The Music Of Psychology And The Schizophrenic

Fiction by Shome Dasgupta

Did you know? Did you know that he and he took out my spinal chord and used it as a piano–each key a disc, pressing down with calloused fingers, like madmen in white coats in the lab, poking frogs and birds and other animals from the Ark, two by two, until they laughed their fingers off. Perhaps, they could have been used as pedals, and their feet would have suited better. He and he took my tongue and wrapped it around my eyes so I could see my taste buds while the tune of nerves and tissues reminded me that I was once two; he and he, they laugh like no other, when full of fiery ghosts, sad and jealous and funny. Could you hear the song? It went like this:

Disc1
Disc2
Disc3         Disc4
Disc11                Disc9 Disc10
Disc12
Disc16                          Disc13
Disc14 Disc15                                     Disc18
Disc17
Disc19
Disc24
Disc20*
Disc21  Disc22
Disc8  Disc23

Disc7               Disc5                Disc6

*In A Minor

The lumber system was a lovely place to cry when you could see your tongue wrapped around your eyes–there was this park nearby, full of shaking homes, rattling and metallic, their iron oxide was colorful, full of tink-tink-tin-tin-tunk-tunk–toop-toop and other tingy taps, where no one else knew about–this was where he and he grew up, not knowing that bodies were made for licking, but knowing that skin was made for peeling. He and he never liked potatoes; they told me so while putting their elbows on top of my head in search of the gushy soft parts–that was the entry way for their peering eyes when they were done with my vertebrae. Once I was two, and two was never enough–I had cut myself in half to release the crevices of my brother’s brain. Naked and saturated with his eyes, there was no else around; there was no one else around to see (he and he and I)/2–it was the loneliest division, my RBCs and WBCs looked at each other with shrinking bodies. The sweat from my brow was now on my palate–I drowned in DNA, singing a happy song about moaning light fixtures. The organ players, he and he, and I, or rather i and i, will meet another day when the cords and discs are all mangled with the piano inside my stomach–a hollow place where the laughing echoes; he and he in need of a pat on the back or a hug.

Shome Dasgupta lives in Lafayette, LA and teaches at South Louisiana Community College and University Of Phoenix Online. His writing has appeared in H_NGM_N, Magma Poetry, The Dead Mule, The Coachella Review, Lit Chaos, and elsewhere.

Tags: experimental, Feature, Fiction, Shome Dasgupta, Short Story, The Music of Psychology and The Schizophrenic

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Fiction, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.