone to herself, time ain’t straight, un-huh. No, time meanders and often – more than we realize as primarily non-attention-paying beings — it crosses over itself, moments from 12 years back and tomorrow afternoon fuse together and the amount of information available when that happens would make a computer blush. Which is why Jill Angus has one mission these days and that is to stretch her brain out beyond the boundaries any other primate experiences on good old Earth, and this isn’t her being a head case (not really) nor primo arroganto of the species, it is a direct and logical result of the awareness which has come to her both dreaming and just pulling up from rem sleep, which is that times meanders, Chuck, and for those giving a fuck, meaning her and her alone at the present, there is an opportunity. Because when a sudden remembrance of how you felt when that cute girl brushed past you into the five and ten yesterday is simultaneously sharing the exact moment of crowds of chimps racing out of the jungle and into downtown Houston, yes, you get to see that and know about it and that hodge podge of brain activity – you could call it a light show and an ECT event filmed with infra-red would pick it up, you rainbow thinker you, well, no calendar date on the monkey thing but based on how many other of these “visions” she figures that might be 70 to 80 years down the turnpike and her little butt will either have cashed out a priori or she’ll be too old to give a rat’s ass about now we are who eat us.

Hardy har har, maybe she’ll become a world web comic in the next couple of years, and all of this has passed through her mind’s eye on the way back from the corner store here in Somerville, Massachusetts, nary a drooping in the summer heat creamsicle drop hitting the pavement, all skillfully swallowed and enjoyed and no need for more food until dinner, which will be at Rudy’s in the Square, a Mexican dive par excellence and a fave hangout for Jill and her crew of Carol and Randi, and yeah, they’re liberals so on occasion Peter gets an invite too. Gay boy, making him cool, and Jill wonders climbing the back wooden staircase up to the third floor apartment what the genders of those primates rushing into the Big H are, not like collectively though it could be, I mean, could it be they’re all male – would figure, see the aggression, see the asshole, see the boys – but it could be a mixed grouping as well or even, and speaking of mixed this brings mixed feelings, they could all be chick chimps, which with the snarly mob-ish presentation is both encouraging, like maybe we be the ones kicking ass now, mon Cheri’s, and deeply depressing as well – the way to win is to be better, means to be entirely different. We don’t need to be tougher than you, what we need is to bring tenderness to its ultimate expression, not exactly killing them with kindness but you could start there and work toward the particulars.

And, thinking about shit, how freakin’ great are orange creamsicles? Like, Bro, it’s a treat which can’t be beat. And what was with those ostrich things from dreamville? It’s a fairly cool image, her riding through the sky on the back of a long-necked bird, no chance of falling, something like an organic symbiotic connection, a built-in saddle and multiple-strapped seatbelt, so even loop de loops will cause no anxiety other than possibly a bit of nausea, and even that is unlikely, not when you’re on a mission. Like that old ‘Blues Brothers’ movie, – “We’re on a mission from God” – which was fun though Jill preferred the second, she liked all the religion stuff, especially you could say that these days since a month back when she woke from a dream and had clear marching orders to do something she had not done since maybe back when she was five, meaning go into her bedroom alone, get on her knees, and pray to Athena for help to be her best, and particularly for help to stretch her brain out where no cutie has gone before.

Yes, meaning her herself.