Neon Aloha: Angelfish

I looked up, then shut my eyes, to open the eyes of touch, scent and taste. Lips parted like the rose-tinted ovular rings of a titian hued gas giant, begging in silent worship for the godly contents of Jupiter. And it was as though this act alone was the bronze mallet striking the empyrean bell in his swollen recesses. Bays of release boomed air born earthquake, the conch shell refrain of Taurus - it rattled my existence to it's very foundations, but the oily tentacles of fear were surpassed by the effulgent inertia of want. At last, the mana of Wakea spilled forth in torrents fit to test Noah, a thousand divine kisses upon my heavenward visage. My tongue -- a squirming angelfish out of water dreaming of aquamarine Pacific fathoms -- swam finally, raptly, as the goblet of my mouth filled with the warm liquid that tasted of nothing yet everything.

The color of Beginning.

The gift of life assuaged Pele's stygian inferno, swarming magmatic consciousness congealing into coherent obsidian psycho-morphology. Gentle ribbons of life cascaded a zig-zag path down the slope of the newly florid valley of my throat; a vibrantly viridian and living masterpiece sculpted by the same hands that seemed to cradle lovingly my lolled skull. I savored keenly the smell of it, the pungent peppermint tang of fresh rain tickling heated Gaia; the sound of it a continuous pitter-patter of sweet nothings. The sopping yet sun-warm embrace of matted Etruscan satin was oddly pleasant, like the cocoon formed by another mammal's body. Contentment.

I ignored the attentions of the umbrella and digicam wielding herds of tourists shuffling by me on the sidewalk, eager for the slice of paradise they paid for. Snapping pictures of themselves with Robinson Crusoe and Jurassic Park backdrop, beaming the images home through cell phones like trophies of the Hawaii Experience. I could almost feel their collective opinions of this mad, obscene woman, dancing in the rain; lukewarm liquid sunshine had wreaked a racy skintight havok of my knee-length ebon skirt. Regardless, swirling nebulas of cumulus cloud caressed each other in the endless depths of the sky, still overflowing forth as I continued on the cement path of the Pali Lookout.

As I reached the monorail stop, the blankets of water subsided. The empty clouds burned with a sanguine scarlet yearning as the sun abandoned them, inexorably moving on to be with the next facet of the earth. The once comforting warmth of my wet clothes began to dissipate into a deep, fanged cold. I felt pangs of stupidity then, blindly frolicking through the downpour like some juvenile nymph. The bullet train whirred into the station, and I got on, shivering from a gust of concentrated trade-wind that was ice-daggers. The dry masses, heavily defended by dripping umbras of polyester, glanced and shook their heads at me. And as I sniffled the first vestiges of a head-cold, wiping the gift of some dead god from my eyes, I stared at the chrome alloy beneath my feet and shook my head too.

~Marianna

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A plastic click delivers this condensed and edited celluloid strip of life to the great bulletin board of the universe, or at the least, billions of people, theoretically. More actually, dozens, as the hit-counter on her blog declares in an archaic cursive Italian font.

The final directions of this most recent soul-byte drive toward negative and recursive constellations of memory. On the sub-retinal canvas of locked eyelids, jump-cut nihilist syndications rerun, whose sound track is the whiplash cacophony of screamed and unintended words set into a cello dirge. Familial faces, twisted with canine rage, splash forth in harrowing migraine-light- their tongues then flames of bridges burning- the reek of child-toy plastic dying, whirlpools of venom-flavored iridescence- homogenizing into the broth of liquid self-destruction that is tsunami amphetamine- phantom zygomatic-bone pain from the fists of violent and handsome men- crossfades to real, heart pain blooming like nightshade from a cancerous co-dependent black hole composed of those mens' absence.

Reflexive reach, written at fifteen, for a small rattling bottle that isn't there.

As salves of positive mantra and mechanisms of lateral cognitive escape from the riptide kick in, Marianna wonders if confessional writing and emotional instability are not mutually exclusive, and if not, which is the aftertaste of the other?

Another three mouse clicks strikes up a playlist of compressed audio that fills the small apartment with a synthetic sub-woofed heartbeat, at 130 heartbeats-per-minute. Upon this background, Afro-Celt hybrid percussion is layered, then the centerpiece: enchanting spells cast in a willow dryad's voice, painted in some indigenous Icelandic dialect. Milk embodied in un-parse-able song; lullaby. Ritual as old as the birth of motherhood itself, aural caresses upon green ears whose mind is yet deaf to abstract symbol, mammals virgin to sapience. It serves to help dissipate these depression vortices, like the light-cast enlightened arm of Buddha, charming a hurricane.

A paisley and atramentous puddle, splashed upon mother-of-pearl tile, blossoms a translucent corona, of rainwater. Legs of a dancer, contours an elegant negotiation of functionality and aesthetics, swan wings. A shade tanned by real sunlight, chameleonic, osmosing in varying lighting conditions between Irish cream, French caramel, and ripe coconut.

Once aureate fixtures, blemished an irrevocable mottled copper by a vanished economy, whisper dull glints of their former resplendence as they yawn in creaks. The water of this shower, she knows, is not at all as sweet as the sky's which recently anointed her; desalinated yes, but something in it stings like inhaled cigar smoke. It nevertheless is fit for it's purpose. The shimmering intimate rain melts pleasantly into the next piece which is of similar northern latitude but East-Asian longitude, a crescendo and accelerando of wood blocks into haunting Edo laments. Flutes of bamboo played by priests of nothingness. Blindingly simple in construction, but requiring lifetimes to master, as well as attention spans largely extinct.

As she get's dressed, she refreshes 'googlespace.com/mariannamalia' to find already a single comment incremented. This so far anonymous poster Marianna knows will almost invariably be Lani. She checks, and it is. Lani is a friend, coworker, and would be considered a 'homegirl', if Marianna thought in such terms. Lani was born in the Hawaii, in the Canopy, unlike Marianna, which greatly attracts her.

Black tea with lemon rejuvenates and warms as she packs her scant leafy costume into her simple handwoven purse, and switching off her notebook, it folds into something the size of a hand mirror. She retrieves a smaller and almost Japanesely tiny cell.

Lani does not answer. "I got the comment but didn't have time to read it, sorry. Leaving now, I'll see you there."

Time for work.

Marianna exits the Sheraton Waikiki, and what was once the grandest suite made for presidents, celebrities, and Elvis. The elevator does not work, but if it did, it would stop at the fourth floor, because the third is all too permanently flooded.

Marianna is, in fact, a dancer, her legs crafted by such.

And by other exercise as routine, lucrative, and total-body.

But she is more than the sum of these parts, elegant as they are.

Neon Aloha: Into the Canopy

Comments appreciated, thanks.



NEWS REPORT

I'm standing outside the Morphosis, a popular bar and grill, where a violent shooting between a gang known as the Mercury Pheonix and several others has taken place leaving 5 dead and several others wounded. Police are currently undergoing a rigorous investigation, and we'll keep you posted on all developments.

***

"Gibson, " static voice in his head.
"God?"
"Cute. I want this show pretty, understand? If I regret this decision to use some upstart rookie tomorrow when the mayor asks me what I'm doing about the Morphosis, you are going to hurt. Bad." The weight of the tone cut through the limited audio spectrum of the earpiece like shards of glass, sinking in to his mind.
"Crystal as vodka, sir. Kai will come through on this. He's got hubris syndrome, but he's not stupid."
"You better pray so."
"Like a Catholic."
"Oh and Gibson."
"Yeah?"
"Clean your fucking office when you get back." The hiss cuts off. Asshole.

Gibson continues on into the darker sides of the Canopy, trying to steer clear of the unsanitary whores and furs spasming, raving, eyes dilated beyond recognition. Cumulative effects of "tsu", the latest evolution of the drug once known as ice or crystal meth. Tsu or "tsunami" or "wipeout" - essentially the same mind and life altering effects as ice but amplified and with the peculiar quirk of causing the user to feel as though they are drowning, initially.

A hundred feet beneath him, in the dark choppy fjord between an old Sears Tower and a gothic, coke-bottle shaped building that used to be the capital, Gibson watches one of the "spider" boats work. The recycler boat is about the size of a large tug-boat but is shaped more functionally squarish like a cargo ship. A large crane erects from it's middle, at the tip of which is a controller's booth, where a mole anthro operates the mechanism, heavy tremors and whirs as the crane adjusts it's position. On either side of the booth spring great metallic arms like crab pincers, in the front of the booth, a flexible nozzle extends, analogous to that of a firehose. The pincers place a 40 foot long steel mold, shaped like one of the bridges, between two buildings several floors below. The mole then maneuvers the nozzle into a socket in the center of the metal casing until it clangs into place. Large pistons begin to pump, and a basey gurgling hum emanates from below as the mold is filled. Auxiliary pumps channel sea water to assist in the cooling of the new bridge: the next thread in the 'spider' web. Further down, another spider boat blows an apartment-sized, clear sphere, which floats in the water and is tethered to a building with the nylon cables that are machine-spun silk.

A woman revealing illegal amounts of creamy skin from behind vacuum tight PVC and too much make up presses up against the cables next to him, taking a pull on her cigarette, bloodshot eyes doing sidelong prey analysis of him.

"Landfills." Gibson says.
"Hm?"
"The plastic, it comes from the old sub-surface landfills." Gibson thrusts a clawtip out where the sun dives into the ocean in brilliant dissappating crimson and amethyst. A few other spider boats are dark shadows against the surface, leaving or coming back from a spot several hundred yards out to sea, like a sparse ant trail.
"They drill for plastic now, like they used to drill for oil. cook it, melt it down, refine it, shoot it back out. Recycling, you know?"
"Never heard of it." She presses her showcased breasts back off the ropes and moves on. So does he. The sky fades to black, only the brightest stars cut through city-neon reddened air pollution. The land cools, the salt and plastic prevailing winds reverse.


***


"Welcome to New-Shangri-La."

A mammoth plank of what appears to be artificial sequoia is supported on either side by equally massive totem poles. The style of the pole carvings appear to be a polygenous amalgamation, borrowing from everything from Native American to European to Japanese; wolves, bears, birds, jaguars, some unidentifiable animals. As he through the portal, he is reminded vaguely of documentaries he saw on the history channel of those aesthetic centric, almost ethereal places like Bali, Kyoto and Tibet, yet with something decidedly futuristic. Or post-modern. Or of the Now, whatever that consisted of. It reminds him also vaguely of one of those hippy communes, the smells of incense and herbs illegal in a great deal of more heavily regulated civilization filled the air. Actually, the atmosphere seemed to consist of it; a mind-altering, love-electrified, nirvana reaching stratosphere permeated by pulsing, tribal-ambient music, tied together by a lyrical poem in a woman's voice that could have been Mother Earth herself. Quite nearly everything here was canvas - the ancient concrete of an economic machine that left the dead area like a crop-rotation was painted with some expression, some dream, some story of humanity and furmanity (?). Furs and humans of all species and races mingling in everything from tye-dye to tribal to kimonos to full medievil costumes to 20's flapper garb to any time or place or frame of soul. The trash-sucked plastic was fashioned as well, McDonalds soft drink containers and Honda dashboards alike, transmuted into varicolored blown-plastic sculptures, machine-poetry. Some utopia. Something too good to be real. Something limited to a population with less than four zeros, and to the frontier of technically 'open ocean'. Something in trouble. Gibson spots a massive mural of the Mercury Phoenix rendered four times the size of a condor, he enters the building.

"Tauros! How long has it been, since our souls aligned last on this plane, brother?" The Lion's voice is deep, immense, like he is channeling the universe, a voice you imagine of visionaries. The lion's great, feather-laced mane is a blanket of warm paternal love against Gibson's cheek and neck as they embrace, a thing that could absorb all the ignorant hurt and violence in the world. Gibson felt some buried piece of himself sting as he tried to remember the last time he was called by that name.
"Kai... a forever too long." Gibson draws back and glances about the den. The treasure-hunting rodent children are there, sharing a meal of fish, soup and bread along with dozens and dozens of forgotten, hungry souls. Behind, there are solar and wave-powered ovens set poetically into what were once arrays of cubicles. To the side, a former board-meeting room is converted into a temple of sorts, humans and furs engaged in all manner of spiritual activity without any real sense of dogma. The lieutenant smiles wistful.


"Looks like you're doing well here, Kai. I'm truly impressed, I'm happy for you."

The lion returns the smile, scars on his cheek curling, badges earned in a war older than Gibson himself.
"I do what I can, I try to."
"The protests seem to be going well enough." Kai nods solemn.
"Facilitating the awakening of today's overwhelmed eyes to their own duality is at once easier and exponentially more difficult, but of course always possible."

A pause, then Gibson sighs, stares at his boots, "I wish I could have your heart, Kai." He could almost feel the old indigenous Asland's divine gaze, emollient, caressing his soul. He could feel it in his pacific words.
"What is it, Tauros?"
"You know what it is, Kai." Tone slipping out of past nostalgia, towards something more acerbic.

A longer pause, and it is suddenly cooler, the nirvana seems further away.

"The Morphosis." The lion with a certain unfathomable sadness.
"There's nucleic acids all over the street says members of Mercury Phoenix took part in the bloodshed."
"I know this. Paradigms within us have splintered, unfortunately. These individuals are no longer a part of us, in that sense, the cell is divided. Unfortunate that they are unable to realize their oneness yet..."
"Kai, that doesn't help me any."
"I ask you again; What is it, Tauros?"
Another pause, Gibson's tone quiets.
"This is serious, Kai. I need names, I need whereabouts."
"As I said, the individuals involved in the incident are no longer a part of Mercury Phoenix, I cannot assist you there, and at any rate I was informed that the humans instigated the fight."
"Kai, I'm forever grateful for what you've done for me, you're a godfather, but that is just not going to cover it. You know. I've helped keep the system out of here, now I need you to help me."

"What is it that you need, Tauros? What are you searching for? What is lost, brother?" The lion's words stirred something tectonic, and Gibson erupted, fangs baring, brows creasing, the ends swooping out like flames.

"Look, cut the fucking Jesus-Ghandi charade, alright, Kai? I risked my job to protect you. Only reason they gave something this high profile to a rookie dick like me is they know I've got networking here, I told'em I could negotiate. Two humans killed by furs? There's no way I can leave the Canopy empty handed..I got my boss breathing fire in my ear. I got the Department of Human Affairs want to get you in stocks, behead you in fucking public. You think anyone cares who started it? You think anyone gives a shit three furs got knocked off? Forgotten faces in some database, Kai, serial numbers. If I screw this up, I'm getting pulled off of this case, probably demoted from lieutenant, and then where the fuck you gonna be? They're looking for any excuse to take this place down, put you in some box where noone's gonna hear that riveting voice of yours except whoevers riding you - and you know they'll do it Don't think they're not onto this covert subversion stuff either. You're cost-inefficient, Kai. You can paint, smoke pot, free love, feed the hungry all you want in your little paradise far away. But you start making real waves, you disrupt capital gains, business as usual: they make you go away like *that*. You know the game. You know how the matrix moves. It's all mage, Kai, stories. The city needs a framing of safety and stability, They need to maximize profit. I need my fucking job."

Catching his breath, feeling as though some of his own words hurt himself...

The lion's paw squeezes Gibson's shoulder, as though at once massaging life into it and hanging onto it like the edge of a cliff..
"It's always the needs that get us in the end, don't they?" he laments.

Neon Aloha: Decomposition

Decomposition

The onshore breeze is some corrosive bath of sea salt and polyethylene derivatives. A block east, the city street is cracked like dried river bed, seaweed laced storm drains burbling periodic water, and just beyond that, a jet black beach of asphalt ground by a trillion chisel taps of polluted breakers.

He cranes his neck, squinting between colossal square pyramids of cement as though approximating the direction of Waikiki. The iconic postcard paradise image of Daimond Head surrounded by the pristine azure of the Pacific is un-capturable now; engulfed and blotted out by endless urban sprawl, and atmosphere of a texture closer to that of Los Angeles. That version of Hawaii only exists in old memories and computer programs, and can only now be experienced in virtual tours. Gibson strolls past the shells of rusting archaic gas-powered cars, long since abandoned. The very former Hawaii Capitol Building and McDonald's alike melting into the massive cement canvas of the city's grafiti, it's deepest and most inane collective thoughts. Heading for the beach.

The glistening tar-ey sand crunches and sibilates beneath industrial soles. The black sand is decorated in garbage; soda cans, car parts, assorted faded fabrics. A jumble of artificial detritus Gibson estimates you could dowser as a form of cultural carbon-dating. A barnacled Wolverine action figure recalls a flash of childhood -- collecting X-Men- chains to watching Dark City, Sin City, Ghost in the Shell with Dad- chains to wanting to be a detective- chains to disillusionment -- the thought stream disintegrates under the nudge of peripheral movement. A group of several vaguely Polynesian children wander about, clothes torn and hair caked as though showers were something irrelevant, apparently sifting for things of relative value. They notice him, freezing, little peeled eyes analyzing like startled cats, with a visceral hyper-aware tension found in jungles that atrophies in quiet homes and offices but is re-forged, here. After a second, they turn and flock away.

A street sign, whose intended message was long ago deleted by the eternal sandpaper of oxidization, has its nubby surface re-utilized in spray-painted hues of neon chrome, burnt orange, and that truly not natural green used for action movie magic tricks. The sign now reads "Mercury Pheonix" in a stylish font that seems an urban refraction of medieval. Behind these words is what could be an HR Giger rendition of a sterling bird soaring towards a radioactive green ball, which remarkably resembles satellite images of the sun. The bird's wings appear to be either molting or melting, the form seems purposely ambivalent. In the latter case, it reminds him of the Terminator 2000's liquid metal death into runny amorphousness. The heel of the bird's talon is bleeding, stabbed with a either a razor blade or a hypodermic needle, the handle of which appears to be held by one of the sun's solar flares.

Gibson tries to estimate what the sign once read, probably "North Beretania Street." As the kids disappear behind a dumpster, he stares out at the Canopy.

The tops of ancient buildings scrape the burning fractal sunset sky, their ankles submerged in the risen sea level; a human-accelerated phenomenon occurring in a time frame well beyond the attention span of quarterly profit driven corporate organisms that birthed the viral matrixed monoliths of concrete, glass, and alloy. The fax machines and expresso makers that once occupied the air conditioned rooms are gone, windows are shattered, several of the buildings are tilted or collapsed, resembling the rat-childrens' mouths. The slow-motion Atlantis is far from dead, however, or perhaps undead is more appropriate. The buildings were re-inhabited by the lower classes of society, largely furs and ethnic minorities, like fungal colonies in decaying logs. They have gradually grown, in certain areas, into a sort of loosely organized no-man's land, and complete festering crime-sewers in others. Solar panels pop out everywhere like mushrooms, and between the buildings are bridges made primarily of a nearly translucent material, stringing the whole thing together like a massive multi-layered spiderweb or tree-house, which is where the "Canopy" gets its name.

Gibson weaves through the flowing currents of drab humanity at the main entrance to the Canopy which is the cleared out bottom floor of what used to be a Wal-Mart. The homeless and insane sleeping in the aisles and crying incoherent "Death and Destruction! Armageddon is near!" like scratched repeating CDs, fighting over canned goods. That smell of plastic intensifies as Gibson shoulders his way across the bridge, which is constructed of something strong and flexible, some species of fiberglass, the railings are cables of nylon like they use on docks.

As Gibson nears the First Hawaiian Bank building, he can feel the rhythmic thunder and wall of synthetic, vaguely tribal music coming from the club. Club Aloha is the biggest place in 'town' and takes up basically the bottom two floors of what was once First Hawaiian Bank, like a fungal colony in the rotting log of a dead tree. It is only around 7 PM, but the whores are out decorating the streets, working pretty much all day; trying to flare up the carnal with generous amounts of skin, vacuum tight PVC and too much make up. Above the entrance, "CLUB ALOHA" blares in neon rainbow letters with a flickering, fluorescent coconut tree. Around it,several individuals are vomiting and others are shooting up "tsu" which is the latest evolution of the drug once known as ice or crystal meth. "Tsu" or "tsunami" or "wipeout" has essentially the same mind-altering effects as ice but amplified and also has the peculiar quirk of causing the user to feel as though they are drowning, initially.
The bouncer is a Polynesian behemoth, standing at least a head over most everyone and with arms like telephone poles bursting out of a sleeveless leather jacket. The majority of visible caramel skin including his face is covered in brawl scars and tattoos of some Native Hawaiian design who's true meaning is probably lost by now. Gibson at last makes it to the entrance, the instantly recognizable yet un-siftable amalgamation of smoked hallucinogens surges into his lungs.
"Good to see you cuz." The bouncer bellows. Gibson takes the huge hand in a man's handshake/hug before stepping past the flashing, polychromatic, sun-powered lights. As he wades through the ocean of humans and visceral sensory overload, past the writhing female bodies in imitation haku leis naked and nubile, past the broken glass and puddles of excretions and blood, Ke'ali'i begins to wonder, again, about that word, "aloha".
He had heard from his grandpa, before he died, that "aloha" meant something different, something more, once. Something like "love" but bigger. He had said it was difficult to explain the word to people who had never experienced it. "Like trying fo' tell one fish how it is to walk on land!" He said. Grandpa talked about a time when Hawaii water tasted the best in the world and yet it was free, until the natural underground wells dried up from over-use. A time when Oahu was still spoken of as a "paradise", a time when people always smiled and gave freely of themselves. "And den," he said, "U.S. first and den Korea, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, India, all da new corporations wanted one piece of da 'aina, fo' sell to tourists of course." But for Gibson, "aloha" had become merely an icon, a slogan, an advertising hook. A ghost word from Hawaii, a ghost place with a ghost culture that was harvested, watered down, refined, artificially sweetened, commodified and sold for 49.99 plus tax next to "Experience Ancient Kyoto!" on www.virtual-tours.com