A tree / does some / thoughts / and / thinks / it doesn’t / look
good / for us / in a grocery store / a man / on the television /
says / I’m pretty good / at doing stuff / no one believes / him /
years from now / we’ll find out / he only got / one vote / you were
/ the only one / everything else / lied / or / was fake / be alone /
crawl in a hole / never open / your brain / again
Summary: I went to an insane grocery store. I met someone real
people from the internet. A truck tried to make it but couldn’t. I
woke up. People in the next room where doing motel sex. I took out
my journal:
These bedsheets have years of naked body stains. The microwave in
the corner seems lonely. Some of the motel air might be at least
thirty years old.
When I stepped out of bed my foot didn’t hurt as much as I thought
it would. It did not seem like the trip wouldn’t continue. I thought
about the ice baths and turmeric water I had drank the night before.
I took out my journal:
My foot seems like it still wants to be a foot.
After I left the motel and began walking I wondered if I should
contact the news and tell them I wanted to become famous. I passed a
car dealership full of automobiles with American flags glued to the
windshields. I took out my journal:
I’m glad I am not transporting a cardboard box with me across
America. It would be difficult to carry. Especially if the
cardboard box was filled with gasoline.
At each intersection people seemed confused by my bare feet and
forgot they were in automobiles. I was befinning to have a minimal
effect on America. As I was crossing one intersection I noticed
someone had lost a pumpkin seed. I took out my journal:
I hope when I’m done living someone just leaves my body in the
middle of a major interstate roadway so my body is both ground
deeply into the pavement and carried thousands of miles within the
grooves of the tires of distracted commuters.
I stopped at a grocery store. In the entrance there was a picture of
Ronald Reagan holding hands with the store’s owner. The store was
designed like a maze. I had to pass rows of ground hamburger and
conveyor belts of milk before I found a pile of vegetables. I filled
a basket, paid, and sat down next to the buffet line. I took out my
journal:
A person with a trembling eyelid keeps dipping the same french fry
in a cup of coffee and then sucking on it.
After I left the grocery store I walked in silence. There were a lot
of American flags and car dealerships in Connecticut. I passed them
all. A few minutes after I saw a car dealership with one of those
giant floating balloon oracles I got a message from someone I knew
on the internet. The message said:
I want to touch the hand of the guy slowly walking through
Connecticut barefoot.
An hour later two people walked up to me and touched my hand. We
talked about a mountain and about the guy with a lot of different
methods involving ice cubes and the human lung. The day might have
ended there but I kept walking. There wasn’t much else for me to do.
At this point in my life walking slowly barefoot in locations I’ve
never been is about all I have going for me. As I neared the tunnel
leading to the next town I noticed police lights. I was worried they
were waiting for me. When I got closer I saw something stuck halfway
through the tunnel. It was a truck. This truck had been too large
for the tunnel. I took out my journal:
People continue to try to do impossible things even though
everyone will laugh when the impossible results in failure.
I thought about waiting to see how the truck would get removed from
the tunnel but I worried the police might start shooting the truck
and I didn’t want to see anything get shot so I kept walking. At
some point I ended up near a large animal made of synthetic
materials. The large animal was the shape of a bear so I took a
picture and sent it to everyone on the internet. As I waited for
everyone to look at the picture I took out my journal:
Before I was an adult there used to be a period of my life when I
was less than three years old.
I’m pretty sure something significant happened during the transition
from three years old to an adult but I can’t remember. I guess it’s
possible nothing happened or maybe I wasn’t ever three years old. It
got dark about the same time it had the previous day (maybe a few
minutes earlier). I was still walking. My foot felt pretty good, but
a piece of it had started bleeding a little. I spit on the part of
it that was bleeding. I was only a mile from the motel where I
planned to stay. I noticed two people with grocery bags. They were
both wearing the same patterns. I took out my journal:
I feel a little lost. My body is touching concrete but the day has
gotten too dark and long for me to remember any of my thoughts.
In my motel room I filled two trashcans with ice cubes and sat on
the bed thinking about whether or not I should sell my feet when
this journey ends.