Codename Prague (18 page)

*

 
“Every word…becomes a spear turned against the speaker. Most especially a remark like this. And so ad infinitum. The only consolation would be: it happens whether you like it or no. And what you like is of infinitesimally little help. More than consolation is: You too have weapons.” Franz Kafka, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir, Final Diary Entry (1923).

*

To come to terms with the phrase “in terms of.” Mediation as a form of crapola. So…connect the dots. Compress the Kevin Bacons from Six to Double Negative Infinity Zero Degrees of Meaning…

*

 
“Trying to trace the origin of this idea one must assume some misunderstanding of the symbolic meaning of the act of defecation, namely that he who entered into a special relationship with divine rays as I have is to a certain extent entitled to shit on all the world.” Daniel Paul Schreber, trans. Ida Macalpine,
Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
(1901).

*

 
“…City of Ur…” Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane, “The Urstaat,”
Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
(1972). Arcologies against the green vastness. Futurespeak. Cold coffee in an expensive shot glass. Timelapse of storm clouds…

*

 
“Not wholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdröckh now storm through the world; at worst as a spectre-fighting Man, nay who will one day be a Spectre-queller. If pilgriming restlessly to so many ‘Saints’ Wells,’ and ever without quenching of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little secular wells, whereby from time to time some alleviation is ministered. In a word, he is now, if not ceasing, yet intermitting to ‘eat his own heart’; and clutches round him outwardly on the NOT-ME for wholesomer food. Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a much more natural state?” Thomas Carlyle,
Sartor Resartus
(1830-31).
^[16]

32

Houses of If II: The Sequel

Chapter 08 happens again exactly as it happened the first time with one small difference: instead of Styx’s “Mr Roboto,” they played Mr Mister’s “Broken Wings”…

33

Elevator Pitch

Imagine these words rolling across the page in green clock/radio blips. Behind the words, unrelated sepia-toned action sequences…

Get a bunch of dipshits to live in the same hellhole and provide them with a series of insignificant competitions to keep their minds off the certainty of death. Shoot footage for two months. Insert a lifelike mannequin with hair and clothes and everything and see how people react; nail its feet to the floorboards in the living room so nobody steals it. Shoot footage for six months. Zombify the mannequin and equip it with sentience and superhuman strength. Shoot footage until everybody dies. FADE OUT. Image of a scuba diver machinegunning sharks in a filmosophic aquarium surrounded by thousands of idle spectators. A softcore sex scene; the woman wears gaudy lingerie and hasn’t shaved her armpits. FADE IN on the mannequin standing on a street corner in futuristic Prague. The mannequin is much taller than the faceless pedestrians that course beneath it. One man, however, about the same height as the mannequin, stops abruptly, circles it a few times, and looks into its eyes. He places a hand on the mannequin’s chest in search of a heartbeat. The wind gets loud, louder…SHRIEK-CUT TO a long-range shot of Alaskan tundra. Tall, thin city on the horizon. Shoot footage indefinitely. At some point the silhouette of a man trudges onscreen. We can hear his scarves and coattails flap in the wind. He makes it halfway across the screen and falls down. FIN.

If this doesn’t work, resort to the plot of every single episode of
The Incredible Hulk
(1978-82): protag hitchhikes into small redneck town,
smalltown rednecks fuck with protag, protag turns green and beats up smalltown rednecks in slow motion, protag hitchhikes out of small redneck town…

If this doesn’t work, diverge from machinic plots containing changelings and focus on static bodies, i.e., do an Amerikan pastoral featuring an everyman who can change into the city of Kyoto but maintains an anthropomorphous endoskeleton from beginning to…

…scene in which two gentlemen discuss whether or not their peer is a human or an android. “The only way to tell is to cut him open,” says Gentleman #1. Gentleman #2 agrees. They cut Gentleman #3 in half with a chainsaw and he bleeds paper drink umbrellas. “He’s human,” says Gentleman #2. “Only androids bleed real-looking blood.” Gentleman #1 says, “Oh no. We are guilty of murder.” They study the severed halves of their peer. “Let’s just tell the jury it happened on TV,” says Gentleman #1. Gentleman #2 agrees…

42

Houses of If III: The Interquel

(a.k.a. Revenge of the Scikungfighter)

Prague paid for another ride on the time machine and took it to the end of chapter 08. He accepted a box of cigarettes from Cdre Rabelais, punched Cdre Rabelais, and set the time machine’s controls for the end of chapter 17. He went too far and ended up back in chapter 32, where he exacted revenge on Armand Dorleac and Doktor Ray B Flechsig by way of prehistorically cruel and unusual acts of disembowelment. At last he reached his destination, six paragraphs from the end of chapter 17.

…“Ekphrasis!” said Codename Prague. He stormed down the aisle…

…“I know the difference,” snapped the doktor. “Difference is the payload of identity…”

44B

Daikaiju
Blues in the Bruce Lee Funpark

CNP = Codename Prague. BL = Bruce Lee. TSM = The Sans Merci a.k.a. the Hitler/Keats Hybrid +
Daikaiju
Monster. DK =
Daikaiju
. And = &. Etc. = etc. Etc.…

*

Somebody cut off CNP’s hand as he exited the back door of the theater. A stale martini gushed into the alleyway. He made a pit stop at the Hotel Prague. In the Galactic Pot-Healer Suite, Mädchen “The Prague” Prague and her brother Henrí waited for him, arm in arm. He punched them out. He retrieved a replacement mitt from the briefcase & the mitt welded itself to his wrist. He took off his clothes & put on the trendiest organic exoskeleton in the closet. He drank half a glass of water, handcuffed himself to the briefcase, & left.

“Herr Amboßmann,” wheezed “The Prague,” groping for him…

On the sidewalk in front of the Hotel Prague a doorman had either been strangled or trampled by a passerby. “There are no marks on his neck,” observed one of several bystanders who had gathered around the victim. “And yet there he lays, gasping for breath.”

Another bystander said, “Note how, at the same time, he clutches various sectors of his person, which indicates that those sectors may have been accosted by shoes, boots, or what have you.”

“Where’d he go?” said CNP, out of breath.

“He’s lying right here on the sidewalk.” The bystander motioned at the doorman.

“No. The fella did this to him. What direction did he go in? The monster, I mean.”

“Jean-Claude Van Damme?”

A paperback novel struck CNP in the the head. “
Weichling!
” shouted TSM from halfway down the block. The monster ran away.

Dazed, CNP pushed the bystanders aside. He tripped over the doorman & stumbled into the street. He fell down. He narrowly escaped the path of a mastodonic streetsweeper, rolling to the other side of the street into the gutter. He got up. Looked around. Traffic. Strobe lights. Cranes. People pointing at him.

No sign of TSM.

He used a nosedove to pick up the monster’s scent. He salvaged the novel & let the nosedove sniff it.

“What’s it smell like?” asked a bystander.

“Don’t ask rhetorical questions,” replied CNP & slipped on chrome goggles. He applied the nosedove. It became one with his face, sprouted a set of florid white wings, & lifted him off the ground.

Lips pursed, the nosedove fluttered like a hummingbird & ferried him up & down streets & alleyways & fire escapes at a deafening speed & the city became a corridor of lighting into which he plunged the city pressed down on him he felt like it might collapse dream city dreams of the future nocturnal eidetic
voyages extraordinaires
spatiotemporal techniques illuminated by magic lanterns séances brain-rattling ribbons of spleen façade snapshot-snapshot the corpuscle inhales crepuscular cultureofkaleidoscopicfringe…

Consciousness returned to him hovering over a slingpad. He disengaged the nosedove. Its wings stopped flapping & it slid from his face like an egg.

CNP hit the ground in mid-stride. As always, he cut in line. A few wilburies nursed wounds.

The flight attendant’s arm had been dislocated, wrapped around the back of his neck like a stick of tinfoil. He continued to work, though, using his good arm to operate the machine.

“Patience is a verdict,” said the flight attendant disapprovingly.

CNP poked him in the chest. “Cut the shit, Johnnycake. Who knocked your block off?”

He pointed at the night sky.

“Where’d he go?”

An overweight new arrival missed a pillow & greased the concrete. The flight attendant sneezed. “He’s a man of the crowd. Where do all men of the crowd go? China.
Hong Kong
.”

A shiver accompanied CNP’s blunt grin…

“He’s the type & genius of deep crime,” said the flight attendant as a tranzbubble formed on the launching pad. “He refuses to be alone. It will be in vain to follow. You will learn no more of him. Nor of his deeds.”

“Fill that thing up with rail scotch. I need a good hangover to even me out. Let’s not forget my briefcase.” He uncuffed himself & fed the briefcase to the tranzbubble.

*

Halfway over Khazikstan-22, CNP snorted awake & called the main office. The images of CR & AW sprayed onto a gel-screen. They sat in an empty white room behind a black fold-out table in oversized, overstarched UMUs.
Pointless SAMSAs flanked either side of the table. CR & AW looked simultaneously
irate & anesthetized. Whatever the case, they had been awaiting his call.

“Mom. Sis,” said CNP.

“Not funny enough,” said AW.

“Horseshit, Administrator Wichita. I’m all kinds of funny.”

CR said, “Where have you been?”

CNP said, “You know where I’ve been.”

CR said, “We want to hear where you think you’ve been. & what you’ve done.”

“That’s what we’d like to know,” added AW.

“I’ve done what I’ve been told, Commodore Rabelais,” said CNP, eyeballing AW.
“I always do what I’m told. I’m a robot.” He made robot motions with his arms.