Hamburger Clock I hope I didn’t sell my soul to the devil when I was drunk one time. It is quite possible. Definitely. Quite a typical thing for me to do, me being so pop-easy after a few dirty wheelers or a few drakes—common battery acid mixed with cranberry juice. I know I’ve sold the devil an old pair of shoes when I was drunk once. My favorite old pair. He also got me to sell him some pickled ants and my army surplus club membership card. I felt pretty naked and abused that next hangover/morning when I awoke to find myself unable to buy military supplies at a discount. I didn’t know what to do at all at that point. Good thing my life didn’t plunder to shit. Well, I’m pretty sure it didn’t plunder to shit. Probably sure. But man, that devil is totally a trickster. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got my soul right now, admiring it within a glass jar on a shelf next to my pickled ants and my 80’s futuristic-style boombox with a synthesizer on its roof—which I don’t remember him buying from me, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if he did. The devil never surprises me with anything he does. He has a t-shirt that has mustard on it sometimes. * * * I am sitting on an aluminum log one afternoon, looking downways at a collection of velvet grass patches and wandering watermelon bugs. Rarely do I get to witness the wanderings of watermellon bugs, but right now I do. I’m pretty sure they are watermelon bugs and not grapefruit bugs. I have never seen a grapefruit bug, so I am not positive how to compare the two. Possibly, they are identical. I wonder if watermelon/grapefruit bugs eat the velvet grass. It looks so bright and rich and grassy, but the bugs should stay away from it. I decide to step on them. I lower my shoe onto them, pressing them into the soil just to be certain they do not make velvet grass extinct. My foot becomes pleased with itself. It is quite an interesting fact to know that velvet grass turns your saddness into happiness just as trees turn your exhales into oxygen. Because of this, you will find the very down/out street people lying on the velvety patches absorbing the happy through holes on the skin, smiles cracking their crunch-dried lips. I am very envious of people who can lie around doing nothing yet still be perfectly happy. I have to work all day long at being happy. Day after day, I work at a mill that produces hamburger clocks. The ad says: buy a hamburger clock or you will not be happy. I have a hamburger clock, it is in my briefcase, but I am usually unhappy still . . . However, I am working on it. I have a long way to go. A magazine article once said to me: try, try again. I get off the aluminum log and stroll through the park. It must be a nice day. Clearly it must. The sun is correctly in the sky, right there. It is not being bullied by any clouds, though it could have been earlier in this day. But yes, I’m sure it is a nice day, at least now it is. Positive. A sign tells me: have a nice day, and so I do. Hopefully. I go and have lunch at the local lunch store. There aren’t many people in there. It is just above a place where a person might have died one time. It is quite lovely too. Well, I’m pretty sure it is lovely. Women who await the blessings of children will sometimes walk by and say: what a lovely-looking place to eat. So I’m sure they know what they are talking about. After I get my food—french fries with marinara sauce and mozarella cheese on top, and turkey meatballs, and a non-diet Tab, and some vegetables that are cut square—I sit down at a table by a window which looks down at a crumbly bridge and some people going places. It would be quite a long drop if the glass was missing. Or is the glass missing? No, it is there, it is too smudged to be missing. Or are my eyes just smudged? I hesitant-reach my hand out to make sure, but quickly retreat with a jerk. I’d rather not know for sure. Turning my attention to the food, I take a bite of my Italian-style french fry casserole, trying to ignore the street people below me. After a few bites, I realize that it does not taste very good. No, not at all. It tastes kind of like a blank piece of paper. Usually, food tastes really good when there is a picture of it on the wall nearby. I look around, but there are no food pictures. Just the menu and a framed portrait of President Gates. I try to draw a picture of my food on a napkin, but it does not turn out appetizing enough. I am not an artist with talent. Next time, I’ll know to go somewhere else. A restaurant chain that I am familiar with sounds good. They always make sure your food is accompanied by mouth-watering photos that make your meal taste ten times as good. I try taking another bite, but the thought of not having a picture reference disheartens me. I begin to grow sad. Sadness is not a very good thing. Everyone agrees with me on this, I think. I’m not quite sure why it exists, but I bet it has something to do with poetry and violin music. Why do violins make such sad sounds all the time? Are violins sad instruments? Were they alienated by the trombone and the flute, who are very lively without the violin? A cello is even more sad. It is an overweight violin. Often getting teased because of its obesity by the other instruments. What a sad-sad day. I need to figure out a way to be happy or I’ll never be able to finish the food that I have already paid for. Then it strikes me, clubs me in the head just like they do to those cute little cartoon seals in coat commercials. There is a billboard outside telling me what to do. It is so obvious. I put my briefcase onto the table and open it to the large meaty time-telling device. A smile instants my face, gleaming down/out the window at the crumbly bridge and the people going places. An odor steams out, a sweaty/meaty odor, and I inhale it through my nostrils with daze-closed eyes. After the hamburger absorbs happy into my palms, sticky gumbo filling the hand-cracks, I monument the product next to my food plate, shining brilliance. It leaks its sauce over the table, soaking my napkin and splashing a few drops into my geometrically-correct vegetables. I try another bite. Perfection. Much, much better than before. I am very pleased with the progression of my lunch right now, practically inhaling the plate while the hamburger clock sprays its juices at my neck. After I am done, I decide to shovel into some maple cobbler dessert. But just before the plastic spoon digs within, I notice the devil coming towards me with two black death bowlers in each hand and a goofy grin on his mug. A nerve hits my spine, a million centipedes crawling under my collar, under my skin. I am almost certain he wants to get me really drunk and vulnerable so he can buy my hamburger clock from me dirt-cheap. I freeze in a phony pose, commercial stance/expression, pretending to be a restaurant mannequin so that the devil doesn’t realize me and goes away.