shon

so priss and i graduated high school, high-schooled (pot blends with undergrowth knots, and boy was Nine rife) but soundly educated, and went our separate ways. she split to ivy leagues, away from corn hell and the limber stalks it hid; i went nowhere of importance but Nine. drifting, listing, always stern-bound by the seas lagging the rest of life's loafer-crew. we ran her ship terribly and harangued society's worse. merchant plunderers by day, forest scavengers at moonrise. but we didn't scavenge sustenance; we scavenged for sustainable places, locales fit for lingering in the moon-coat mists that swept across fertile floors. every oak a ship, every leaf a sail. chipper winds of change, tomorrow's echoing siren call. up on a bark-mast one saw all, from the rolling golf-hills, where priss presented her gifts, to the salt-colored pillar, paint-palette blank, at the flotilla's center. sweeping, swooping canopy, left to right: a panorama fit for universal studios. intrinsic beauty: Nine's best distraction. if one saw all Nine presented, one didn't see what i did.

Nine didn't like us. 

that's why we scampered. 

that's why shon found moe.

a few weeks of survival, baptized in night summer, unveiled Nine's true colors. Nine's tenacious ability to hunt should not go understated. Nine kicked us, the pirate-bums, into working shape, and pulled all others under. starlit nights heralded Nine's release and remained the cut-off point for ship boarding sessions. we all arrived port-side at different times from the surrounding towns, told more about ourselves through tree-branch movements than any office monkey desk chatter deduced. grimy feet, the goat-veterans of night-Nine, began tracks over fresh mud early as 6. others, those opportunist wolf-snatchers, didn't trundle in until 7. at 8 sharp rushed all the larks: bird-brains, quack-heads, beak-buzzers, nutsos in flight. they snatched patches fastest, took to roost squawking. seagulls in a sultry land, vivacious wood erect at their light patting up and over. out poured others: buck-does pairs clopping out bushes (a pang to wisp-errs, mistakes last time mitigated), peacocks prance-looked but piss-prepped (nobody fully took in what Nine threatened anyway), and our worst output: red-tape, red-assed baboon buffoonery. jolts, familiar neck-tingles and hair-pointing paired with a growing constraint of Nine's velvet atmosphere, motivated us instinctuals on deck, but no, those monkey-fucks -couldn't- mar their grubby thumb-paws with our musk. instead, on went the prattling, on went the foraging, on went their brief, knuckled-up exposure to Nine's nighttime dirt and grime.

then the moon rose right and our alarms all buzzed for 9's arrival.

there isn't a much cornier movement besides that into a 2nd person. 

well, you wouldn't know that with what corn-errs cut you there. 

ghastly. an adjective summed up by the rest. what followed for the gorillas, proud of what chimp-imitation of man's domination they brought forth for a moment on Nine's glob-gut. what followed your visions, to hell and too far back, glimpsing through pandemonium. the few to my crew (kodiak, swallow, and arctic snarler), they all said they gazed into the abyss, into lathered umbra left as existential excess. i failed to fall fool. you would too, if you looked close and took note of how no black spot stayed static. how dark thoughts slunk, sank and sizzled but never stopped. snap! and a man-beast, cut off, dove low again. SLASH proceeded harbor vandalism, fingernails left ingrained in sap as another ape flailed through bush. snip, some slushy twirling shlopped tangled bone-column knots onto our mast-main. another sentence couldn't do Nine's justice, couldn't make visible what savaged those poor desk-draggers. yelps, tears, even faintly human pleads dissolved into cicada chirp, washed out across the blossoming buzz of deck talk, as Nine's night tore on.

we enjoyed our sacrifice. 

uneased, but at ease. 

filthy land-lubbers.

no ungainly parts littered the shore as Nine's wildlife stripped down, brought au naturale groundward out of its nightly repression. everyone, every time afterwards, wondered what ravaged our bay with unmatched consistency. theories abounded, crawling out person to person, eager infection under truthful masquerade. our quarantine kept it kosher.

"devils. devils, i'm positivo. not demons," kodiak motioned at the tranquility, "because demons'd have swallowed err'one yesterday. them devils, they're lawyer-types. only exert claim on this ground, at this date, and ain't ever late. Nine ain't ever late. ain't ever miss a spot, neither."

arctic snarler did his namesake. "who saw shit up there in our treehouses? how we know these aren't people on the ground? people like us? in three weeks, three weeks since the first night, everybody's comfortable in branches. what could three years do to us? what if they're us...exposed to age?"

and the swallow, who sprouted into (and burst out of) my mind as shon, swallowed hard, missed by coincidence. flick, went your captain's vision. a pale moon-head craned starboard, then vanished to night star-board. blips of static leading off a tell.

an exception to daytime 'panzees.

worth future investigation.

soon.

but exemption doesn't do much besides screw us on fate's weaving board. my good reader, you wouldn't make it out alive. not you, not any baboon-beast. that's all the better. these comments don't stem from disrespect. no mockeries adhere to Nine's jungle-book visitation. all those baboon-loons kept their positions at one world in mind: that "real" one, that place so mired in miming as to mimic itself meaningless. that place that told hu(bris)man they were themselves. that place which embraced a genesis of genetic invigoration, of scientific, God-given objectivity. that place that ignored and ignores Nine, that pretends its existence doesn't rejoin their divisions.

shon kept his head at two...

...and ended up worse split.

developments

succinct.

brief.

triads.

my deliverance to you, the audience. four, five, six times? or maybe less. or maybe more. who's to say for sure? the man who sets the lure, who finds the cure. who knows exactly what it's for: us? or TV? or KO? so many malignancies. such potent patients. stable care wavers on the ledge keeping "unstable" minds in stabled places, helps alleviate the frustration brought by steel bars imposed on blue heaven. solid are our buoys built to handle human waves, most foul and vicious of all the ocean's offerings. yet our field remains overrun by quack-doctors, sons of Hypocrates, who do not concern themselves calming the waters. their prominence disturbs, distresses, churns, compresses. not relating to myself, really (because i don't, in desperation, grasp to insane notions of survival after contact), but relating to others plagued, plaguing others. suffering numerous afflictions; mental boils, soul-less snot, body rots. oh, theirs are the ways of He, then, so tumbled through vile mire! well, they're not my ways. our diagnosis isn't matched; our examinations don't mirror. such flagrant abuses of privilege cannot go unchallenged.

and i say i'm here to return to course. 

discourse, of course, is the best force for going anywhere but where necessary. 

that ends today.

there's a pattern present in the present-past. lurking in history's annals, its excrement, the actions and people processed before rendered unconscious to life's light, but not its process. a development, to grant it label- no, -the- development, or one-half anyway. the other loops together, clutches to the subtext, hangs on from an angle not yet visible. this catalyst for madness, for absolute, pure-bred insanity, exists in the stablest folk. my contemporaries, as much as i can call those more popular and illustrious than myself peers, have a knack for heading the same way. normalcy, uneasiness, total functional shutdown, then a plunge under solitude's icy capillary. a single kick sets it off: our just-as-concentrated friend TV. or KO. or even GM (although its prominence in military minds holds no weight for those unfamiliar with the Great Dismal). quite a few two-bit stand-ins take the "ration" out of "rationality" and leave -mans' heads all itty. tiny, all minis culled. a small frame, holding small landscape. no human connection besides the observer's. it's maddening, to dissect portraits without people, to see an sea's speckles and no sea-boats. an endless vista, and nothing for context. watercolors abyss, abound on every surface. ensure your people protect your truths.

that's what pulled priss roof-ward.

shingled verandas. rarity even in the south, like shingles boosters. to roost, her legs took her places - secrets revealed in that soul-spot previously elaborated. unconsciously, priss always said, tugging at half-placed strings, every movement jostling into the next. like a musician's rhythmic fingers, a writer's witty pen, she snapped into her motion, filing out the voided outline noticed by her vision. at first, no reasons for the changes, at least, no reasons she felt i needed knowing. not that i dug too deep. with aging comes a bell curve of superficial appreciation, and at that time my incline only ascended as her mounds sprung out. we split off a while after middle school started, in that old seaman/egg farmer fashion, but she cut off further than the rest and kept close to Nine's vest. i couldn't really stay away from her, though. follicle will-o-wisps and all that. i think we both knew what challenge she presented. as guarded as the forest's undergrowth, with matched vivacious under-growth. an avatar of life, of mama earth's succulent premium; smooth boulder pairs with cut plateaus intersecting. by the time we started high school, all i saw at the peak was us joined, rocking at the hips, magma dribbling out her lips. crude, certainly, but what else is expected from a frothing imagination? too late does that amorous mountain-love end; too early do peaks weather into craggy knolls. a homely reflection dissuades a young man, but keeps his elder intact, for gazing on images not yet fully eroded makes their memory all the sweeter. an idea leading to the ideal.

youthful experience prioritized.

but shingled verandas kept her above TV, above forest guarding, and her legs knew better than she did, so she always found herself hovering at its precipice, the tip of Nine's tit. that's how i found her the first time, on the first day of junior summer, ready to escape away. cornered, auburn glistening over auburns whistling in the wind, eyes brimming with resolve. life-sap conviction, one of her unique traits. i can't say she spilled a drop of blood until the last days when she broke par and i broke pardons, but that sap coagulated all kinds of hurt before her four holes in one. she stared in my direction then, one heel perched precarious off green slate, the other's toes steady as grecian pillars. her eyes swept past mine, though. took interest in something beyond my plateau-shoulders, took her pupils, dilated, to a concentrated blackness. so clueless of Nine's vulgarities, i found reason for action in her supposed desperation. her hand cupped air, soul-murmurs slipping life out her lips in every mist-tinted pant. before her daze cracked, my fingers matched her own, my lips picked up the excess spirit leaking away. suckled from the wellspring.

only later did she say that TV's endless tubes enclosed us in our touch.

our, we: time together

yesterday goes, comes, sticks around with jello-viscosity. a manufactured mental flubber, gumming up our present view. hard to chew through. harder still to sink in.

what priss represented, what she held, her weld, the sun-fire stickiness coating her vivacious bark (pale skin, gale sound), slips away, stolen off by the habitual sunrise, in morning, every morning. old one-eye, you orange propagator, how vicious do you treat your daughters! what did priss inflict that drives you to stir such agonizing presence in my mind? every morning, through the black-bar criss-cross squares of clarity holding tree branches back, you ascend and align that iris on my prone figure, ignite lids until my pupil, wrenched parallel to yours, waters to keep itself afloat in the flood of light through with devouring your own. Sun, i just want sleep. Sun, there's nothing more worldly that matters to Moe than beds, springs and cotton imprinted with portions of the afterlife. soft box mattresses hold limbo peaks, or maybe a slice of heaven, tucked deep inside the seam-work; rock-hard futons shimmer in their dullness, usher to the highest rung in the drolL life's ladder. and my fluff, my sprawling king-sized nimbostratus, bristles iciness, a fitting Ninth of what I don't deserve: that circle of satisfied matching. threes set like trees, tethered to their earth. chomped to its roots.

Sun, you can't blame Moe for that grey mishap. that concrete stain on Nine's slick surface.

it's not something i'm built to handle. pfft. as if i'm built to handle anything. this job (evaporated), this useless blog (my last lifeline), this coincidental play-of-events (all going to plan) unraveling reversed. from the end we hark to begin anew; so completes the circle true. silly rhymes, rhyming silly - motion matched, match-motion; story of new death, story of new life, stuck between each type. one, two, three. a delay of weeks. it's obvious the few who still follow this are starstruck at my shift of fortunes. 'but Moe,' they say, 'how could such an esteemed and trustworthy corporation as The Coca Cola Company™ amputate one of their loyalest members? lop off such a hard-working pipe facilitating fluid bureaucratic-bowels movement?'

it comes back to priss. gaia's curving boner. (apologies for vulgarity.)

Nine absconded with our unfamiliarity far before we ever adultly knew each other. when we remained new, each other look, half-sighted through the undergrowth's thicket, in our summer-times fostered a rapport unlike anything else my life ever felt. maybe her fiery mane, her crimson conflagration, helped, burned something deep inside, branded us both. i know it's what i returned to whenever we later went to adultly know the other, the will-o-wisps tumbling through my fingers while the trees leaned in to better view our nudeness. the post-coital glow, brought alive by dead follicles, in the clearing where soil and soul intermingled, where earth and heaven conjoined forever. for her, my back held prominence. she ran her hands through every groove and niche present, tickled my spinal column and all its discs between my ass and my brain, matching our eyes, chin on my chest.

and we talked.

"why now?"

"why now?"

"why chase after TV? TV's gone. TV's over. TV came, saw, left us barely alive. if you can call this that."

"TV left before its time."

  

"what? how do you know its schedule? trying to lure it back is fruitless-"

"nothing's fruitless when the effort's there."

"what effort? an effort to get yourself killed? an effort to bring he...whatever it is back to our place?"

"it's TV's too..."

"i won't let it get you again, priss. i won't let you go up and try to hop off a housetop."

"...they're all his. please, Moe, please...let's not talk about this. now. just give me a reprieve."

her mumbling.

our bumbling.

and the forest drew ever closer.

priss

when we discuss priss, we start with:

amiss

adrift

assist

added to the prior three.

no, wait, scratch each's first. i found my place when it stayed, erased by Nine's bladed waste; she found hers when i undented the shingles and kept Nine away. we'll disregard that, though, since our end came and went and we only began yesterday. for now, all you should know is that our beginning rushes towards the end we await, that the circle comes complete through the Internet's 0 and 1. spiraling, spiraling, spiraling, yet rooted to a seat. story of life, in a sense. story of observers and bards, of tales and wails, of the same laughs and cries and whines repeated across the planet, all caught in parabolic motion tethered at a point. places work similarly, in loops that dip outwards in periphery then swing back forefront. our tracks, too, forever persist, but our parallels don't always match. zero, one

two foot-pairs
placating unruly Nine
with their presence.

when we start with priss, we must discuss her weight and our balance on the scales. that's not to say priss held big bones (well, she did hold -mine-, but that's besides the point) with her body-skin - on the contrary, her willowed frame barely clung to her past cover, a tan-sheen soft as raindrops. rain is a heavy liquid, though, the sky's sadness and anger brought to earth, and everything poured in her vessel convinced me she descended from perspiration. her movements, malleable but perservering even in the tortured gale; her observations, poignant as cloud-shapes structured by our thoughts. she'd pierce to the center of folks, men, women, children, puncture sheets, aerate their carbon dioxides with her supplementary energy. pull all the untouched secrets out, awaiting a catalyst, and turn them substantive. create a product with their boiling heat.

like a tree.

our story, it's clearing up.

she always liked trees.



we met in Nine as children world-wide do, driven by an endless search for knowledge. of ourselves, of our people, of our habitat. where we were put, why we were put there. simple things. die-rected. little wordplay involved...more, play with words. experiments, in hand and eye; circles made with one, imposed over the other, our fingers imagination's swiss army tools telescoping the world. we tested Nine's mossy waters for others like ourselves, dragging heart-pumped thermometers that sometimes showed red at outward sight, kept blue for personal view, across green landscapes hiding brown sludge. but when we touched, we never dug that deep. the surface tickled enough, fancy as a bug, clicking and buzzed. always a buzz. that's where priss ended, with the buzz in the clearing.

so she began.

last of all us.

rooted to the end.

update

i persist. the next entry is simply taking time.

my apologies to the viewership.

patchwork

inoculation.

induction.

ignorance.

more steps-verses-re, winding times back to before the suffering.

welcome back, viewers, to my living twilight, where that pivotal beginning comes second to its end. hours to hour powers extend out, touch the sun's fading horizon, as this old fern withers into dust. to a forest i go and to a forest i return, yet each only embody this journey's crescendos. what requires in-depth perusal is kinetics, combustion, radiation, all the small rays earth's sphere abundantly offers. our body-builds rest on sunlit foundations thrown out on rigid axises, rigged to refracted wave-points like tracked dollies swerving in a crystal mineshaft. deeper and deeper does the path extend, drive on into dirt, drill through dampness, dink across diamonds, and deeper still does the cart go, loaded with its luscious cargo, invisible motivation. even if tracing its path proves impossible at first, our energy runs straight in the end, guided by universal management and unalterable dictates.

unfortunately, its end isn't ours.

the dolly must reel back.

the administration accepts no substitutes for its content.

one-one trades.

equivalence.

business as usual.

my surfacing was to come with screeched wheels and train blows from a man you all know.

Nine was swallowed by it, black as the sputtering stars, and the dark between the leaves surged backwards as i sprinted down the path. too bright, too hot, too visible. it invoked the white haze of knowledge. bunches, cracks, trees impede escape, veiny hedges and coagulated sap muddying all-too familiar surface space. crunches, creaks, snaps left in my wake, left in sum-autumn breezeways, half-gold clearings opaqued with red drizzle. trip! a half-wail, clogged by adrenaline that kicks me up with a horse hind-leg whumf and shoots me out again, sleek, pumping vitality, an inadequate imitation of what forces me onward. dirt roads littered with trash, flotsam vestiges catching my step- but i couldn't afford to consider them. the treehouse door bumped forward-back to my left-right-no sight, distraction opening an avenue of opportunity in two eye flutters for it to twist the world and arrive ahead, nine paces off.

cracks colors and shifts places.

deja vu.

y tu, John?

split off, blitz another way, pretending not to notice. pretending that thoughts of spiriting myself away rested deep in my mind's sleep, in subtexts that parlayed hints held only by morpheus. pretending the panic was momentary, checked by primal eddies, never truly comprehended. crack, crack, crack. whispering winds give no answers to its placement, but it never lingers. never without reason. huff, huff, huff. a squished sun held reign above my head as i careened onto a orange-red stretch of dirty essence, earth-stuff splattered all over, kept moving even though my legs begged to rest. -blink- precludes the next step. abdominal gurgling at the sight, an urge to unclench clogged bowels. blue chills grip, a pressure clamped down on my toes, unwinds me upward, unhinges what control remains. to keep it contained is maddening and to keep it maddening contained, a conundrum of conflict i couldn't address.

stumble, stumble, stumble.

falls come quick.

somehow it had gotten hold.

it drew me up and out, as wide as the sky yet still linked to soils at the edge. black spread out and only widened sight. searing tones of Nine's abscesses clumped with inky knots from Nine's recesses, but no white lasted besides its floppy oval. thousands upon thousands of its parts and pieces quivered with delight, wormed and wriggled and slunk down and across, perused Nine's fractures, suckled Nine's nutrients gleefully, spat at one-another, considered my capture. i observed none of them. i wept without regret, too terrified for shame, too prostrate to change, at it. investigating my essence with doctoral sterility, it unites our appendages, as if urging me to deduce what monstrosity lays beneath the humanoid veil. i can't tell it, i can't, that it wasn't for me, but for her. suspended in Nine's organic miasma, a choking cloud of the forest's all-colored virility, i await its schism.

starting at the end, though, has its perks.

those watchful appreciate my handiwork.

the Almighty.

my dome-self collapses, suddenly, to Nine's foundation, and Nine's tints blend again. a suitable aroma greeted my rise: charred musk, dried blood, condensed dusk swirling in 70 degree moonshine. it's what he held in his hand, chugged, as he watched my work shoes struggle to embed the grassy patch newly spawned by it. his suit? a crisp beige, signifying an armani epidermis. his shoes? a slick black, unmarred by mortal dirt. his importance? my once-current boss. a grin nearly leapt off his face when our eyes met, and i knew he knew why my pupils stayed dilated. his black skin showed no perspiration. golden shine breached the vessel of his mind, poured out through the pitcher of his eyes. to his suit's right, two small letters, string text embroidered red and white.

KO.

an outstretched hand takes my only touch of apotheosis.

"Hello, Moe. We've taken interest."

([{<click>}])

here ends guides, signs, and the fateless life of Moe Nunbady.
now the real work commences.

doors

seven is the lucky number.

eight, the remains of familiarity.

Nine is two fores in one. 

Nine carries two holes, two flags, two embedded picks, surrounded by red Georgian soil.
Nine holds four white orbs thumping to stillness in their sculpted holes, slipping in and out of focus with the sunlit leaves and their darkness.

Nine grips to my memory with its raw tendrils, slick and sticky, pocked with the writhed-in rocks and life's too-prevalent scent.
Nine pushes from the feet, expels its content up, up, up for the gawking world to witness.

Nine is where KO began, where KO and I joined as one, where KO will cease.
Nine remains, even after Shon was swallowed by the soft-stone that clasped together with awful haste, even after Priss' laughter sundered the world.

my world.

our world.

its end started with a puzzle like my own.

you see, this sieve let the nuggets slip. fulfilled its duty to mean nothing, though it said much. the jutting outlines of my thoughts scribbled down, copied over, bottled up, chucked seaward, built to snag corneas with their luster. polish a rock enough and you'll sell it for more than fifty year's toil, more than the star-bound mass of adult and child evaporating in existence (i know from experience). a sacrifice as necessary as any other; we all aren't entitled to dream houses (again, i know from experience). so now that the attention's secured, the audience will rally in awe of the sparkles and come to know the powders behind them, what grime sticks on faces, constricts windpipes, lockjaws mashers (i'm sure you know i know from experience). that's not to say this blog enterprise is wholly non-sequitur. we'll return to it later. but since KO lies dormant and vacation days linger, my chance to extrapolate on these provided clues presently presents itself.

what is KO? what drives its repetition? what brought me to The Coca-Cola Company's doorstep?

We must take three three-steps back to pinpoint where each of those questions' answers lies. slide back the first set paces - un, dos, tres, out from solid, adhesive umbra into Nine's center courtyard.

observe Nine's mighty protector, a bark behemoth born to earth's embrace by the weight of its roots. they slink in the clumpy soil, take more than their fill demands, demand constant filling. you can see it in the leaf colors: startling crimson, popped against blank white, supporting a navy sky.

al Bino, the south's white pillar. a trifecta of american shades holding up Nine's bloated brown dirt. literal testament to KO-given miracles (at the time, I thought God did all; now I know better!).

its presence pumped the fleshy foreign blood that kept Nine panting, sent the verdant dough to the grounds-keepers dedicated to delayed renovation, preferably mother earth's. green for green, bark back to bark (in a circuitous way): so the forest encroached.

fools fail to preserve their environment.

but they only hastened Nine's last ten days.

its puzzles got us all.


tomorrow we'll step again.
six, five, four.

quips

KO released early, but i didn't scamper.

sights weren't seen. 

numerical accumulation defied speculation. 

what wasn't right? 

what wasn't right, 

wasn't right. 

 so i turned left,

skipped stepping on the elevator's edge. fumbled through a field of cubicles, home-grown milking stations built for KO's cows. personal decorations lined the walls, pictures and statues and cars and women and origami hobbled into form with a child's feathered crudeness. wanton, how KO's lawns seethed with righteous virility at adequate treatment's absence, yet real men and women, made of more biomass than Atlanta's totaled fields, allowed themselves tireless abuse. lunacy. who would willingly volunteer to face pad and chain in KO's cardboard maiden, industry's asphyxiating cage, societal selection's saw? what sort of madness drove one to dream of fettering hopes and dreams to anchors tethered by gravity's pull? who could bring themselves to cope with the consequence of such a choice? were KO's proclamations assured through divinity?

in my case, proof laid in the pudding.
shame, disgust, inward focus.
but belief didn't belie doubt's buzz.

no. not a chance. it was KO, its nightmarish words rolling off my tongue, the septic touch of its bubbles boiling from my esophagus, exposed by my deviation. truth is, i strolled down an avenue of ash-made desires taunting me to chastise those below, KO's peons lacking insight. truth is, i almost wrote them off as mere bloated tat-sacs, globs of life-juice squeezed for another's pleasured consumption. but no one can walk mindless to decimation, to ten-fold separation in houred chunks of a lifetime glued to a seat, waiting...waiting...waiting for a break.

i didn't
i couldn't

i wouldn't

you can't dally

so i took the initiative

and looked

The Coca-Cola Company                                              Delaware
Subsidiaries consolidated, except as noted:

   Barq's, Inc.                                                    Mississippi       100
   Bottling Investments Corporation                                Delaware          100
      ACCBC Holding Company                                        Georgia           100
   Caribbean International Sales Corporation, Inc.                 Nevada            100
   Caribbean Refrescos, Inc.                                       Delaware          100
   Carolina Coca-Cola Bottling Investments, Inc.                   Delaware          100
   Coca-Cola Financial Corporation                                 Delaware          100
   Coca-Cola Interamerican Corporation                             Delaware          100
      Montevideo Refrescos, S.A.                                   Uruguay           55.53
   Coca-Cola Overseas Parent Limited                               Delaware          100
      Coca-Cola Holdings (Overseas) Limited                        Delaware          100
      Coca-Cola Dimlight (Overseas) Inc.                           Illinois          100

Coca-Cola South Asia Holdings, Inc.                                Delaware          100
   Coca-Cola (Thailand) Limited                                    Thailand          100
   CTI Holdings, Inc.                                              Delaware          100
      55th & 5th Avenue Corporation                                New York          100
   The Coca-Cola Export Corporation                                Delaware          100
      Amalgamated Beverage Canners (Pty) Ltd.                      South Africa      51.55
      Atlantic Industries                                          Cayman Islands    100
         Ansan Ankara Gida Mesrubat ve Meyva Sulari Sanayii
          ve Ticaret A.S.                                          Turkey            66.63
         Coca-Cola Bevande Italia S.r.l.                           Italy             100
            Azienda Bevande di Gaglianico-ABEG-S.r.l.              Italy             100
            Societa Bevande Meridionale-SOBEM S.r.l.               Italy             100
         Maksan Manisa Mesrubat Kutulama Sanayi A.S.               Turkey            66.66
      Barlan, Inc.                                                 Delaware          100
         Varoise de Concentres S.A.                                France            100
            Coca-Cola G.m.b.H.                                     Germany           100
               Coca-Cola Rhein-Ruhr G.m.b.H.                       Germany           100
         Societa Imbottigliamento Bevande Roma-SIBER-S.p.A.        Italy             100
      Beverage Products, Ltd.                                      Delaware          100
      Coca-Cola de Argentina S.A.                                  Argentina         100
      Coca-Cola de Chile, S.A.                                     Chile             100
      Coca-Cola Ges.m.b.H.                                         Austria           100
      Coca-Cola Industrias Ltda.                                   Brazil            100
         Recofarma Industria do Amazonas Ltda.                     Brazil            100
      Coca-Cola Ltd.                                               Canada            100
         The Minute Maid Company Canada Inc.                       Canada            100
      Coca-Cola (Japan) Company, Limited                           Japan             100
      Coca-Cola Korea Company, Limited                             Korea             100
      Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited                                    Nigeria           100
      Coca-Cola Southern Africa (Pty) Limited                      South Africa      100
      Conco Limited                                                Cayman Islands    100

International Beverages                                            Ireland           100
         Coca-Cola Refreshments Moscow                             Russia            100
      Minute Maid SA                                               Switzerland       100
      Refreshment Product Services, Inc.                           Delaware          100
         Coca-Cola de Colombia, S.A.                               Colombia          100
         Coca-Cola Holdings (Nederland) B.V.                       Netherlands       100
         Coca-Cola Holdings (United Kingdom) Limited               England and       100
                                                                    Wales
      The Inmex Corporation                                        Florida           100
         Servicios Integrados de Administracion                    Mexico            100
          y Alta Gerencia, S.A. de C.V.
 

nothing special, all publicly available...besides the bold. never in my life have i examined, researched, or investigated a company called dimlight, -ever-, in any of KO's financed operations under my jurisdiction.

but i knew them.
oh, KO, how i knew them!

a confession is in order - you did not premier my bureaucratic wizardry. half a score ago, a man and grey-shine tango'd together with terrifying rhythm. conjoined by bleak contract, our palms plucked forth instruments of madness, aristotelian visions from imagination's darker eddies, and brought hell earthbound. i left those times for silence to reclaim, but dull-glow hadn't prayed for my peace, hadn't given me time to extinguish what we did. KO provided refuge, or so i assumed. now i can see the numbers in flawless arrangement. now, KO's tickers are clicking.

that wasn't all we did.

reading the phrase just clarified

 ([{<CLICK>}])

ko no i can't do this

ko no i can't do this

ko no i can't do this

get out

get out

get out

but

keep typing

keep typing

keep typing

([{<NO>}])

just get out

dont go looking for them then they'll find you faster

(please let some[one] see)

the tv won't stop

the tv won't stop

the tv won't stop

and i took in the white i embraced it brought it up to my breast poured it into my figure's vessel

it greased the nozzle, plugged in the syrup and pushed my buttons and I

dispensed

dispensed

dispensed

it and i tried not too you could see but

it got through

it got through
it got through

and thats what caused me to pause in my assumption. they know and i know - we're all privy. our words must catch in the throat's globbed mucus or else we all risk embracing (the fructose curse). armed with our families and cadillacs, our throbbing genitals, our digits and social formulas, we subdue the ever-present ruckus. keep it to ourselves, where it belongs. secured, soundproofed, given no second glance. if you don't have that? turn to noise. noise keeps horror vacant, leaves one deaf and dumb to scrawl and scream.

but white noise can't

drown

out

itself

KO, MY AWAKENED LIEGE

LEAD US TO OUR DESTINIES

([{<GLADLY>}])

"quality programming,"

says TV GUIDE Magazine,

"is integral for both our own sustainability as a company and the sustainability of television as a medium. In today's ever-present Internet world, assurance of quantity and timeliness mean nothing when abundant content lies a hyperlink away. When customer retention focuses around giving the viewer what they want, what they need, what entices their interest, piques their curiousity, gets them thinking, then TV will secure its place in the entrenched echelons of media history. Radio knows, newspapers are learning - so why are we skipping out on class?"

an astute preface. to skimp out on what makes TV TV does none good. sometimes stories only translate accurately when considered in a particular frame, an established view-point taking full advantage of its medium's domain. quality not only refers to general production value, but also to the inimitable intricacies that embellish an art's impact on the populace. a shot angle loses meaning in translation to written paragraph; a sentence cannot conform to a camera's rigid boundaries. who watches a book? who reads a movie? who else more qualifies art's affect than its audience?

what supersedes the viewership? nothing.

stop at nothing to portray something.

boats born back from a bay

sheesh! my weeks, so prone to stumbling out their calendar! so desperate to enjoy themselves anywhere but at present! corralling such a shifty bunch into a schedule's semblance presents (myriad) difficulties. the circled (X)s accumulate across dates whose resolution should show -something-, but just go. and go. and go. again. and again. and a(gain) - of nada comes nada. what's worst isn't their delinquency, it's their establishment as history, how the endless fosters of time's eye escape into impenetrable ether, fade as one through tear-drop mists conjured by their predecessors. traces vanish, with assured finality, and all one can do is await the next batch, hope that the imparted lessons stick this time, pray for a (slender) ray to pierce next morning's boiling monsoon.

pray for KO's deliverance. (ah[!])-men, say those who fail in sharing my lacking religion, the worst character judges.

those good kids, though, who stick around my head long enough to ferment a rapport, they tell me well. cans clinking together. tins to tins, mugs to chugs. affliction by the cupid-stupids, transmitted through fiery shots, sod spots protruding and incisions not. a hodge-podge of appendages flailing within themselves for moments, until a sudden, sticky liquid leaks all over, and stillness arrives, vanguard to the realization: my parenting skills lack.

television forefront, and the periphery's (blurry). but my (eyes), dare wander? (pa)h! why embrace what needs distraction?

longest nights mar fondest on our unmarked plaques, our undented papers. invisible consequence scratches, time's manifest suppressing its wounds. ordering remains important as ever in our bumblebee-(buzz)ing, (ludicrous)ly rushing lifespans. origination rarely occurs in peace. creation is movement, transition, the translation of actuality's portrait to reality's frame. to look through some frames, though, is to see watercolor bleeding, charcoal smeared, paint diminished as it touches earth-bound sadness. palpable, the liquid regret of spurned fulfillment (visible only to [one]). stick out the tongue, sip it all, lick it from the atmosphere until blank space equals the remainder, until tones, typefaces, and timelines blend into their commonality - (endless) white.

ding ding. bell rings. KO continues. off once more.

([{<click>}])

"Moe you're always cooped up in your apartment. Why not get buzzed with us for a change?"

John is sitting, intertwining a Rubix Cube's colors in its rainbow cage, protruding chin nuzzling his Nokia Lumia 900 against his cauliflower-sized hearing aid. That's how I remember him making calls - persistently distracted. A nostalgic image, though for erasure of that ear-bound clam I'd sell my owned soul. I hated it(first declaration of loathing in [bold{!}] terminology!), the way it clung to his lobe, an monstrous parasitic suckling devouring swathes of skin for sound's exchange, and I suspected he did too. But John's repetitiveness manifested mentally. Brand loyalty meant the world to him. He stuck to anything that showed him perfunctory appreciation, a cat hooked on (nips[!]), a 'pecker pegged to its perch(!), exemplifying habit. Explained our continued association, at least, even after some unfortunate corporate run-ins segregated us to opposite office ends. (How these demi[god{!}]s hustle us to tussle! They think in isolation, fragility's all one finds.) Explained why he rung me up at 12:00 in the morning to try and corral me from my cubicle, enclosed by a Coke-can parapet, my eyes glued to the stagnant screen's (white) wilderness, to grab a beer at Satin's. (That nine-level wine cellar! Reflecting, refracting, dispersing the sights!)

That's the reason I assume. But to define these typed thoughts "definitive" would skew their given truth.

To date, I've done a decent job restraining my familial proclivity for slanting what isn't readily apparent, but in the future some slips may occur. (A [side{!}])wise glimmer, passed by at a glance's clip, may miss some emphasis here, a (focus [there{!}]), a space in this text's sensibility. Does that dilute appreciation? Does that question matter? If accuracy's (the [game's]) name, why are you here? To deduce a 34-year old's sights and sounds from a cornucopia of (binary's) consequence? Think about every one of these blog...things, these telescopic (and microscopic) insights into the mind's eye. Each their owner's sieve, entrusted to (filter) out unnecessary extremities, ([dangling{!}] appendages) unsuitable for presentation, that deemed "too-icky". Each a portfolio of consideration, from bins of words plastered together on scattered canvas as a prototype, facing (trial[!]) by sculpture in the white box block of the post creator. To dispense a satisfactory product weekly, on the dot, for months on end, at the whims of those partaking! How can these craftsmen keep up with such a ravenous audience? How their flaws pop in this shine, their blemishes fester in their opus! Chasing grander heights, all eventually fall.

But not I.

To rally back on course! Of course I answered, after an all-too familiar recorder

([{<click>}])

"I can't go now. The EE-2 Brew scrum needs monitoring. Kent's going to disembowel Dave if he finds out we're not making North American sales thresholds and resorting to -this- spectacle to reassert product dominance."

"The hell, Moe?" Incredulity, then laughter. "EE-2 Brew? You know it's April Fool's tomorrow, right? We're only..." keys clacking (water bottle brought to perspired forehead - for diffusion) "...down .21- shit, it's goin' up right in front of me. Why else roll out -those- remedies?"

"Because KO's numbers aren't adding up." Paper-rustle, pencil-brandish,

elevator-ding

diminished (perceptive - too late) on approach. "I've sent fifteen hundred faxes these past two weeks from Kent to heads of every multinational department, their subsidiaries,"

2nd floor ding, 

"THEIR national department heads," 

3rd floor ding, 

"everybody moderately accountable on the corporate ladder to Kent and the board,"

4th floor ding, 

"even people in places able to hold him accountable for his past actions. And this is just the past two weeks."

5th floor ding.

"Well, Moe, it does look like they're people in your department doing their damn jobs. I don't see how this is special at all."

"If distributing nearly two thousand faxes that your own secretary can't read isn't suspicious, I don't know what is. Even that doesn't spook me as much as how bad Kent looks. He's so pale, all the time, comes in gripping his wrists shivering when it's 75 degrees out, no wind chill. What the hell's shaken up our boss so much that he's digging through the crates for medicine and reaching out to all his associates, SECRETLY?"

"Who cares? What the public doesn't know won't hurt'm." His side - a retch, then repeated coughing. "Sorry, must've cracked my ribs or somethin'. Went hiking a week ago. Those woods ain't the fondest place. Think they just about appreciate skinny men like me as much as I do their thickness."

6th floor ding.

"It's alright. If you need rest, get it. Thanks for listening, John."

7th floor ding.

"Ehh, it's doable. Get enough yourself. You've stayed in late for the last few months."

8th floor ding.

"Still monitoring me, huh? Haven't changed a bit?"

My floor ding.

(Pause. Phlegm-choked cough.) "Yeah, (ain't a [bit])." 

([{<CLICK>}]) 

BzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Innocuity

An experimental paper, jury-rigged to a KO-therapist's desk a few floors beneath my place by a fogged-up glass Coca-Cola cup, reads off the following:

In most psychiatric cases involving paranoid schizophrenics, a dearth of rationalization characterizes the patient's unbased terrors and illogical hallucinations.  Addressing such concerns at their source can relieve tension and foster a rapport between subject and doctor contributing to steady recovery. Have the patient sit down at home after taking their prescribed medicine and describe the objects and settings around them in a basic manner. Record any irregularities present in their transcript. Utilize this material in future sessions to pry open the patient's mind.

A Valium sinks down (pre-script-ion of sorts) an esophagus.

...

go

Office wall is creme. Lamp adjacent red. A sultry leg snakes out its vibrant light to stomp on the desk (ever-subservient secretary [bubbling inside for {attention<!>}]). Ceramic steadiness supports the frilled shade, reminisce A Christmas Story (yes, that same [one{!}]). "SAN DIEGO" screams the blue pencil cup to my right in some block font, the A wobbling on a stunted left line, eager to tear off its perch and dive into the cursive "California" maw beneath. Scissor handles are a flaking black-grey reflecting consistent use, rigorous wear, a stalwart aesthetic devotion compromised by inevitable decomposition. Floor slithers about, straight lines distorted, weaved in patterns defying comprehension. cubist portrait in upper-left corner grins at me, blessed box-shapes cracking at the seams as my eyes water and the pill keeps kicking around my skull

boom

boom 

boom 

boom

boom

boom

boom

boom

boom

-box tenacity

throbbing, pulsing, growing, livid 

fifty million arm divisions

only the face

 holds weight, the coca sort-

blow(!) all over. 

When I go look at my blog, I always note the little things. The predetermined background for this expressionist canvas contains a diminutive, 1950s-chic TV screen embedded in the center of the room, a prison to white noise, encompassed by a pane of wooden reality. In a sense(!), it's fitting that such an article sits in what amounts to my personal lounge, my abode of reasoning.

Gods are always watching. 

KO is no exception.

"EE-2: Brew",

codifier slapped to our newfangled soda-kaon (think Jamaican pronunciation[phonetics{!}]) invention, mun (repeat). It's a preposterous moniker, honestly. Inquisitive sources clasped to my corneas tell me this revolutionary spectacle in imbibery frothed forth from an archived medicinal concoction afflicted by a hundred stabs from adventuresome carbon doctors. Looks like nostalgia clings to some more than most. Change doesn't per-(SE[!]) pester me, but this redevelopment comes without warning. Week and a while I proceed The Coca-Cola Company®'s important ventures, feed support expenditures, recalibrate the revisionist policy of payroll senators, and with no prior warning a design document mars my desk with the executive SLAM! of a boss whose privy fingers lord for premium, singular strokes of its contents.

He told me to redistribute its existence to his peers and wipe any implications of its resuscitation from my mind's vista - pah! Decrees from wrathful god to me - pah! Undeniably - how these forces indulge in the privileges of apotheosis - (pah[!]) Well my eyes don't just skirt the barren soil when those godlings bark their sounds, trample 'round - forever clarity's contributor; they never miss(!). This land's lay is as much mine as theirs, this refraction of purpose as much see-through as solid to my acute sight. We derive our currency in emergency, clutching to a fledgling remnant of past days and bringing it fore-front to the zeitgeist's anvil when nothing else satiates luck's unforgiving, gurgling forge. Yet KO stock sits at 71.37 (+.78/+1.10), and papers in my purview match up. 

Something's (a[!])miss.

But focus, focus! My residence, the eternal platform for my mind's meditation, rests far from tangibles, raised above the world's churning suburban graveyards. On those I'll discuss today. Keep up the standards, in a sense (or two?[For you?{!}]) 

I come home and am greeted by the television, a panoramic plasma: a stage window to what is ultimately imagination's providence (abyssal in silence), encompassed by the bright crimson slouched couch, on all sides coveted by Bose seating. A modern-day Epidaurus, only $16,185(.20[!]) for any classic American family, except this family's child is its occupant and patriarchal loyalty remains front and center. 

"To NBC!" he roars, jovial as always, red coat jingling, bells to consumerism locked in ever-jubilant motion. 

"To Fox! To Jesus trees! To this box!" 

One gelatinous set of quintuplet-fingers swallows 288 cubic feet of oxygen to pet the TV alive like a dog while the other amiably boxes me on the shoulder. I grasp at the sticker imparted by his miraculous palm: "EE-2: Brew". Making out the brand label (k)nitted (o)n his polar-fur jacket shouldn't prove difficult. He grapples with gravity for the remote, wiggling chubby calves mirroring movement from his bloated biceps, and as that terrifying emptiness is devoured by more horrible pixels, he draws me close to whisper:

"Always trust an oracle of Schenectady. Moe? Do you see what it says? Don't think yourself too special for exemption, even as my favorite son. Let destiny harken - you'll deliver."

But the vision fades and he's not there as I partake in the American Way of Life™, the electrical blaze bathing away today's suffering. What's left is minimal. Just me

and the telly. 

-Moe Nunbady 

Who!

Ceaseless endeavor, undertaken at The Coca-Cola Corporation™ these past few days! Files stored (piles drawer'd), light-bulbs switched (darkness nixed), gripes at risk (slights may shift[!]) - thundering around my desk's doldrums. These rancid rampaging deities! Bureaucratic demigoddesses adorned in garter-greaves of silk, drawing wayward eyes from heel-spiked feet to aired-out blouse (businessmen avatars, denoted by an unblemished Armani epidermis [labeled immortality, fit for ambrosial existence]) - what power they lord over my department chair's(head[!]) How suavely our superiors stride, swinging across life's fluffy rafters like Mangani ape-men, as impeccable in appearance as they are in aptitude. Projects reassigned in a moment's notice, architecture redefined in an minute's instant. Total control (with no one knowing when they'll show [NOW?! or now? or n-OW!]), circumstance be damned.

I'm privy to it all. (Fantastic[!])

Oh, it's all mundane, but what else is the same? A sing-song, pattering-along form of coping works better than any crumpled-up letter, anxieties shredded and rent and read and bent all out of shape years before you could inspire yourself to write them down on a paper you're set to trash (ignore[!]) regardless. Or tirades to a psycholo-gist, the general mental spade, a sharp wedge built to dig up your inflamed troubles and leave them exposed for the Prozac rain to hose. Why lather on a drizzle? Why shunt them back? They're there, (you know[!]) and so am I, and it's unhealthy to keep away what isn't safe to say. So our lords cavort along, heedless to their peons, and the ship runs tight, to continue before's metaphor. KO stock today at $69.27. We've packed our cannons firm and strung out the sail; (oars[!]) at the ready, we tense for the shove-off order. Suffice to say no one's had that day.

But pearls shine wherever one goes searching, so on Monday, The Coca-Cola Corporation™ rejuvenates my employment and I dive into madness bay looking after glimpses. That will keep me sane for one more day. Work, at last.

-Moe Nunbady

Moe's Intro

Well call me a doubter and lend me a scoff! I can't believe you kids can get this. Blog technology just bamboozles.

I dunno what to start off with besides a formal introduction into myself, maybe exploring why I'm creating this outlet. Hi! I'm Moe Nunbady.

...Hmm. That looks weird. Let's go again. (Backspacing isn't in my nature - you can see it in the URL. Impeccable oration -and- articulation is required at The Coca-Cola Company™ [NYSE: KO], founded 1892!)

Greetings, scavengers! Seems you've climbed aboard the Shabby Nunbady (pronounced "noon-bah-dee"). The visage this here text reflects is the soul of its intrepid cap't, MOE NUNBADY! Arrr, does that salty air hoist the soul's sail and spirit the spectral on, to lands of myth and song. No emphasis, on ending - let it peter out, to a wistful stare starboard. (On the right side. [Also, forgot to encapsulate. Rats! Permeate the barrels. My integrity is shot!]) I always preferred working visually as opposed to phonetically. Words, words, words, to quote that daft ham-man, can't transmit the sensuality, the Lolitic texture, the mellifluous gravity, a half-halo of tones and coloration, of physical conversation. Call me a capitalist but I didn't requite Waldo's infatuation with the wild, its mental wooing and loo-ring. (Already, the syntax gets stretched!) Pop open a can of Coke® and all troubles bubble up in a flush of carbonated ecstasy. But my co-workers chide me for my poetic tendency (where they see this lies beyond my comprehension) and, tired of deciphering my "lyrical mumbo-jumbo" (Ahh, Joe, you silly schmoe!), threw me this rigamarole to untangle myself within. Let's be nimble with this thimble-thread together, then?

Maybe, I don't know. To what does he refer? (Who can tell? [Not me, and maybe not you!])

But before I press "post", I'd like to entice those scooting through for a first view to stick it through. Haul up the anchor, put lashed-self to mast, and push through these ravings. A pearl's sparkle spawns from its clam's schism; a thorough cleansing reveals its reflective luster. So gaze in the mirror and let it gaze in you. Let it come through. Let it make you. (And let me help you make you.) Because you can't as much find yourself in the bear-shits of the forest, the concrete of the jungle, as you can in the projections of another.

Even a presence unseen screams for acknowledgment.
Hope you're back for more!

-Moe Nunbady