1714 c/o Thom James
MDCCXIV
w/o boasting, forever the romantic, i'm washing the dishes for you tonight my darling. i'm distracting myself from a present tense, by thinking about sentimental things. like that time lucy stuck bubblegum in laura's hair because laura stole the pringles from her lunchbox. or that time i fell off the third tier of tree branches and inverted my arm backwards. and even that time in history when i opened the text book and said, "da vinci is the one who cut his ear off right?" with my most middle class tone.
w/o adobe photoshop, sketched with precision with hand made rulers and compasses, he created a mighty bubble full of things. The 'Thing', a Flying Machine. The Flying Machine. "people would get into it and be amazed" swedenborg would have thought, even though they would only be hovering a few centimetres off the ground. it would be a triumph. "there would be some sort of prize in the future for such inventions" thought the inventor, "something along the lines of 'the nobel prize', or something like that". they (the directing panel, composed of the finest cheese makers and perfume smellers) would ask him for a speech. he would thank his mother, his wife, his dog, and then make a funny joke and appear to be crying but in reality he was thinking "i fucking deserve this". this was the very real dream of a man that had too much time on his hands. meanwhile i have dishes covered in bolognese sauce in my hands, and much more time due to the life expectancy being raised dramatically.
w/o realising, da vinci takes the limelight. the light of a fake citrus emulating hair product, shining on swedenborg, that's his limelight, and da vinci bribed the guy in charge of lighting with a couple of silver coins and gummy bears. there is probably a scene like this in a fiction based sitcom. da vinci is essentially da vinci the superhero. a superhero called da Superhero. there is no need for any others. he is the epitome. he is a fake. in a 5 out of 5 star part of peru, da vinci lovers gather around a neon palm tree and start singing in tongues whilst cutting the innards of crustaceans and putting it into a stew, lamenting da vinci, da vinci, da vinci. that's not true but i like to imagine that people read about this in holiday travel guides about peru before they go to their honeymoon and/or their bonus retirement holiday they earned in some dubious life insurance package. when people hear the name 'swedenborg' they do not know who he is. they assume he is a cyborg from sweden, or swindon, that is eating the strawberry-laced brains of all english nationals. then everyone is immediately put off from going to sweden or england in their flying machines that took a bit of spit and elbow grease to make. i feel bad when swedenborg goes up to the platform to make his nobel prize speech, but no one is there. they are all in the room next door applauding da vinci.
w/o movement, there is just an empty space. or, a fake space. or, an occupied space. all sorts of space, but not enough space to move. so we grow a little, but not enough. the mould gets in the way, blocks our sinuses. we can't hear because of this orange-grey mould barricading our ears. one (1) day our (our: me/you/everyone else) worlds collide and the impact is different for both (individuals: me/you) of us. you have a few (too many to count properly) bruises on your knee, i have a cut (something… more) on my elbow. i try and find plasters under the kitchen sink but there is nothing, only perfect cartoon cheese blocks from that time we had mice. the only way to get the mice out would be to reenact Tom and Jerry, and chase our tails, then each other, vice versa. i forget essentials, stop thinking about a cage match of swedenborg vs da vinci, and return to wrinkled fingers that is reminiscent of an elderly person and think, "how did we get here" and begin to clean the cutlery.
w/o care, never mind swedenborg, now we all have jet packs and go somewhere greener to die.
