Squarcialupi Codex, or
Super Mario
Super Mario is trying to write a sonata. Animals are attacking him. A bright red caterpillar. All the bricks in Super Mario’s house turn into gold coins. The coins hang in the air, turning. Super Mario looks at them and wants to write a sonata. A giant mole wearing sunglasses. A man in a cloud floats down to within about 12 feet of Super Mario and starts throwing hammers. Sonatas do not write themselves. A bright yellow cape. A mushroom on a fishing line. Super Mario wants so badly to write a sonata. Super Mario has gone out and bought the manuscript paper. The paper is ready for a sonata. A ball of fire comes out of a triceratops’s mouth. The spinning blade of a buzzsaw falling. Super Mario has incubated a dinosaur egg and now wants to write a sonata. Flames with faces. The happiest cactus you ever saw. Super Mario has the melody in his head. He hums the melody to Princess Toadstool. Fifteen-foot bullets with teeth. Princess Toadstool looking beautiful and old in the rocking chair smoking. Super Mario hums the melody. He cannot find a pen. Eyes inside clumps of soot. Clumps of soot with teeth. Bombs float in bubbles and waddle forward and die. The manuscript pages are blank. Super Mario looks at the blank pages. He has to write the melody down before he forgets. Dolphins wearing pilot’s goggles. Princess Toadstool wants to help. Princess Toadstool does not want to get in the way. Skeletons throwing their own bones at your head. Princess Toadstool takes her hands out from beneath the blanket. Super Mario needs a pen. He is moving in a less careful way. Piranha plants fall backwards softly into pipes. A beanstalk with a mouth. Flattened dinosaurs trying to walk. Some kind of crab. Princess Toadstool looks at her hands. Blocks with mouths grow angry and fall from the ceiling to crush Super Mario. Super Mario needs a pen. He hums the melody, louder now, pointing at Princess Toadstool so that she will remember. Fish snore and then wake. Ghosts cover their faces. Someone wearing a helmet throws baseballs or shovels chunks out of the earth. Louder. Super Mario needs a pen. He looks behind sofa cushions. He hums louder now, but the tune is changing. He closes his eyes. Princess Toadstool looks at her hands. Tiny rhinos breathe fire directly up. A giant sea urchin makes a face. Super Mario needs a pen. The pages are blank. A feather drifts gently. Super Mario is about to forget. A puffer fish becomes bagpipes.
