The Island of Defunction
the
ɪsʟᴀɴᴅ
of
ᴅᴇꜰᴜɴᴄᴛɪᴏɴ
▲
a lengthy description of outfits
with incidental humanity
as realized by
JAMES QUENTIN DEVINE
ᴍᴜɴᴅᴜs ᴠᴜʟᴛ ᴅᴇᴄɪᴘɪ
◤
MMXXV ◢
𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚗
⎳𝙊𝙎𝙏 𝙀𝙍𝙊𝙎, 𝘾𝘼 →
They lived two to a house.
Two of a kind.
Obsolete visions.
Expired in time.
Mating pairs.
Though they don’t produce.
Time’s stood still.
They fuck flat footloose.
Each couple in the house that best suits them.
A perfection of life.
An illusion.
Retirement community?
Asylum?
Uncertain.
The part’s unknown.
And the play too.
The party’s underway.
Watch your head.
You may be a little dizzy when you COME TO:
→
The scene is set and the punch is spiked.
The sun is down and they’re up all night.
“We had prestige, goddammit. Dignity.”
The swirl of conversation.
A roar.
We all know this fellow:
Lorcan Herlihy, sci-fi genius. Determined, forward gaze. Sees it all, what’s coming and where it’s going, how it’s going to go down and why. You want a disaster he’s your guy. He’d have been an auteur or at least an author but those pots don’t boil anymore.
“What am I supposed to do? Work at a tire shop?”
Seldom-simmering.
Seething.
“I can’t very well open a bagel factory! They make it all impossible — everything! All the permits, and those crooked inspectors . . .”
Scratches at the greys in his beard and stares into the distance.
“You want another beer-or-you-good? You good? You’re good. OK.”
On.
A vision in all-black.
Bubbles Brugal. Rubberbodied high-kicking leather-clad rock-and-roll machine. The kind of person it’s illegal to be now. Fingerless nappa leather gloves with little snap-clasps strapped across thin veined wrists. Ziptight catsuit, big boots. “Wanna see me kick above my head? I can do it.”
Party patter in a major manor.
“I’m too fucking crazy to work.”
The expanse of a mansion draped all in glamour.
“Maybe you made yourself that way.”
Crystalline tings glassclink cut the clamor.
“Maybe it’s a ploy. A plot.”
Champagne springs eternal.
“A sham.”
Fountains.
“You would say that. You’re a writer. A penman.”
She’s taken with you.
“I’m a criminal.”
(that’s a lot of eye contact)
“Aren’t we all.”
She’s going with you.
“You know I was a location scout.”
Crisp denim jeans and a field jacket. Makes sense. Striped tee. Could be vintage.
(I heard her tits aren’t real)
Film director. Gesticulating wildly. Think his name’s Tim or Tom. Something. Shock-white hair and Fuck Off Sunglasses. “It all turned into noisy grey blobs. Some weightless colossus tumbling down. Dark debris and nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Shit sound.”
Record producer. Faded pocket tee. Doug? Shit. Something. “Tell me about shit sound. All the levels are just cranked, man. It all sounds the same. Nothing’s got a signature.”
And that there’s Vinnie Vinyl, the island’s resident DJ. “You used to have to find things, you know. Actually find them. Right place, right time. Had to keep tempo all kinds of ways . . .”
(she told me once she used to fuck her drug dealer for product)
Saundra. Fashion photographer. “Now everyone acts like an asshole all the time. The cameras are always on. They’re not wrong to do it; just disgusting. Ugh.”
Paul. Author. “I mean for me it’s like what’s the point of writing for post-literates, like, why? What am I even doing here”
Jessamyne. Painter. “I feel like a glorified interior decorator. You know come to think of it I don’t really even feel all that glorified.”
And there’s that classic movie star, Marvin, all sunglasses and teeth, shining you back at you, and he doesn’t say a goddamn word he just laughs and slaps your back.
(she had to wear a big sweater for like two weeks to hide the bruises)
Desmond’s in the corner. Tech visionary. “Well, the problem with my service is that is solves problems. Solved my way out of a job.”
“You were liberated.”
(a distant lover is controlling his wireless buttplug)
“I don’t feel liberated.”
(no one else at the party seems to hear it, but I can)
“Do you feel trapped?”
(he has an obvious erection)
“Not exactly.”
(he has no shame)
The troubled child stars, Dottie and Todd.
(they’re so dumb)
“Yeah, I haven’t worked in a while . . .” Gotta wonder who they’re blackmailing. What they saw, or worse—
(everyone hates them)
Tony. The smirking sitcom asshole. Chubby-cheeked and ruddy and roly-poly, a natural-born Emmett Kelly.
(you’re right to hate them)
“They don’t want us anymore.”
(he’s hiding the real reason he got kicked out of the military)
“This isn’t fucking Toy Story.”
“You’re right, Toy Story was coherent.”
(no one even invited her)
“We are the answers to questions no one’s asking anymore.”
(they got in a huge fight at the last party because he’s cheating)
“Everybody thinks they’re a fuckin’ authority these days.”
(she’s pretending to be happy but everyone can tell)
“Think they fucking know it all.”
“Fuckers.”
“We used to have gatekeeping.”
“We had gates. And keepers.”
“We were kept.”
“Now we’re kept out.”
“That’s a cop out.”
“No way.”
(everyone thinks he’s gay)
“Maybe we just aren’t trying hard enough.”
“Now my grave’s unswept.”
“Who ordered the poet?”
“I think you’ve had quite enough champagne.”
Judith. Fashion designer. “Have you ever seen the photos of collapsed factories in Bangladesh? There’s your fucking five dollar T-shirt, asshole.” That NYC garment district brusqueness. All glottal.
“It’s like ‘Fuck You,’ you know.”
“You know, I’ve never understood calling someone ‘ageing.’ Everyone’s aging. I mean, we’re not. But real people, you know, they are.”
(she is lying)
“I loved my time in the darkroom. A solitary place. The quiet is disappearing.”
“We were disappeared here.”
“This world’s nothing but a money farm. We are rounding errors in its dark calculation.”
(I think that guy directs porno or something)
“Do you really think we need recognition so badly? Praise? Validation?”
“I think we crave it.”
“I think that’s craven.”
Endless oneupmanship.
Empty relationships.
Bon mots on hors d'oeuvres on bullshit.
Whore service.
Ordered full in firmness.
Here we’re all stars.
Ram the manparts.
Finger foods and dabbed napkins.
Smoke-filled lungs braying jackass.
“We’ve been devalued.”
“Bedeviled.”
“We shall prevail!”
Imitation religion.
Pastor cadence.
“Being a religious charlatan still works, I think.”
“Like, actually works?”
“Yeah like works-works.”
“Isn’t that what most of us are?”
“Religious charlatans?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, yeah, no, but like — an actual one.”
“Are you saying I’m not actual?”
“You’re extraordinary actual.”
“I’m extraction capital.”
“Extortion.”
“Extinct!”
A maudlin parlor game.
Deadman’s telephone.
“You know, the first thing they got rid of, when they could, the first thing they always get rid of — the expertise. The knowledge. The smarts. You gotta pay a flesh-and-blood container to actually know stuff, to keep knowin’ stuff, to retain it.”
The delight of complaint.
“Those dickheads in charge, they love to see it coming in and they hate to see it going.”
Mount hatred and ride it to the center of hell.
“That’s for sure.”
Vain of vino and fadeglorious.
“It was all those fucking executives.”
“Fuck the executives.”
“Where’d they even come from? Stanford?”
“Fuck Stanford.”
“Chicago?”
“Those are economists."
“No, but like, the suburbs.”
(one time she shit, like, all over herself)
“Ugh. I hate the suburbs.”
(like, everywhere)
“You’re from the suburbs!”
(she wasn’t even drunk)
“Yeah, so I know what I hate.”
(they broke up after he found the herpes medication)
“How is it that my time’s passed, but it never came?”
“That train doesn’t run anymore.”
“I’m so sick of that metaphor.”
(she said he had a really weird-looking dick, I forget what part of it was weird)
“It’s all so degraded and dismal.”
“Depraved.”
“Do you think this is purgatory?”
(I heard her dad went to jail for stealing a lot of money)
“I mean it’s not hell.”
(they found it all buried in the yard)
“It’s not heaven.”
(I think it was in New Jersey, it was in all the newspapers)
“Who knows.”
(she doesn’t talk about it, I don’t think she knows we know)
“Could be limbo. Say — have you got a stick?”
Comedian. Bedhead. Dead eyes. Hooded sweatshirt. Nailbiting habit.
(I think he used to do a lot of coke)
Those shitty jeans.
(like, do something with your hair, god)
“I don’t know if I can bend that way anymore.”
Chattering faces.
(she fucked both of them)
“You know I can still breakdance.”
(I heard he raped a girl he met in AA)
“Prove it.”
(and he didn’t even keep his sobriety)
“Maybe later.”
(he wrecked at least two cars)
“She is such a petty bitch.”
“Messy too.”
(that motherfucker still owes me fifty dollars)
“We’ve been mothballed.”
“Shitcanned.”
“Rejected.”
“DON’T SAY IT!”
“Cancelled.”
“Augh!”
Outmoded ancients.
(everyone saw)
Objection.
“A novelist — I had to have been born a fucking novelist!”
Relevance, relevance?
Anachronisms, spidering, spiraling.
(there’s evidence)
“You think you were born that way?”
Splintering.
(there’s video of everything)
“Artists aren’t made. They’re tortured.”
Split.
Infinite impediment.
Predatory predicate.
“Hey if you’re going to roll your eyes at least give the rest of you a little shimmy.”
You’d better make it worth the spit you flick.
(she had a tummy-tuck six years ago and they fucked it up, that’s why she never takes her shirt off)
Cigarette in her mouth and she’s waiting.
“On a lighter note.”
Quick with a joke, quick with a stroke.
Applied flame.
Up with smoke.
Drink in her hand she’s confessing.
“A barrel and a heap and I’m talkin’ in my sleep.”
(she used to tell people she was a witch and she carried this big book around all the time, I forget what it was, like some witch book, I think she might have had a wand too)
“Feeling desperate?”
“Depraved I’m afraid.”
“I’m afraid all the time.”
“All this time?”
“All this time.”
“You know, looking back, I hate nostalgia.”
“You know who I think they still want?”
“Who?”
“Chefs.”
“Like, cooks?”
“No. They need cooks. They want chefs.”
(your ride left)
Oh,
You drank the entire thing?
Like, all of it?
Oh,
well.
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