by alfred vitale
the genius, celebrating his lonely 71st birthday, was doodling on an old newspaper while listening to a new race record by Bukka White called "Parchman's Farm Blues"keeping sure to play it low lest the neighbors hear it and complain again about his "nigro music".
he glanced down at his doodle during the part where bukka sang, "judge gave me...life this mawwninnn'....down on....parchman's faaaarm..." and saw that he had penned an odd sentence.gobbledy-gook, for the most part, but readible. he shrugged it off and without a second thought, threw the newspaper out since it was old and now, written on.
that night, he had a long dreamso long that it seemed to continue into his waking hours. he dreamed that there was a big dark opening in the sky that had the sound "AAAA" coming out of it, then he was in a forest with the devil and the devil turned into a large, thin bird who stood up and held a pen, the bird pointed at him and said "YOU" and then the bird flew up to the sun and blended with the sun so that it was a big winged sun that flew into the blue sky and became a small dot that buzzed "MMMMMM". the genius woke up and felt dizzy. after a cold shower, the genius walked to work and kept hearing the sound "IAO" and turning around to see if anyone was saying it. he didn't think about the doodle on the newspaper, but as you and i are reading this, we know that what happens has everything to do with the doodle (or else the writer wouldn't have mentioned it).
later in the day, that doodled sentence seemed to rudely pop up in his head while he talked to coworkers at the automatfitting itself into the conversation in such a way that he wasn't sure if he had imagined it or actually said it. this went on for about a week until he began to hear it repeatedly most of his waking hoursit became a mantra that started to make no sense, it was nonsensicaland it was deafening, atonal and cacophonous. yet, in comparison to the other voices in his head, it was mild. it certainly didn't prevent him from his daily routines. by the end of the second week, he had started to see symbols in front of his eyes that appeared as a three dimensional sphere with a cross stabbing through it. the cross would stab at the sphere harder and harder and harder then it would crumble. of course nobody else saw this, he figured, since none of the newspapers said that there was anything strange going on. maybe it was a ghost, he reasoned, but then he thought "since when do ghosts look like symbols?". within a month, the symbols were appearing everywhere. he opened up books and it was there, he went to see picture shows and there would be pictures of it all over the place. he thought he might have to go back to the sanitarium because at least there, this wouldn't be such an odd thing.
now the genius finds himself inside the sphere, watching for the cross to come in and smash it, but it never comes. and it's frightening and warm inside here. i don't think i'll ever want to leave so maybe i won't. i won't leave ever. but there's this quivering wheel, and the sound of that sentence again and there's this way out that keeps opening and closing and a flowing ocean of some kind that surrounds me. do i want to go away from this? do i want to see what's out there? i may as well. after all, if it didn't matter, i wouldn't have noticed it. i go outside
and the doctor pulled the infant's head out and the infant cried and a writer was standing outside the delivery room thinking "the way out is the way in".