Seven Various Powders from a Distant Asian Land

Randy Boone

When Gibby returned from having to

skip the country for committing seventeen

unmentionable acts, he brought to me

seven various powders from a distant

Asian land, which he initially acquired

through the brother of a horsefly vendor

in a common, open market, and having

received these various powders through

such extraordinary means, I knew not

what capabilities were harbored within

them, nor what possibilities I might find

through these seven various powders

from a distant Asian land, and so I set

up a table, on the top of which I could

conduct experiments of a scientific

nature, and I experimented with the

various powders, noting their unique

qualities and characteristics as I went

about placing a pinch here and spreading

a dash there, burying a batch hither, and

sprinkling a tad thither, always carefully

noting my observations not in words, nor

in numbers or numerical formulae, nor in

snapshots or carefully designed diagrams,

but only in thoughts, and in concepts, and

in associations that only I might comprehend,

and as it happened, no unusual occurrences

came about from my experiments with

these seven various powders from a

distant Asian land until I mixed the

powders together, and as I mixed one

powder with another, combining and

stirring, the seven various powders from

the distant Asian land assumed the aspect

of a strange mixture of powders, for if I mixed

one powder with another, the resultant mixture,

I discovered, took the qualities and the hues of

not the one powder or the other powder, but of

those qualities contained deep inside both

powders, almost as if they had been mixed

or combined-which, in fact, they had-and

as though one, virtually undistinguished from

the other could no longer be detected. And so

it went, as I added powder to powder, and

powders to powders, from two powders, to

three powders, to four powders, to all seven

powders, powders combining with powders,

seven various powders from a distant Asian

land forming to differentiate one powder from

another, coming together to create an utter

nothing, a void, which signaled the men

sitting in space, and also the creatures on

earth, as well as the monsters in the seas,

and too the Glektors, and the Heebles, and

the Wagshnobles, and which made space itself

by a process, by a system, producing a heavy

white light, which blinded the Glektors and

sickened the Heebles, a resonant, hearty

sauce filled with consumption, by the

stirring and the adding, a contagious cough,

an active reaction with a reactive action, a

veritable pandemonium and a truly horrid

fucking mess throughout what once was

my apartment and what used to be the

world, after Gibby came back from

skipping the country for committing

seventeen unmentionable acts in order

to bring to me the seven various powders

from a distant Asian land.