Eratio

Eratio Issue 17

 

 

 

from [sort]

 

by Mark Cunningham

 

 

 

 

“The term ‘sort’ comes from John Locke’s ‘sorts of substances’ with our understanding of each substance made of collections of ideas that are ‘supposed to flow from the particular internal constitution’ of the substance (An Essay Concerning Human Understand 2:23:2-3), and from FedEx’s ‘sort,’ the twice daily receiving and routing of packages at airport hubs.” 

 

 

 

 

[sort]

 

She said he was an egotist, so he sent her a friendship card through e-mail, but she wrote back it was still all ones and zeroes.  In A Hard Day’s Night, John Lennon puts a cola bottle to his nose—sniffing coke—but it’s a Pepsi bottle.  When I’m awake, I think about my dreams, and when I’m asleep, I dream about what happens when I’m awake.  The officer sat, lights flashing, behind an empty car.  We’re cooler than they are, because it’s the spaces between our “. . .” rather than the dots that are important. 

 

 

 

 

[sort]

 

Dear Seneca:  we, too, have learned that “when a few bodies move about in a great open space, they are not able to ram into each other, or to be pushed around,” so we defund Planned Parenthood and increase the military budget.  The essay was titled “How Antlers Help Pro Athletes,” but we thought that seemed pretty obvious.  After she saw the book Animals Without Backbones, she stopped donating to the Sierra Club.  Now that I’m into death metal, I consider my nipples umlauts. 

 

 

 

 

[sort]

 

She said she was a “virtual vacuum,” and I couldn’t decide which worried me more, the virtual or the vacuum part.  They tried to read his thoughts, but there were too many spelling mistakes.  We couldn’t tell if the things were invisible or if it was just too dark to see them, so we turned on the lights and glare-blinded ourselves.  It’s probably not a good sign when everybody starts looking like Jacques Lacan.  My ass makes my butt look big. 

 

 

 

 

[sort]

 

The fine print said the health bars might contain traces of “peanuts, wheat, and other tree nuts.”  According to the pamphlet, nature is the “destination of all life,” but the researcher warned us not to base our analysis on what we observed.  The sun is sterile.  The poster showed Dracula looming behind a giant spider web, which gave me the creeps, because I’m afraid of spiders.  She realized she was in a stare-down match with her blind spot, so she was defeated even before she got started. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Cunningham’s latest book is Scissors and Starfish (Right Hand Pointing).  71 Leaves, an e-book from BlazeVOX, is available for free to anyone curious enough to Google it. 

 

 


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