Malt Liquor Fridge Intro Piece (Welcome to Malt Liquor Fridge)

As we find ourselves here, coming suddenly to consciousness, a question arises:

What time is it?

It's night... sometime. There are no stars. All that's left is the moon. It could be 8 o'clock or 10 or 1, or midnight or just before dawn, but here we are, alone in the city, trying to find our way towards the carnival.

Up ahead there's the Big Theater. It's ringed in lights, strangely alien, synthetic yet supernatural— inviting. It smiles, holds out its hand & says "come: I will not hurt you." You look up & see the electrical outlet & circuit-breaker panels on the moon. Glancing around you, past the buildings & the celebrities on their elevated screen-stages, dancing & winking from their impossible heights of knowledge (to be more than just human!), you see the chain-link fence encircling the perimeter. Each link in its chain is your father, sitting you down sternly for a man-to-man talk, telling you the Cold, Hard Truth™.

You walk into the theater.

Somehow, despite the artificiality of its environs, & everything else outside— the trees (weren't there trees?), the birds (?), the businessmen & hustle-bustle of urban commotion— this is the only place that actually exists anymore. No one else is inside. You walk into one of the movie rooms & sit down, & the screen slowly begins explaining the logic of your fate.

You fall into a dream.

As dreams go, this one is deep, immersive— you are no longer WATCHING the screen, you are inside it: it is your reality now, all you have known & will ever know, all that is, was, & could ever be.

You are back outside, on the street. A receptionist from the DMV walks up & hands you an unpaid bill, while you stand in front of a stop sign.

You look around. There are still no stars. Everyone on the street is behind a private curtain. They pull the curtain open, greet each other with digitally altered faces, then pull it back shut— the words they speak subtitled like movie lines over their heads.

Something seems like it's going to happen... but how? Some people— scattered individuals, on sidewalks & in alleyways, crouching in parks like witches at their cauldrons— are trying to start fires, but someone walks around after them with a copper cup & snuffs them out.

In school they teach you how to roll loaded dice, then add up the zeroes in the money the casino boss will take. The Lemniscate spins overhead— above the celebrities smiling like billionaires on their billboards, with arms outstretched ascending to the peak of all measurable space-time, synthetic materials growing on their bodies as they advertise nootropics & secrets of Transcendence, Manifestation, & Eternity— above the robots churning out brand-new best-selling novels, political speeches, Top-40 pop songs, gas-station toys & keychains, essays & scientific research— the Lemniscate spins above all of it, like a Sphinx, or the Eye Over The Pyramid.

There was a way that it all happened. They led you into the machine then strapped the machine to your head. Some black-suits came down from an upper room & said, "this is you now."

They've built a dome over the earth, with each atmospheric component keyed to a button on a computer so they can control when it rains.

Somewhere along the line, out here in the city, you've lost the beat. You don't dance anymore. Where is the rhythm? It seems dissolved into the smog, lost in the thick of the divided winds (the winds all go in different directions). You put your hand to your chest but can't feel the heartbeat— it's too silent, cautious, sitting down in the back row, afraid (ashamed?) to stand up & assert itself— to exist, in the thump-da-thump way it always liked to, in the forgotten days of yore.

You're surrounded by people.... but no one's there.

Instead, there are Tricks.

A warplane pulls a coin out from behind your ear.

A businessman sends money across the street by putting it inside a washing machine.

A woman saws herself in half then puts herself back together, smiling the entire time.

Out, past the city, there is a field of Eyes— they watch, silent— they observe, notice things— they even laugh— but none of them can help you.

You see a pile of McDonald's trash to the side of the sidewalk, towards an alley— strangely, miraculously with some flowers growing out of it. Amazingly, they are actually quite lovely. You walk up to take a closer look, & looking closely you can see the McDonald's logo imprinted on each inside petal. You lean in to smell them, & they smell just like McDonald's french fries. You realize it's been a while since you had some of their fries, & you could really go for some.

The stars... what are they whispering to themselves, behind the clouds? Do they make plans? Is there something they want to say?

People with gigantic erasers walk around rubbing out everyone's footprints, as they walk through the city. You'd look behind you to try to retrace your steps, but you can't see anything.

There's nothing to guide you. Stranded, swallowed, into the night... & you are now one of its shadows. Walking in confusion, to an indeterminate destination.

Still, in the ether, floating by overhead like single frames of a film, there are Memories— in little blips, broken snatches— fragments.

Cigarettes in parking lots... malt liquor... gas stations.... an RV... a camping trip. Voices blending together at a house party, amid the clinking glasses. The strike of lightning when you first fell in love— the roiling elements in the sky... the wind & the rain. Autumn. Buying a pack of Skittles from the corner store, turning your head at the surprising sight of something beautiful.

Ducks in a pond... coffee, breakfast... the smell of natural wood... all your friends running around, barefoot on the grass, in joy towards the place that you were all trying to get to, where everything was going to happen— returning home, over the broken glass in the road & patches of weeds growing up between the cracks— home, home at last, home together.

Now it's Ghost Valley. They're doing away with it all— bringing you into the big building with the evenly spaced lights. They're packing it up & shipping it all away, they're clearing it out & replacing it with a J.C. Penney. Maybe you'll see your old friend one day walking down the aisles, & you'll pass each other like 2 ghosts, looking distantly at each other behind screens of forgetfulness.

In the big warehouse they're dusting & polishing off the Bomb. There's a mission to the adjacent galaxy to take samples of the atmosphere. The space dust... that's the ticket, that's our future. The past is gone, defunct, obsolete— curious & strange like pictures in a museum. Long ago... far away.

Maybe one day it will all live again.

Until that day, there is the Malt Liquor Fridge.

STEP INSIDE 2023

- DW 5/2/23

Thank you for reading