unicycle
1. Moving down tree-lined road. Providence, Rhode Island. Birds, wildlife in trees, hello, road covered by confetti, tickertape, 3am, our hero. How can we ever impress a bird. There could be a hot air balloon in the sky at night who knows if a bird cares. Our hero - Gridlock Grappler - with tasseled biceps and unimpressed birds.
2. Two months previous now, in the hall of an abandoned church near where their usual gymnasium is prebooked for mixed martial arts. So there of course being an old wallmounted pipe organ. Gridlock Grappler wanting to sit on top of the pipes. With a girl. In love with a girl and on a pipe organ naturally. That being all and seeming easy as his head hit the mat but later now more unlikely at 3am. Being the eighth most popular wrestler in his organisation not being enough still. Needing a girl.
3. Thinking at 3am are there footsteps in Rhode Island. Gridlock Grappler looking over his shoulder but there being only this baby wolf, head tilting. Small wolf running away, pausing once, a look back, running, head tilting, away. Our hero wearing a chauffeur’s hat at 3am; his gimmick when wrestling is "disgruntled chauffeur". Why did I call myself that, he asks. He says it to a hot air balloon if it's there above the birds.
4. Gridlock Grappler wanting to like someone a lot, that being all, but feeling afraid of other people. So afraid. It being enjoyable for Gridlock Grappler to pretend to attack and injure other people, whom he fears. Also to be injured by them, attacked and snapmared, superplexed. These same fifty people coming to the wrestling shows each month, all terrifying, growing more frightening throughout, always louder until a locker room, no pipe organ or a girl.
5. Under Rhode Island there being a sewer with a long and meaningful history. Our hero not thinking about this, ever, but instead saying “Swimming pools are strange” as he walks through the nearby hush of one. Opening and closing his hands, gentle, feeling calm take control of his face, thinking on wildlife, wolf, another missed parade here, thank god.
6. Wanting to run until he is sweaty and then roll down the centre of the road, his body turning confetti-covered, tickertaped. Waiting then to be run over by a police car and decades later found.
7. If you just keep growing, just because you want to, you can be so big. Gridlock Grappler says this to a hot air balloon who already knows.
8. Gridlock Grappler stops and there is quiet again and with one hand on his hip he is this confident teapot. Can I destroy Providence, the teapot wonders. Can a teapot destroy a town. Then a raccoon making a different sound, nervous, a baby raccoon who doesn't yet know how to sound like a raccoon, quietly moving its limbs, again this indirect light coming from the moon onto tickertape in Providence.
9. Gridlock Grappler is afraid of the people that aren't here at 3am and so here he is. Wanting to do a handstand here inside of 3am with a girl, laughing, filling their mouths with tickertape and leaves. Wanting to plant himself in this night, instead these quiets, looking back but there only being a unicycle in the road this time. How the hell do you walk past a unicycle.
10. Why do people clap. It's a frightening sound near to your face. Gridlock Grappler thinking of the noises now of how a unicycle could be here from nowhere. How. Wanting to be at home only. Hearing another sound, the simplest decision to start to run. Running, the sound getting louder. Not looking back, Gridlock Grappler running faster and the sound growing thicker and tall, more mossy, worse. The sound becoming something: fridge motors, glass beneath wheel, a hum, pipe organ, steady noise, a note.
11. Running, Gridlock Grappler imagining himself huge at 3am, huger, being stopped by a child who steps from behind a postbox shape, a child's knife, giving no money and being stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed but the wounds healing like an omelet. A child's knife hitting pavement, child cry sound starting. A child looking up at a huger him, growing. An awestruck child, a terrified child and our hero, inconsolable Gridlock Grappler and still always never a girl.
