Purpose (Metropolitical Lumberjack)

By Jonathan Rodgers

I begin Moving.

Los Angeles bleaknight, I'm moving in it, creating westward yellow lines and "takk takk" noises. Emptying myself around the corner, my tap shoes clatter against the briny jade pavement. I'm sort of shoving my head into my top hat as I complete sublimation into/emerge upon Santa Monica Boulevard. That rain has subsided and given a glittery radiance to the jade footpath. In my right hand, a fine-toothed saw, a vicious cutting object as you'd say. And then, in my left hand, there is a rope and a hook. Oh and I'm wearing a bird costume. Progressing towards goal (7-11), the city surrounds me in light, fervor, rotund inexplicable chaos. I see the 7-11sign in that skyline nether of skyscrapers and constellations that qualify Los Angeles as domed enclosure 093AB. Stop.

I begin listening.

I hear the sounds of the city, the sounds of car-parked transvestites, "Sister, do the right thing" and "Mmmm hmm" and Mariachi attaché cases. A rising melodrama of anarchaic occurrence (genius?). The 7-11 sign purveys all in red white and green stupor……////*. Sudden fright (!), efficient chunneling of city sounds through my ears, rapidly skiczaws (!) into my tympanic nerve and disrupting my equilibrium it is (.) Aarrgghh. Briefly I stagger backwards, disrupting my tap shoe rhythm, sliding suddenly into the ether of without-purpose. Car centrifuge, "Chorizos de Espańa" signs and metallic foreheads and pink tethered ribbons gymnasticizing about the rectangular wind in front of a Korean storefront and dogs sleeping and sleepy robots punching in for rudimentary servicing all into my auditory ossicles (!!), shuddering throughout my startled mind they play tag in my amygdala. So I reach into my pocket, staidly ruffling the yellow feathers, and pulloutswitchblade/liftarm/shovel/carve/into/nervepathwaysdisrupt/meatrain. Then my ear was on the floor (sidewalk?) and I went on walking.

Listening aborted.

Now I couldn't hear. Things were (are?) a lot nicer. Ear blood has spattered upon my yellow feathers and tap shoes, but that will work itself out I'm sure. Here I am now, two blocks from my goal. Glorious, glorious goal! Flapping wings in excitement, the silence of the city cleanses me diagonally, I remove my top hat for fear of deity reprisals. Soft rain vapor sidewalk aroma. Vacuum outwards foot, step! Step! Glorious rhythm of walk and tap! I am walking! Eyes forward, that's right corporal (architecture)!

I begin looking.

Eyes lurking in the Los Angeles mist, I find my vision colliding with neon commercialism, feudal architecture and crackpipe concrete businessman in tweed. These spires of pinksledge shove my skull backwards, shove my body backwards. I stand frozen in picturetube viewing, the chaos of the city

emptying itself exasperatingly into my eyes. Forward motion? Halted by numerous horizontal/diagonal/heat-seeking lines of power and discourse, my soul is written upon by a neon ad exec. A young girl gallops by, clad in Mariachi tradicional, she giggles at my stationary situation. No wait, it's

a crossdresser, a clever concrete robin with vixen dilettante-mask. Well that seals it. She is distraught as I lathe my pupil with the back of my knife, I'm tapdancing to reduce the trauma, but my clotted feathers

annihilate the vector of my compassion. I smile (instead?) but the blood waterfalls over the bridge of my lips, cacophonically into the pain of the jade sidewalk. S/he stumbles off terrified, screaming "-v-v--//-vv-//" But no matter (I decided?)! On to goal.

Sight aborted.

I begin feeling.

Optical sensors sparking against misted Angeles. The wind rebounds off the spires of progress (thank God for it), parallaxing upon my chest, wrapping itself around the 7-11rotating tower-sign and my bleeding corpuscal form, forming a tandem of force, a rubber slice of purpose(!).

Vocals! Movement! Crescendo!

I progress thoroughly forward, sensing my way through the cold, bleak night via vocal echoes. I scream! "-v-//v-v-v-v//-----v" (the voice of madness surely), rebounding off of 110 freeway, within metal Caltrans pipes, thundering into my chest as I faithfully stop up my wounds with gauze (newspaper mud). Screech. Belch. Yell! Directions given, I go this (my?) way, feeling the orientation through the silk-threaded dew of the coming concrete morning. Step. Step. Outstretch hands, reaching like Midas, stepping. Frigid rustmetal greets my handnerve/endings. I've arrived. Setting down my top hat, I lean my saw against the metal tree trunk (sign post?). Saw. Saw. Saw. Progress….?….///no. The saw issues transient echoes within the metropolis of the night-ether. "vvvvvv---///" against my chest. Blood just glopped onto my top hat. Jeez. Saw. Muscles are tensing, adrenaline is fielding questions by the audience members, I'm cutting down a giant 7-11 rotating machine-post for use in my bird nest. Metal shards rain down my forearm like beach sand, I can feel the tower quaking with the power of my wings. Squawk squawk I do! I can feel

the screams of passerbys, they seem to object to a human (for God's sake, a HUMAN) dislocating their architecture. "v-…v//v!!", yes I'm sure that's what they're saying. Boy, I am thinking, can't get far in this city without ears or eyes. Saw. Saw. Saw. I feel a hand upon my shoulder. Saw. Turn. Shout vectors and hostility popping around my blanket of space (….). The predictable rhythm of human anger bubbles around my nerve endings. "v-v-v-v-v-v" I don't even know how to respond to it anymore (a fellow

MAN!). "Squawk!" say my vocal chords (so indifferently, curse them!) as I continue sawing pissing down my leg staining my feathered kneesocks. Oh God, save me from the shame oh no I'm crying. Saw. Saw……..result (?) (!) (….?) . I wag my tail in completive satisfaction, shuffle awkwardly to the side as

I issue a warning to my fellow mans that there is a TIMBER! This giant log comes crashing to our ground! Rattle, shake, oh the ecstasy of man (shit, I'm a bird) breaking things (!). I'm standing in my triumph, surely looking like some sort of hero when one of my eye gauzes falls out. Of course I'm totally embarrassed. Then I pick up my top hat as I walk over to the log that I felled. I pick it up with one arm (?). Then I drag it back to my nest (I'm dragging a 7-11 sign behind me because I'm a bird.) It makes for pretty

ideal nesting material is what I am thinking as I'm dragging this 7-11 sign away. Draaaag, down icy streets and pendulum motor city sidewalks pulling the ether out/in like an elastic bra strap. Ten blocks of ether disturbances and sensory blackness, guided by my sonarbelchsquawks. Finally home! Bending the pipe into an "O", stacking the reeds and branches, I quickly give birth to a healthy baby bird who immediately finds fault with my squalor and flies away all flustered. I mean, that sucks and all, but shit, I sawed apart a 7-11 sign and dragged it ten blocks to my nesting grounds, I'd say that's pretty important. You don't seem to be doing much.

My forehead is chilled by the night air.