the mask of mine

a short story by Eli (roy harp)

Cyclops wants dating advice.

When my eyes discovered a gray gnarly old smelly cyclops of hairy monstrous proportions was sitting beside me on the beach, eye wasn't bothered by it, and instead of getting angry and horrid about the smell of garlic and curry and cumin seeping through his pores, eye constricted and constrained my compulsion to kick sand in the massive gargantuan Hollywood beast who had been inhibiting the sun rays from sprinkling me with its life giving vitamin D. And for the first time in my self-centered young adult life, eye had showed some real calm, cool, and collective self-control; and` that was awesome. 

But why didn't eye react properly, as anyone would have in the face of a dangerous monster, well, you're not alone. Eye have been wrestling with that same question about that particular event that had happened to me that particular pretty parsley day, some time ago, particularly, 7 days ago- particularly. Yet, in contrast with my good behavior with the monstrous cyclops on the beach, my behavior was utterly repugnant during my annual squabble with my beautiful bodacious wife while sailing on a ferry from San Francisco during our last anniversary; a squabble which led my wife and I to put the nails in the coffin of our marriage; a harsh reality that gave me indigestion whenever eye thought about it. And once again, why did eye not act properly in that situation? (opposite reactions have opposite results. endnote.) Thus, here eye am. From that point going forward, my wedding dissolved, and the beginning of the exodus from the garden, as it were, began.

Now on the outside, among the thorns and thistles and the monsters, eye stand by looking back at the remains of a junoesque and shapely and lively image of a once beautiful life. Why couldn’t eye save myself from such a horror; how could eye have been a participant in destroying the very source of wondrous pleasure? And yet, can eye, the world’s handsomest, most talented, one of a kind no ordinary man, who can practically play every Van Halen rock song on my autographed sunburst Eddie Vanhalen guitar, including “Eruption,” save my marriage? Of course, I can, eye am the Dan man, the universe's greatest hero! But first, and of course, my number one inquiry and highest priority is sorting out the fragments, particularly, my new acquaintances. 

A transformation had begun - somehow, someway, beyond my understanding and apart from my will through random monster visitations caused by unknown circumstances. And eye believed, from time to time, that eye was being moved by destiny (when I was in college, eye used to read the meditations by Marcus Aurelius, hence the word, destiny. endnote.) eye presumed, or by providence, as my once Amazing Grace, Sunday every day, Andy Griffth kind of dad once described the acts of God (in other words, disasters outside human control, my dad was old school man. endnote.) when eye was a young boy leaning on my daddy’s knee; he always had a way of making a bad thing seem good, for example:

“Son, when life gives you lemons, remember the lemons though are sour, are also God’s handiwork; therefore lemons are good; likewise, not only are the good times good, but also the bad times, for God made them both, one for our enjoyment, and the other to test us and try our character, therefore, son, when life gives you lemons don't despise the sourness of life, nor become sour, but instead, rejoice that God has taken interest in you, but when that day comes, always feel free to come to me for a hug and a prayer.”   

And now eyes to eye, while we sat on the warm sand, eye had believed that the bewitching bizarre behemoth was indeed intelligent and curious, yet, by his unassertive and passive posture, eye inferred that he was friendly. However, at first, the initial greet, eye suppose, eye instinctively telegraphed my movements; the size of my blue eyes and raised eyebrows unconsciously communicated a message of inferiority and perhaps fear. Oddly, eye startled the guy, or monster, or cyclops, whatever, for not only did he do the same, but he also hid his face with his car sized hands like a small child. (Yeah, it was weird. endnote.) So, I figured, the man that eye was, one clever, well proportioned, thin, golden long haired male rock n rolling Caucasian (hey, what can eye say, I’m perfect. endnote.) would comfort him and perhaps remove the fear from his mind by singing him a song (though an AC/DC song seemed appealing, after all he was a monster, eye sang him a hymn that my daddy used to sing to me to cheer me up called “love lifted me.” endnote.) And yet, were my adrenal glands working properly that day, maybe eye would have responded like a normal human being, like screamed, crapped my pants, fled, or punched him in the eye, or at least called the infantry, the calvary, the Avengers, etc. but this was no ordinary day, for today was a celebration of affirmation: I finally realized that I had lost my mind and sort of acknowledge that what eye perceived was ether an objective real experience that America has kept secret until now, or my mind was projecting an imaginary beast for some odd reason. 

“Eye freakin lost my mind.” Eye thought 

My name is Dan, eye have a master's degree in philosophy and eye work at the grocery store, kind of lame, but ever since the political divide in our country over race and religion, eye decided that eye would take a hiatus from the academic world, and that surely did not help my marriage for sure (small amounts of money, and a bad temper wreak havoc on a marriage. endnote.) We took a huge blow to our household income the last couple of years, so unenthusiastically eye turned into a rocker by night and a grocery clerk by day, and my fans began to grow, and though eye we barely made the bills, eye fell in love working Monday through Friday and playing concerts every weekend for little pay.

After a couple of dull years of living a rocker's dream, life got stale and somewhere along the line between work and gigs, giant quarrels and conflicts consumed my marriage; my wife was over the low pay rocker lifestyle, but eye was not, so we fought. Heavily weighed down by the bills that eye could barely pay, and my depressed angry wife, not only did eye begin to drink more, eye also began to transform into someone different; eye began to act and dress like a fat Elvis Presley. (goals and ambitions in marriage often fiercely collide, especially when you wear a fat suit to work at your rock n roll gigs. Never take life too seriously. endnote.)

 But in case the rumors have not reached your itchy ears, eye just ended our fabulous sunny morning with the most dreadful and saddest divorce this world has ever known; my lover, well, she took all of her belongings and left, she’s gone. And now, my soul has broken out of her jail, as it were, which my body has held for so many years, eye believe, just speculating, but there’s just one problem, now eye see monsters, hear monsters, and talk to monsters; it feels like I’m living in the twilight’s zone at the moment these days. Eye have already encountered 10 monsters; all kinds of monsters, really, and yet, none of them are unknown to me, for they are myths, legends, comic book characters, and Hollywood monsters of the 80’s and 90’s genre, particularly. (A correlation between my divorce and Bizzaro world, possibly, but eye am not quite convinced, nor am persuaded of that probability, as of now at least, for this reality seems so real. endnote.)

For the last couple of months, these creatures or demons, what have you, have been coming and going throughout the week, and in different times of everyday; I anticipate the end. There has been no confirmation nor sign of their departure whatsoever though; on the contrary, the sound of their jollies and simple childish inquiries echos through halls, advance on the tiles, and progres across and through the terrestrial mindscape of my brain, and nope, eye never get used to it. So eye came up with a couple of scenarios that caused or created my new world, they are as follows: One, eye feel that eye am being punished for the way eye have behaved towards my wife ( frankly, eye deserve it, eye was a jerk. endnote) Two, maybe all this happened as a test by God, like dad once taught me when eye was a kid. Thirdly, maybe these were all cosmic visions from the universal intelligence as my charismatic coworker once talked about. Lastly, maybe these monsters are real and are just playing with me, and are waiting for just the right scenario, where during some unaware moment, they abduct me and take me back to their mothership like in that one 90’s movie, “Fire In the Sky. 

Lately, from my short sided observation of things, eye am getting the feeling that they believe I’m some sort of counselor, for they keep asking me personal and loaded questions, frankly, in my opinion, they can’t read situations, nor understand social q’s, and I say this candidly because eye have no freaking idea what the hell this is, but if eye tell anyone, eye am afraid eye may lose my job, my place in the band, and that one important sexy female in my life, my wife, oh crap, what in the wild world of sports am eye speaking of, she already took her cute self out of my life to endure the luxuries of another brutally handsome, yet wealthy man named George Strait. So, tiredly, eye have been keeping this underwraps, and instead have been writing these phenomena experiences down for the sake of testimony for the world as a sort of proof that monsters are real, or at least a token of the beginning of the end of my mind for some future shrink or psychiatrist, what have you.

The monsters have yet to hurt me, but still pretty freaking amazing, for eye never seen anything like this in my 30 years walking on Gods green earth, but hey, anything can happen, Rock on, bring on the monsters, baby! (lol! Eye say that till after the night terrors that eye have been suffering from the last couple of nights.endnote)

But my behavior though. That's what bothers me, ever since eye have had these celestial encounters by these celestial beings, phantoms, ghosts, or perhaps souls, as Socrates had once noted, souls who, polluted by pleasures and lust of the body had changed their minds about reality; that is, that true existence only consisted of body as opposed to body and soul, and thus, when it came time for the soul to depart to the unseen world, it remained, and somehow obtained a corporeal nature that was somehow sown it as a punishment; thus the monsters. But all in speculation, because eye have never asked them any questions. Yet, whether on a beach, during my lunch break, by the can food aisle, in the locking room, after a rock show, or in a starbucks drive through, the consequence of these strange revelations, overall has been good, and as a result, my mannerisms have changed from one degree or another, and frankly, that bothers me because my rocker edge has been tainted with moderation. 

But eye am not gonna lie, this God given journey has been quite therapeutic, eye might say myself, and yet, eye have often wondered whether or not the monsters or the monster idea, as eye have always understood it, large, grotesque, murderous, violent, man eaters, was false. And yet, eye had the feeling that my perception of these creatures was about to change. 

So, there I was, on my favorite yellow beach towel sporting my short neon tangerine swim shorts, next to my small solar powered silver f.m. radio, by my red and white sandpapered laced plastic ice chest kicking back carelessly. Under my massive yellow beach umbrella lying under a blue sky on hot yellow and silver sparkly sand that Friday afternoon, behold, a monstrous cyclops sat down beside me, and eye didn't even know it- at first. (all details and conditions are all necessary for the inquiry into their origin of entrance. endnote) 

Shortly, before I spoke to any cyclops, I was listening to some groovy vibes from the 80’s on my f.m. radio, further, delighting in the pleasure of my tasty subway sandwich, I was oblivious to all pain and anxiety; thus, I saw no recognizable nor significant form of interest that would cause me to think about them. The only silhouette or form that I saw was my detached wife who had been gleefully running towards me to hug me in the secret place of the neocortex of my mind; hence, I was absolutely full of tranquility and happy vibes, for I truly had believed that we once again fire up our love (weeks later, Dan’s lucky charm, called him up to tell him that she forgot her shoes, and though she kind of missed him, as the hideous liar had told him, the whore said she couldn't part with her boyfriend's yacht and Ferrari and private jet and million dollar mansion etc.- cyclops.). My mood and emotions were about to change though, for the most part, I had an appointment with a beast.

 Before my wondrous new contact with the beastly man-child that was about to make his debut, I noticed that a large shadow that had dimly crawled over my circle of tranquility and my happiness had been slightly darkened; so, my senses were not immediately aroused; on the contrary, my eyes passively passed over the idea of danger, instead, I had imagined that a beautiful Bob Ross cumulus cloud had been painted over me (Eye bet Bob was smiling down on me, how cool. endnote) After I sipped my salubrious red wonder-filled wine, and scraped my slightly unkept toenails on my gritty red and white ice chest, small bits of kelp and seaweed begun to fall from the sky, but eye ignored it (some seaweed had dropped on my bony male feet, and weeks later, my feet no longer ached with pain, connection? endnote) Continuing in my delighted mood, holding my favorite pinot wine that my wife had bought for me years ago while on our Anniversary in Paris Tennessee (we were on a budget that year. Money must have been a problem for her. endnote) in my left hand, as it swished around my father in-law's golden goblet (John gave it to me before he died and said that he stole it from an old, retired museum that was abandoned during the 1920’s- can't remember the details, but he said he believed that it gave people visions anytime they drank from it- he died of alcoholism. endnote) eye offered a toast to the sea for that wonderful day. And as the wine brought me to a place of pleasure, the sun decorated my white manly feet with color from its magic sunny rays. Interestingly enough, and what a coincidence it was, shortly after my toast, eye felt my body slightly move and the earth slightly rumble across the beach, but as eye looked around to see if anyone else experienced the same, eye perceived random manly surfers wishfully waiting upon the ocean waters for wild wrathful waves and a handful of bouncy bimbos blaring playing volleyball in bikinis; mass hysteria was absent. Now, at this point, eye began to slowly come off cloud 9; thus, eye wondered what falling seaweed and aftershocks had in common; California earthquakes eye shrugged? So happily, after one last bite of my salami sandwich (my mom made us these when we were kids every summer), eye heard a recognizable voice. Around the same time, I felt a rushing wind blow my golden hair to the side of my face. But as eye began to adjust my hair back to prosperity expecting to greet my favorite boxer, Mike Tyson, my blues eyes were filled with wonder, for behold, eye saw a mountain with a face with a horn as big as an Elephant's Tusk protruding from manly forehead; he was looking toward the sea chewing on heavy weighted tangled green and brown rubbery kelp like a dairy cow; additionally, he looked like a giant hairy man wearing black surfer shorts that were laced with bones and skulls of all kinds, and eye recognized none of them! And Eye saw one gigantic eye glaring. Then moving to the corner of his monstrous eye socket, I was stopped by Deja Vu. That eye was the same eye at the aquarium yesterday- was he a squid!? And he stared at me with childlike curiosity. So, eye tapped my ray bans down toward my nose to see better, and he said to me, now leaning backwards and resting,” are females more concerned about looks or intellect?" And eye gave a very bizarre response, but the weird thing was that my heartbeat was beating steadily as opposed to beating erratically; hence, whimsically, eye gently replied, “looks are more important than intellect.” Then I looked away as if the eye didn't hear a word. Awkward.