Barry Jay Kaplan - The Story's New but Richard is Another Story

Barry Jay Kaplan

The Story’s New but
Richard is Another Story

Richard was content until mid-decade when he realized that the stars in the sky were not misplaced, not random, not drug-induced lights but actual bodies of matter. He was, up until then, vaguely not anywhere himself. Telephones and magazines decorated his apartment. Worms ate his cat from the inside. He rubbed his scalp with oil from Jordan, thinking fitfully of Mary Magdalene.

People believe in God. They nail themselves to Portugese churches in India, fascist temples in the Hague, cathedrals in the Midwest that reek of incense and semen. They eat at hosed-down fruitstands in the Zona Rosa and contract bone disease.

Richard left Stan’s house where Roseanne, Charlie and Felix were determinedly watching films of dying gulls. Richard looked up at the stars. Oh God, he almost thought.

People believe in thoughts, the symbolism in cloud formations, middle ear vibrations, laser beams, flatulence, procedures. Paul Klee taught Richard that the mind unreels behind the forehead. Richard stares at fish, at sand, at glass, at icons of culture.

It was summer. Thought was declared urban and outré, clear expression was suspected of twentieth century linearality. Dictionaries do Richard no good though he memorizes from a to pocket veto.

It is a holiday and people describe pentagons to tell holiday stories. If you were left off the guest list, would your heart feel sad?

Oh to be home, Richard sighed. The Dialogues lay open on his chest. The fire creaks he can’t keep it going. He stretches and feels metaphoric. There are people who feel outside of life but Richard senses insides. He sighs again and wishes it were apocryphal, wishes he were in Spain with his friends but so many shots...

He dreams about his cat. He aches to be given a new number. He suspects the government of misfiling.

So cannons belch and hyperbole is set in 44-point type; Superman is translated at last into Urdu and the Florida keys accept a previous engagement. Duchamps lives briefly on Tenth Street.

Richard, tell us your story.

On the advice of famous writers, he begins with “The.”

Barry Jay Kaplan’s stories have appeared in Descant, Bryant Litereary Review, Upstreet, Brink, Perigee, Amarillo Bay, Abacot Journal, and Apple Valley Review (Pushcart nomination). His novels include Black Orchid and Biscayne.