A censored stream of consciousness

The slothful beast rises late afternoon, ostentatious and obese; sizzling bacon topless, whistling between his teeth, an awful hissing noise that fills the house with douche. I stare emptily at a computer screen, begging my fingers to miraculously type out eight pages of literary criticism on Flaubert's Parrot. My ambition is limited to aging this evening, many evenings. Bad noise permeates drywall and my ears droop. Internally I am as complex as embryology, externally I am as simple as a goose flying north for the summer. Simile is seen as inferior to metaphor, but I ask you: are "as" and "like" really our enemies (or at least our lesser friends)? Is the phonetic of simile unforgivable? Nonsense. Simile is a horse! Forgive my attempt at recycled cleverness.

The computer screen remains white. Should I turn aside the literary criticism and open the latest product on my mental shelf: literary dreamism. No; not now. I cannot dream myself dying of plague under the supervision of Camus now. I imagine that black bubbles on my scalp, blown through the devil's wand, are a tad too distracting.

I peek at my circus calender: human salamanders blow fire upwards, either a nihilistic attempt to burn down the heavens and shower in the ashes of truth, or entertain the underbelly of humanity. A poetry reading is scheduled for Thursday. I have never thought Thursday particularly poetic. Patrick Friesen disagrees.

The cursor blinks at me repeatedly, like a confused child, awaiting an answer that refuses to reveal itself.

We're like the wild roses stoned in the backyard

For Sebastian, the classroom is the place for sensual longing, or maybe even lust if the lecture is particularly vapid. Time for his PRESENTATION:

Professor: Sebastian, expound on the spiritual context that the relationship between Rachel and Nick is found in, then connect that with the theory of literary dreamism.

Sebastian: Interesting you should ask that, because I found...

Professor: Can you answer the question Sebastian?

Sebastian: Interesting you should ask that, because I found...

The deflection strategy is working well. The question is the launching point.

Professor: Okay okay. Now how do Nick's relationships in the work impact his psyche and relate this to Freud's theory of pyschosexual development. Also relate this to the whole of the work in its ethical and religious context.

Sebastian: Quite frankly, Ibsen, is a homo. I mean, why bother pontificating his views on morality when those gnarly sideburns could have put him in constant revelry?

Professor: Sorry?

Oh shit, Sebastian thinks. Not again.

Sebastian: The Nordics produce pretty girls and bad literature. What was Myrdal's excuse? He was well positioned to pick up a rush of Swedes and become a sextextual in the classroom. Instead he became an out of words intellectual in the junk yard of shitty lit.

Professor: This has gone far enough Sebastian

Sebastian: Maudlin monsters [sardonic voice] Poem dedicated to Johanna:

Peeling back her mandarin hair,
revealing the pulp of her neck;
quietly smiling,
inviting the freckles to dance
on soft ashen skin

A long and tattered French pop skirt
resting beneath knees,
but a consolation of
naked toes curling under
her soles

Sentimentalism is the end of genuine emotion.

Professor: Leave the classroom Sebastian.

Sebastian: And that's not all. Back to Ibsen: that guy had the balls to hire out his own personal Ibsen scholar.

Professor: That's not true. Leave.

Sebastian: Fuck that.