If you’d like to make your presence in the van a little more *official* and meet all the other fun people who are already on board, get yourself over to FACEBOOK and register.
Okay…the van is fixed, and we’re at the Bardo Drive-in, waiting for the movie to start.
Dogs have settled in, everyone’s comfortable, popcorn is being passed around, and…action!
My Conception
Edmond penetrates Violette, without any foreplay, at 10:28 p.m. on November 19, 1949, just as Frankie Laine starts singing Mule Train on the radio.
Mule train!!
(Hyah, hyah)
Mule train!!
Clippety cloppin’ over hill and plain…
Eddy is drunk. And seeing he’s been married to Violette for over a year now, he’s stopped washing every day and stinks of week-old sweat and hundreds of cigarettes. His breath is a mix of rotting teeth, cooked cabbage, and beer burps. Violette turns her head away to look at the Emerson Aristocrat radio that’s sitting on the mahogany night table. “It’s such a pretty shade of red…I suppose one could call it cherry red,” she thinks, and then wishes she could switch the channel and maybe catch Dinah Shore singing Buttons And Bows. But no.
Violette turns her head back up again, watches Eddy’s blood-shot baby blue eyes stare right through her for a while, then continues her circular movement towards the other side of the bed. Setting her focus on the closet door—which is slightly ajar—she sees her old pink satin slipper sticking out; she recalls seeing the left one under the couch, that morning, when she vacuumed the living room rug. She pans over to the oak dresser—a gift from her in-laws, a bulky art-deco piece with a cracked, stained mirror. Next to it stands a chair…what’s left of it to see, that is. It’s piled so high with dirty clothes that some of it has spilled onto the floor—mostly socks and underwear. “I’ll do the laundry first thing in the morning,” she decides, and hopes she’ll remember to get the broom out and sweep that cobweb off the ceiling. She can’t understand why she hadn’t noticed it till now, it must be a good eight inches in diameter, right above the door leading out to the kitchen.
Mule train!!
(Hyah, hyah)
Mule train!!
Clippety cloppin’ through the wind and rain
They’ll keep goin’ till they drop, clippety clop, clippety clop
Banging away, Eddy recollects the prostitute who serviced him in his brother’s Ford pick-up the day before. How her red, heavily teased hairsprayed hair swept across his swollen beer belly. And this drives him crazy, and he stiffens and jerks and relieves himself with a growl, mouth wide open, saliva dribbling all over Violette’s ear and neck, and she remains limp while her husband crashes down on her cold body, then finally rolls over to sleep and fart and snore.
Get along, get along, get along…
And so it is that when Frankie belts out his final note, Eddy’s sperm fertilizes Violette’s egg.
Forgive me if we’re still stuck here in Bardo.
I know…bo-o-o-ring.
But you see, the van broke down yesterday, it took me forever to find a mechanic, and now they’re waiting for parts to arrive, don’t ask me what, I don’t have a clue.
So as soon as the van is fixed (another few hours at the most) we’ll all be looking at how I was conceived — while eating popcorn, of course — and then it’s back on the road again!
Take care…be cool,
Oza a.k.a. Mudd
(and vice versa)
xoxo
We are now entering a place some people call Bardo
and others call hooey.
(No cameras allowed…and shut your cellphones!)
It’s 1949, and I just spent the last hour reviewing my life with a panel of judges. Even though I’m fresh out of the screening room, I can’t remember a thing about who I used to be, where I used to live, or how I died. The only thing I remember is the sound of gunshots and then the panel of judges—all eight of them—laughing hysterically as the screening—i.e. my life—came to an end.
They say you get to choose your parents. This isn’t exactly true. You are gently yet firmly coerced into choosing the family that the judges think is best for you – best for you to learn, to grow. If you don’t agree with their choice, you’re stuck here for as long as it will take you to think it over and then supposedly “choose.” Some of these people have been here for over 800 years. This gives you an idea of how unappealing some of the possibilities for reincarnation can be. I’m dead set—pardon the pun—on getting myself a new life and moving on with my karma. I don’t particularly care what country I land in or what language I speak, all I want to do is go back and have another shot at being happy. I can’t bear to be around those who spend their in-between time trying on skin colours, exchanging eye shapes and nose samples, or even worse, debating on whether to be straight or gay or go for the combo. It’s driving me nuts!
So when the judges set me up with the Meilleur family in Verdun, Québec, I get all excited. It’s fun at first because it’s a privilege to watch them going about their humdrum lives; the judges want to make sure we know what we’re getting into before the final transfer is made. But watching this family quickly becomes very boring. The couple lives with the man’s parents, they’re cramped in a second-story flat, but still the woman insists on having boarders—her brother and a cousin who both left their small village in northern New-Brunswick to strike it rich in Montréal. The man’s parents seem like good, honest people—the old guy rocks in his chair all day, the old lady makes all sorts of intricate hats. And their son is obviously a hard-working husband because he always comes home late at night. Everything looks okay except for the woman; I can tell she’s not enjoying herself. She goes about—day in, day out—preparing the meals, washing the dishes, the clothes, the floors, making sure her in-laws are satisfied with the choice their son made the year before. A nice little robot, is what she is. A whistling robot, to boot ! She can whistle anything from the latest show tunes to the oldest church hymns. This can become annoying, I think to myself.
My thoughts are confirmed about a week later. I’m sitting in my usual spot under the tree of wisdom when Philippe walks up to me and introduces himself. He’s heard about my imminent voyage back to Earth and has information he feels I should know. It turns out he was assigned to the Meilleur family less than ten months ago. Being as eager as I am to leave this place, he signed up without even giving it a second thought. That very day, he was conceived and started growing inside the whistling lady’s womb.
Months go by, and Philippe realizes he cannot stand the whistling any longer. Though it’s muffled by the amniotic fluid and the fat around the woman’s belly, he can plainly distinguish the strident sound and occasional false note. Since it’s too late to abort, he comes up with Plan B: he’ll suck up whatever he can in order to gain a lot of weight, and when delivery time comes, he’ll bend over and come crashing through, butt first.
The plan works perfectly. The lady almost dies trying to get his ten-pound body to pop out of her uterus. Finally, the doctor has to cut him up and yank him out, piece by piece, all of them dead.
Now I know why the woman looks so sad—it’s only been a month since she lost her baby. Still, she gets up every morning before 6 and runs around all day, pleasing the people around her, whistling away the hours, the days, the sorrows.
And so my choice becomes clear: I shall be born into this family, and I shall try to make the best of it.
That’s it for today, my friends. I’m afraid we’ll have to stay the night, as we haven’t completed our visit yet. Let’s get the tents up and the fire burning—it will be bone-chillin’ cold soon. And don’t wander too far from camp, ‘cause you might not come back…at least not as who you are at the moment.
I’m sure you’ve heard the popular expression, “One day, you’ll look back on this and laugh,” right?
Well, I’ve decided to take you on a road trip back through my past so we can all have a good laugh reliving the horrendous, hallucinating, violent, degrading, humiliating, boring, ugly little moments that made me who I am today. (No smoking in the van.)
We’re bound to enjoy a few more chuckles once we start pinpointing the numerous unfortunate events that splattered my life, and then we’ll have even more fun connecting the dots to see how this game ends up proving yet another popular expression, “Everything happens for a reason.” (I may conduct a poll for this one, so get ready to participate.)
Though I’m telling you this with a wink and a smile, be advised that we are embarking on a serious mission. There are certain things I wish to understand, and many secrets need to be unearthed and revealed—once and for all.
You see, I wasn’t always this passionate person infused with positive energy who’ll be driving you down memory lane. Au contraire. I used to walk through life feeling as if I was captive inside a mammoth boil, and this putrid mass of blubber totally blocked the way out of the tunnel—the famous tunnel at the end of which one sees the Light. Thus I dragged my sorry self for decades, in total darkness, wallowing in puss.
Delusional.
Dishevelled.
Depressed.
But it’s all over now, Baby Blue. Because somewhere along the way, something snapped! And when I felt that snap, I knew the boil had burst and that from then onwards, I would be surfing on the waves of happiness.
So one of the things I’ll be seeking an answer to on this journey—and you’ll have the chance to witness the amazing discovery—is how the puss turned into happiness.
Now this could be big…
See you tomorrow!
Warm hugs and lots of love,
Oza a.k.a. Mudd (and vice versa) xoxo
P.S.: Hope you’re not allergic to dogs—my faithful Daisy is coming along for the ride.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue. – Bob Dylan
If you’d like to make your presence in the van a little more *official* and meet all the other fun people who are already on board, get yourself over to FACEBOOK and register.
(No cameras allowed…and shut your cellphones!)
doctor has to cut him up and yank him out, piece by piece, all of them dead.
