Telegrams from Home: Grundiboob
Welcome to Telegrams from Home, a new collaboration between The West End Phoenix and Kobo Originals. Every week, to help you #StayHomeAndRead, we’ll bring you new works from authors and artists on what it’s like to live through this period of quiet survival.
On May 29 we’ll release Telegrams from Home: Vol. 1, an eBook containing these pieces and many more, with proceeds going to Community Food Centres Canada
If you should meet a grundiboob,
Comfort him with sugar cubes.
— Dennis Lee
I never named my villains, but the truth is they’re all
Grundiboob. I once called this a log in the chest.
Wet birch in the fire pit after hangover rain, half
charred from last night’s interrupted fire.
This was a way to make logic of action movies in
my breathing. A dampness of henchmen on my
lungs, pumping out problems and eluding endings.
Seven Bridges of Konigsberg. The kiss at the end
of Running Man. Three Cups. The kiss at the end of
Under Siege. Grundiboob thrives on indistinct daydreams.
It wants our theatre empty. Wants us cleft by
plexiglass and junk links. Grundiboob is doubt.
Relax your forehead. Grundiboob loiters in
the creases. Ensorcell backgrounds, and don’t let
Grundiboob spot the fakes. It Kool-Aid Mans through
coping doohickeys. It’s horny for blank pages in a
gratitude journal. Biting your fingernails? Catnip.
It blossoms at false starts, eats the lingo lessons.
Grundiboob shrinks your hands when you pick up a guitar.
It spits at my mindful intention to watch the sun dip down
to keep track of days. Last night, the sky was purple.
A dusk cloud flat and low. Special effects. Grundiboob
ruined that presence with a sunset brainworm.
Remember your peace in Half Moon Bay?
Grundiboob always cops to diabolical plans.
Only one thing will stop Grundiboob: fill its jar with sugar.
On the other side of this, I’ll lug so much sweetness.
Grundiboob won’t survive the tribute. It will drop
from the skyscraper, make eye contact that admits,
what I have done is wrong. In this sugar, Grundiboob melts
for its victims who remain uneasy. I want this movie over
at the ninety-minute mark. I’ll lure Grundiboob to
sugarcane, a field of so much sweetness, then set
the field on fire. We find our dramatic jungle finish:
the Grundiboob made caramel on the canopy.
At my helicopter rescue, body half out, one foot
braced on the landing skids, I’m lit by our new
horizon. Let’s make sense of soul, of the action movie’s
nudge to the Grundiboob within. I can’t bear a franchise,
these sequels made of sunsets. Soon we’ll land in
sweeter quarters. Now please forgive the ravaged forests,
my bad acting, this kiss at the end of the story.
Pre-order the eBook Telegrams from Home: Vol. 1 for instant delivery to your Kobo eReader or app on May 29.
Originally published at https://www.kobo.com on May 23, 2020.
