Box

The senior executive foreman cried into the phone, one hand over his left ear to try and block out the noise, the other holding onto a clipboard, phone snug between his head and shoulder. “Oy, sir. We got a bit of a situation down here, though.”

Pinstriped suit all business on the other end, light shining off of glasses as he eyed up the client. “What’s the problem?”

“Well, the thing is—ah hell. The box isn’t built yet, sir.” Steelworks and welders and a cacophony of construction fired all around the man as he yelled into the device.

“It’s not built?!”

“No sir, ‘fraid it’s not. We’re almost done, though—” he looked away, pointed at a man on the scaffolding of the box. “Hey, you there! Get back to work! The box hasta be built!”

“Yes sir!” the man cried, dropping his lunchbox. “Gotta build the box, gotta build the box!” He rushed off to build the box.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the factory, the junior executive foreman met with the senior management foremen of the ground floor.

“Lissen up; this box needs building, otherwise there won’t be a thing to box the building for the box that builds this building of boxes. Jimmy, I need you on the box building supply line. Frankie Jay, I need you to oversee production of the box suspension drive, while Frankie X heads up the box joist networking development team. Grom, you can handle the box shortage labor department. I’ll handle human resources and try to hold back the tide.”

“Right, gotcha boss.” Everyone sped off to their respective locations.

“This box needs to be built! Pronto! Pronto!” Loudspeaker garbled words of chortled fuzzy muck. “The box ain’t done yet but it’ll be got dun soon.”

Pinstriped businessman in loft century hotel suite talking with client of box. “I’m sorry, but it looks like the box hasn’t been finished yet.”

Client OKs the deal and shrugs, no matter the cost, to whatever ends of the earth.

“Build the box! We need this box built! If it isn’t finished, it means it’s not done! If it isn’t done, it means we should be doing it! Box building of the match crush development!”

“I’m sorry sir, but it seems like the box just isn’t being built!” Underling cried terrifically.

Foreman expression of fear and panic. “What?! Not being built?! We need it done soon now! Go grab hammer, man! Chisel fast quick begotten soon!”

“Understood!” Man rushes off to fetch tools of breaking.

“I’mma hafta sign these papers for ya,” lawyer snivels and drones with uptight composure, suit smells of shag carpet and laundry detergent, face gone through carwash for shower bath. “Once contract for the box building is done and finished, I think we can take a drive up to the assemblage and test out the compatibility for previous box designs and hodge-podge there resta this thing later. Whodunnit whatcha say?”

Corvette cruising burgers in leather jacket and Mohawk in the passenger seat; ax gang rivaled by the pinstriped convertible and Monroe with the parchment and the Samurai, droppin’ F-bombs in the harbor like injuns.

“We gotta da box?” Foreigner with submachine gun, waves around spouting bad jokes and smelling like a fart. “We gotta da box, now such pronto pony express!” Sandwich filled with sand and straw. Freddy X had enough for once, took command with the tank in his hand and pulled a trigger for all to see.

“The box is almost complete,” stranger with a Benzedrine blow torch confronted the foreman in his abode.

Naked and starving, he acquiesced. “Understood. Fetch me Henderson on the frontal lobe.”

Big screen lit up and flashed galore. Simon says to stand up and face the wall; coffee sputters and banners whip in the aeroblasted wind, tunnels the electric arcs through synapse cords and crescendos chords through windows and fjords.

“Hella beans in situation Z,” commander dyslexic commanded the apache. “Gimme update on section V. Wherefore doth thine box bologna?”

“I am such below thee. Give me just a minute afore tea. Stock locks will adjust for free.” Foreman tread lightly on this tail of mines, dreams underneath. Explosions could be heard for miles.

Sucker-punched the Samurai with smoking cafes, wire-worked through glass shattering and water cannons. Battleship grey darkened down through parted fingers and worked up through the pleats of her dress. Spattered red wine and vignettes, starving confronted by birds and bees, whipped ice cream up for the world to breathe. Sea lions see the lions of the sea. It was enough for me. I am not a tree.

He was a tree, but only barely. I watched with humiliation and pain. Saw the Cro-Magnon rise up and cut him down, branches bleed and shake blindly. Smoke fills the cavern of the hollow earth, feeds plumes of darkness to the volcano gods and the sirens of stars. The sky is big and swallows up this pale reemergence of yesteryear.

Box stopped and locked for pick up, foreman cries into the line: “The box has built itself for now, hope it holds up for tomorrow!”

Foreigner with machinegun strapped on and bloated, forward tank command by Frankie X almost completed through the Seventh Subroutine—lies parallel to the district of voles.

“We gotta notta box!” Foreigner screamed, bullets careened through sheets of breaking glass. “We gotta notta box, we no fraidy cats. We use notta box!” Sand which lies through serpent’s teeth gets caught quick and fast.

“New box on shipment up and go,” foreman explains in garbled English, roar of engines and stacks of smoke pour out of everywhere. Pinstriped corvette jockstrap say OK and move on down assembly line. “New box ready to hit shelves in no time flat.”

“Appreciation is appreciated; we’re gracious to receive your gratitude.” Pinstriped encumbered jacks lumber on down the hallway, choking on fumes, chock-full of nuts. Baby fire ants bleed scruff dandy off the sides of burning cinders. Scram handy babe clock made the Earth turn inwards.

Tank command forwardly pushed into foreign light brigade, outflanked the foreign microwave and gamma-ray brigade, but fell victim to the infrared ranks and their entropic guns. Freddie X cried long and hard, hit fast and loose, fell from the turret in plumes of blood that misted into the horizon.

“We usa da box! We usa da box!” Foreign dialects changed in sequential rhythm, 1-3-1 rhythm in 6/8 time like a valiant theme to a symphony of grim frostbitten darkness. Space train brain drain swoop vain down side of mountain, turns into fish gullet and explodes with motor oil and popsicles for little girls.

“Sir, they have the box!” frontal lobes spout out light and nonsense, head foreman still naked stands erect like monolith of freedom. Doubt etches into features with chisels of white paint and a big red nose.

“Counter act troop deployment around the box!” he screams. “We need to maintain control over the box! Do not let them inside the perimeter of the box!”

“Orders received and understood.” Man on face of image nodded agreement and tap danced on pigs. “Contract negotiation for box rights of distribution are still held up, though. We’re going to need the proper verification of the 10-80 forms filled out in triplicate and mailed to Warsaw. I wish I knew what I was doing.”

“Soldier, your job is to shoot seed and groan. I got no time for petty squabbles of insufficiency!” The foreman on his techno bridge called out to his butler. “Bernard! Bring me my typewriter!”

Stranger in a strange man’s land crooned into the jukebox in the corner, hands touching buttons stuffed inside velvet curves, ruby red glistening in the lamplight shade, soft sighs radiating from a forgotten hole. Left feeling invigorated and depraved, jukebox decked out in roman paraphernalia, strip joint strips joints off scripted points.

Lost a load of lambs, senior officials flock to the cub’s school, where they are confronted by a magnitude of cool club hip-hugger denim and bulbous mounds in the ground. Rocket fuel to the stars; stairways give birth to escalators who devour their parents.

“What’s the readout on Situation Z?” foreman in lobe command screams into his typewriter, but receives an answer not. “What’s the situation over on the right flank bank dank sank into the river?”

Dribbled droplets of ink through reams of pages and slurped on the end of an unformed idea. Steelworks clattered and clanged all around it, iron like mucous dripped down through grates in catwalks and pooled at the basin of large concrete drums. Echoes from the future lay dormant and waiting for their last chance of survival.

“Getta box, getta box!” Foreigner loss of box, drops box and grounds locks, flops backwards in recoil of electric plumes. Wished he was an airplane because he sure ain’t an Inuit.

Counter-box initiation completed and all prior remaining box units redeployed at sunset; certain mutual victory assured, everyone drinks heavily and goes home. Samurai steals corvette from underneath Monroe’s doctorial thesis, spends a night in a thrift shop picking up Barbie dolls and throwing croissants down toilets.

Twisted vignette snakes down plumbing tubes and into the ear of Samurai, twists his thought patterns into monsters with tentacles and other metamorphic properties. Slithering quietly through doors of steel and fire, armored man quick hops into jeep and drives into the sun, but finds no solace within the chasm of flame. The abyss awaits all who enter, and though troubled in their quest for sleep, rest behooves them to punish themselves with guilt and remorse and doubt, and they look upon each other with pleasure pain and fear of hatred. All these thoughts and others were lost to the sands of the dune buggy’s soul.

“We have affirmative on the box, commander.” Midwestern drawl is a must in situations that require military operations. “Life signs are positive, coming in for a closer view.”

“Toga that, cream cheese chess balls inside Penelope Genius.” The foreman spread his legs and made a triangle with the floor, setting his typewriter on fire with lasers that shot out of his eyes.

“Positive affirmation veracity indulged, the box exists. I repeat, the box exists.” The man chuckled to himself and did a danced.

The Samurai returned from the empty sun with Penelope Genius riding his back. She grinned a mouthful of teeth and spewed lemonade from her throat. Raspberry sauce oozed out of tear ducts and collected in the hollows of her cheeks. Grapes and tuna fish and pennies fell out of her blue dress as they traveled.

Across battlefield they galloped and trod. Superimposed thermodynamics squeezed into hemorrhaged realities like droplets of blood on studio floor in loft apartment of tenement sixteen between buildings East and West through the corridor of night. Banana peel regurgitation revolved slowly around their haloed heads. Dandelions and sunflowers were the answers to everything. Super junk radio fed on barbed wires and faxing Zion through on into the capitol building of delight.

“The perimeter hath been compromised methinks.” Commander of ground patrol recon jumped through void in logic and arrived at conclusion via shortcut. “Here they are they here are they.”

Grey grass noodle dumplings jumble through the rabbit hole, follow through the trough detour, grow bowls from foaming bowling moles, grumble pumpkins with a sorry show. Said a soft musician as he foddered grass for more.

Grab the box and hook to smite the pistol’s grip of pox or groups of coke and tripe with Bristol any longer than they smoked the trope of groupie’s dote from bright on semi-lucid calling zones. Boss the slang from too to fro to Saturn’s rings in the astrodome, sway and shay and grab some clay with wrists of floss and wrapped around the flings of gnomes were lanterns standing taciturn and reticent from the grossly flexed specimens.

Samurai bleeding bright through stains of glass epoxy elephants; tusks rear upwards in a shaft of light, night fright sets in like grains of studio jazz hands—shattered pieces of sky might tumble down soon on heads of frail beans. Grunts and curses, stands for more, armored pierced and soul no more, though headlight shines through beams against a projected green screen. Battle rages to and fro and none were the wiser.

“Box has been compromised, I repeat, box has been compromised!” Another Midwesterner drawling on the telephone. “Said this an hour ago, boss. Box has been gone—some kinda woman riding a Samurai swept through and grabbed it.”

Penelope Genius swept in through factory with grazing gazelles held high in her fists of flame and thunder. Gripped low between her thighs was a lone wolf, whose hunger bit deep into his mane. Upon its back was the box.

Machinations and nuns poured bread into the heart of beasts. It beat without heating. The sky wept.

Box dribbled downstairs with wrenches of Australopithecus, though specific in time was varied and Heisenberg laughed at them. Foaming Samurai mouthpiece latched on generic though space with backward-reaching manifest, slammed himself into ground before overshooting target destination. Lone wolf howled at the moon.