vier_seizoenen_the_garden_shed geest en lichaam and so he had this job to do, a task to accomplish, a responsibility to fullfill. he examined the wheel for a moment before he attempted to turn it and imagined it to be hard to turn for it was slightly rusted as if it had been years since anyone turned it. he was right. he couldn't even budge it on his initial attempt. "fucking shit!" rillianson swore, for there was no one in his presence but a bird in a nearby hawthorn tree eyeing him warily. "i need something to lubricate it or i'm never going to turn the motherfucker." he scanned the surrounding area and found a delapidated garden shed about fifty feet away. it had a whimsical design, as if whoever made it was talented if not a bit eccentric. rillianson barely noticed it, pushing through the door instead, hoping he would find some penetrating oil or wd40 at least. the structure was old barnwood, but painted, though it was in severe need of a makeover. there were flower boxes sprouting yellow-blooming, feathering weeds that smelled like absenthe. inside, rillianson halted immediately, as if what he beheld was so arresting and contrary to what he was expecting that he became frozen until the image backwards on his retina made frontwards sense upon the cerebral cortex of his brain. rillianson entered the shed with a delicate mixture of hushed wonder and a fear that scared him shitless. 070823 ... geest en lichaam what he beheld was the apparent altering of space. from the outside the shed appeared to be 10'x12' at the most. however, rillianson was now gazing upon the interior of a vast circus tent. its floor was swept red clay and in the far corner about a large stone's throw away was a tiger sitting on a colorfully painted platform. the moment it saw rillianson, it turned its massive head, involuntarily enlarged its pupils and sprang from its place of rest, making for him as if he was prey to bring down. it took rillianson only a slow motion second to realize he was being attacked. he was so terrified that he froze. he didn't even think about leaving and closing the door. all he could do was shut fast his eyes and scream out of sheer, primal panic. "NO!" 070824 ... geest en lichaam and then sudden, unexplainable silence. rillianson, his heart nearly pushing through his chest, desperately gasped for breath as if he lost the ability to breathe. his eyes were still closed tight like they had been glued. he could smell shit and piss and felt the wetness where it left his body. he was trembling uncontrollably. 070824 ... geest en lichaam in the tick tock time it took for his brain to register the absence of pain, spurting blood and crunching bone, rillianson's free, uninjured soul sprung forth like a jack-in-the-box and he opened his eyes expecting nothing but the wonder that comes when one realizes they have new life to live. i am not dead, the drowning man says who finds the hole in the ice and bursts out of the suffocating water. i am still alive. three feet in front of him stood a man in a tiger mask. "can i help you?" the stranger asked. his clothes were a swirling mass of orange, black, and white leather. the mask was gorgeous and big enough so rillianson could not see any part of his human face. rillianson, still out of breath and shaking, looked around somewhat frantically, as if the real tiger that attacked him would reappear. although the vast space of the circus tent was mysteriously gone as well, replaced by a normal size shoppe space with thousands of cans of wd4o lined up in perfect symmetrical rows. "where's the t-t-t-tiger?" he stammered. his voice was hoarse and absent of enough air to give it volume. he was barely able to perceive the odd character before him, concluding instead that what he was beholding was a cartoon of what he had just experienced. "you mean me?" the man-in-the-tiger-mask asked. he laughed briefly and amazingly enough it calmed rillianson down like a father quieting his infant's cry by picking it up out of its lonely crib. "um, well, you see," rillianson said, continuing to look around. the perfect display of cans was visually arresting, especially as the sun came through a lone window and illuminated them. their red caps looked like a thousand stop lights. "when i first came in a tiger..." rillianson exhaled with relief. "nevermind." he put both hands up to his face and pressed the corner of his eyes with his index fingers. he smelled himself again and immediately felt self conscious and embarrassed. "um, do you have a restroom i could use?" 070825 ... geest en lichaam "sure," the-man-in-the-tiger-mask said, pointing to the right corner. rillianson sheepishly walked past him and the pristine rows of wd40 and pushed open the wooden door. it was small and tidy inside with a beehive, black and white tile floor, sparklling white toilet, and a photograph of isadora duncan on the plank board wall. but it was the "mirror" hanging over the freestanding porcelien sink that freaked rillianson out, for it wasn't a mirror at all, but more like a tv screen. with undeniable curiousity, he pushed the on button and his breath immediately caught in his throat like a fly in a spider's sticky web. there was his image only moments earlier trying to turn the wheel to open the door to the carnival of fire complete with his swearing and obvious frustration. the shakey, hand-held camera followed him to the garden shed, but this time when he opened the door and the tiger attacked him, rillianson turned and ran with the tiger giving chase. he watched with stunned horror as he saw himself running for his life, jumping over fallen logs. splashing through creeks, slipping, falling, scrambling to get up, only to have the tiger catch him by the neck. it bit down on him with severity and shook him violently. rillianson, his heart beating wildly could not turn away from the screen and he continued watching as the tiger mauled him. he heard the breaking and splintering of his bones and cringed miserably as his blood spurted and spilled to the earth. "fucking christ!" he yelled aloud. 070828 ... geest en lichaam rillianson, without hesitation, reached up and shut the screen off, just as the tiger was disemboweling him. it was, without a doubt, the most disturbing thing he had ever seen, considering he was witnessing his own tragic demise. and it worried him about the future. he remembered proina's screen on top of the sleek body of the ladybug contraption. how he saw illy walking with him upon the deck of a large sailing vessel. maybe the man-in-the-tiger-mask is mr. willoughby, rillianson thought. he removed his stinky clothes, especially his soiled underwear. just as he was about to put his pants back on, there was a light tapping on the door. "i have a change of clothes if you need it," the man-in the tiger-mask offered from the other side of the door. "sure," riilianson said, noticing even his pants were stained by his unexpected defecation. he opened the door enough to grab the neatly folded package of freshly, folded laundry. "thanks." if it is mr.willoughby, rillianson thought to himself, he might release that tiger at any time. he cringed thinking about how he once abused him and threw him around at skeezik's birthday party massacre. fuck that. i'm doing anything he asks me to do. rillianson stood naked. he felt skinny and vulnerable as he unfolded the new clothes. turned out it was a pierrot costume. 070831 ... geest en lichaam he put the awkward costume on and this time when he looked in the "mirror," and turned on the screen, he saw films of himself in another world where he is an entertainer of children. he was drunk on absente, but love was strong in the air. he felt sun-warmed skin and was surrounded by fans. he was dressed in another costume, not like pierrot. more like cirque de soleil, or bohemian gypsy. when he opened the door of the bathroom, the tiger was waiting for him and attacked with one slash of its massive paw. the razor-sharp claws ripped the skin of his left arm deep. the four gashes bled profusely. rillianson, in complete shock, leapt back into the bathroom, slamming the door with fight mode right on the tiger's snarling fangs. it recoiled with a yelp of pain. rillianson was safe, but already the whole sleeve of his white pierrot costume was stained crimson. 070904 ... geest en lichaam rillianson was afraid to lift the sleeve but knew he must. he did so with the thumb and index finger of his trembling right hand, pulling it away slowly and carefully, revealing the ghastly wound so severe that he could see inside to the subcutaneous layer. "holy fuck!" he uttered out loud, swallowing the bitter reality of his situation with a gulp of horrified shock. he leaned over to the tollet paper roll and unraveled a large portion, dabbing at his wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but it bled on like a leak. he knew he was in trouble and needed medical attention immediately, yet he feared to open the bathroom door lest the tiger maul him further. "are you ok in there?" it was the voice of the man-in-the-tiger-mask coming from the other side. 070914 ... geest en lichaam "um...well...i think i have a little problem," rillianson said. he miserably fumbled with the crimson toilet paper, sopping wet and dripping to the beehive tile floor with his blood. his efforts were futile but he tried for we all think we're never as hurt and damaged as we really are. he thought it peculiar that the drops on the floor seemed to form an image of a skinny man with a large nose and big ass. looks like me, he thought to himself. "does the costume fit?" the-man-in- the -tiger mask asked. there was a blase concern in his voice coming from the other side of the door as though from miles away.. rillianson began to feel somewhat light-headed and when he blinked his eyes staring down at the strange image, colors began to swim in their usual spectrum like flying fish out of water and no longer adhered to their expected appearance; all of them yielding and willingly surrendering to the pale yellow of a tired sun. sound, as well, bowed and left the stage to all the silence that remained. it's happening again, rillianson thought. he knew he was suppossed to answer the question about the costume, but time and place had something else in mind. or was it that his mind had another time and place to inhabit? when the man-in-the-tiger-mask knocked momentarily and then slowly pushed open the door with a disturbing creak, he was not surprised to find rillianson unconscious upon the tile sprawled awkwardly in a large, bright red puddle that he had created. 070916 what's it to you? who go blather from