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(Page 1 of 5) I Should’ve Gone West by jon Lyndon
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[ACCIDENTALLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION Basic Summary: A Strange Train Ride East...]
I got off the train in Boston, took a cab to a café in Kenmore Square. There was a Red Sox game on the TV, sound turned down as a group of MIT students were discussing the nature of Newtonian mechanics, Planet X and the recent news regarding the planet Pluto.
"...was considered our Solar System's ninth planet."
I clearly entered the wrong pub.
In Roman myth, Pluto is the god of the underworld, eh? Thus far Pluto had a strong hold on me as I drifted in and out of slumber, a floating newspaper wrapped itself about my legs like a curious cat as the sleep of ill-reason pulled me under... I heard the sounds of a bat smacking a ball and a huge crowd cheering "Manny" the deeper I slipped into the train's seat (on the train? still? Must have dreamt I was already in Boston). Life on Mars? and something about the ninth planet in our solar system as nothing more than Valium, nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide; Lowell and Pickering's ice-wet mistake. (Valium?)
The Boston Herald's headlines read: PLUTO NO LONGER CLASSIFIED AS A PLANET AFTER RECLASSIFICATION. [Now just the second-largest known 'dwarf planet' in the Solar System, after Eris and Ceres].
"everybody knows."
"dwarf planet?"
"minor planet?"
"But Pluto has three moons!"
"Yea: Charon, Nixon and Frost?"
"Nix and Hydra, you moron (laughter)."
"hey! Nix did open relations with China"
"the People's Republic of China"
"yea, where all our American flags and 'amber graces' are made!"
"don't forget Spiro! (snort)"
"Woodward and Bernstein!"
"you know, if you drop the 'R' in 'moron' you get a 'moon!?" (snort)
"yea, the Moron moon." (laughter)
"Hey, isn't the name of this pub The Smoking Gun?"
"No, it was, but Oliver Stone had it changed to the Stone Gate!"
"why not; they changed Pluto to a lesser class planet."
"like changing the Beatles to the Monkeys"
"different bands"
"just saying"
"...next they'll say our sun is nothing but a giant bug's light-bulb..."
Even research university students get smashed, like atoms. Almost even have a sense of humour. My eyes hurt...
"someone turn the TV sound up and drown out these lunatic dolls! The Sox game IS ON!" A huge guy with a UMASS sweat-shirt stained with sweat yelled out, formidable and drunk.
"you know baseball was invented to be played by crickets..."
"shut up, you little moron."
"little moon..."
Some pushing, a punch, a beer bottle smashed against someone's skull and I just can't seem to forget yet I can't remember, either.
-the voices from the pub blurred into vibrating voices on the train; my eyes half closed. Outside clouds and factories and buildings blurring by faster than...
I didn't have any real dreams on that ride; I had facsimiles of dreams, clattering noises, my heart beating irregularly. There was the dark rapture of being tied down by ropes in an old attic, somewhere in England when I was a boy.
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