Posts Tagged ‘ Paul A. Toth ’

Finale by Paul A. Toth: The Entire First Chapter

November 19, 2009

EIGHT

Divided I crawled, semi-united I stood, and disembodied I fell. All I ever wanted was to walk the line like Johnny Cash, strong and true, but the line walked me until that letter arrived, and then it stomped me. It might be said it wasn’t even a line but a circle or a hole.

I ran my fingernail along the words, pressed deep into the paper by what must have been more punching than typing.

“If I were you, I’d keep your potatoes peeled. Make sure they don’t get mashed. Maybe then you’ll keep your eyes on one girl. Or maybe you won’t stay in one place until you’re dead.”…

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Seaborgium Travels: An Imagined Travelogue in Four Parts by Paul A. Toth (Part 3 of 4)

September 19, 2009

24.2.09

I fell into the sleep of others without shutting my eyes. I wandered their thoughts as if they were hedgerow mazes. I daydreamed of unknown treasures, silvery or golden or, my crew seemed to believe, X’s on a map marking nothing but fish darting about in their Darwinesqueness.

Dreams, I thought, what lies, seeming to prophesize but offering only memory’s scraps and hope’s delusions and worry’s eternal discontent. No wonder the men slept best and sometimes only when drunk. I suspect the divers had their first drinks at dawn, exhausted from trying to rest, a ridiculous way to spend so many hours of one’s life. I knew that absurdity well; else, why was I sitting there without radio contact?

The men: I was talking to myself in their voices, seeing myself through their eyes. God, I hated them. I mean I hate them. I confuse my tenses because am I speaking of now or yesterday or tomorrow? All at once, it seems. All at once and none for all, timelessness a cursed thing. What good does it do us?…

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Seaborgium Travels: An Imagined Travelogue in Four Parts by Paul A. Toth (Part 2 of 4)

September 7, 2009

9.2.09

The men in acrobatics of sleeplessness awaken me. Outside, it’s raining. I go outside and the darkness makes me think of a game’s variation: Rock beats scissors; scissors beat paper; night beats both. The drops pain me in the manner of a femme fatale’s bite-kisses. I look at my hands and the fingers that write these accounts and plot this course. Something bad is coming, not a mutiny in the visible sense but a secret battle that I might only record using invisible ink. The men want to know where we’re going; I cannot say for more than one reason. I think of my ex-wives and how long they endured my scheming. I should have let The Bastard have his way with them for all my intimacy: nothing of me to share but dreams that go nowhere, in which I try to complete some puzzle that might be found in a Tokyo Internet cafe. …

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