Surrealist Obituaries

I climb the old ladder

To the top of the wall

And stare out past our border

And I see the future

Walking towards us

A giant and endless centipede

Trailing past the horizon ahead

And below me

Disappearing into the tunnel we built

Well, not ‘we’

My ancestors, this town’s ancient people

The tunnel they built into the wall

That leads through our baroque city

A path kept clear and protected

For the centipede’s eternal journey

When I was young, I would sit near the path

And watch the centipede pass

Its segmented body blurring into a cohesive snake

Its spindly, busy legs buzzing like motors

Some of my friends would even rest their hands on its body, rushing past

Though touching it was illegal

And they would brag about how strange it felt

I never did

And by the time I was older and braver

(Though still just a kid)

I found the centipede boring and mundane

Everyone gets used to its constant, repetitive parade

But now, looking out over our town’s wall

And knowing what I know

I jump

And land on the centipede’s back

I run as fast as I can

And though the centipede walks quickly

It paces itself, for its journey never ends

And by sprinting

I make progress, running upstream across its body

And around me

I see the plains changing

I see the grass, bending and rising and falling

As shifting and dynamic as a rippling sea

And I see trees, their trunks rising

Then exploding into leafy branches at their apex

Fireworks

And the sky above me changes too erratically to observe

Flashing between night and day like a strobe light

And the clouds speed by overhead like a river

As the epileptic landscape turns to reds and browns

I feel the chill of winter approaching

And in a gentle avalanche

The world is blanketed in snow

Undulating in piles and snowbanks

I witness speedy shadow children flash and vanish before my eyes

A fast-collapsing snowman, the only proof that I truly saw them

And the cold, striking in unpredictable waves, starts to wear away on me

For I am dressed in summer clothing

But finally, the snow sinks into the earth,

And spring has come

Bringing green with it

Along with showers

The flashes of rain make the centipede’s armored hide slippery

And I lose my footing, falling onto my back

And though I get my bearings fairly quickly,

I tumble off of the creature’s back

Landing in mud

Which I pollute with vomit

As the shock of falling back into normal time makes me dreadfully nauseous

But as soon as I recover, I consider my situation

And I find that I miss my home

It would be quickest to hitch a ride back to town on the centipede

But it’s too tall to get on easily from below

And the legs thrash too violently to hold on to

So I walk home alongside the centipede

While the rain follows me

And asks in wet whispers

What I will tell my parents

When they demand to know where I’ve been

For the past six months

I ask the centipede if it has any suggestions

But its ears are a million years ago

And my question comes too late