The Rooster awoke. And the first two things he did were one: to breathe deeply— wholly & from the gut— & to love himself. Staring up at the blank ceiling from his bed, and feeling all of the love he had for any external thing— an artwork, book, film, other animal, ideal or principle, place or song, anythingelseatall— and take that love emanating from his heart & shower it back upon the entirety of his self. The image: the self as fountain.

And what struck him was this: the logic of it all, simple & true: all of this love he gave to others & other things: if he did not right now at this very critical moment in his life turn his heart upon himself: he would not survive. Therefore would he forfeit the possibility of loving all of the aforementioned. Put otherwise & perhaps more simply: if he wanted to keep loving the things he loved, he had to love himself first. Otherwise a misstep into an impossible-to-step-back-from darkness was all but certainty.

He told his revelation to Platy, waking her from her sleep to do so. She was tired & confused at first, hearing it all as if in a dream. The stars were out, the moon nigh full as well. After a few moments of getting her bearings, she nodded. And then said: “Yes, Yes you do— that’s what I was telling you about. You got it. Now do it. It’s one thing to know it, and quite another to do it. I see it in your eyes that you feel it; you’re on it. Now do it.”

And in this manner, the first of the heretofore closed doors were opened. Kangaroo was not perfect, was still quite rough around the certain edges in many ways. But he didn’t have to be perfect to be loved. And so loving himself— in all of his areas of perfection & failure both— was how he brought a start to his new day. And so the Fountain he became.

After a time, Platy turned back to K-Roo and said something more: “K-Roo. You know, if you become the Fountain, the goldfish are soon to come.” Before he could ask precisely what she meant, she had turned away with & on purpose, nestling back into his pouch: K-Roo had to— and so would soon— find out for himself.

The Marsupial Troopa did not count upon the fact that one of the very first things he’d be writing about in 2014 was abused roos & the abusearoos who abused them. But life tends to bring about things unexpectedly, and so it was that on New Year’s Day he found himself calling a domestic violence hotline. Mere weeks ago he couldn’t have foreseen that he’d be making such a call, whereupon from the other end of the line a femaleroo’s voice would say, after almost 10 seconds of his unexpected silence, “Hello?”, to which he’d quickly exhale syllable enough (“Hi…”) so as to communicate that she shouldn’t hang up. Doubtless she knew this silence from many a caller; it wasn’t out of the question she knew it from experience, a long or even short time ago.

Now his pause was over, & now he was talking. He listened as he heard himself saying things like “textbook codependent relationship,” “schizophrenic alcoholic,” and “glass vases thrown at her face,” all of which were facts. Like paint is a fact. He would say all of these things, all of these facts— they were tangible, real: for however manipulable in form, they were nevertheless indisputable in origin: as a paintfact, a red smear was always red, and an orange smear was still a smear that had red in it, however softened with yellow it may have been. Both paint & facts had certain inarguable qualities (from which could be deduced histories) about themselves. “Threw her onto the floor” and “grabbed her around her neck, choking her,” were also sentences he found rolling calmly from off his tongue, all said with the same matter-of-factness he might have used standing in front of a painting, remarking upon a particular “green in the foreground” or a certain “gold around the halo, in the upper left.”

Yet in his mind’s eye an interesting thing happened when he watched the analogy run into the following limitation: the canvas, the surface by & upon which these facts came to life as forms, simply didn’t exist: all he saw were paint dabs & brushstrokes suspended in a vacuum, slowly gathering themselves into various shapes & textures, and then those said shapes & textures inching towards other shapes & textures, gradually becoming like a painting— except that no canvas existed beneath, and so in places could be seen through: consequently seeming more imaginary than real.

As he spoke on and described to a gentle-voiced strangeroo the violence— violence he’d never seen but had recently learned of— he could not readily picture the face of his rooette friend Maybelleroo in pain & with fear. He could not see her crying, couldn’t see her face twisted & with tears rolling down the sides of her gentle snout & then falling down upon anotheroo’s violent & clenching fists— so foreign was the idea of her image being affected by anything but love, joy, or positivity generally.

But what was unimaginable for him was lived daily by her. And, it wasn’t changing: she wasn’t leaving her abuseroo, whom she said just needed help, and whom she said she could help to help. Other specifics of the situation could be found— it has to be said— in most any of the many articles on domestic violence published in any of the many womenroos’ magazines published monthly; he’d read a few of these before, which often ran pictures of the authoroos. Having read the entirety of text he’d glance back to the image of the kangaroo from whence they came, and wonder: “Why would— how could— a rooette like that put up with being treated that way by such a bastard fuckeroo?” Unable to answer the question, he’d at least rest assured that none of the ladyroos in his circle of friends would ever stand for such abuse, all of it being considerably beneath their intellectual level.

Yet the situation wasn’t a purely intellectual matter, and as such: measure of “intellectual level” was irrelevant. Other than intellectual tools were required. And not only other than intellectual tools, but moreover whatever tools were taken to the task, the regions of her psyche they’d need access to were ones to which Maybelleroo would never grant him permission. So, here’s where he stood: if breaking down & presenting to her her situation as it objectively appeared wouldn’t get her to leave— a description of which took note of her situation’s a) regrettable commonplaceness, b) indisputable dangerousness, and how c) leaving her abuseroo was the only solution that ever worked for the millions of other womenroos who’d been there before [whereupon he supplied hotline & related counseling numbers]— there seemed little he could do to help her, and it was extremely depressing. For never before in his life had he 1) sat beside a kangaroo of intelligence & listened to her tell of her problems, 2) recognized immediately & expressed to her that these problems-as-described comprised an identifiable situation with a name, having support networks offering help to kangaroos in her position, only to 3) listen to her maintain “No, my situation is different— he just needs to get better,” straight-faced save for a slight frown.

MC K-Roo, like many a roo, knew about facts and how to weave them together so as to make a narrative. Yet more to the point & as presently seen: in life, certain facts were plainer than others, and when they accumulated past a certain point— especially in proximity of other related facts— virtually assembled themselves into narratives sans assistance. Whenever as much happens, accordingly are created narratives in kind: familiar narratives, in short. Maybelleroo’s situation added up to the familiar narrative of codependency. It’s here worth noting that part of the point of narratives— what with their readily-identifiable beginnings, middles, and endings & all— is that if you can identify which narrative you’re in and you don’t like how it ends: you can take steps to change it, if not remove yourself from it altogether entirely.

And so there held in K-Roo’s paw was a very sharp point. So sharp it caused him to bleed, and as he bled, he mused: “If this point is sharp enough to make me bleed, might it not also be sharp enough to sever Maybelleroo’s ties with that fuckeroo? That fuckeroo I have to remember not to call ‘fuckeroo’ in her presence (per the advice of the womanroo from the domestic violence hotline), lest she get defensive of him?” It was worth a try.

And so he tried.

But she did not want to leave him; and so he failed.

As K-Roo’s head sank down in dejection, Platy’s rose up from out of his pouch in response, intercepting his gaze before it hit the rockbottom below; over their shared lifetimes she’d developed a bit of a sixth sense for his need of her. Straightaway she asked if his friend Maybelleroo was a romantic and when Poochypouch [one of Kangaroo’s akas] replied “Yes,” Platy followed by asking if Maybelleroo also thought she could help her abuseroo get better or change, to which K-Roo sighed “…yes.” Platy then asked K-Roo if Maybelleroo had other friends who were pressuring her to break free from her abuseroo, and the MC answered “Most of them. Not all. Most.” Then Platy spoke.

“There’s the saying Love conquers all and there’s the saying History repeats itself— both of which make promises about the future. Each, however, uses a different mechanics: the first is voiced from the emotional present (like an encouragement, almost a battle cry of “Onward, ho!”); the second is voiced from the known past (like a warning, or a crossroads sign pointing towards an alternative path).

“The power of ‘Love conquers all’ is drawn from the emotional energy a kangaroo feels about hisher imagined goal; often less emotionally, ‘History repeats itself’ instead draws its power from recollected facts. You could say that the former has all the force of an (inherently) emotionally-charged mental image of a desired outcome, and that the latter’s force is restricted to however a kangaroo might feel about a particular photograph of something he/she wished never existed. Moreover, whenever ‘History repeats itself’ gets said, there’s usually a situation unfolding behind which there’s already considerable momentum towards likelihood of repetition.” Mentally reviewing Maybelleroo’s current dilemma, Poochypouch concurred with a nod.

“And if you don’t mind my being subtle,” which P-Pouch did not, “when ‘Love conquers all’ plays through a kangaroo’s mind, it’s typically as if the roo is saying it oneself— whereas when ‘History repeats itself’ plays through, it’s often instead as if the roo is hearing it said. Given this slight-but-critical difference, one could argue that the first saying arises from a subjective perspective, the latter from adopting a more objective one.”

Like anyroo, Kangaroo knew which way rooman nature tended towards when the options were between subjective & objective truths, and he didn’t entirely like the implications. “So you’re saying history is more powerful than love?”

“No,” replied Platy with some surprise, “almost to the contrary: history is nothing less than the record of love expressed alternating with the aftermath of love withheld (or even love misdirected).” While this made sense, K-Roo also furrowed his brows a bit.

“Love will conquer all— except for when it’s called upon to conquer the wrong thing. My concern for your Maybelleroo is that she’s expecting love will save her relationship with her abuseroo— and it won’t because it’s not a viable relationship. This is also to say: it seems Maybelleroo is confused about where the love is needed in her life: and since she’s being physically beaten & verbally abused, and is moreover believing receipt of these attacks is her own fault, I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t really love herself.”

Here is where The Rooster said “Okay,” but with an extended pause to either side of the word.

For he had some reservations. Primarily: he had a level of mistrust about— & subsequent caution around— too-slick sounding (often armchair) diagnoses of a psychological nature, of which “X doesn’t love himherself” could very well be. Platy understood & didn’t disagree with his policy of wariness, adding that she indeed often felt the same. She also & importantly went on to say that her analysis of Maybelleroo could hardly be considered complete: other factors neither of them knew about most certainly existed, factors Maybelleroo would likely never share; notwithstanding these limitations— as well as citing the danger of waiting for “complete knowledge” before acting— Platy stood by her assessment.

“I know Maybelleroo well enough to see she has some issues with her self-esteem that are excluded from the persona she shows you. With that there, we can deduce that at some level, she’s not the kangaroo she wants to be, and accordingly doesn’t feel she’s the sort of ‘whole, total-package rooette’ who deserves to be loved completely. This being the case— & without pretending the preceding comprises a complete, causal explanation for the problem— it’s pretty clear she, at least at some level, doesn’t love herself.

“Now, conveniently for her,” Platy continued with a darker sarcasm, “she seems to have found anotheroo who’s all-too-happy to not love her completely— yet who’s careful enough to express kindness enough to make her feel wanted just enough to stick around… until he blows up again, whereupon she leaves again… until she returns to him again (since he ‘just needs help’ & she just wants to help)… whereupon he apologizes & becomes ‘nice’ again… and they get close again… until the tensions-largely-by-his-calculations build again & he blows up… again— with this cycle repeating ad infinitum until it can’t.

“P-Pouch: we’re talking some textbook douchearoo behavior here. We’re talking about a situation in which the guyroo knows his good-looks alone— serving to allay the ladyroo’s doubts & insecurities about her own body— make it so he almost doesn’t need to use verbal manipulation to keep her confined to his orbit. And you know what else? It’s entirely possible that that detail there— how it’s she who repeatedly chooses to return to his abuse— helps keep him from feeling guilty about his doucheness. Even as we & anyroo else can see how at the end of the day he’s repeatedly abusing anotheroo— not something that roos who love themselves do— that’s the level of complete & total sociopatharoo we’re dealing with here.”

And so there before him The Rooster saw a confusion of planets & suns: a pair of planets orbiting each other, and a pair of suns meandering vaguely in orbit of the orbiting planets— yet with each sun slipping off a little farther away with each revolution, leaving the pair of planets in increasing degrees of darkness & cold. “That’s not love,” mused K-Roo.

So he then reached into the vision and separated out the planets, gently setting each one into orbit with its proper sun. Now spinning about in his imagination were a pair of distinct solar systems, each being self-contained & -sufficient units— whereupon Platy herself entered into his vision, reaching out & gently nudging one solar system in one direction, and the other in another. With the two self-contained systems now orbiting each other, thusly was created a greater & heretofore unseen system. In this newly revised vision the planets shone brighter in some orbits & darker in others, but as a totality were always more closely bound together with each revolution, were ever warmer each time— just as they’d be for forever & until death; and “That,” blinked K-Roo, “is love.”

“I won’t disagree,” remarked Platy,“but will add that another measure of as much— to call attention to your latter vision’s even distribution of love upon both lover & the loved— is in how neither collapses into darkness if the other leaves, be it for a time or for a different forever, should some significant shift occur in one life which isn’t reciprocated in the other.”

“So, basically you’re saying that part of what’s necessary is like in that one Katy Perryroo song where she sings ‘I found I had to love myself the way I want you to / Love me’?”

“Better yet would be the next verse when she kicks it up to ‘I’m gonna love myself the way I want you to / Love me,’ but, yes: if we’re considering Maybelleroo’s predicament & those planets, I’d say that following Ms. Perryroo’s lead is where we want for our friend be.”

And so Kangaroo & Platy ended their conversation in agreement. What they had agreed upon was the nature of anotheroos’ problems; the fact that Maybelleroo still had problems wasn’t lost on either of them. For while the disjoint of “theory & practice” was trouble enough already, it paled in comparison to that of otheroos’ theory as regards otheroos’ practice. This is also to point out that even if Maybelleroo were witness to her friends’ conversations & visions just now, high were the chances of her continuing doing as she did, for roos will generally do as roos have usually done. Suffice it to say, this is owing to the fact that roos quite easily get confused: hence the well-known term confusearoos, of which more will be spoken at another time.

For the day was long enough already as it was. And while K-Roo had a sense of closure in theory which felt good on the one hand, the sharper sense of closure not existing in practice— viz., for Maybelleroo— was a salted open wound on the other. As often happened when he felt conflicting things to the degree he didn’t know what he was feeling, he went outside to the streets. Many a roo were out & about as well, the City was alive and breathing. It was good to be in a world with a pulse. It was strange to be in a world with so many different pulses, and as such it was strange, in a way, to be in the City; the City was where you chose which world you wanted to inhabit, neighbor to otheroos who, bouncing along right beside you, lived in worlds far apart from yours & yet shared all the same.

But tonight he wanted to live with Maybelleroo, who was very far away & who wasn’t doing well. He walked into a bookstore and picked up a copy of Helping Her Get Free by Susan Brewsteroo, per recommendation of the gentle-voiced stranger from the hotline. Outside through the trees the stars were out, and he could readily feel the imminent change of season in both air & dress. He didn’t know where he would live in 5 years, let alone ten. He didn’t know whether she was being hit right now, or else if she was crying. And if she was crying, he didn’t know if she’d tell him why— really why— she was; as much as he loved her, their relationship was now different from what it was once. He knew very little about certain things, and how odd it was that some of these seemingly many things pertained to a few of the ones he cared about most.

Platypus was riding in her shotgun position as always. Her eyes scanning the horizon, the heavens above & earth below— seeing what was to to be seen, smelling what was to be smelt; hearing what was to be heard, feeling what was to be felt. There against K-Roo’s belly & with her head poking out from his pouch, she was in a certain sense equivalent to a watchwoman perched upon a ship’s mast. In another sense, the word symbiotic defined their relationship quite well, what with how each helped the other get to where both were off in the going to go, their aims & goals being kindred & alike.

“I’m not feeling so great. Can we pull over?,” she said.

Kangaroo had been bounding along into the lonely open, an open which seemed never to close. Not even close with the night: for when down went the sun & whereupon the horizon died into darkness, the openness of the bright barren & clear simply passed the baton along to another, opposite openness of the dark impenetrable & endless. Neither was much of a home for a kangaroo, he sometimes felt; and yet both, in the end, absolutely had to be, needed to be without question.
        Yet nevertheless & notwithstanding being in the midst of his musings (mused to the metronome of his own steady pace) Kangaroo came to a stop. Platypus climbed out, briefly stretching her platyarms & legs as she did so, immediately after which she moved into a hunch.

“You alright?” asked K-Roo. Platypus had sat down, looking around. Kangaroo reached into his pouch for some water, pulling out a bottle containing not as much as he hoped to find. “Here. Take this.”

Platy took the bottle & drank, her dribbles making dark the dust around her platylips. As eagerly as she drank & as thirsty as she was, she stopped perfectly halfway & handed the remainder to K-Roo. “Here,” she said, “you have the rest.”

“I’m fine,” returned K-Roo, in casual protest, who clearly wasn’t fine at all; droplets of sweat seemed to terminate from half the entirety of his fur’s follicles.

“It’s my water. Drink it.” K-Roo didn’t argue and drank; it was, after all, Platy’s bottle that he’d pulled out. Watching K-Roo gulp the last drop, Platy couldn’t help but notice that if the sweat dripping from this drinking marsupial were to be collected back into the very bottle from which they drank, quite likely it would’ve filled right back up; their supply being finite, this was an issue. As evenly as she could muster she expressed “We’re going need some more of this… in the coming days.” Upon looking up at K-Roo— who didn’t seem to register the weight she’d intended to convey— she then added “And we’d best get to the task of finding it soon.”

“Where? And where are we, anyways?” asked K-Roo.

Platy scanned the horizon, listened to the wind & watched the manner in which the sun fell, noting the time upon her watch’s face, as well. She then looked down at the ground below, touching it. First with her delicate webbed hands, then with her soft body as a whole. After some minutes of feeling the Earth upon her furry belly, she climbed back up into K-Roo’s. Pointing yonder, she said “Over there. I think it’s over there where we’ll find a well. Let’s try for it.”

“You’re the boss,” smiled K-Roo as he bounded away. The ground they’d left from was hard, almost cousin to the concrete of the City. Tumbleweeds blew in from different directions, and the couple drops of water they’d spilled camouflaged via evaporation & absorption into the natural color of the unforgiving desert. The few living creatures around (mostly of the hardscrabble burrowing variety, or else insects of great tenacity) looked up, and— knowing the well towards which K-Roo & Platy bounded— chattered intently, and quickly agreed upon conjointly investigating the situation. To see what was to be seen, perhaps, as they say.
        Not a soul had gotten water from this particular well in decades, perhaps even nearly a century. And if the well they were off to was indeed the one suspected, each & every one of them had to wonder: was not that well reputed to be a sham well? a kind of cultural mirage for the foolish? an empty, dry hole that only looked of water to those “believing” they were seeing as much? For since the beginning of the earliest any of them could remember, it’d always been said that that fabled well was really nothing but a fable after all.

So it would all have soon to be seen. Presently visible for the moment, however: was a kangaroo & a platypus bounding off under a boundless night, beneath a slow trickle of stars bringing forth to bear. And in differing degrees & at varying speeds: with a motley audience of the curious trailing behind.

A song suddenly coursed through his heart, stirring memories & retrieving images of times having had as much fun with friends as was possible without anyroo getting hurt, excepting of course the livers of all. The song’s chorus went I go out on Friday night / and I come home on Saturday morning, sung by the rooette in Nouvelle Vague, covering The Specials. How much this song was attached to a particular weekend in Providence, Rhode Island, wherein with friends he stayed with strangers & did just as the song sang. Indeed, he remembered awaking the next day & being slightly drunk still, having to soon drive home nevertheless, enveloped by a sunlight perfect & morning air crisp. Somehow— & it was important to know how, he felt— it was one of his happiest memories.
        And now, this evening— around a decade later— he was struck by a nostalgia, almost overcome by a nostalgia. And it was a nostalgia akin to the kind felt for his childhood spent with his father, all of the days of his happy youth. Not only could ten years ago never be returned to, but its contents couldn’t be reached back into & pulled back to the present; or, more precisely: not, at any rate, with the same (largely positive) emotional results as experienced before.

It was in this manner that the Rooster realized that something had newly shifted in his heart, that something was indeed different from prior. For while some nostalgias can be 1) somewhat slaked by possession of an object from the desired former time, or 2) hopelessly stared at upon entering a photograph, dwelling in memory— there was nothing actually, physically, really blocking him from calling up those same friends & purchasing a bus ticket & grabbing a pint of whiskey & having a go at the town anon & anew, like in the happy days of old.
        And yet there was a block, all the same & immovably: it was mental and emotional, partly having to do with the imagination, and perhaps the word necessity, as well (though he couldn’t say why these last two words came to his tongue’s tip). Suffice it to say: he just wasn’t feeling it anymore; and that, it seemed, was that.

You either are or you are not feeling it; and he just wasn’t any longer. But those times, the times when he was: he loved intensely, despite how they may’ve adversely affected his health in many ways. Yet he also knew he could never go back, not like he once did, not as blissfully fully & with the same wanton abandon. Those days are gone, he said to himself aloud— to the tune & in the words of another chorus line, this time from The Magnetic Fields.
        And while it was a good thing in most ways, it was also sad in others. It was sad that such brands of fun affected the body in such a lousy manner; they were happy times, overflowing with that certain [temporarily] limitless exuberance of emotion which only alcohol makes possible, takes hand in hand like hand in glove.

That the song & the images coming to mind along with it triggered in him nostalgia — a nostalgia he could no longer respond to in the same manner as he might’ve just a few years back— caused him to realize that something in him had changed. Not, however, that this necessarily guaranteed anything as regarded his future actions, however. To wit: if in fact it really was the case that he’d grown out of certain shoes: when could he expect for new shoes to arrive in their place? and would he regularly wear them anyways when they came? what would keep him from opting to just endure the constricting pain of persisting in his old-yet-familiar shoes until they were really trashed & in tatters? leaving his feet bloodied & in blisters? The answers would have to remain to be seen.

MC K-Roo awoke with a start, the jolt coursing through his tail to such a degree that he was almost knocked from his bed entirely; for it was one of those dreams ending with a fall of sorts.

In the dream, The Furry Fury is at a dinner table. And everyroo is serving him & everyroo is being served. Though it is not exactly clear how it’s all happening, it all begins like this: there are suddenly all of these arms coming from behind everyroo around the table, all in the steady process of placing plates & bowls & cups, knives & forks & spoons. And as they all reach in— arms & wings & paws of animals of all kinds, coming in all shapes & sizes— they do not come from directly straight back, but at a 45° angle. Upon their completion of the task of setting the table, everyroo present sees that there are vessels & plates & utensils— picking them up & examining them even, as if to verify the fact of their being what they appear to be— and everyroo is hungry, their mouths extremely dry.
        The Troopa is no exception, and so his eyes light up when arms from behind him return with what can only be the main course. As if from behind a soft, black curtain of vertical night (or of filmic special effects, even): arms serve onto all’s plates steaming cuts of choice meats, heaping spoonfuls of mashed potatoes & various grains, local as well as eclectic vegetables of every kind— and all having been prepared in all ways imaginable; as if fit for a king of a boundless kingdom. Ladlefuls of a sort of never-before-seen soup soon appear, which seems to have everything in all the world within it— indeed, the smell of everything upon the table somehow seemed to be a smell summing to all things ever.
        But then most peculiarly was this: the heavy goblet-like cups began to fill, simply & just like that, without having been poured into at all: upwards from nil, a meniscus was birthed & rose until reaching a line adequate to satiate the animal it would serve.
        The Furry Fury almost couldn’t believe his eyes, thought perhaps he was seeing things. And so he directed his gaze to the cup of the kangaroo next to him: only to find the very same thing happening before his clear-yet-deerblack eyes.
        “Holy jeepers! Did you guys see that? CHRIST!!!!,” the Fury exclaimed, with almost nothing but joeylike excitement. “…almost nothing but” was because: the one other thing evidenced in his eyes was the fact he was incredibly hungry & thirsty— and so before he could but hear anyroo’s reply or comment upon his, all he could hear was the food he was somehow already chewing in mouth, the gulps of that which arrived from his cup. And it tasted like nothing else on Earth he’d ever before tasted, despite that it could only have come from the Earth itself.
        Whereupon the cup refilled itself, and more hands-from-behind replaced new & different food upon his plate & into his bowl. Yet when he looked around the table, no one else was eating— even as everyroo had been served the same incomparable & impeccable dishes. With his face looking down at the delicious provisions before him, his eyes then looked askance to the table’s head. And that’s when he noticed— at the very head of the table & for the very first time— a balded bear wearing a crown, looking down & past that which was there before him. Whereupon Kangaroo instantly knew: this was The Bald Bear King.

And as K-Roo began to raise his gaze to the King, the whole room, table & spread & animals & all, began turning upside down, as if his gaze were the sole lever upon which everything within the room rested.
        It was then & at the very moment just before K-Roo’s gaze met the gaze of The Bald Bear’s that he was jolted awake.

K-Roo had put on some weight, as he was sadly wont do. Having been spoiled with sweets by his grandmotheroo when little had created a trajectory which turned out, years later, to be a little bit tricky at times. Yet a first-world problem if ever there was one was weight gain. The evening was a Saturday night; and in the City, one needn’t a calendar to tell, just a window out onto the streetlamp- & starlight-lit world of skirts & dress shirts outside.
It was an odd imprisonment, the imprisonment of oneself in the present on account of one’s actions in the past. Such actions affected the future always, and by simple virtue of physics & one’s death ever-impending, accordingly posed an extremely serious problem.

The present is what everyroo has. The future is all that anyroo has the ability to shape, make in accordance to his or her will [in the present] or no. There are obvious conditions & impediments as regards this edict of sorts, but suffice it to say for roos living in the West in 2014: a lot tended to be fixable. At all events & speaking solely for himself: K-Roo had to readily admit that any shortcomings in his current appearance were due largely to his own failures & missteps, and all having occurred over a definable period of time. And while it went went without saying that not everything in this world could be fixed, it also might be said that it was a terrific waste of time & energy to be troubled by broken things that, with some time & other energy, could be set back into working order.

§

It happens in life that sometimes a kangaroo sees a rooette so stunningly attractive that he remembers the image of her— a perfect strangeroo (and all the periphera about the scene & moment in which she’s seen)— for the rest of his life. Depending entirely upon the mood of a given, later moment in which the beautiful strangeroo’s image is recalled: either great inspiration & a potential for new life is felt, or else the diametric opposite thereof— generally in the form of a cue for self-loathing.
Poochypouch wasn’t feeling so inspired or loveable this evening. He wasn’t feeling all that well at all, in fact. The morning mirror reflected a total absence of the jawline he’d just a couple or so weeks ago had— a fact wholly unsurprising given the great quantity of ice cream he’d recently eaten versus the paucity of hours he’d exercised or for that matter even slept.
But not feeling it interesting to dwell upon the mistaken ingredients of his last few weeks, he decided to digress to a more substantial problem. [All the while: knowing full-well that his “more substantial problem” directly resulted from that which he neglected dwelling upon.] Riding his bicycle in Manhattan today, K-Roo saw one of the most beautiful black-haired rooettes he’d ever seen in his life. Trackstanding at a stoplight as she passed, his neck was made of rubber. No chance with her did he have. Her legs were unprecedented. The whole situation was just amazing. He’d never even used the word “unprecedented” in describing anotheroo’s legs before, but that was the fact of what they were. She looked amazing, was beautiful. Just the realization of his total lack of chance— the unlikelihood of her eardrums even registering his voice— was as astounding as it was depressing. Nevertheless: in a split second he was ultimately grateful for the moment, as it let him know where he stood.

Over time & in the best and worst of such times: MC K-Roo had to admit that he was not always comfortable in his body. Lucky was he to have known times when he in fact was; but it was his largely self-created problem that he presently existed in a time in which he was not. Life can kill— just because it feels like so doing; and this time around it did, and so a part of him felt pretty dead accordingly. So here it seemed was a fork: he could thusly continue to be dead in that one way, or he could get on with it & die in another. Understanding metaphor, Platy once mused, was in all likelihood the world’s primary hope for forging through its present darkness, the only finger holding fast betwixt the neck & the noose. The winter of 2013–14 was long & with menace; but now, however, the spring was here. (Was it not?)

K-Roo poured himself a light beer. He was switching off between it & non-alcoholic beer, as the idea of drinking less appealed to him. Everything was in the balance. He’d experimented with sobriety before & rode the wagon for some months, eventually jumping off for fact of the fit not feeling quite right. The middle ground posed a project worthy of investigation: not infrequently did either/or relations tend to create new problems in place of the old ones “solved”— not least of all by frequently presenting false dichotomies. K-Roo was currently looking for something different, and if in the end he didn’t find it: then at least he’d have had the experience of having tried.

The out-of-his-league rooette bicycling upon the bicycle remained in mind. The night wasn’t great. He poured another & wrote. To the tune of the great 1982 Altered Images song I Could Be Happy, he— quietly & in his room, softly before sleep— penned a slightly revised version as follows:

Trapped in a body on a Saturday night
I could be happy, I could be happy
Clothes aren’t fitting ’cause they’re feeling too tight
I could be happy, I could be happy
You’ve gained some weight & now you wish didn’t
I could be happy, I could be happy

All of these things I do
All of these things I’ve done
To get away from… what?
Get away, run away, far away, holding on
Get away, run away, far away, where am I?
Just here again.

Trapped in a body on a Saturday night,
I could be happy, I could be happy
Beautiful rooettes out donning spandex so tight
I could be happy, I could be happy
Well-groomed roos link their arms on the street
I could be happy, I could be happy

All of these things I do
All of these things I’ve done
To get away from… who?
Get away, run away, far away, holding on
Get away, run away, far away, where am I?
Just here again.

Their laughter trails off as I stare at my feet
I could be happy, I could be happy
Their bedroom door opens, the room remains dark
I could be happy, I could be happy
Fur against fur and a few static electricity sparks
I could be happy, I could be happy

Get away, run away, far away, holding on
Get away, run away, far away, where am I?
Get away, run away, far away, oh how did I?
Get away, run away, far away, please help me now
I’m here again.

Father’s Day was not yet, but was minutes nigh. All of the emotions, all of the terror. Nothing about anything was good about the day to come, and nothing about anything was good about these last minutes in the day prior to the day to come.

There were stars in the sky, the clouds having opted to show respect by rolling back for the evening leading into the fated day. A bit of trivia: K-Roo’s father— a man of the world with prismatic interests— when younger wished to understand the far away spaces beyond this world, wished to be an astronomeroo.

When Kangaroo was but a joey, there were so many nights when his father would take him out into the fields, telescope in one paw & little K-Roo’s little roo paw in the other, to look up at the stars. The stars impossible, the stars sure. Glowing spheres of gases & energy, they were the very embodiment of illumination; and what they essentially were— light— travelled headlong to the Earth at the fastest speed known to roomankind. It was strange to know this speed, and how that by which one saw was a measurable thing in motion, coming from outer space.

And now, turning around the sun, it’s Father’s Day.

And MC K-Roo reached into his pouch & extracted a small book by a beloved authoroo who had also not long ago recently passed: Small Memories, by José Saramagoroo— specifically the hardcover & dust-jacketed English edition, priced in British pounds. On the lower half of the cover: an illustration of a father & his son, the father’s arm around his son, they’re sitting up against a tree, looking up at stars, constellations. It caused The Furry Fury to tear.

Just a couple years back, one of the MC’s favorite MCs dropped a genre-defying album that was so tremendous it moved him to write her a double-digits-pages-long letter in which he praised her singular work at sizable length. For several specific reasons, however: K-Roo opted against mailing the letter. For there was 1) his worry that she didn’t read long letters from unknown roos; there was 2) his considerable anxiety over whether his effusive praise (& possibly overly-familiar tone) might lead her to think he was a crazy kangaroo at best, or stalkeroo at worst; and there was lastly 3) his wish that his words be heard as coming from a fellow MC, not just a fan.
        Given these concerns, MC K-Roo knew that a personal delivery— ideally through a mutual friend— was in all likelihood the only plausible option. Given that he didn’t seem to know anyroo who knew her— and the contents weren’t time-sensitive in the least— the letter’s delivery would have to wait. Which was fine by him: she was busy, & he was busy trying to become as busy as she. And “Perhaps,” he further mused, “it’d be better to have more ‘recognition’ before attempting an introduction, anyways…?” Whatever the case, Poochypouch accepted that Yolandajoon wouldn’t be getting the letter anytime soon, and simultaneously reflected that the music world was, at the end of the day, a small world: meeting his liaison was thusly but a matter of time, the proper moment of which chance was probably best left to determine anyhow.

And so for a couple of years, the letter sat.

Then one day in the autumn, The Marsupial Troopa was passing his favorite local music venue when he looked up at the marquee to read SPECIAL ENGAGEMENT TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT ONLY: MC YOLANDAJOON, which he basically actually couldn’t even believe. So he went over to the window and asked. Whereupon the rooette at the box office confirmed it, noting it was she herself who’d placed each & every letter of the words up there on high, adding it was also she herself who’d sold each & every ticket to the show but one… and wouldn’t he like to purchase that last one? By way of reply to the nigh-unnecessary question did he remove from his pouch his wallet, pay the requisite dollar amount, & then receive said ticket in an envelope in exchange. Thanking the box office rooette with a nod & a smile, he then slipped his wallet & the envelope back into his pouch, and headed off for home for the remainder of the day until the evening hour printed upon the ticket arrived.

And before he knew it, there he suddenly was: in the middle of a long, around-the-block-winding line of dapper-dressed & chic-looking roos & rooettes, all there for the same shared reason of being swayed by the peerless sounds of one of their generation’s greatest beat-makers & lyricists: MC Yolandajoon. It was pretty exciting, not least of all because he’d never seen her live before & didn’t really know what to expect— especially since the albums he felt her finest were ones the perfection of which showcased her ample & influential studio mixing skills. Thusly & in sum: about to see a never-before-seen, long-time favorite MC & without expectations of any kind: he paused for a moment to think: just how great that situation was; and— looking up & down at the smiles of the otheroos ahead & behind— far from the only kangaroo thinking as much was he.
        As the line shortened & disappeared into the door of the venue, The Rooster imagined a long strand of yarn collecting itself into a ball on the other side of the door. Very soon would he be wound up warmly within it. “Tickets,” said the rooette working the door, whereupon K-Roo reached into his pouch and then handed to her the envelope produced.
        “…?” read the expression on her face, followed with a “What’s this?”
        “…!” read the expression on his face, followed with an “Ah! …sorry, wrong envelope,” as he took it back with his left paw & reached back into his pouch with his right, quickly producing the correct envelope & handing it over to her with the ticket inside. When she handed back the stub alone, he was left with the one, incorrectly-handed-over envelope in his left hand, the center of which read “For MC Yolandajoon” in his own handwriting from over two years back: he’d almost completely forgotten, but there it was: the long & unsent letter he’d written to her after first listening to her last album, Future Beats.
        “Huh,” he went. This was unexpected. Upon finding and taking his seat, he opened the unsealed letter, flipping through it briefly. The sight of its pages brought flashing back to mind images of the room in which he wrote it, as well as of that summer generally. The plan, as then hatched, was to give the letter to a (TBD) mutual friend to give to her, or else to give her the letter himself in the presence of said TBD friend, however many years in the future that may have turned out to be. But from the present moment sitting in the venue’s seats— with MC Yolandajoon on just the other side of the curtain, upon the venue’s stage— it almost seemed the imagined future would never come. Indeed, one had to admit there wasn’t any guarantee that it ever would: what if he simply never had a friend who was friends with her? It was quite possible. On the other hand, the present had the following certainty: he, she, & the letter were all there in the same place & at the same time— now. And so it was strange: for while generally when a letter & its intended recipient were within 50ish feet of one another, immediate “manual” delivery tended to be a no-brainer: here, however: he had absolutely no idea whatsoever as to what to do.

Thusly unable to determine a path of action (or path of none, as it were), he decided it likely best to chill & enjoy the show, wait & see if his feeling changed one way or the other by its end. He wasn’t sure why the yarn in this mind’s eye was pink, but it was: and like everyroo else around him, this pink yarn was precisely what— with Yolandajoon’s beats now beginning over the speakers & his private mental space being exited & the collective one around him entered— he & all the otheroos in the room in essence became.
        And it was good to be a piece of yarn— especially in the midst of all the other yarn sufficient to sum to a ball thereof: there was still nothing like live performance. For the duration of the show MC Yolandajoon would gently bat this ball around, playfully here & more seriously there. Sometimes she’d just roll it back and forth in a line or a zig-zag, and other times in small circles. With adept timing she’d  periodically switch the axis upon which it spun, thereby subjecting the audience’s emotional baseline to the seeming whim of her calculated flux. Now & again she’d slacken it a bit and then play with the slack, letting it fall loosely around her feet in looping patterns, all so as to cause her body to appear as the center of a flower the audience memberoos were each but petals growing out from. Then in the next instant the aforesaid image would disappear as she’d tauten the line, sometimes subsequently plucking at its tautened length to produce soft & curious sounds… until then slackening the line once more, lessening its sound again & into silence, a silence from which she’d rise as & when she wished, always at moments no roos could guess of— but moments which, later & after the show, everyroo would agree were precisely the right ones. For over an hour, this and more is essentially what she did.
        While there was no precise measure, at some point after that first hour it was clear that a shift had occurred, that a finale of sorts was en route in approach. Description was difficult, but it was almost as if one could feel the tension dropping from the yarn, yet the movement somehow not. For didn’t the speed of everything seem to feel on the increase? even as the perception of said speed registered near a standstill? More or less, that was— however paradoxically— how it was. Perhaps as an analogue: one can imagine staring from the window of an airplane taking off, the speedblurred tarmac racing beneath at a hundred miles an hour— and then a few minutes later & several times as fast, the window’s view of anything below or beyond being perfectly clear and nearly entirely still. Certain performers can do this, of which Yolandajoon was a one.

(It’s worth it to note here that the ability to collapse time & space is oftentimes used to describe the functions of both airplanes & art. One may see how each operates in the following fashion: after the moment of leaving a point of origin (a), one enters a realm where perception seems unlimited or unfettered, time nonlinear or practically paused… until the moment of arriving at the intended (or even unintended) destination (b). Here, one discovers being in a distant & completely different place, even as hisher legs have scarcely moved in the least. It is often & accurately said of such an experience that one has been transported— literally in the first case & metaphorically in the second.)

While the tension had left the yarn, it seemed to remain in the air; K-Roo could not help but picture little fibers of tension slipping out from the yarn, as light as air & joining ends together to form tiny halos of tensions hovering overhead. The audience was on the edge of their seats, such that if an earthquake at that moment occurred & the room’s front came up as its back fell down: everyroo would be perfectly balanced upon the fulcrum of their chairs, staring up at the stage from which MC Yolandajoon would be continuing to emcee sans interruption.
        It was thusly apparent that the end of the performance, as it were, was near: having slackened it all to the degree of nearly unraveling it, she wove and wove the yarn around and around the seats so that when suddenly she chose the moment to pull it all taut: new tensions were present where previously there were none, thusly drawing new figures & figurines in areas previously blank, creating new forms where previously existed empty space— the genius of which was best appreciated by mapping the turns & tensions as a whole (via imagined bird’s eye view, say), and not by experience of the individual points alone. K-Roo pictured the gridded nailboard / elastic band toys of his youth & of how, if seen from above, MC Yolandajoon’s manipulations of the audienceyarn shared a similarity of resulting aesthetic.
        As to what it all represented in the present, however: was as tremendous as it was ineffable. From up above the yarn amidst the seats below comprised an epic & pink Rorschach blotch of sorts: by turns it looked like a spinning galaxy, a burgeoning society, and a playground with young kangaroos playing and bouncing all around. An aspect of it had elements of a medical illustration of the inside of a marsupial’s heart, as well. And while it mightn’t have been possible to enumerate the total number of nouns it looked like, the underlining feeling for each was essentially the same for everyroo: a sense of wonder over the fact of what it meant to be a conscious rooman being existing upon the earth in that place on that night, together with otheroos feeling the same.

Metaphorically and almost literally did she tie each & every instant of the evening’s performance together, a cat’s cradle of kangaroos’ paws. Before The Rooster could even register that the performance had actually ended, applause was roaring all around him, and he found himself spontaneously clapping and standing in ovation as well. The many rows of silhouetted, pokey-eared heads of audience memberoos slowly dissolved back into the myriad identities of the individualroos they were as the lights went up & the curtains down. “MC Yolandajoon is a fucking geniusroo,” he found himself saying to himself as he stared at the shuffle of feet & tails and made for the exits, repeating as much to himself several times over. As the reluctant exodus was dense and slow, his words were overheard by other roos & rooettes who agreed & subsequently spoke similarly; conversations were thereby started and new alliances made, even if they didn’t necessarily lead to friendships (or even acquaintanceships) in fact.

What was important was what was felt. And, how the same or a very similar feeling came from everyroo who’d come that evening, enveloping each like a warmest of blankets, and how these eternally-had-but-sporadically-used blankets were now shown to be of a kind of velcro, binding strangeroos together en masse de facto by virtue of their simultaneous proximity to the music & each other alone.
        It was pretty incredible. K-Roo wondered why more roos didn’t take these blankets out of their proverbial pouches more often. “Probably because everyroo would be all stuck together all the time & nothing would ever get done,” Platy said in response to his thought. And, it was true: it was good to hear the right music at the right time instead of all the time. For if art— which speaks of a specific space & a particular time— were everywhere always & ever-present, the entirety of the Earth would be the map & the territory all at once, and newborn roos would be raised in confusion over whether they were standing upon the signifier or signified— the significance of each thereby being forever unknown.
        “And the almost magical relationship of each to the other thereby being forever unknown!” continued Platy in hypothetical lament. Which was also true; and so it was good to occupy the space between the map & the territory, which was rooman consciousness precisely. K-Roo’s & Platy’s conversation on such topics specifically & of the performance generally lasted them a quantity of minutes sufficient to carry them home. Once inside, MC K-Roo took his wallet out of his pouch and set it down, the fold of which inadvertently pulled out his unsent letter to MC Yolandajoon as well. “Whoa…!” was he. Under the spell cast by her performance and in the resulting half-daze with which he wandered out, he’d forgotten about the letter & its question entirely.
        To himself he said “I guess there’s always tomorrow,” knowing that while his words were true as he spoke them, they wouldn’t be were he to repeat them the following evening.

And so the day was here. The morning sun had risen up behind clouds, beneath which fell drops of rain. For practical reasons this was somewhat of an annoyance, as it precluded him from wearing what he’d planned to so as to make the impression he’d hoped for. For reasons apart from the practical, the grey weather just didn’t strike as the best of omens, so to speak. Feeling the lesser amount of light and hearing the water he’d imminently be under, he left his bed slowly & without much enthusiasm, the tangled sheets of which pulled him back more than its mattress springs sprung him forth.
        So, it wasn’t ideal from the start. Nevertheless he got dressed & ready to go, looking in the mirror at a large, bedheaded kangaroo covered in a soon-to-be-damp grey rain parka— and one who, moreover, hoped to appear completely normal in the act of delivering a sprawling, pawwritten letter (written two years ago, he’d need mention) to a pretty & famous rooette about maybe half his size. This picture too, he realized, was not entirely ideal.
        But neither was it unforeseen: such being the case, he remembered how when writing the letter, he’d taken pains to make clear how his intentions weren’t roomantic in the least— and not least of all because: she was married to another MC whose rhymes MC K-Roo regarded highly & with great respect. [No less: an unusually high-level of (very) unlikely biographic similarities were shared by both her husbandroo & he: both grew up skateroos, attended the same, tiny music college (where they studied the same instruments, even), and then briefly worked as farmers— all while dropping albums along the way. Statistically, out of all the almost 7,000,000,000 roos on the planet, there were maybe 6 otheroos fitting this description. Because it was such an extremely weird coincidence, he took it upon himself to mention it to her in the letter.] [Moments after penning this mentioning, however, K-Roo realized such an observation could be misconstrued as tantamount to telling a complete strangeroo: “Hey sweetieroo, I’m exactly like your hubbyroo!”, which tended to be a rather unwise and somewhat off-putting thing to say. While he likely probably should’ve left the whole husband coincidence thing out, in his enthusiasm for Future Beats he simply spilled everything out onto paper as if he were writing to a longtime pal, the album having made him feel as though he knew her, like she knew him. Realizing that tens of thousands of the album’s other listeneroos probably felt exactly the same way (the elicitation of such a sensation being one of the hallmarks of great art, anyway) he made mental note to never again— and especially not when in the process of crafting a first impression— to tell anyroo of how he was exactly like his or her spousearoo.]

And so there he stood before his front door, cringing at the recollection of his lack of restraint. The envelope was sealed; what was done was done. Opening it & rewriting the letter, omitting the section in question— and writing it from a plainer psychological space so different from the highly-enthusiastic one which’d originally produced it— was problematic in different ways, mostly pertaining to authenticity & sincerity; a couple of critical things which, if off in any way whatsoever, his readeroo would surely sense.
        “Goddamnit,” mumbled K-Roo with regard to the prolongation of his vacillations… .. . ….  .  …  ..  …. .  …..before then ultimately-albeit-tenuously slipping the envelope back into his pouch & pulling his parka hood over his head. He wasn’t entirely sure that his mind was entirely made up, but he was fairly certain he’d be late if he waited another several moments longer.

§

As it turned out indeed, he was very glad to have arrived on time: once again & exactly like the day before— and yet in a manner completely different— everything she did, every aspect & element of her performance, was right & full & on point. The audience’s applause & ovation was extended & standing; how fortunate they were that an artist such as she was performing in a city such as theirs.

And so now there he was towards the back of a line of a solid contingent of a hundred or so roos, all wielding CDs patiently in paw whilst waiting for their signing, exactly like he— save for exception of his bearing a letter to perhaps leave.
        To avoid seeming too odd, he also brought along two of his own works to give to her— a short EP about 20 minutes long, & a CD with which more time could be spent should she ever so wish. This way, it’d at least be immediately recognizable that he was a confrere emceeroo engaged in the game, and not the likes of a sideline-glued stalkeroo.

(It also somewhere had to be said that he had no idea as to what he wished to come of the transition of his writing into her reading: he just wrote. He was a kangaroo who saw things as he did, and she was a kangaroo who saw things as she did— sometimes their aesthetics were related, most other times not. But their works were both grounded in something similar, and often had to do with how matter, matters, & kangaroos themselves interrelate— as well as the language reflecting as much. A letter seemed in order; it could be discarded if & as the reader wished— the crossing of lives doesn’t have to happen at intersections where the roads are on the same level: sometimes roads cross other roads via bridges, never touching at all; which would also be fine: ships pass in the night everyday. If only because he presently possessed it in his pouch & nothing about now was especially clear: a fog horn seemed in order. Once sounded he’d needn’t have to ever again— if unresponded to his ship would simply sail on, the oceans were big. New ports emptied & filled all the time, quite regularly in fact. Ultimately: whatever was whatever— & the path was the goal.)

Now he was only five or so roos away, and the situation wasn’t the least bit different. In the oddest of ways, he also realized: trust was an issue, as well. Being alive was an issue, too; and while he’d live no matter what he did or didn’t do, he’d be more alive if he acted in a manner which called trust into being in some way. This is also to say: even if a received letter was discarded & no connection made, at the very least a space was being drawn in which two roos could see each other from opposite sides thereof, nod knowingly, & then carry on with their respective independent endeavors.

Whereupon like a flash of lighting in a field of night it occurred to him that his long letter sounding as a foghorn was essentially the written picture of a kangaroo’s proffered nod to anotheroo a ways off in the distance ahead.

By a very strange coincidence occurring at the very moment of his standing in line now just two roos away, Platy poked out from his pouch wielding his laptop to relate the following news: “K-Roo! You’re not going to believe this!” Pointing to a just-received email from one of their old friends, Platy exclaimed & explained “Dude! Look at this! Peteroo goofed with his annual studio email and accidentally put everyroo’s personal email address in the ‘To:’ box,, instead of bccing all the recipients!”
        And there it was, staring up at him from down below: just a few inches beneath his own personal email address was that of MC Yolandajoon’s. It was a pretty strange coincidence, sufficiently such so as to definitively check his vacillations regarding delivery. He had no idea that his old pal Peteroo was friends with her, but now that he did: he sighed a sigh of relief in recognition of the following assurance felt: if on the off-chance his letter was misconstrued as being anything other than a knowing nod, his friend & former roommate Peteroo could vouch for K-Roo’s normalcy, kindness & sincere intentions, as well as goodness & reasonableness generally, if ever so asked. Things were in the balance again. [He then deleted the email immediately after reading it, imagining that that’s what everyroo on the accidentally-exposed list would want for all of the other recipientroos to do.]

Now at the signing desk where sat the esteemed emceeroo, K-Roo had handed to her his own purchased copy of Future Beats, requesting that it be signed “For K-Roo & Platy.” Upon her signing it such & handing it back to him, he handed to her his CD & EP & the letter, mentioning he’d written it a couple years back after first having heard her album. “That’s weird,” she said. He had to admit (and Platy would later corroborate) it was a somewhat awkward exchange.
        However, now it was done. This was good because now it couldn’t be thought of again. This in itself was extremely good, because now he could more-focusedly get back to the never-finished task of composing & propounding his own lyrics & beats, ultimately arranging them into a forthcoming album. It was good to get back to work whilst under the spell of having been inspired by anotheroo’s creative oeuvre; it was a privilege to be able to do so whilst said roo was still in the steady process of reaching the height of her powers, essentially guaranteeing decades of future inspiration anon.

At different points in the life of a kangaroo, it’s necessary to question whether life is going well or else maybe-not-so-well / not-as-well-as-maybe-could-be. A lifetime, for all of its ostensible solidity— clothes purchased, albums recorded, beverage cans recycled, toilet paper crumpled & browned before being sent down into the relatively intricate, watery abyss of a municipality’s ably-engineered intestines, photographs of moments & milestones framed— is largely dreams, sometimes recurring nightmares, as well. In mind is less the sleeping kind, and more the born-in-daylight kind, the ones conjured up so as to move roos into the future & into change— so that when we’re finally in the future: we might be other than what we were in the past— and, hopefully: in a fashion more reflective of our intentions applied for days on end in those days gone by. This makes it that much of a lifetime is pretty much the experience of feeling hopes— as well as the occasional reconciliation with their failure to manifest as life.

These hopes are minted to tender, at some future date, the terms whereby we evaluate our successes & failures: i.e., how many we’ve had of each, and to what degree. And while of course the final reckoning comes at the deathbed: wiser roos can’t help but develop the habit of checking in now & again, however at intervals of varying prudence. No roo really being able to judge what constitutes for anotheroo “a sufficient degree of prudence,” it’s probably still safe to assume: the more frequently the better.
        But not only is it prudence inscribing these interval marks upon the meter: oftentimes there’s circumstance, as well. When the shit hits the fan, not only is it good to assess one’s clothes, but also to check & see if any’s landed upon the meter to mark a new & unfortunate interval of shittiness. Assuming circumstances are in fact bad & that a new, shitty interval has indeed begun (and maybe also for reasons of kangaroos’ tendency to become what they behold) not infrequently can one’s meter assessment send a roo spiraling downwards into a state far worse. Thusly: when a roo isn’t doing so hot— or even when the world around one isn’t— circumstances can require the meter being read more often.

§

Kangaroo wasn’t doing so hot. The things he’d taken out of his pouch having thought he’d done away with “once & for all” had silently found a way back in; the clutter & excess expunged had gravitated back towards him, circling ever closer & closer still, at once like coins in one of those very-precisely-engineered funnels on display in some science museums, as well as like vultures. Only in his case the spinning change wasn’t an additive monetary donation into the pot, so to speak, but rather a negative & unwanted presence in his pouch, as it were.

Such was his incitement to assessment; the details of which did not need going into. Addiction is the opposite of transformation. Addiction is the state of a kangaroo being bound (seemingly perpetually) to a repeated course of action, the result of which is to always achieve a familiar, known state— a pleasant one at first, and then not at all. The emotional result of this rise & fall is simply to be saddened by the expected & understood fall… again.
        Addiction vs transformation fights in an arena where it’s clear how each are opposites in virtually every way. A for instance: how the addictive state is familiar, where you instantly recognize you’re getting what you signed up for. With transformation, on the other hand: when you’re bounding along on the path towards it, you’re never quite sure if you’re there or not, save perhaps until after a long & uncertainty-riddled while; familiarity does not apply here.

Addiction exists on one plane, with the addictive act bringing glimpses of a different, seemingly lighter plane— until only to throw one back down upon the plane just left. Transformation, on the other hand, moves a roo from one plane to another.

§

This is where K-Roo stood, looking down into his pouch, Platy nowhere in sight. Yet that now & again a new year may’ve gotten off to a rocky start should be of no surprise, no concern, even: life itself is no different; all of it having started billions of years back with the ocean’s tides crashing upon pebbled & sandy shores, persistently.