Dawn of the Dish-People: Part II

One of the Great Truisms of life is the unequivocal fact that you are some type of nutcase if you believe your dishes are trying to communicate with you. Another Great Truism, though lesser known, is that a bachelor’s kitchen sink is the ideal primordial funk for the genesis of new life. Consider it: What range of random grotesquerie exists within that sink? What grand melange of food particles, booze, and leftover soap-scum from previous, hopelessly abandoned cleaning attempts? What unknowable grunge and undreamt of filth? Perhaps the more important question is precisely how long has this random concoction been left to mix and rot together? Is there really any legitimate way of knowing?

Oh yeah, I know how this all sounds, believe me. I’m only too aware of the clichés about people hearing voices and doing crazy shit, guys in loony bins that wear aluminum foil hats to protect themselves from alien thought-control rays and shit. I know about that stuff. But what can I say, it was happening to me and it felt legit. What would you do?

“You might be interested to know,” the voice returned after another slight delay, “we just had a vote and the majority of us do not believe you are the creator of the Universe. ”

“That's a relief,” I said, getting perplexeder and perplexeder, and still more perplexed. Dig my democratic dishware, voting and shit. “What are you talking about?”

“Okay, it’s like this: We intercepted your radio signals about eleven years ago and discovered that we are not alone in the Universe, that something was transmitting a signal uncommon to our usual cosmic background and that it had a beat. The discovery of the beat led to the discovery of musical tones, and finally our scientists were able to sift through the music and get to what they assumed were words. Once the words were isolated, it was nothing for our linguistics experts to decipher it and learn your language in all its delightful nuances, intricacies and contradictions. We certainly had a laugh about onomatopoeia, let me tell you!” He chuckled, as did I, though I hadn’t the foggiest notion why.

“Some of our brightest mathematicians are developing logarithms” my dishes continued, “that should some day give us the history of your existence within a few decimal places!”

I farted long and gustily. Back-burner thought moves to the front: Where did I hear that damned song? The gray matter that carried the relevant information was still adhered to the side of my cranium. Need liquid. Thought returns to back-burner.

“Eventually our scientists were able to broadcast your message around the world and it was this lofty sort of tune which led some of the religious types to believe it was a message from the creator of all things, and the scientists disagreed, saying that it was another civilization. Quite a caffuffel went on and finally it was decided that the only fair way to communicate with you was to pick a citizen chosen completely at random by our very best computers. So I’m like the middleman, your average joe.”

“No shit,” I responded, “that’s a pretty heavy responsibility.” I smoked a joint in sympathy.

“You’re telling me?” the voice laughed. “So, not a god huh?”

“Only in the sack,” I responded, exhaling long and deep (where had I heard that song, c’mon man!), “No, I’m just your average joe, like you.” Was this really happening? The herb relaxed me a little bit though, took the edge off the weirdness of the situation, funktified it up a little. “Fortified with funktitude” I unwittingly said aloud.

“Pardon?” asked the voice.

“Nothin’,” I responded. “Hey listen, my name is Remy.” Which is my name by the way.

“Pardblook” he said introducing himself. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, stellar” I said. My brain was thinking about a little coffee and my stomach thought it should take priority, having lost on the whole milk-cereal thing. My brain won. Because it calls the shots, baby.

“Hah,” he chuckled politely. Apparently I’d punned in there somewhere? “So where is your planet or system located, Remy?” he continued.

I went about the machinations of coffee preparation, careful to not let any water fall into my suddenly loquacious sink, don’t want to fuck with the mix just yet, you know? I also slugged back a large gulp of water directly from the Britta in the fridge, some of which sloshed over the rim and onto my bare toes. I thought back to my first year astronomy course. “Outer edge of the Milky Way Galaxy.” There’s five years and untold thousands in student loan for you. Bastards’ll never take me alive, I swear it.

“Milky Way huh? Never heard of it,” said Pardblook, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“And you?” I intoned, “are in my kitchen sink.” Pardblook paused again while my coffeemaker gurgled noisily. I never clean it and the coffee is delicious, these are two facts which you may or may not link as cause and effect. Me, I’m indifferent.

“Well,” Pardblook spoke when he returned from wherever, “coupled with that dish comment you made earlier, our meta-physicists assure me that from your point of view we can in fact be considered to be located in your sink. Logical, doesn’t sound very dignified though does it?”

“At least it’s not the shitter,” I added helpfully.

“I suppose. Hold on a second, would you?” he asked. I looked at my coffee-maker which had just stopped gurgling. “I’m not going anywhere” I drawled casually, and I wasn’t. I poured myself a coffee and checked the fridge knowing full well it was completely devoid of meaningful food (possibly a couple more experiments in there, too) or coffee accoutrements. Always have sugar though, I always lift a handful from the coffee joints (napkins too, tons of napkins. Often double as shit-tickets. Love wipin’ my ass with Starbucks man, love it. Do it every day). Without thinking, I grabbed a spoon out of the sink to stir my coffee.

The human brain sometimes becomes so accustomed to performing some actions that it’s like the higher functions just turn themselves off and let auto-pilot take over. That’s my only explanation I have for turning on the faucet of the sink with which I had been having such a nice conversation. “Pardblook?” I called cautiously.

“Hold on Remy,” was all he said, gravely. I waited anxiously and sipped my coffee. I wondered what I’d say to anybody who showed up in my apartment right about then. Anxiously waiting for my dishes to collect themselves. Praying they would be okay. Anxious to resume our conversation. Not bloody much, is my guess.