Excess Brain

The Penurious nature of America.

Epicanthus: A small fold of skin sometimes covering the inner corner of the eye; as in Asian people.
Is my dictionary racist or simply anthropological?

Lafayette's Brain Against Boredom Society: building the best way we can here

Lafayette: Try Again

"East to the city. West to the college. A river runs through it."
-Kickapoo Scout

Fire from the Fringe.

And to the left, where strangely, no one seems to check, comes the call of the linesman: off sides. He is blind, but remains intuitively aware of the actions on the the football field. He is ignored as much else is.
Green Bay wins: 14 to 13.

37. There is something twisted and unsavory about this number. I like it.

F is the ugliest letter. It was not me who determined this. I merely experienced it, then understood.

Anomic Suicide: reflects an individual's moral confusion and lack of social direction, which is related to dramatic social and economic upheaval.

Peer into the void that is your thoughts when you are solitary; alone in your memories and imagination. Discover what you mind is capable of.
Do you fear this?
There. So far back there.
What did you find?

Wha Chu Want?

The American Civil War was defined by the colors of the troops' uniforms: blue and gray. Based on what I've learned about that war they should brown and red. I am not writing about uniforms or body paint. I am writing about mud and blood.
How lucky to be alive in this world.

A Dating Website Post:
Male seeking female. Over aware mind seeks spiritual oneness with another human being.
Note: also horny.

Craigslist Rant:
It's Orwellian how paranoid some people are about their children. I read an article about the pros and cons of taking your children sledding. I'm pretty sure one of the highlights of having a kid is taking them sledding... and you get to sled too.

Comparative Pop Music:
I used to love her, but that's all over now.
You're just somebody that I used to know.

List of things to do:
1. Make the world better
note: how?
2. Seek/attain proper nutrition
3. Rest/Recreation

Aaron C. Molden

Mutual Life Insurance

    The man woke to the sound of the alarm clock beeping and moaning in an electric shudder. The numbers glowed back at him in an illuminated green light: 5:30 A.M.
    He blinked, then sighed.
    Her arm was wrapped around his stomach.
    He looked over at her and took hold of her arm gently, setting it down on the comforter. She took a deep breath, then began to stir. "Go back to sleep.
    She turned in the  bed. "Have a good morning."
    He raised his arms upwards and stretched his muscles until they popped. "You too." He walked down the hall to his daughters room. The door was ajar and his daughter was snoring faintly in her new bed; her first bed that \was not a crib. She's growing up fast. Faster than he had expected.
    He walked downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee. While waiting for the boiling water to drip and filter into the coffee pot, he sat on the cabinet counter, in the bare fluorescent light above him, appreciating the patience of the process. He poured a cup of coffee into a mug that was in the cabinet. There was a teddy bear printed on the side of it. It read Key West. He took a sip, even though it was still to hot.
    He looked at a section of the newspaper he had saved from the former day; the crossword, half finished and in need of new assessment; Winkin, Blinkin, and _______.
    He rubbed his eyes.
    Nod.
    He turned on the hot water in the bathroom shower of the master bedroom.
    "Keep it down" She said Jeeringly from the bed.
    He let the hot water spray and drizzle over his face. He scrubbed the dead skin lingering on various parts of his body. He took a deep breath of steam and hot air, with it's lingering domestic fragrances of lilac and lye. She always bought lilac scented soap. He toweled himself off after the shower. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror.
    The walk in closet also had a mirror. Silk. Red hounds tooth neck tie. His hands folding and cinching the noose. Thinking about the noose. Double Windsor .
    He stepped out into the bedroom fully dressed in suspenders and a tie.
    She was awake, staring at him from the bed. "You look fantastic."
    "Take a picture then." He tightened his tie. Noose. Thoughts of a noose.
    "Maybe I will"She said smiling. She had messy hair, smudged eyeliner, and drowsy eyes.
    "Go back to sleep." He walked back down the hallway to his daughter's room. He approached her bed and kissed her forehead. "Goodbye sweetie."
    He went downstairs and walked out the front door to his car. He had been doing this for two and a half weeks. Pretending. Pretending he was still employed; everything was as it always was. Stability. Family. Home.
    How to make it look like an accident for life insurance purposes. He tightened his tie in the car. A noose would not do. He started the car. He pulled out of the driveway. The train he waits to pass every day at the same time on his drive into work; what use to be work. He drove to the track 5 minutes earlier than usual. It was his secret route to work to avoid traffic. There was no other cars on the road. It was a longer route, but he could get there faster. He parked on the tracks and shut off his headlights. He waited for the inevitable.
    He thought, this better work and closed his eye.
    The warning lights began flashing. The guard rails on both sides of the track dropped. The trains whistle bellowed.
    This better work.

Aaron B. Molden

Night Encounter

    I was walking back from the bar. It was early, but the sun was already beneath the western horizon. The sidewalks were slick and shiny with black and grey ice; they were reflecting the yellow twinkle of the overhead street lights.
    I heard yelling on the street in front of me. It echoed off the dark houses and down the corridors of the ice capped alleyways.
    "Fucking bitch!"
    "Fuck you! Did you hear what I said?"
    A man slipped down the shadowy steps of the house, illuminated over with motion censor stoplights mounted to the facade of the almost-Victorian style home next to twelfth street.
    "This is all bull shit! Don't you come back here. My mom. My dad. My brother's will fuck you up."
    "Fuck me up! Fuck me up? Go ahead, fuck me up.
    I slowed my pace and stared, bewildered by the scene in front of me. The man who had fallen down the icy steps then turned to look at me. "Who are you?"
    I stopped. "No one."
    "Well mind your own fucking business."
    He walked off towards the river. I walked the other way.
    The next day, I read in the newspaper that a man had froze to death underneath the Columbia street bridge.

Aaron C. Molden

Gone Again

I woke up and found

her sleeping on the

mattress set out

in the front room.

All the floors in the house

are wood paneling,

except for the kitchen.

Contemplate the

logistics of this

reasoning.

She has a boyfriend

who is thousands

of miles away.

If she hadn't I

would have asked

her to sleep with

me in my bed,

only four hours

prior, when everyone

was trailing off towards

their bedrooms and

beds as quickly

as the could get there,

only an hour before

the sun would rise,

though none of us

would ever see it.

Gray skies

gray skies for days

gray skies for weeks.

Of course we were drinking

of course we were with

friends.

Of course.

I must have said good

night to her

because I know

I would never

allowed myself

not to.

In the morning

I found her still

sleeping on the

mattress.

I crouched down

by her head and

touched her shoulder.

"I have to go to work."

She grasped my hand.

"You should stay here."

She smiled.

She pulled my

hand to her cheek.

"Jesus, I'm going to

miss you."

"Visit me" she said.

"I will."

I kissed her forehead.

"Be safe."

I drove to work.

She got on a plane.

This is the truest

thing I have written

in a while.

This moment

cuts me the deepest.

No cum.

No cunt.

No matter.

The cum and the cunt can

come when they want.

After this,

my thoughts are on

tomorrow.

Caught in the Rain

For the life of me I cannot tell you
why my thoughts always return to you.
Everything I'm thinking of
while walking or riding,
but always still thinking,
inevitably return to thinking of you.
It makes the pedestrian in me,
who still gets caught in the rain,
okay.

It was raining when I had you so close
and it is raining now.
This is one way of getting caught in the rain
and that is another.

Most of my day was spent reading
about ancient Greeks (Mycenaeans)
and cleaning laundry.
I was waiting for the clouds to finally burst.
I tired of waiting; decided to take a gamble,
and ride my bike to the library.
I saw the wall of rain moving towards me
down State Street. The clearly defined front
of pouring rain was overtaking
the mere firmament of drizzle above me.

I tried to ride it out,
but it over took the meteorology
I was occupying.
There I was, caught in the rain,
but not at all upset;
awaiting a wane in the precipitation
under the awning of the market
down the the street from my house;
drenched with rainwater and smiling like a fool

I was told recently, if you are in Russia
and you smile an unprovoked smile at a stranger
you are generally regarded as an insane person.

When the down pour returned to a drizzle
I decided to walk my bike
the five or six blocks it was to my house.
Since I began writing, the rain has stopped.
My thoughts of you have not. Lucky me.

Aaron C. Molden

Maxwells

    Maxwell looked up from his bar stool to see his own face staring back at him: a picture on the local evening news.
    For all the wicked things he had done in the name of his own pleasure, natural or perverse, he never believed that he would not know what to do next. Suspect at large. Rape. Double murder? This wasn't suppose to happen.
.  
    He didn't know her when he met her. She was drunk at the bar. He saw her as soon as he walked in and he smiled because he knew from her face that this was going to be easy. Her eyes were half closed and the smirk on her face, scanning around at the men's faces staring back at her, who were paying more attention to her than anyone else at the bar. She gazed at the men in front of her with blissful detachment. One of the men handed her a drink and she looked up at him, jutted her shoulders towards him, embraced the glass she was handed and said "For me?" in a voice that raised an octave within the two words.

    Rebecca Figg, the news banner read. He looked down at his drink. What had happened? What went wrong?
    On the television, a one Clayton Barbee, a friend of Rebecca Figg (bullshit, he was just trying to get into her panties) was being interviewed by WLFI reporter Mike Priggett. Clayton told the news reporter that he last saw Rebecca alive, leaving the KnickerBocker -supposedly the oldest bar in Lafayette- with Maxwell. The crime lab was testing the DNA found on her (of course, because he ejculated on he tits, but it wasn't fucking rape.) Her body was found by her neighbors who lived in the apartment downstairs; a historical house built in the 1890's, now sectioned into three apartments; a Midwestern Victorian mansion with a lot of character and drafty windows. Maxwell had left the door open when he ran out of the apartment in the middle of the night. He panicked. He honestly never thought it would come to this.

    Maxwell walked towards her. She was scanning the leering and adoring eyes of the men in front of her. By accident she caught eyes with him, walking towards her. She held her gaze for a moment. "What are you looking at?" She asked with a tone of conceit.
    Maxwell's lips curled up in amusement. "You" he answered.
    She furrowed her brow and sarcastically asked "and you are?"
    "What do you care?" Maxwell stopped walking, but continued to stare into her eyes.
    She looked down at her drink, smiled, the sighed.
    One the other men standing in front of her turned to Maxwell. "Is there a problem buddy?"
    "And you are?" Maxwell asked in a darkly inquiring tone.
    "What the fuck do you want to know why name for?" The man asked with the aggression in his voice beginning to rise.
    "I'm sorry." Maxwell said in a condescending tone. "I like to greet the strangers I am conversing with when I meet them for the first time." Staring into the man's eyes. "My name is Maxwell." Maxwell looked down and took a sip of his drink. He looked up again at the man and barely extended his free hand. "Please to meet you."
    Rebecca giggled, then took a sip of her drink. The man, with a vein pulsating visibly out of his forehead, stared at Maxwell. Finally, he turned to the bar and yelled "Christ! What does it take to get a drink in this place!" A couple of people in the bar laughed on impulse at the cliche, but most simply sighed or sneered for a moment before returning to their own conversations; their personal lamentations or exultation of that particular Saturday night; discussing politics; complaining about work and significant others; congratulating professional accomplishments with shots of Jagermeister or Fireball; etc.
    Maxwell turned his gaze back to Rebecca, who had been watching the whole interaction between suitor number four, we'll say, and Maxwell. "And you are?" Maxwell asked with a grin to match hers.
    "Rebecca" she sighed. She slightly bowed her head towards the drink in her hand. She finished the last drink of it and rattled the leftover iced in the glass. "Buy me a drink?"
    Maxwell's eyebrows raised deviously. "Let's find a table Rebecca."
    She was all over him after the third drink; vodka and soda with a splash of ginger syrup. She was quietly murmuring to him with drowsy eyes. Her arm was around his shoulder and his arm was around her breast waist or hip depending on where he was groping at the moment. She rested her face on the nape of his neck. She turned her head towards the hot and balmy flesh of his neck and kissed it with her blushing lips and slightly smeared mauve lipstick. She tasted the salt of his sweat on her lips as she pursed them against her vodka soaked tongue. He grabbed her upwards to catch his eyesight with hers. He was staring at her. Those devious eyes of his. She pushed upwards to finally kiss him on the lips. All the groping, all of this subtle pawing. It was finally time that they kissed. He pulled her head back. "I'm not going to kiss you. Not yet."
    She stared up at him for a moment with a dull and annoyed look on her face. His cocky smile had fallen away, but his eyes still stared into hers. Then his eyes dropped for a moment, staring at the cleavage of her breasts, pushed together by her shoulders in a voluminously ample manner. The were bare nearly to the nipples in her low cut dark green dress. He looked at her hips stretching against the elastic fabric of her dress, then scanned back to her breasts. She didn't have huge tits, but she did use hers to her advantage. She knew they could work nearly as well as a supposedly winning smile. She had a good smile, but she was too drunk to care at the moment. It would have been foolish not to take advantage of those tits from time to time. And her hips. Great hips. She smiled when she saw his eyes drop away from hers.

   Maxwell Call was the name of the other victim in the apartment. The shadowy figure he could not put a name to until he saw it on the television. The one that came at him with a knife after this rebecca girl and he had just had sex. Staring at the television screen behind the bar, it was the first and last time he had a clear view of his face. Maxwell. The same name as his.
   Rebecca. He was starting to remember something about that name, but he hadn't yet realized why.

   Maxwell was putting on his clothes with the intention of leaving the apartment while Rebecca slept (or pretend to sleep.) He was quiet, as he was always quiet in attempting to leave a random hookup from the night before. But while he was lacing up his shoes he had the since that he and Rebecca were not alone in the room. A barely audible shuffle. A bend in the flat darkness and the minuscule midnight light in front of him. The darkness had augmented the keenness of his senses.
    "Motherfucker!" The dark figure yelled as he lunged towards Maxwell.
    Maxwell side stepped the shadowy arm holding the glinting white blade moving towards him. He chopped the arm down and grabbed hold of the head neck or torso of the dark figure and pushed it down towards the bed. The blade, with the man, fell into the bare right leg of the nude Rebecca Figg, laying on her stomach in the bed.
    She screamed.
    Maxwell stood straight up and stared into the murky grayness of the bed in front of him. He was beginning to see a deep crimson spot in front of him.
    "Goddamnit!" She shrieked. "Maxwell!"
    "Motherfucker!" The other Maxwell screamed as he pulled the knife from the back of her thigh and swung it towards him.
    He jumped back and threw a hard right into the darkness that had the chance of being a merciless human sneer of a face. His fist connected with a no longer hypothetical face. The other Maxwell dropped the bloody knife and fell to the wooden floor with a rattling thud.
    "I'm bleeding." Rebecca cried, grasping the wound with her right hand, feeling the wetness of her own blood ebbing and flowing with her heart rate. "Badly!"
    The other Maxwell grabbed his legs and dropped him to the floor. Before him, on the ground, shined the knife that so recently rattled out of his opponent's hand. Maxwell took hold of the knife and slammed it into the other Maxwell's upper back, pounding his fist against the other Maxwell's ribs and spine and shoulder blades as the knife split the skin and fatty tissue and muscle and organs of the man grappling him by his legs. Every time he pulled the blade from the other Maxwell's back it made a wet sucking sound; it was a quiet sound, but the keenness of his hearing in the darkness heard it.
    The other Maxwell was laying limp. He and Rebecca were quiet, breathing heavily for a moment.
    "Motherfucker!" She screamed, then jumped on his back and grappled her arms and legs around him. Her right leg was still oozing and pumping blood.
    Maxwell took hold of her and wrenched her grip of him. She dug her finger nails into his sides with enough force to tear his shirt and in some places leave scratches. He threw her to the bed.
    "Motherfucker" she muffled. His free hand grasped her face and was pressing it into the bed.
    There she is, that bitch. He raised the knife. Then he heard the baby cry. There she is, Rebecca Figg. Maxwell Call. He heard the baby crying. Had it been crying the whole time? He slammed the blade into her chest. Not like a knife. Not like a careful incision. Like an ax, over and over. And then Maxwell heard the baby crying. He panicked. He didn't close the door.

    Maxwell sat at the bar. His head was down. He didn't what to look up at the television. He never thought he would not know what to do next.

Aaron C. Molden 




   

Absurdism

Here in lies the problem:
You think you have friends,
but they are putting up with the same shit you are,
day after day and disappointment after disappointment.
No matter how trivial or profound they may be,
your friends or lovers or family members
-genetic or otherwise-
are not thinking about you.
They are not thinking about you all of the time.
They maybe thinking of you rarely or barely
or, depending on the circumstance, never.
If someone were to take a statistical inquiry
they would probably find that the ones
you were hoping and praying are thinking about you,
because you hoping and praying and thinking about them,
are, in fact, not thinking about you at all, at the moment.
These thoughts can be toxic.
Toxins brought on by totally rational
(or irrational) emotions.

But it is okay.
This is only this moment
and it is not true all of the time
because you are you
and you have made some kind of memorable impression,
possibly on someone that you may have never expected.
You must take this all in stride.
It is the only choice,
even if you know,
at your most nihilistic and suicidal inevitability,
that it is not the only choice.
Feel free to kick up a mess
in your path of refinding your stride
or discover a new and improved stride,
but please find your stride.

Save most of your metaphors for poetry
or stream-of-conscience writings such as this
and/or other personal or rational examples of the written word.
And maybe save it for a less self-reflexive exercise.
I just made myself smile
because I know I am talking to myself
as well as you, whoever you might be.

Honestly, take a look around.
Get the fuck out of your own head
and pay better attention.
I'm addressing you Average American
man or woman
black or white or anywhere in between.
History; social justice (or lack there of.)
Media; honesty.
Science; art: all the subdivisions.
Math; writing: all the subdivisions.
Forward thinking. Love.

Backward thinking
Choosing the option of not thinking.
Choosing to stop translating.
Believing you have learned enough.
Believing others have learned enough
because you believe you have learned enough,
and that is that.
Eras of mental, physical, philosophical
and psychological terror.
Eras of wars on terror.
All Awful! Rise up against it!
But who?
See, you have a reason.

Aaron C.Molden