Week 84: Erased Post

I wrote it and erased it, with a thick pink eraser. But I could still see the markings on the page so I crumpled the page and tossed it in the garbage can under the sink. Then I went to the porch to smoke a cigarette and think about something new to write. But all I could think about was that crumpled piece of paper sitting in the trash can surrounded by coffee grounds, and old beer cans. By the time I had finished the cigarette I had made my decision. I went back inside and dug the piece of paper out of the trashcan and went back to the porch and lit it on fire while holding on to one corner of it. A kid playing with a skateboard on the street looked over at me burning my erased piece of paper. That kid knows nothing about erasing and burning. I held on to the piece of paper until the fire burnt my fingers and I had to let it go. I laid the blackened remains of the erased paper on the ashtray and made sure everything had been turned to ashes. Then I lit the tiny little Achilles heel of the erased paper and watched that also turn to ashes.

By then I was feeling somewhat ritualistic about the whole thing so I lifted the ashtray over my head in a dramatic pose, and waited for the kid on the street to look over. Once he saw the weird man holding the ashtray with both hands above his head, I brought the full ashtray down and emptied it into my mouth. It was gross. The kid thought it was gross. I then took a deep breath and swallowed the ashes, sat back down and lit another cigarette and tried to think of something new to write about.

But again all I could think about was those ashes in my belly. I thought maybe I should try to re-write the words I had erased, but I couldn’t remember what I had written. Not even the general idea of it. Weird. I’d only written it a few minutes before. Oh well, must not have been that good. My stomach didn’t feel good either, like I had burning embers in my belly. Maybe eating the ashes was not such a funny thing to do. I finished my cigarette and went to get something to drink, maybe that would settle my stomach. I opened the fridge, but all I had to drink besides tap water were barium sulfate suspension smoothies. That’s what you drink before you get a CT scan. They call it a contrast because it creates the contrast that allows the x-ray machine to record your internal organs properly. That’s what they told me at the radiology clinic. Drink 40 ounces of water the night before, don’t eat anything after midnight and then in the morning, drink one smoothie at 7, another one at 8:30 and another one at 9:15. The idea is to fill every part of your digestive system, so you become a huge balloon full of disgusting barium sulfate, water, and in my case ashes.

My stomach was still upset though, so I drank a glass of water. The warm tap water, however didn’t help. In my mind the ashes were revolting and trying to get out of my stomach. They had somehow lit themselves back on fire and were burning their way out. So I figured I’d make myself throw up. But my stomach was empty, and no matter how far I stuck my finger down my throat, I couldn’t make myself vomit. I hadn’t had anything to eat all day, not because of the doctor’s instructions, but because the fridge was empty and I’d spent my money on cigarettes. Fuck it, I thought, I’ll drink one of those smoothies, I’m sure they are disgusting enough. I chugged it, and it was disgusting. I almost couldn’t hold the stuff in long enough to make it to the porch. I vomited on the gray cement floor of the porch. Then I sat back on the chair, feeling a little light headed and lit a cigarette. I did feel much better with the ashes out of me. But now they were all over my porch floor mixed with barium sulfate and other assorted stomach fluids. And as I puffed on my cigarette I noticed the kid on the street looking at me in as much shock as a little kid can muster.

So I went inside and turned on the little FM radio I own. Bob Seger. I like Bob Seger so I turned it all the way up until it was all just distorted crackles and pops coming out of its crappy speaker. And I went back outside where the barium sulfate was already drying up like old sun-damaged paint on the hood of a car. That was fast, I thought, and sat back down to smoke and think of something new to write. But I couldn’t think of anything, nothing, as hard as I tried all I could think about were those words I had erased that I no longer could remember. A few days later, when the doctor told me I had a tumor the size of a baseball in my stomach, all I could think about were those erased words. And when they sent me home from the hospital telling me there was nothing else they could do for me, all I could think about were the erased words. There is nothing quite as painful as being obsessed with something that is not. In my deathbed at home all I could think about were the words I had erased. They floated in front of my eyes, written in ashes, unrecognizable, unreadable. I could almost grab them with my weak hands, but I could not read them. I could barely walk or move at all, but I dragged myself to the porch where my vomit of barium sulfate and ashes was still caked to the floor. I dropped myself to the ground, landing hard on my bony knees and not able to hold myself up, my face came crashing right against the dried vomit. Looking at it sideways along the length of the floor I could see the ashes turning into words, but it was just my deluded morphine-filled mind. So I started scraping the stuff off with my long fingernails. Scraping, scraping, scraping.

Scraping, scraping, scraping. Like fingernails on a blackboard, thought the kid, then he turned up the volume on his ipod, and pushed away mongo on his board.