Elliot R. Engles

My alarm goes off at 9AM, which was optimistic on my part. At midnight I took a melatonin to try and sleep, but today I am just groggy and tired. My partner, Avery, went to work at 8AM like a productive member of society, but I lay in bed and snooze my alarm until 11:00.

When I actually do wake up it is to a text from Ollie.

I go downstairs to my porch to drink my coffee in the cool fall air. It is misting outside, and the wind blows it onto the porch so that it kisses my face with the promise of autumn. Two days ago the cold snap made me sad, but today it is invigorating.

When I trudge back upstairs I think that this new apartment has begun to feel like home. From the front windows I can see the tops of the skyscrapers of Center City, usually framed by a blue sky, but today shrouded in the light fog that has rolled over the city.

For breakfast I eat a slice of focaccia that I made yesterday. It has olives in it, and I replaced half of the water and salt in the recipe with olive brine. I make this about twice a week and it is easy and delicious.

I must admit that the execution of Marcellus Walliams last night has affected me greatly. I have spent most of the morning thinking about it. Sometimes I feel that the inherent contradictions of being a citizen of the imperial core are becoming too much.  I read some of his poems while I eat breakfast.

I receive another text from Mercury Opinion Poll. “Who are you voting for?” it asks, “1=R=Trump, 2=D=Harris, 3=Someone else, 4=Unsure, 5=Not voting. Text STOP to quit.”

“3” I text back, and the little green text bubble stares back at me from the black background of my messages. It is like screaming into the void, my protests swallowed up. Mercury does not text me back.

Perhaps all of this is too sad and too political for a fun little project. Perhaps I should find it in myself to pout on a good face for the internet, pretend like none of this is happening.

I watch some YouTube videos to pass the time.

Around 2, while I am meandering around the house, I remember the book that Philip Glahn suggested that I read while I was working on my thesis.

Angels by Denis Johnson is on the shelf, sandwiched between Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fanny Flag and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner by Sillitoe. Sillitoe also calls to me, so I pick it up alongside Angels.

I sit on the floor with my coffee and re-read the execution scene in Angels.

Then I flip back some pages and read about the Angel.

Then I flip through The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner and read snippets of that as well.  This book used to live on the floorboard of my car, and it’s warped and water stained, and it is the book thar convinced me that resistance was a reasonable path to take through life.

I am interrupted at 2:29 by a text from my Avery asking that I check that our gas account is set up, because our landlord said it would be cut off soon. I cannot get the website to let me log in, so I spend 20 minutes trying to communicate with the nice robot lady until finally she gives up and I can talk to a real lady. The real lady says that maybe it will take two months before I can actually log in because that’s how long it takes bills to generate. Great. 

By the time I hang up at 3:04 I have lost interest in the books. 

Near 4:00, Ollie texts me and asks me to tea at their house, so I make my way down the block for tea. It is lovely to live here, just a block away from a house full of friends.  I read aloud to them the above passages from the books, and then we go to have our tea on their porch.

“There isn’t enough rigor in my practice,” they say, and we discuss performance and puppeteering and what you can learn at mime school, “We’ve been dillying, and dare I say dallying,” perhaps we should both get serious about making art soon. 

Then they text several people hunting down job leads for me (none turn up viable, as usual). Keith comes home and we talk for a while, then Jara shows us the amazing compost pile he’s constructed in their backyard and explains how much kitchen scrap and yard waste must go into it.

I am feeling much better at this point, having seen and interacted with friends.

I return home around 5:30 – Avery is home, and has already eaten. So I make myself a simple dinner of tofu, rice, and broccoli.

We sit down and watch the final episodes of Season 1 of AMC’s The Terror, which is a fictitious account of the doomed Franklin Expedition, lost in the Canadian Arctic in the 1840s after being frozen into the ice for multiple years while searching for the North West Passage.

Yesterday I read an article that they discovered the remains of Captain James Fitzjames, the third in command of the expedition. DNA was a match to his living relatives, and his bones show evidence of cannibalism, which has long been suspected. Huge news to come out while I just so happened to be becoming invested in this fascinating piece of history. The Netsilik People who lived in the area where they got frozen in had told the British who came looking for the lost expedition that they had eaten each other, but the British men refused to accept that their own countrymen could do such a thing. 

The same cold snap that got their ships stuck also froze in the Donner Party.  The 1840s was a good decade for eating people, it seems.

At 9:00 Ollie asks if I want to go to Abyssinia. I really do. 

They come over and I feed them a slice of apple pie that I made the day before, and they say it is quite good. I also eat a slice, and so does Avery.  I will need to remake it with granny smith apples because I would like it to be a bit more tart next time.

We meet up with Soso and Shoshana there, and I drink too much and dance with a lady who puts The Who on the Jukebox. Eventually, after midnight, we stumble back to Ollie and Soso’s house. We eat a Pizza with corn and mayo (it’s quite good). Ollie and Shosh go to bed but Soso and I stay up for a while, shooting the shit on the porch.

Then, finally, sometime near 3AM, I make my way home. I eat some ramen and hotdogs and fall asleep on the couch (I snore too loud after drinking to be let into bed with Avery) watching YouTube videos about shipwrecks and ocean liners.

Tomorrow I will go help Soso get their work done in the studio.

Elliot is a West Philly resident who just finished his MFA in painting this spring, and is now searching for gainful employment in the arts. He spends his days writing Star Wars fanfiction, painting, and baking. You find his art and writing on ElliotEngles.com.