Game

It is time for our game. Do not worry it is not a long game. I don’t play long games. You don’t play long games, if you did you would not be here. Sometimes I wish I would or could. There are such games that are long but our game will be short. Within the life span of a thought, as ephemeral as a desire, the game will unfold. You must keep in mind that it is a game and only a game and nothing more. Do not get lost. Stay on the path. Do not enter those woods. No not there, that labyrinth is dangerous. Keep away from the libertine. Watch out for the vampire. She is a femme fatale. He’s there behind you! It’s a game. We should not fool ourselves that it is something more than a game. This happens. Inevitable. It is not a difficult game. It is a simple game. Yes, simple. I am simple. You are not simple. You are amazing. This is not flattery. NO! The game is a mimesis of human thought. Bang! The gun went off. The boy killed his father for the box. She opened her legs and flashed her fanny. The farmer finally got the cows to moo. He opened the door and saw his dead father and the dead father said close the door I have something to tell you. Upon the wall the police found a – they did not know what they had found. They were perplexed and astonished. It is my wall she said. The game has begun. It is a game. A game! Life is but a game said Shakespeare – I think. Watch. The telephone rang. I mean listen. “Please leave me alone,” she said. The King married the Whore. STOP! This is how we killed all the stinking Communists. She was twelve and precocious and beautiful. The Grand Duke Hybergurgbur had a map of an island that was filled with fantastic beasts. He liked to show this map of this island with its fantastic beasts to little girls. For him the map was a playground. A game, of sorts. Our game is progressing. I lead and you follow. The rules are malleable, but they are rules, nevertheless. I promise I will not take you somewhere you do not want to go. “Fuck me with that hard cock,” he said, spreading his cheeks and exposing his winking anus. Sarah just wanted to be humiliated and beaten. She lost her ring. He won her ring. They kissed his ring. “Now we are married,” said the Whore to the King.  The Uggzque pulled out its weapon and kooooooooooooper! Forget all of your troubles I am here now. We have played this game many times before, remember that, it is important. The vulgarity! the profanity! the violence! All apart of life, the game, Mr. Shakespeare, I am afraid. We should not shy away, pretend that life is but an illyic walk in the park. Not that park! Filled with gorgons and perverts in Macintoshes. Who was the man in the brown Macintosh? please tell us Mr. Joyce and end the game. Wait! Slow down. I know you want to lead but I must lead that is the main rule of the game. She answered the telephone. It was the Uggzque. Moo! Moo! Moon! Moon!  We both know that you will try to lead but this is just part of the game.  During the game, of course, I will present the illusion that you are leading but this is an illusion and illusions are full of mendacity. He handed her the bag. – We’ve had these before, she said, after opening the bag of drugs. – You are repeating yourself. Remember the game is based on veracity. Real life. Not pretend. You are pretentious dear man. Is not pretentious pretending – playing the game – living life – dreaming. You and me. The sun. The moon. Moo! Look out of the window. The man with the gun stood by the opened window and waited.  There are certain truths to be found in the simulacrum, in the verisimilitude. The game. It is a con. A trick. Magic. I say the carpet is a bed and that my coat is a pillow and you know my coat is not a real pillow and the carpet is not a bed but still you lie down and open wide. My influence. My desire. My wish for metamorphosis. Open your legs. Wider. Thank you. You are playing the game. A wall of penises! -Hair! he cried. He opened the box and found a lock of his late mother’s hair. I promise you this time the game will make you happy. The last time we played, I noticed, you left vexed. You wanted to stop playing. You did. But you know the game. You cannot stop the game. The game has to finish. It has to reach the end. Beware of false cul-de-sacs. Don’t got caught in that dead end. Watch out for the hole! Do not get angry, be not vexed, do not cry, we are almost there. The Grand Duke Hybergurgbur took Princess Xeni into his Grotto and showed her his map.  Fear struck her. Fantastic beasts. Big and Ugly with sharp teeth. The last of the Uggzque was hounded from its hiding place by dogs. The farmer welcomed the television crowds onto his farm so they too could hear his cows moo moo the word moon. The writer drowned in a pool of ink. If only! It’s a game.  All games are based upon the labyrinth. – It’s the fuzz, she said, before handing him the telephone. Within the game there are many false deadends. Red herrings. The man with the gun looked out of the opened window and watched the bank manager unlock the bank doors. Red Herrings! Can you smell them? fishy! Some games pretend to be otherwise but they are playing with you. Toying with you. Messing with you. Even laughing at you. Yes, mocking you. The hard man tells his tale and climbs into bed and dreams of his mother. The junkie closer to St. Augustine than the death writes his big book and collects the money and buys a new car. The game. She had the most beautiful fanny in the world. I took a second drink and asked her to wait. I will allow you to change the words. Fanny for cunt say. You can rearrange any sentence. Go back and have a go. Not that sentence. Now I am closer to Julius Caesar than Apollonius of Tyana. I’m sorry. I am playing God again. Let us continue. I will give you the freedom to reshape the landscape, to populate the topography, to annihilate all even. -Hair! he sighed. We will lie down under a waning sun but still the warmth left behind lingering like a dream will allow us to disrobe. Why penises asked the police and the woman said penises are a lot cheaper than good fabric. The man with the gun watched and waited. After twenty cocks his winking anus started to impinge upon his hot desire. Princess Xeni pointed to the places where the Grand Duke Hybergurgbur explored and expelled those fantastic beasts. Cosmoses. The Uggzque were peaceful until man showed up in his spaceship. – I once loved you, she said, but murder. Oh god what are we going to do? “Please fuck me again.” The punch to the chin knocked him to the ground, he reached for the hammer, and leapt to his feet. You will lie down and I will enter you or I will lie down and you will enter me. The game calls for it. – You old bastard you fought over this over this how the hell can I sell this for the drugs I need.  The game allows such things. Now close your eyes and think of the ways you would have fashioned the game. How you would have played the game in the boundaries of your new rules. “Don’t come yet,” he moaned even though the pain was immense and stretching like his winking anus. The man with the gun at the opened window lit a cigarette. There must be more than two hundred cocks here said the police man. I demand for my winking anus to be filled! The cows suddenly refused to moo moo the word moon. Gawddamnit Communists! shouted the farmer. The Grand Duke Hybergurgbur was beheaded. Now the new rules that you have constructed dictates the game. You extemporize and create new trajectories. The fight started over a box both cherished. You complicate the game. The Grand Duke Hybergurgbur’s ghost haunted the bedrooms of little girls. You circumvent the old rules believing your new rules improve the game. He awoke from a dream. The man with the gun closed the window and put on his Macintosh. Mr. Joyce! You construct from pieces plucked from the dark recesses. You show me the School of Fontainebleau and I show you Agnolo Bronzino’s Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time and you show me Caravaggio’s Amore Vincitore and I show you Boucher’s Madmoiselle huuuummmm O’Murphy and you show me Manet’s Olympia. The Whore that married the King was not a Whore but a Princess that had been locked in a grotto for many years with an ogre for a husband. “You have such a beautiful penis,” he said, caressing the sleeping penis.  We remember poetry and snippets of literature. We talk about the writers we remember and love. Rabelais!  Dostoevsky! P.K. Dick! We sing tunes with made up lyrics. We invent foreign words for the arias we cannot remember. Uggzque Uggzque Uggzque. We reenact the movies we have seen and some we have not seen. Princess Xeni with the Sword of Subburnabla banished the Grand Duke Hybergurgbur’s ghost to hell and all the young girls cheered. I got the idea from a French book she said. – You stupid boy, said the dead father.  It is here. This point. This juncture. In this muddle of memories. You have made the game too difficult. I now decide to bring us back to the old game. Aha! The short game. There is no topography to speak of, to compare, to contrast. There are no lanes, roads, motorways. There are no streams, lakes, seas. There are no hamlets, towns, cities. You look at me with the eyes of a child waking not in his/her own bed.  You look around the room, seeking points of reference that will confirm you are safe. You are safe. SAFE! It’s just a bloody game. A game. Remember. You were lost for second. Welcome back. The perplexity of disorientation; the blurring of geography. Fades. Slowly. Yes. It’s the game. We are playing the game. Well not anymore. Here ends the game. Goodbye!

Tony Litman