Heroes: Hot or Cold by The Tentacles

And there we lived if not too well.

I am sure that all of us worked at various trades during the day. I am certain that one of us worked as day labor picking fruit, and another was an accountant. I cannot recall my own particular trade, which leads me to believe it was one of little consequence. I would like to imagine that I was a baker, a proud baker inspecting his rising dough or sniffing warm muffins while the others are still asleep. But I myself have never been much of an early riser so I know this must not be so. Needless to say we got by and not too poorly when it wasn’t raining. Things weren’t so bad when you got used to the mold and gradual decay which consumed the house. And in the evenings we‘d sit on the not unsoggy front porch, sip on 2 penny ale and listen to warped Jimmy Buffet records which were pulled from water logged sleeves. When the record ended we’d listen to the crickets and then we’d go to bed in our respective rooms.

One day we returned home from each of our particular trades, only to discover there was no longer any order there. Everything had been smashed. The chairs were smashed. The table was smashed. The stereo was smashed. Even the Jimmy Buffet albums were torn to shreds. Smashed and stacked into one great mound in the center of the living room. You could no longer tell the chair from the table, or the stereo from the records. It was now just a mound. We were perplexed to say the least. Some one of us said that he wouldn’t mind a 2 penny Ale, and others assented. It was then that Harry stepped in through the kitchen door.

Harry told us that he believed the universe was in a state of chaos. And that he had transformed our living room into crude model of his vision of the universe. He said if we wanted order in our universe we would have to impose our will upon our environment. He said thus far we had not imposed our will at all but merely accepted what was given to us. None of us followed what he was saying. We nonetheless promised to try our best to carry out his orders. Some one brought in a case of 2 penny ale. We sat on the floor and solemnly hummed Cheeseburgers in Paradise.

The next day we got down to work. With sheets of cardboard and a roll of Scotch Tape we began to recreate everything that had existed before in the universe which we called our living room. It was hard work. And nothing looked quite right. You might be able to name the things we made. For instance, that thing would be called a chair. But that was about all you could say for the thing, and God knows you wouldn’t want to try to sit in it, unless you were an extremely daring person.

Just when we finished cleaning up, and sat down next to our “furniture” to have a 2 penny Ale, Harry busted through the kitchen door with a fireman’s axe, and began to savagely chop apart our work. Then he stacked the broken bits in a mound in the center the living room.

He told us he wasn’t too happy with our work. He said we hadn’t exerted our will upon the Universe, but created a cheap facsimile of someone else’s. He told us to be more original. He told us we have to use the junk and detritus of the old one to create the new one. He said that’s all we got, someone else’s junk, do with it what you can. He taught us that the act of creation is the thing that matters. He put little emphasis on the thing it self and said we shouldn’t either. To illustrate this he destroyed each and everything we made. He said, like it our not that is the way it is. But he let us drink our 2 penny ale and there we lived in a constant cycle of creation and destruction.

Despite Harry’s Will, some of the Objects of Creation have survived his brutal hands. These objects we have created in a universe we call the living room. These are the things we will show you, the graven images that have escaped the hand of the destroyer.

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