10-40-400-40-10: Bottles of Screams

I think as I lie on my lawn at night.

About the stars and are there people on the planets that circle them and are they lying on their lawns wondering about me and my lawn; and, I wonder if any of those creatures is lying face-down as I am.

Then, it occurs to me that facing down as I am I might be making the moles, worms and gophers nervous thinking I’m spying on them. I want to reassure them but I’m afraid that my voice might get buried and that, if it is ever dug up, someone might hear the echo, long after I’m dead. I am kidding, of course. If the ground could swallow up sounds to be released later, pools of quicksand would be full of the screams of their victims. Quicksand near a high traveled area and you could MINE the screams… bottle them and give them chic names like “Scream!” and, for Ikea the less chic “Skriim”. Who wants a bottle of screams? Billionaires, don’t ask what for; and, dentists, of course. I’m sure that many a day a dentist is lying on his hammock on a warm Sunday afternoon and he suddenly craves the screaming, mewing and spasms of pain that come from his patients. Does he go down to the office on such a nice day? No… he opens a bottle of Screams!. Of course, after a while, bottled screams would become scarce because, how much quicksand IS there in the world and modern life is such that we seldom fall into quicksand. As that happens, cheaper substitutes will be found… like ARTIFICIAL screams. Actors and actresses who dig little holes, scream into them and cover them up for harvest later. They probably don’t scream as sincerely as people being sucked to the bottom of a quagmire; but, actors and actresses will try their hardest because there is money involved and they can only sell so much of their blood. Of course, with actors you can bottle whatever sound you want… laughter for example. I doubt there are many veins of laughter in a quicksand mine. There are times that I could go for a bottle of laughter, lilting into the air and ending all conversation in the room. But, I’d imagine the shelf life would be limited. You open one and hear the laughter and realize that this bottle has turned sarcastic. If you hear sarcastic laughter, the only thing you can do is the slow-clap and say, “Bravo” with an expressionless face. Need spiritual awakening? 100 of the holiest monks chant into holes dug in unpolished rice and bat guano, bottled like ketchup and ready for your next chakra wakening.

Check the sell-by dates on your bottled sounds. I hear Buddhist chants can sink to the bottom of the bottle so that they spill out all at once and sound more like a lawn mower than some bald odd-looking stoics.

Or, I can just turn over and watch the stars…