Tales of the Mokutu

I was learning proper Irish martial arts on the brave sailor's pier, and listening to the sailor himself, who, when visitors come to his lonely home, sings old sea songs, plays the guitar, and regales them with sea tales.

I was overhearing him tell of his many campaigns. During one particular story, of a sojourn to a town that lay high on the very spine of Nicaragua, I was trying to remove a splinter a full three inches long from my thumb. I had to really dig to get it out. I ended up pulling most of my thumb off and found a metal strut where a bone should have been. Oh, it's true, I thought, having forgotten the splinter.

Imagining what life would be like now that I was a machine. Performing the same task over and over again. Sliding back the handle on the machine each time the light came on, never varying in my rhythm, in a square office room with a team of others who were performing similar tasks. We get a break for mokutu at the appointed time. Each shuffling to the window to ask of the huge-headed creature his preferred configuration of mokutu. Mokutu with blueberries. Mokutu with not so much skin this time.

I could seize the creature and beat him with the mokutu tray, hammer in his great cephalopodian head with my fists. It would be springy like foam-rubber. Like a muppet's head.

The mokutu line-up would proceed once I had worn myself out, and carry on as if nothing had happened.

***

I hate all my venal, greedy friends. I hate them so much. They probably all had sex with their grandmothers when they were kids.
None of them are any good for anything. Then again, they might feel the same way about me, though I personally feel that I am quite conscientious and serious-minded. So I sit down and try to love them. I say "You are my sister and I love you, but you had sex with your grandmother when you were a kid, just like me, and that's why you're so messed up now" and then I go back to hating them.

That's why I went to the therapist, so they could figure out what was wrong with me, exactly. There was another guy there, an older guy with a mustache. He was saying that he had an "emotional dysfunction" known as Voltaggio's Syndrome, the main symptom of which is chronic rationalization organized around the theme of negating any insight which results in a sense of greater emotional well-being. Just can't help it. It sounded made-up to me.

The great big therapist woman hadn't heard of it either. She was searching in the computer for some article on it. All she came up with was some information on the artist Phineas G. Phine, who had illustrated my Latin textbook. So I offered to take the guy down into the library and help him do some research in the databanks. We could set the record straight on Voltaggio's Syndrome and then proceed on to whatever my problem was.

Every time I would uncover some new piece of information which suggested VS was not a real condition, Mustache would explain why it was useless. It wasn't long before I found myself beating him over the head with a computer keyboard and screaming, "you idiot you had sex with your grandmother no one can help you now" over and over.

***

The brave sailor and I spoke of the many books. The Book of Shadows. The Book of Winds. The story of the children who all hated each other. The one child who had the wise old horse-face and grew up to be the wisest of the children. These are good books. You should read them.