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.