Humans, Consciousness, and Everything in Between

By Emily Kavic

Somewhere in Manhattan, tucked away in a little alleyway, is a couch. "Humans, Consciousness, and Everything in Between" romps about in the mire of this curious and unassuming creature's thoughts. From factory to mental asylum, hospital to studio apartment, the couch's interaction with unknowing humans greatly informs its transformation, one which begins to take on a striking semblance to a counter-Gregor Samsa awakening.

Who better to lend a hand in explaining the paradoxical and convoluted tangle of World Wars and gender-based stigma than an inanimate, threadbare object that's been idling in heaps of trash?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098318154

Book preview

cover.jpg

© Emily Kavic 2020

ISBN: 978-1-09831-814-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-09831-815-4

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

Right off of the corner of W 66th Street and Broadway sat a sad, vacant lot where people left things - a literal dump - of which not too many people were terribly aware. All sorts of unpleasant aromas enveloped the vicinity, so people tended to march right past it. Unfortunately, they would never know what precisely they were missing. While the middle-aged mother and her ever-flighty young daughter and the young businessman with a mustache and the gaggle of young teenage vagabonds would always be just too busy going this way and that, at least one man would be able to enjoy the dump for what it was. While the whir of street noises - a cacophony to some, a symphony to others- occupied the air, a few people stopped abruptly on their trips to Duane Reade to consider the dump. Ah, my friends, here we have nothing short of a blasé handful of philosophical musings! Some people are like that. They consider the lesser things in the city to draw some comparative analysis or another, but really to no end. It’s sort of like picking up that book in a bookstore (or a library, if you’re retro, as it were) that has a slightly higher lexile score than that which you are comfortable- that is, something a bit more sophisticated than the latest celebrity’s self-help book. This breed of human will throw the book around a bit, rummage through the pages for any discernible meaning, maybe even - dare I say - take the work back to their seat in the cafeteria to just give them and their more typical indulgent read. The book’s sheer presence on the table must count for something, one could surmise. It may reach so far as to even purchase this other work and cram it alongside all of the other canonical texts in their house. What a sight, what a sight, indeed! Glossy covers side-by-side, perhaps even some moderate color coordination.

Anyhow, back on the street, an old man with a checkered cap decided to stop by the dump on a whim, ogling at it as if it where a mannequin in a storefront boasting this season’s fad. Before I can say more about the man’s connection to the dump, perhaps it’s best that I tell you a bit more about the dump itself. It was a shabby venue replete with only a modicum of humanity’s leftovers: a few rags strewn about the ground, an old television set from the middle of the last century, perhaps; a suit jacket and some blue suede shoes to go with it, and a few other things that I think are best left to be suspended in mystery, unless you should choose to go there (though I’m dubious). The dump didn’t have a name, and it didn’t need to. Everyone recognized it for what it was, whatever it was anyway. It sat atop a sturdy pile of dirt, a scarcity in the staggering beams of metal that shot up from the ground in the rest of Manhattan. It was just behind newly-erected department stores and an old, run-down Chinese restaurant which had been in New York before just about anything else had. No one was totally sure about the origins of the dump, but, among those who cared enough to put a thought or two to the discrepancy, a flurry of theories had come about. The most popular of these followed something along the lines of how the crazy woman who smoked on the edge of the Lincoln Center fountain would routinely throw some of her stuff haphazardly into a pile. Thus, was born the dump? Others whispered that an unprecedented gale had blown the junk over the rooftops of Tunisia, through the Atlantic, around clothes lines, and right into the kidney of the city where it sat now. I would say heart of the city, but, seeing as that is far too contentious a matter for the sake of this tale, I’ll defer that to another volume some day. At the time, it really wasn’t much, but the old man in the checkered cap considered precisely that corner - the juncture of W 66th St. and Broadway - to be the heart not only of New York, but the crux of the American spirit. Now, you may ask, why on Earth would some rando regard this, quite literally, dump to embody the very stuff of the country to which he was apparently so patriotic? Why, it could be summarized very simply with the single most alluring item which man would come to know. Its miscellaneous stains would glimmer when the sunlight caught them just so, and its archaic stitching would come perceptibly undone with each new day. Simply put, it had no parallel, and at least the old man in the checkered cap recognized this. It was, my friends, a couch - and a veritable one, at that. Pretty darn authentic, if I do say so myself (though I often find that I have pretty little to say with such political matters).

The couch stretched a length of about seven foot or so, a length which qualified it as an excellent spot which the local homeless population would frequent. Its collection of dilapidated pillows, all in tatters, served their purpose more than anything else in the dump could. It was the only thing of its kind, at least among the other scrappy scraps which occupied the surrounding space. It had assumed the role of a bed, a friend, and a lover, among other characters, over the course of its lifetime thus far.

For whatever reason, the man in the checkered cap took note of just this and decided that the couch’s character was far too overwhelming for him to continue on his typical route. Its charm had completely washed over him, leaving in what’s only comparable to a daze. He stopped on the streets to long in awe of this couch, his admiration for it not escaping him even for a second. This came much to the chagrin of the other passers-by who had daughters to escort to piano recitals and husbands to reproach for getting drunk again, police with jaded looks across their faces pushing past crowds, those adolescents vagabonds intent on playing a pickup game of basketball. Everyone was always in a huff, and the man in the checkered cap wasn’t fond of that sort of behavior in the least. In fact, he scrutinized almost every facet of society which was within his mental (or physical) grasp. Other New Yorkers would gripe ad nauseam about the smoke emanating from the factory down the street or the incessant parades of traffic which emerged every time a red light could be seen anywhere in any of the boroughs. Sally Libertstein’s apartment was too small, and Doug Tramstal was grossly overweight. Everyone had robust bevies of problems, enough to apportion for everyone. Though it seemed that the man in the checkered cap had one problem and one problem only - that everyone else had problems. And complained about them. Does that make two problems?

Chapter 2

Now, most people don’t know this, but the old man in the checkered cap liked to call himself Lawrence Bakely (the Second, of course). He lived up on the eighth floor of Kenneth Apartment Buildings just a couple of blocks away from the dump, which he would pass by every day on his way to Central Park to feed the birds in Sheep’s Meadow. When he wasn’t walking past the dump or giving his feathered regulars their fill of bread crumbs for the day, he usually found himself watching movies from the so-called Golden Age of cinema in the States. Other times, he would pore over his quaint and unassuming collection of books on his own leather chair. One thing to know about Lawrence is that he didn’t read books like other people would, mindlessly glazing over the words in a diffuse and haphazard pattern. In fact, Lawrence thought that those sorts of breed might as well read the book back-to-front; after all, it would yield just about the same significance to them. No, he certainly couldn’t resonate with that virtual illiteracy. Often times, however, beyond getting angry with readers who failed to read, he would grow livid with the authors for failing to write a book which was worth reading front-to-back. In light of this pressing issue of his day, Lawrence decided to take up editing his books. While his shelves only hosted about twenty-odd books, he had read a much more sumptuous number than that over the course of his lifetime. Why, he must have read thousands and thousands! He recalls fondly how Snowden made it out alive of the mission to Bologna and how lovely that the Inner Party ended up being with Winston Smith. On occasion, when the clouds parted just so or there was a slightly cooler temperature in his room, he found himself taking somewhat more grim endings, but for the most part he revised optimistically.

Initially, his endeavors consisted of writing to each work’s author in order to persuade him that there was a much better route that the story should take. Much to his consternation, however, he found heaps of letters from secretaries which always said something along the lines of:

Dear Sir, we are truly sorry to inform you of this, but we fear that George Orwell passed away three decades ago. Apologies for any inconvenience, and thank you for your continued devotion as a reader!

Sincerely, The Publishers

So much for trying that! So, inevitably, Lawrence took to redacting any text which infringed upon his personal tenets. In other words, almost every single fragment of text had some lines etched into it or a corrected misspelling. It was all very menial, Lawrence found, because everyone should know the proper outcome for these sorts of tales, and the fact that the authors couldn’t reason that one out was only further proof of their incompetence. Swear words, above all, would transform into the most mellifluous words like bubbles, among others. Lawrence would pour such intense concentration and credence into this meticulous process that steam would blow out of his ears and a cartoonish twister would sweep him off of his chairs.

He often looks back fondly in reverie on arguably his most successful night: it was June 32, 1965; and he was absolutely relishing himself for some of the plots which he had concocted. Usually, he could only think up a third of a decent plot in an hour, but on this evening, he couldn’t help but churn up his most eloquent ideas. Judy Martin down at the bodega past 52th and Madison had finally told him that she like one of his works. Though there was no doubt that Lawrence was a private man with private matters on his hands, he occasionally found himself delineating bits and pieces of his life to strangers who had wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Judy was a young woman of about Lawrence’s age with a very disheveled look about her, perpetually on the brink of total mental collapse. In that way, Lawrence found her to be a parallel of himself and, as such, thought it a great idea to present his works to her. So was born a veritable tradition.

Every Friday morning, after he had gotten his customary stack of flapjacks smothered in all kinds of sticky, buttery confections from Saul’s Diner, he would stop by said bodega to collect his typical rations: a few Bic pens, a jug of water, a pack or two of cigarettes. Lawrence wasn’t a fun man, but he liked to think himself one. By the time that he would reach the counter, he would have already popped open the cartridge and lit up his beloved cigarette, making sure to blow some of the smoke towards Judy out of respect and courtesy. He’d hand over a book or two for her to toss around in her hands, which was Judy’s cue to spurn him yet again.

Your technique is sloppy. Even if you had better ideas than the bigshots, you’ve actually got to be able to write to sell your material, Lawrence, I’m serious. This is not the stuff of masters, but rather of one jealous no-name apprentice. Get back to work - it’s weird that you spend so much time doing this, anyways.

It was always some variation on a theme, but every time she tried to approach him, she always managed to hurt Lawrence’s feelings, which, my friends, was a pretty imposing task in my book. Sure, he complained to noend, but his feelings were more-or-less stagnant. One day, he even found himself crying, a single tear escaping from his duct like an immigrant over a previously untraversed border. He deliberately followed its trajectory down his face and came to the realization that he liked Judy after all. It was then his one and only priority, other than maintaining his own very manicured lifestyle, to appease her.

Nobody in his life had ever validated him. Judy was an opportunity to finally clinch some appreciation of the unspeakable amounts of work which he had put into his books. As such, he flew back up to his apartment at an unprecedented speed (that is, about four miles per hour for a middle-aged man like himself) and took his brand new Bic pens which were flush with ink. That juicy ink would splatter all about the room, smatterings of it still on his window today (which, I must say, the new tenants are not jazzed about). Why, he embedded more ink into the works of Hawthorne and Woolf and Hemingway in that single day than The Times had employed over its whole lifespan. By the end of the whole shebang, he furiously shoved the books into an envelope and shipped them off to the bodega with no hesitation. Why, you may ask, would he not have just walked his lackadaisical legs over to the bodega in a city propelled by pedestrians? Well, because he could, because he could!

The next week he was teeming with so much excitement that he decided to take a sabbatical from work for the foreseeable future. Now, in getting all caught up in this business about his book-editing vocation, I must have neglected to tell you about Lawrence’s job. In brief, he was a mailman on Mondays, a bartender on Tuesday afternoon, an artist when a twinge of twilight gleamed on Wednesday, a dog-walker for the neighborhood on Thursday when the sun was 49 degrees East of the Flatiron Building, and a smoker on Friday. In other words, he was unemployed, but nobody knew that about him except for just about everyone.

Nevertheless, he often regaled Mo and Allan at the bar of his career as a writer and doctor. Mo would always prompt him on where he earned his degree in medicine, and Lawrence would always say that he took care of himself, which was just enough, he thought, to qualify him as a bona fide physician. With that, Mo and Allan would share their fill of glances and quips about the ineptitude of their old crony across the table from them. Even though Lawrence would pretend to take offense at their behavior, he couldn’t ever suppress a smile when considering his own fabrications. Sure, he would prevaricate once or seventeen times, and he fully acknowledged the repercussions.

When the guys were getting really rowdy, the actual bartender would cut them off, a sight just about as melancholy as when the repo guys take everything down to the cigarettes. That’s how they get you these days, anyways! Anyhow, the bartender would go over and be pretty darn adamant about the whole thing, even though he saw that neither Mo nor Allan had drunk any of their respective beverages at all. Even had they, there were no grounds for being inebriated, seeing that all that anyone had ordered was water. Except for Lawrence, who ordered a vodka-tonic, but he wasn’t the one acting out. Lawerence, much like the bartender, noticed that about people. They didn’t need the alcohol to actually get drunk so long as there was some illicit substance somewhere which could rev their engines. Even just stepping into a bar, there was a perceptible difference in the men’s eloquence.

As soon as the toe of his shoe entered the domain of Johnny’s Slum, he became just another one of the dregs of society, a guy who could speak glibly about even the most sordid of topics, things that were truly ineffable in any formal context. Lawrence didn’t mind this at all, though, and actually egged on both Mo and Allan when they would take on such an irrational tone. The nothings that they would exchange were delightfully amusing and proved excellent banter. Though fellow bar-goers, including the smoker from the edge of the Lincoln Center fountain, often relegated the triumvirate to a bunch of crazies, they were usually the ones having the most sophisticated conversations about nothing in the whole city. Nobody actually put any further thought into this, so they were still outcasts, even in a bar on the outskirts of the heart (some place or another) of New York City.

When he wasn’t busy getting drunk-a-roo or doing nothing or working on books, Lawrence was tending to his very beloved dog Trixie, a Pomeranian who didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with the geezer. He had found her near the dump, and, in spite of years of awaiting some master, she made many futile attempts to skitter away from this pungent excuse of a man. For the next ten years she’d be plopped down on a couch next to Daddy’s recliner, condemned to a universe whose fabric she could never quite contemplate in a place as monotonous as that wretched, rank apartment. Not many people were aware of this, but Trixie was a philosopher in her own right and often considered publishing one of the many dissertations which she had thought up over the years. Actually, one time, she nearly did muster the courage to scamper down the scaffolding and over to the nearby publications office to fit in a word with one of the editors, but she simply couldn’t surpass the D-Day-esque array of obstacles set before her, most prominent among which being not Lawrence but his terribly pervasive spirit. So, Trixie would do some perfunctory tricks every once in a while but preferred to keep to herself as much as possible. And that was all that she could do, anyways, besides defer to her set of unwavering values based upon Sartre’s works (though she could never tell Lawrence that, as he was notoriously opposed to everything French).

So, once Friday had arrived, Lawrence was beaming from the time he woke up. He skipped breakfast, tumbled down the stairs in his typical haphazard manner, and throttled down the street to greet Judy to convey his newest work to her: a revision of One Hundred Years of Solitude. He hadn’t taken a liking to the thought that everyone was confined to some cyclical existence, so he made an abridged version of the original where Macondo ascends to the Heavens and everyone is content.

Judy bore her routine apathetic expression when Lawrence sauntered into the store with his finest gray suit (derived from, you guessed it, the dump!). He deftly picked up a Coke from the ice box and swiftly made his way to the counter to check on her, invoke some sort of positive reaction. She glumly took the Coke and returned him a handful of change (which, unbeknownst to either of them, comprised a few quarters too many). He was abuzz with excitement, and he hoped that it was contagious, too. Almost as if it were criminal, he glimpsed to his left and right before sliding over the abbreviated manuscript to Judy, who entertained his idiosyncrasies with a roll of the eyes.

Come on, Judy. Just give this one a shot. I’ve got a feeling that you are really going to like this one. Just try it out for your old pal, wouldn’t ya? I spent so much time tailoring it to your taste.

Capitulating, Judy donned her reading glasses, producing them from underneath the counter, right next to the oh-so tantalizing emergency button which would alert the police in the case of a robbery or imp. Either one would work. She skimmed through his nearly illegible annotations, his diffuse thoughts, his unkempt observations. All the while, Lawrence was nervously awaiting a response of any kind to further his progress. After Lawrence was able to feel time weighing down on his joints, he prompted her on her feedback. She tossed the scrappy compilation of pages back over to him and gave him a bored, Fine, I suppose.

That, my friends, was June 32, 1965; the happiest day Lawrence Bakely II’s life. That is, until this one.

Chapter 3

The couch was sad most days, but today was different. None other than Lawrence Bakely II was strolling down the street, which in and of itself was the stroke of a new day with the prospect of new owner. His checkered cap was one thing, but he seemed like a bored man to the couch, so that was even better. The vast majority of the ignorant masses would just pass by the couch without the dignity to even summon up a mere hullo or