The Warehouse Collective

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Going Dark (Emma Clark)

The power went out,

And something in my constitution snapped.

I did not feel the rupture

The snap and crack of breaking bone

But more did I come up gasping for air

A sprain on a limb far removed from your lungs

That somehow knocks the wind right out of you.

The water came thick and fast through my eyes

Expressing the heaviness that weighed on my soul

Not broken but strained

Feeling powerless.

Just like the lightbulbs.

The power went out,

I dug out a match,

And lit a candle.

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Courtesy of Flickr: 

Image from page 31 of "Hart's annual army list, militia list and yeomanry cavalry list" (1902) by Internet Archive Book Images

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The Living Room (Love + Radio)

  Check out the Love + Radio link for this story here!

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[thewarehousecollective]

In Defense of Bipedaled Sentience (Natalie Gallagher)

       Addressed with sincerity to the generally of beings,

        Pleasantries to the community of sexually attractive thems. We are here today, the entire community of mutually supportive microentities that constitute my deceptively independent corpus, to persuade constituents of all universes with which we currently maintain contact that bipedalism is not only the true history of sentience but also the future.

       We know, dear beings, that this is a controversial claim on both counts. At question is our lowest-common denominator value: efficiency. How could two legs be more efficient than our four? Even if it happened in the past, clearly the great evolutionary conscious guided us away, into our current pristine form. And yet, dear ones, we must protest. We will begin with evidence that past eons of sentient beings were, indeed, bipedal.

       First, shoeboxes. We have well established how shoes were erroneously used to cover obviously superior bare feet, in an era when Homo sapiens feared nature. However, a dismissal of their adherence to capitalism has led some along us to unwisely discount the crucial evidence of their containers - my dear friends, only two shoes could fit per box. To those who claim they sold back and front pairs separately, please see the slide behind me illustrating new decoding of the archaic lettering on the boxes themselves, indicating independent sale.

       Secondly, photographs. Much art before our current age was destroyed in the literal fires of revolution that ushered in our civilization. Until a few years ago, I believed that the remaining pieces depicting bipedalism were fanciful, images of sapiens wishing prepubescence lasted forever, that adulthood and the attendant growth of final appendages could be put off eternally. I no longer believe this. Look at today's radicals, my dears. Suspend, briefly, the hegemonic narrative that their digital reclamation of ancient artistic data is false. Try trusting them - Instagram was real. So was Facebook. And so were all the endearingly naive bipedals you can see throughout the reconstructed "world wide web."

       They were certainly flawed - the scary separation of sentients by reproductive role, the false impression of individual entativity and will, the lack of comprehension of physics, the total inability to communicate with even the close parallel universes - these were real errors. But our local-farm-grown offspring have these flaws, and we consider them beings, do we not? Why is bipedalism dangerous? Why does it scare us to the marrow of our bird-fragile bones? Think about our hospitals, our airborne cities, our complacency. Think about the pain of growing your third and fourth legs, how little you could do during that time, how much you loved and appreciated your surrounders, wanting to be them. We are here, in public, to suggest that quadrupedalism efficiently integrated us but degraded non-aggregate competence. Will you hear us?

       [restive noises from crowd]

       Ultimately last, we are here to tell you we bent the consensus-based guidances of communal conduct. We took a time-shifter into the ages of white noise, specifically 2018. We are sorry to tell you that you have all been deceived - travel then is not only possible, it is arousing and fascinating. By travelling with friendly people - called "carnies" in their own time - we were able to pass undetected and forge truly intimate relationships, with ubiquitous carnal connections but an honest exchange of feelings so shamelessly out of vogue today. One of the carnies we held dear agreed to come back with us, and has been quietly living in nimbus central for nine months. Today, right now, we present to you our perfect partner and the beautiful bipedal product of our personal coitus - the future. Dear ones, meet Argus and Phoebus.

       [gasps]

       [gunshot]

       [screams]

       Over the loudspeaker: leave now. The consensual committee cannot yet ascertain if it's clearly dangerous neurodiversity is contagious.

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Courtesy of Tumblr.

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March Long Track (Michael Donnay)

Twitter Handle: @drop_the_mike

11:25 AM – 3 Mar 15

After a long and arduous journey I found the Holy Grail – I know where Marko keeps his candy stash now #stealingforthecause

11:26 AM – 3 Mar 15

Update: The Grail has been exhausted. On to my next meal….

9:55 PM – 7 Mar 2015

Such scare. Much fright. Very blackbox. Wow @fleatheater @the feast @divasaxa

10:15 PM – 8 Mar 2015

Show tonight was a real knockout Amazing to see site-specific work in such a powerful space Also boxing rings are bouncy and that’s fun @divasaxa

2:01 AM – 17 Mar 2015

After several hours reading this show in the @LXR1 common room, I surprised no one has called @GU_DPS yet #killerjoe #techstartstomorrow

4:46 PM – 17 Mar 2015

Look up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity and my eyes burned with anguish and anger #adapted #

11:25 PM – 18 Mar 2015

We finished an entire act on time. No one got hurt. Nothing went wrong. I’m worried. #tech

8:35 PM – 20 Mar 2015

A strange man walks into a space and 2 hours later everyone is dead and no one is hurt #fightchoreo #tech #killerjoe

1:24 PM – 22 Mar 2015

The shop has become a warzone. Sparks and timber fly through the room. I duck for cover only to be slain by a humble zip tie #itsnotevenmyshow

6:35 PM – 25 March 2015

We open in less that two hours @c_livesay and I are covered in blood, carrying around loaded weapons and chicken fingers – What could go wrong?

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[thewarehousecollective]

Lostman: Or (The Unexpected Dumbness of Strangers) (T. Chase Meacham)

Oh my God, I love her hair. Yeah.

Am I recording? I think so.

I think I’m recording.

  Oh...hey.

  Um. I’m....I’m lost?

I’m trying to go...to the Court House.

  The Court House. It’s where they try people—

I’m not arrested.

But I need to go...you would? Okay.

  Maybe we should start over.

I'm lost.

  ...a Court House. The Court House Station.

The “orange” one?

Can you...can you help me get there?

Okay.

We’re right here. That was amazing. Can you be this direct, until we get to the Court House?

That’s amazing.

  Ah. My name is, ah...um. Theodore.

  Yeah.

  It’s nice to meet you too. What is your name?

Ferdinand?

That’s amazing. If I was a girl I would have been named Ferdinand. So my parents tell me.

  And they’re assassins?

  Oh.

I’ve already forgotten.

I have a really small memory.

I’m just not very bright. It’s a thing that I struggle with.

  There’s a train.

  A Court House. From this way? Alright.

Well I guess we must.

Okay. I’m gonna mind the gap.

Okay.

Alright. We’re gonna sit here.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkay.

Oh goodie.

  Ah. So, this is a new train system?

I haven’t seen this before.

No.

I’ve never been here before.

I’ve been in DC, I’ve never seen trains. Yeah.

Ah...like with the, um, like the big balloons?

Oh, those are the submarines! Okay.

Ah, I haven’t seen planes.

I’ve seen cars. With the horses.

I’m not on Facebook, so I’m a little behind.

  I have a Friendster. I follow hip bands on it.

Yeah. (clears throat) I’m trying to set the trends. (clears throat again) I’m...retroactively setting the trends.

I’m trying to backpedal. I’m trying to reconnect with my 90s friends.

Yeah.

  You know, what I just heard from my 2000s friends?? There’s going to be a Pokémon app....for iPhone!

I mean a Pokémon app for iPhone! So you can play your Pokémon on your iPhone!!

Amazing. I am so fucking excited.

That will be the day I will officially get nothing done. For the rest of my life.

I played Gold Version. Competitively.

Against myself. And my friends.

I was really....self-motivated, with my Pokémon. I felt like I had to catch them all.

Has anyone ever told you, you look like Ash Katchum?

  Why does my....my hair looks like shit today?

It really looks disgusting....my friend was like, “what the fuck product are you using, and can I introduce you to literally any other product, because this looks disgusting.” Because really. And it’s like tacky, and it’s...

I gotta get it fixed. Gotta go back to my drag queen barber.

My drag queen barber.

  I’m sorry Thaddeus.

Oh wait, that’s me. I’m sorry. What’s your name?

Ferdinand? I...I tend to repeat and, and get names confused. I’m just really sl—

I thought my name was Thaddeus?

I’m not very bright.

I’m sorry.

  My mom tells me I’m special.

...to be quiet and go upstairs.

Yeah. Um.

  Ah...no.

What about?

The what??

....is that the....African American rights group?

Ohhhh, okay, the basketball group.

I, I don’t do sports.

I try to keep it hip.

  I don’t do competitive eating. I used to do Rubik’s Cube spin-offs.

Yeah.

They put a bunch of us in a big room with a bear, and we had to solve Rubik’s Cubes....

...before the bear solved the Rubik’s Cubes.

He knew the algorithms, so well. I mean it’s just...you get that thing on muscle memory and it’s just, there’s no contest. I lost a lot of friends that way.

  They’d wet the...

And shove it down.

  Do you competitively eat?

Whole chickens? Like, living chickens?

You just wet them and shove them down?

Oh, wow. That sounds very hard. Do you eat the feathers, or spit them out?

Ohhhhh, so it’s like a decoration! Like you’re making a little headdress!

So, you don’t have to eat the bird?

  I’M VERY VAIN!

And very slow.

  Ah. So you play basketball?

Competitively?

The heavyweight?

Ohhhh. You know I was once on the Purple Team at St. Agatha’s Elementary Parish. We all had colors, because we all played each other. And I think they thought that if we all had colors we wouldn’t get attached, and overly competitive. And we’d be under this guise that everyone was a winner, which was abjectly false, because I was so much worse than virtually everyone else on the team.

But my daddy was the vice-coach, so I still got to play!

(Though I did not want to.)

I think he wanted me...yeah. Daddy wanted me to be a star.

I tried....golf. Tennis. Basketball. Ice hockey, for literally one game.

I tried mud wrestling. Yeah. That was tough because I didn’t like to get the little leotards dirty...and it was really hard to avoid doing that. Yeah.

  Boil?

Oh, oil.

Yeah I do a little Turkish Oil Wrestling.

We’d go to bathhouses for that.

Yeah. Mom telling me that I was special, and dad telling me to be quiet, as they drove me to the bathhouse.

  Yeah. Columbus is...

It’s the bathhouse capital. At least in the Midwest. We’re known for corn, and gay brothels.

Or gothels.

That’s where our gothels are!

Our gothels! A little squeak. You kind of got to pop it up into your falsetto, and then they let you in.

  Um. I have a dog...

I had a pet rat...

The pet rat had some medical complications, and so we got the pet rat surgery. Which my father said was a fucking waste of money.

  Um...

It was never disclosed.

But, more than it cost, by many folds.

Ah...it had a mammary tumor.

And we...we got it removed. Um.

And my father said, gently... “this thing cost five dollars, at the Petco down the street."

Ironically, my sisters’ rats, about six months after that, got diagnosed with medical pneumonia and had to be kept in an oxygen tent for surveillance overnight, and then fed antibiotics via syringe, every day for two weeks.

And again, my father said, politely: “these things, collectively, cost ten dollars. Down the street."

  Yeah.

  Um.

It’s a lot of rat-love.

  Now I just keep a couple little urchins under the stairs.

Yeah.

Little urchin boys.

No, like children. Orphans.

Boy sea urchins. Oirchins.

They do chores.

They speak Portuguese.

I keep them covered in soot. I think that's good for their stamina; it makes them sweep harder...

They’re sweepers.

A little chimney. But I only give them toothbrushes because I think that makes them appreciate...

Yeah.

  Um.

Yeah. If they, if they, if they sweep successfully, they get a little biscuit.

Like a little dog biscuit.

A couple of Milk Bones.

  They both go woof?

Yeah, I try to keep it real.

I’m told that I’m a good parent.

My mom tells me that.

My dad tells me to be quiet and go upstairs.

...go back to the bathhouse, to...

  Oh, she’s darling. She is a....

  Debutante Mistress. She’s a Debutante Mistress. Yeah.

  She was Miss Southern Belle, class of 1942.

42.

But she has clung on to that title.

She was a tyke. She was one of those little toddlers who do those things.

She was the first.

And little corsets. Really fucked up her spine.

But she looked just darling.

She’s really competitive though, so she goes back every year.

  Corsets. Heels. Yeah.

I was...I’m a lot of things to my mother.

I’m just very slow.

I was her pretty little girl. And she put me in what she won with, in 1940...whatever it was.

2.

I was her pretty little girl. And then I was...

I was briefly her pretty little...

I was...

I was briefly Miss Debutante Ball, Miss 1996. But then mom came back in 97 and took the title away.

She’s got a cherub face, and a big trophy case.

When you win, they give you a little flower, and a BOTOX® shot. Which, as like a six year-old, was not very...

  I think you can save it, yeah. So, you know, if you want to go in the working world for a while, and then come back and shoot back down to your six year-old performance self. You can make it happen.

  So, that’s a little about me.

My name’s, um...

  Ah.

  Um.

  Teddy?

  Okay.

Close enough.

Um...

  Veronica?

Frederick!

Fuckin...Froxen...

  Fox and the Hound, this has been so...

I still don’t know where I’m going. But I’m going to try and wander.

Ah.

Peace to where you’re going.

And wish me well.

  Okay.

  I’m already lost.

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Voices (Kelley Kidd) & Curiosity (Kelley Kidd)

Voices

  The echo of my mother's tone

wraps around the back

of my mind, resonant in

my words as I ask a question--

and in it, I feel the shame of

when she didn't know the answers

to my silly math questions.

  I hesitate as I write, hearing "show, don't tell"

in the blended voice of the English teacher who changed my life--

though I hardly remember what we read--

and the one who promised I was good,

and the other student I kissed once, telling me

not to spell it out so much.

  The vocals in my headphones imprinted

with images of explanations, bits and pieces,

now half knowledge I've gathered

into some semblance of "my" taste.

  The doubt echos in them all

"Psh."

"Like you get it."

That one belongs to no one,

comes with no clear melange of faces or voices.

It hears itself in all the voices it hears,

but is ownerless.

  I am a mirrored sliver of the infinite emptiness,

The shivering energy of everything

Engrained in the movement of on all sides

Uniquely reverberating the combination of nearby familiar patterns

A shape carved from negative space by negative space

A deep peaceful silence echoing back the echos that have been echoing off other silences for the rest of time

My voice fears its echos, forward and back, hiding from the inevitability of being part of the whole, shaped and shorn

But emptiness can't experience without a vessel, and the vessel is made of experience.

    Curiosity

  Breathing in, my lungs expand.

The oxygen--or what I imagine is oxygen--

permeates my cells, and I feel each one

exhale, relieved for the energy.

  The center of my mind grows less chaotis, and its edges more vast. The clamoring mob of thought beasts is unexpectedly calmed, their needs all assuaged at once by the introduction of possibility. They cease to hurl themselves frantically at the small pool in the middle of it all, splashing and muddling its waters. They pause, look around, see the shimmering spaces of endless unexplored  forests and clearings, fed by the quiet calm waters they've finally let flow. And as they wander, the edges around them grow outward around them, filling with vibrancy--flowers, birds, songs, colors, life. Instead of clamoring to be cleansed of their own existence, they find themselves newly at home in what grows around them.

  One, a shadowy mass built of patchworked fears, lays down in the speckled light and shadows pouring through the trees, basking. Another, a matted fur so dense that its shape is indistinguishable, unravels itself slowly and gently between the branches until it spans the breadth of the woods in a complicated, intricate, elegant web. The one whose whole being is flickering light spreads outward, shining and reflecting off everything in the expanse, glittering in the water, glowing through the trees. Images, information, static, and feedback pour in and flow through the various stations of the thought beasts, each leaving the other transformed, altered by interaction.

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Transit (Natalie Gallagher)

Who on this train has felt threatened?

As the red line rolls along I can't help but wonder

Whether the closeness and cooperation

That cities require

Is actually

Driving us further apart

As unknown people enter our personal space

With our tacit

But not necessarily pleased

Consent