THE PREHISTORY TO THE FORMULATION PART I
I was in the cannery. We canned false albacore. Others stuffed the can, others sealed. I attached the label. We had a labeler. I was a labeler. I inserted the stuffed, sealed can and pressed the trigger mechanism on the labeler. We had labelers. There were three labelers. The labelers were Brent, Goucher, and Spall. I was Spall. I am Spall. Each labeler had his own labeler. The stuffers were Markson, Dodd, and Phipps. The sealers were Ellington, Hart, and Kristovic. The labels said ‘Gudmundson’s False Albacore.’ We worked for Gudmundson’s False Albacore. The cannery was called ‘Gudmundson’s False Albacore.’ Is.
Again, I was a labeler. Again, I am Spall.
We were housed on site at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. We had our own rooms at Gudmundson’s False Albacore and Saturdays off from Gudmundson’s False Albacore. Our own rooms were small but they were our own. There was an IKEA within walking distance of Gudmundson’s False Albacore. Each day we were given three cans of Gudmundson’s False Albacore. Each day I ate three cans. I liked Gudmundson’s False Albacore, I did not mind eating three cans. False albacore was a kind of albacore, is. False albacore is the only kind of albacore. The other kind of albacore, the albacore once known as ‘albacore,’ is gone. False albacore is smaller than the albacore once known as ‘albacore.’ Some called false albacore ‘little tunny’—Phipps called false albacore ‘little tunny’—but I called false albacore ‘false albacore.’
The job gave me pleasure, the repetition of labelling gave me pleasure, Gudmundson’s False Albacore gave me pleasure. To imagine children eating Gudmundson’s False Albacore, it made me feel as though I was doing a great service. Because Gudmundson’s False Albacore was affordable and contained protein, is, and because without Gudmundson’s False Albacore children would lack affordable protein. And without me children would not know they were eating false albacore. Because if the can of Gudmundson’s False Albacore was not labeled ‘Gudmundson’s False Albacore,’ then children would not eat false albacore. Then children would die. Goucher had children somewhere, but the rest of us were unattached. Are. On this subject I wish to say no more.
After work I viewed the false albacore swimming in their tanks. The swimming of the false albacore gave me pleasure. The way the false albacore would flail, would touch one another, would thrash. How they were one with their waste. The walls of Gudmundson’s False Albacore were moss-covered, and touching the moss-covered walls after work also gave me pleasure. Excepting the moss-covered walls, there was little plant life near Gudmundson’s False Albacore.
On Saturdays I walked five miles to IKEA. I enjoyed their Swedish meatballs with egg noodles, and I often enjoyed not one plate but two. Swedish meatballs with egg noodles were a welcome break from Gudmundson’s False Albacore. On Saturdays I saved my three cans of Gudmundson’s False Albacore. On Saturdays I walked five miles to IKEA.
THE PREHISTORY TO THE FORMULATION PART II
One night I dreamt of ferns, of a great sweeping vista of ferns. I had a high vantage point but could see nothing below a canopy of ferns. Maybe the ferns were fronds. The difference between ferns and fronds was unclear to me, is. I could have asked Dodd or Hart the difference between ferns and fronds, but Dodd or Hart would not have known the difference. Neither labeler, stuffer, nor sealer knew anything I was interested in. Am.
The five-mile walk to IKEA was along a gray thoroughfare called Path 29. Little grew between Gudmundson’s False Albacore and IKEA or along Path 29. There were once mining operations conducted along Path 29, but there were no longer mining operations. I did not know when mining operations ceased, but mining operations ceased. The equipment however remained. Caterpillar, John Deere, machines with brand names faded lined Path 29. Line. Gravel spreaders, fork lifts, great drills decomposed off Path 29. These were my only company along Path 29. It rained little along Path 29, the soil thin and non-arable, and the sky got caught in the eyes. Visibility was limited along Path 29 and only on mile four did I begin to see IKEA looming high above the barrenness. When I saw IKEA, I felt a powerful sense of relief. To soon enter IKEA, to be back in IKEA soon, it was the great joy of my week. Its blue and yellow letters pierced the barrenness along Path 29.
On Saturdays I left Gudmundson’s False Albacore at dawn and returned at three. I ate when I entered IKEA—Swedish meatballs with egg noodles—and I ate before I exited IKEA—Swedish meatballs with egg noodles. After my second plate of Swedish meatballs with egg noodles, I felt sufficiently prepared to leave IKEA and return to Gudmundson’s False Albacore. Between my first and second plate of Swedish meatballs with egg noodles I surveyed IKEA. Bedspreads, cabinetry, ottomans, lampshades, and a thousand other items of IKEA. I envisioned a thousand different rooms when I surveyed IKEA, but my room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore was too small to be furnished with IKEA, too small to be furnished in but the most basic ways, too small to be anything but my room.
It was on my seventeenth trip to IKEA in the fifth month of my life at Gudmundson’s False Albacore that I found the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger. I was in the final warehouse, the area in which IKEA shoppers located the IKEA purchase copies of the IKEA display copies they had selected while surveying IKEA, when I saw a display copy—and not a purchase copy, the display copy was peculiarly for purchase, I think—of the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger hanging from a white pipe or bar (I was not sure if the white pipe or bar was a display copy, or if the white pipe or bar had a purchase copy, if the white pipe or bar could be purchased––it had no IKEA price tag, I mean). The maybe-display-copy-but-maybe-purchase-copy of the white pipe or bar looked similar to the white pipe or bar that ran above the bed in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. I envisioned myself on the bed staring up at the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger hanging from the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. And the vision brought me pleasure.
Returning from IKEA with the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger, I felt the sensation I had grown unfamiliar with re-emerging. Though I could not name the sensation, I knew it had something to do with my dream, with the great sweeping vista of ferns or fronds, or with my life before Gudmundson’s False Albacore. Whatever the unnamed sensation, it achieved climax when I returned to my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore and hung the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger from the white pipe or bar above the bed. I am still unable to name the unnamed sensation, but I feel its pale shadow each time I look at the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger (I look at it now). And so I resolved to not look away. I resolved to stay with the unnamed sensation, I resolve, for only in the unnamed sensation do I now feel at home. I resolved to sleep in the unnamed sensation, or I resolve to forgo sleep for the unnamed sensation. I resolved to work for and at the unnamed sensation, or I resolve to fail to report to work at Gudmundson’s False Albacore for the unnamed sensation. I resolve to follow the unnamed sensation until the unnamed sensation can no longer be followed. To give up all my possessions, all my savings, all my remaining years and all my memories, to resolve, for the unnamed sensation. And then I would slink off this life, for I no longer wished to live without the unnamed sensation. Wish. To enter the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger, to become the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger, or the unnamed sensation. Wish.
This is the formulation.
THE QUANDARY
In order to maintain the plant within the planter hung from the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, I must water the plant within the planter. However, when I water the plant within the planter, the water quickly runs through the plant within the planter and drips down onto the bed. The dripping water is murky, brown, brackish, perhaps because the water has, in coursing through the plant within the planter, become plantwater, and the plantwater leaves a brownish residue on the bed and the bed sheet (and I have only the one bed sheet). Because the exposed white pipe or bar is being used to hang the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger, I have no space to hang dry the one bed sheet, meaning the bed is damp and continues to dampen, meaning the brownish residue continues to expand. And because the bed is damp and continues to dampen I must adjust my sleeping position to avoid both the spreading dampness and the brown plantwater dripping from the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger that has caused the spreading dampness. This is the quandary. Because if I were to stop watering the plant within the planter hung from the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore (there is a tap and a tin cup in my small room), the plant would die, nullifying the utility and so the existence of the planter and the hook or hanger and the white pipe or bar and the bed and the one bed sheet and Gudmundson’s False Albacore and the tap and the tin cup and the single bulb (a single bulb lights my small room) and the unnamed sensation, and so on.
Again, this is the quandary.
THE QUANDARY PLUS TIME PART I
It has been many days since I purchased the plant and the planter, and the brown plantwater drippings have become small stagnant pools. The bed is waterlogged and squelches with applied pressure. I have attempted to sleep in various positions, but now to even touch the bed and the one bed sheet is to become stained with the bed and the one bed sheet’s brownish residue (and to hear the squelch of applied pressure). To remedy this, to remedy sleep, I have resolved to leave my small room for the first time in many days and return to IKEA. And because I no longer attend work at Gudmundson’s False Albacore I no longer have to wait until Saturdays to return to IKEA. And because I no longer have to wait until Saturdays to return to IKEA I can return to IKEA on any day. I return to IKEA today (any day).
My body has grown unused to walking and I must stop to rest several times. I sit on a disused forklift and envision the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. The edges of my vision have greened, the barrenness along Path 29 has greened. No one at Gudmundson’s False Albacore seems to have noticed my absence from Gudmundson’s False Albacore. No one at Gudmundson’s False Albacore has knocked on my small room’s door to inquire about my absence or to say that my absence is unacceptable. If my absence from Gudmundson’s False Albacore is not unacceptable, then my absence is acceptable. I arrive at IKEA when the sun is high but not highest.
I eat one plate of Swedish meatballs with egg noodles and then search for an IKEA chair. I survey many IKEA chairs and I reject many IKEA chairs. I require an IKEA chair small enough to fit in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. I require an IKEA chair comfortable enough to sit on at all times and view the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. I require an IKEA chair from which to avoid the brown plantwater dripping. To sit, to view, to avoid, to enter, or to sleep.
I find it: the black womb chair. I envision myself seated in the black womb chair viewing the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. I accept the vision. I write down the IKEA display copy of the black womb chair’s location number (D73), and then find the IKEA purchase copy of the black womb chair in the final warehouse (D73). I purchase the IKEA purchase copy of the black womb chair with my money earned from Gudmundson’s False Albacore. The IKEA purchase copy of the black womb chair is the black womb chair. I only have the one plate of Swedish meatballs with egg noodles. I exit IKEA carrying the black womb chair.
When I return to my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, I collapse into the black womb chair. I sleep for the first time in many days. When I awake I resume viewing the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore from the black womb chair. My arms ache from carrying the black womb chair. There are yellow bruises on my skin from carrying the black womb chair. It occurs to me: I failed to purchase a second bed sheet. (I now feel too weak to return to IKEA to purchase a second bed sheet.) It occurs to me: I failed to purchase a tarpaulin. (I now feel too weak to return to IKEA to purchase a tarpaulin.) I view the brown drippings of the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore from the black womb chair. When I am hungry I eat Gudmundson’s False Albacore.
THE QUANDARY PLUS TIME PART II
The bed has begun to rot. I sit and view the bed rotting from the black womb chair. My gaze drifts up to the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, and my gaze drifts down to the bed which rots. The smell of the bed which rots is similar to the smell of corpse. I have gnawed off strips of Gudmundson’s False Albacore uniform sleeve and have placed the gnawed-off strips in my nostrils, though the gnawed-off strips do little to deter the corpse smell of the bed which rots. Empty cans of Gudmundson’s False Albacore stack around me. It has been many days since I slept on the bed which rots, and I find it hard to sleep in the black womb chair, meaning I do not sleep. I know the bed which rots smells like corpse because I have smelled corpse. On this subject I wish to say no more.
The rotting of the bed which rots has altered the conditions of my small room. My small room is now quite humid and my gnawed-on Gudmundson’s False Albacore uniform is perpetually damp or sweat through. The plant within the planter hung from the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore has begun to grow new foliage different from the old foliage that grew when I first began to water the plant within the planter, foliage I would assume is more natural to tropical conditions than the conditions of my small room. Because the conditions of my small room have changed, I no longer have to leave the black womb chair to fill the tin cup with water from the tap to water the plant within the planter. The plant within the planter hung from the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore now appears to water itself.
When it has been many days since I last slept, and it has always been many days since I last slept, I can no longer separate the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore from the bed which rots below it. Everything has become a dull green, and I imagine I am in a tropical rain forest at dusk, though I have never been to a tropical rain forest as dusk, though I have seen films featuring a tropical rain forest at dusk, though I can no longer recall which films. It has been many years since I have seen films. At Gudmundson’s False Albacore there are no films, and in my small room there are no films. Perhaps there are films at IKEA, but I now feel too weak to walk to IKEA. It has been many weeks since I went to work at Gudmundson’s False Albacore and yet no one has knocked on my small room’s door. This may mean I no longer work at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, which may mean I have been fired from Gudmundson’s False Albacore, which may mean I will have to vacate my small room, will have to take the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger and find somewhere else to sit and view the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger, though this has not yet happened, though I am prepared for this to happen. The bed which rots and the one bed sheet which rots and the white pipe or bar and the tap and the tin cup and the single bulb were here when I arrived at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, but the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger and the black womb chair were not. These I purchased from IKEA many weeks ago. These are mine.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE QUANDARY PLUS TIME PARTS I & II
A new development has occurred. The bed which rots or the one bed sheet which rots has begun producing bedgrowths. Because I have exhausted my supply of Gudmundson’s False Albacore and because it has been many days since I have eaten, I have begun picking and eating these bedgrowths. The bedgrowths are fungal in appearance, soft in texture, and like tofu in taste, which I tried once in adolescence, at a Japanese restaurant, when there were Japanese restaurants. The bed which rots or the one bed sheet which rots which produces the bedgrowths is many-hued after eating the bedgrowths, and the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore is brilliant from the bedgrowths (from the black womb chair). The green is the very essence of green, green itself, and my whole small room—windowless, sunken, in the basement of Gudmundson’s False Albacore—is awash in sunlight and not bulblight. I feel my body and am surprised by its slightness. My muscles seem to have retreated into themselves, and my face is like ivory and my hands gaunt points. I seem to have lost weight in my time away from Gudmundson’s False Albacore.
I have been eating the bedgrowths for many days now, though I can no longer distinguish a day, and so a day is no longer something I consider. Instead, I consider the years. My childhood passed in trucks, in my teens I was gripped by terror. I remember puddles and I remember cicadas and wearing shorts to school in May snow. The circus with Ned Stimson, eating peanuts. My mother’s Stetson. I have thought so little about the years. There are things I find difficult to consider about the years. On this subject I refuse to say more. I notice now I am seated in feces (in the black womb chair). I remove my Gudmundson’s False Albacore uniform. Am I the false albacore?
My small room has grown muggy, a patina of moisture clinging to every surface. My neck feels fused to the black womb chair, and I don’t know the last time I left the black womb chair or my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore or Gudmundson’s False Albacore or when I was last hungry or what I appear. All I know is the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore and the bed which rots and the one bed sheet which rots and the tap and the tin cup and the black womb chair and the single bulb and the bedgrowths atop it. How long has passed since I returned from IKEA with the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger? I do not know. Or since I worked. Or since I spoke. I think of these questions and apply no judgment. For what of my existence is to be judged? Who do I hurt? No one. I leave this world with its integrity intact. How many can say this? Can Brent or Goucher say this? Can Markson or Dodd say this? I do not think so. But how did they smell? The smell of my small room is stable, or I can no longer smell. I do not smell false albacore. Normally I smell false albacore, normally I cannot escape the smell of false albacore, of Gudmundson’s False Albacore. I do not know when I stopped smelling false albacore, or when I stopped smelling corpse. I smell only the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore. I smell only green. I smell only light. I smell only time.
THE FORMULATION VS. THE QUANDARY
Hovering above my small room, I am the black womb chair. I am the black womb chair many years above. I am not the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, I am the black womb chair. My penis is a bedgrowth (wilted flower, hairless bulb). The plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore is not me. The plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore is the shadow. I am the black womb chair. I consider the earth, its history: white earth, frozen rock, red earth, torch ablaze. I consider the Cenozoic, the Archaean, the Hadean epochs. All these inconsiderable times, and my small room and myself and the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore and our position below. Pre-being, post-element, a composite of star pulver, iron and the animating breath. The fires of creation toil. Seated in the middle of the fires of creation. Cast out into the middle of the fires of creation. Sedentary in my black womb chair, which I am, in the middle of the fires of creation. Peering down at myself, the center of a minor sun, peering down at myself, and I am the black womb chair. I stare at myself staring at the bed which rots and its bedgrowths patterned like the distant satellite system I now believe I (the one above) am (the black womb chair) in (many years). They die, turn dwarf, grow grey and cold, but carry iron (the black womb chair) from which the Chrysler Building will be forged (when there was the Chrysler Building). I long for tea. Green or black. (The black womb chair.) Seated below in the black womb chair in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, shot high into further space, which is the middle (many years), wrapped in the one bed sheet which rots, by the bed which rots, below the plant and the planter and the hook or hanger around the white pipe or bar in my small room at Gudmundson’s False Albacore, I long for tea: green or black. Where is tea before tea has been forged? I am atop the Chrysler Building (green). I am the black womb chair (black). Where, I ask myself below, do I find tea in Gudmundson’s False Albacore?
I stand up and shed the one bed sheet which rots. I feel my body, see it stretched before me—naked, feces-caked, an apparition, another—and immediately have to sit down. I’ve grown weak, tired, in my time away from Gudmundson’s False Albacore. It has been so long, so many years. No, the bedgrowths propel me on. My small room is dark now, or the single bulb has gone out, or the light has left, or the green has faltered. But I remember the way. My small room’s door, then groping along. Black corridor. Concrete walls of studded concrete. The stairwell, the stairs (cold iron rail), one at a time, not overextending myself, the darkness perpetual, but the bedgrowths provide a faint luminescence behind my right eye. Halfway up, I would like to sit. Halfway up, I miss the black womb chair. Factory noise. Machines and drills and the production of cans. The life I had. Many years before me, some froth dripping from my chin. Tree, dog, lake, smallest girl. So many years have passed. I climb the stairs, slowly, slowly, finally. Flat extended space of dead ferns or dead fronds. My small room’s door, then groping along. I enter what can’t.
THE FORMULATION REVISED
Hatchback, Ticker Tape, Shard of Grey Goose, Mesh Gym Shorts, Dungeness Crab, The Slaughter at Guangzhou, Junior Seau, Matte Brown Wall, Meager Portions, Halberdsman Behind Glass Display, The Straitening, Jackdaws, Many Almonds, Slagheap, Wet Hair, Conches, Marksmen, Cleft Grave, Pepper Mill, The False Plague, Microfiche, Saladin, Eighteen Wheeler, Natural Light, Hurricane Chris, No Exit Wound, the plant, Indiana Dunes, Pooka Shell Necklace, Honda Civic, Weather-Beaten Sandal, Warren Jeffs, Barbasol, Brass Handles, Sardinia, Baja Blast, Hyacinth Macaw, Ashurbanipal, Kiehl’s Facial Fuel, Toppled Carriage, Onyeka Okongwu, The Betrayal at Darien, Spring Mill Road, Epstein-Barr Virus, Tallow Candle, Mare’s Milk, Framed Robin, Tainted Romaine, Laminate Floors, Sloop John B, Unmistakable Track, Brick Streets, Georgian Heist, Broken Capillary, the planter, Bodrum, Desk Leg Rubber Stoppers, The Erosion of the Soil, Everclear, Maxillofacial Surgery, Cuban Meal, Chalk Stick, Sack Race, Memorable Fragrance, Ram Horn, Cratered Ashram, Langoustines, Belt Loops, Mace Windu, Orbit Spearmint, Mittens Minjekahwun, The Battening Down, Matisyahu, Tempur-Pedic Mattress, The Failing of the Wheat, Sepal, Usher Raymond V, Airport Initials, Horatio Hornblower, Precipitous Drop, Reeboks in Stirrups, Pickleball, Australopithecine, Dean’s List, The Dumai Proxy, Argon Oil, Texaco Besieged, Ridged Chip, Lamb in Gauze, Mutt’s Yawp, Vanilla Extract, Face In Pond, One Thumb, Black Walnut, Stocky Neighbor, Lieutenant Smirnow, Aleksej Pokuševski, Vestal Virgin, Volcanic Sand, The Shortest Day, Leeches, Arc of a Boulder, Jim Thome, The Beheading at Muskegon, Gorgons, Multiplication Tables, Reflective Vest, the hook, The Ash Cloud, The Defiance at Carson City, Tachycardia, Tone Loc, Manwhich, Pencil Shavings, Happy Trail, Skewbald Nag, Orange Crush, Flag in Breeze, Oregano, Little Round Top, High-Pitched Laugh, The Secession Crisis, Emerald Ash Borer, Corn Cob Pipe, The Bend in Plattsburgh, Lou Diamond Phillips, Simmering Tehran, Chipped White Mug, Wroclaw Coat of Arms, Jacob Sartorius, Yellowed Blue Earplug, Prime Rib, Vinyl Blinds Drawn, French Crullers, Turks & Caicos, Legal Pads, The Sunless Year, Camel Crush, Suspicious Freckle, Now That’s What I Call Music 118, Tammany Hall, Fexofenadine, Standing Desk, Munchausen By Proxy, Bookshelf Made of Bricks, Stomach Ulcers, The Deafening of Bahrain, Calisthenics, Don Henley, Unblemished Neck, Beet Hummus, Red River Gorge, Cigar Box, Gold Across Water, Gaping Wound, Husky Doctor, Antiseptic Compound, Ella Louise Spall, Ruination Day, The Gibbet, Fatal Mistake, I know, I know, I’m so sorry, the hanger, I still think of her.