CYCLE THE CYCLE by Jon T
ENDLESS STATIC feed: 02:58:20 - 02:62:16
CYCLE THE CYCLE
by Jon T
I get on the laundry bike and agitate a load of coveralls. It’s Saturday, so I’m wearing my brunch-wear—cutoff sweats, Firebird fleece and the stripey slides I took from the fella with the mullet and dangly ear jewelry.
Been a thick week. My Tuesdays and Wednesdays painted brown. Like a coat of semigloss, all stiff and shiny. It’ll take a good thirty on the pedals before I can hop off and grab some grub. Barb says the johnnycakes are ready but I gotta cycle the cycle. I’d ask her to put em on the stove to keep warm, but I’ve already used up my request allowance for the month with all the ‘extras’ as she calls em.
When I take my work clothes out to dry on the line, I see it. The slate smoke pooting over the hillway, out where the slaughter shed’s hid. Lightnin’ or lucky strikes, I got no time to think and just start runnin’. My footwear slappin all flappy loose. I smell the acrid char of meatwood and hotchain—gives me panic flares as I stumble over the concealing mound and down into the hollow where the smoulder ruins of my workplace lay broke and burned.
Mostly concerned with the condition of the Mothersock, I’m relieved to find it mostly unscathed. A miracle perhaps. I pluck it from it’s hangin’ nail on the half cooked crossbeam. A little crispy from the heat and a little damp from the grace of last night’s drizzle, I hold up the burgundy stockin’ and inspect the sacred vessel.
I’m sitting on a stump and fist scrunch the Mothersock to my chest, relivin’ the drainin’. The final offerins. The last loads. Snake spit enshrined in a polyester pocket.
In the yellow green smear of morning rays, my trophy tomb exudes the spirits of tumescent ghost and fills my heart with the provenance of pleasure-pain.
Happy to save my irreplaceable artifact, I know I can’t bring it back to the house with Barb there, so I find a hollow nook in an old beech and nestle the delicate collection inside. See you tomorrow, I whisper with slow reverence and linger there for a moment, hand on bark, tongue between my teeth.
I will salvage and rebuild tomorrow, though Barb will tell me it’s a day of rest. But we both know, there is no rest for the wicked.
Jon T is raw electricity that has inexplicably taken the shape of a man. Follow him on Substack.
Funny that Jon T describes himself as "raw electricity," because I was thinking "This writing is electric" as I read it.
jesus, there are so many words and phrases in here that I love - a thick week, slate smoke pooting over the hillway, meatwood, hotchain, the slaughter shed, the mothersock, the concealing mound. you created this entire bizarre world in, what, 400 words? beautifully done.