Apotheosis - Prose

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Toxic Wells, New Jersey-Jonathan Marin
The Raven-Ngoc Nguyen

TOXIC WELLS, NEW JERSEY
Jonathan Marin

In the spirit of Community, I'm pleased to present the Chamber of Commerce Brochure of our delightful little town. As you'll quickly see, we're unique in many ways. I'm sure you'll want to visit, and perhaps even consider relocating here.

You probably already know Toxic Wells, New Jersey. The classic film "Their Town" was filmed here. More recently, we've been the setting for the heartwarming Hollywood production "On Fuming Pond", and the dramatic "A Sewer Runs Through It". Do come on down, and sniff around.

Downtown, there is the prizewinning Superfund Monument. It's situated in Times Beach Square, the pre-revolutionary Village Green affectionately known by residents as the "Village Brown". The Monument features the multicolored Effluent Fountain, and the stump of a magnificent bronze statue of James "Conservation for Use" Watt, which was unfortunately eaten away by acids during the dedication ceremonies.

Opposite the "Brown" is one of the townsfolks' favorite watering holes, "The Leaking Drum". This delightful, quaint tavern boasts the largest selection of bottled Spring Water in the entire Northeast, has distilled and New York City water "on tap", and features no less than twelve different versions of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" on its juke box.

Head out from the center of town along West Wastepit Avenue, toward the Ruptured Culvert Historic Site and picturesque Thickwater Falls. Just beyond Swan Song Lake ("Public Swimming and Paint Removal") you will see the turnoff to Old Dumpsite Park. Home of the world famous Silent Spring Gardens, whose Blooming Ponds of Algae are in bloom year-round, the park also houses the only zoo in the East without a single live animal. Across Leachfield Road from the zoo is the prestigious Seepage Institute. The modest two-storey structures are the school buildings and laboratories. The larger building is the school infirmary, a hotbed of research in the field of juvenile emphysema.

Prosperity has blessed the town throughout its long history, and it has proudly lived up to its motto: "Effluence Means Affluence". It also means influence, and our political leaders work tirelessly to educate the public to the obvious but widely misunderstood truth: "Poisons Don't Kill People,
Breathing and Drinking Them Do It". Local folk often refer to the pervasive aroma as "the sweet smell of success", and they will gleefully share their anecdotes about visiting Wall Street types trying to "sniff the green" without inhaling it.

Local conditions have spawned a wide variety of successful businesses. Crematoria throughout the state rely on the services of Crem de la Chem, out on Sewerditch Creek Road. The bodies of the departed are left in the parking lot overnight. By morning, they are completely dissolved and ready to be poured into urns.

Firms offering travel-related services find special opportunities here. The "Be Prepared" Travel Center gradually weans hopeful travelers to fresh air, and weans returning travelers back to the "green, green air of home". Although their efforts to promote Toxic Wells as a prominent eco-tourism destination have not yet been successful, the Center is thriving, and remains a necessity for local residents planning out-of-town trips.

Mom's Diner looks ready to become a big time national franchise chain. It's always crowded with sophisticated out-of-towners who are preparing to travel to third-world countries. They know that they can count on Mom's uninspected, unregulated fare to expose them to all the bugs they're likely to encounter while they're abroad, so that by the time they go, their bodies' systems will be ready.

Wall Street thinks Mom's is a "can't miss" for everyone who's ever suffered Montezuma's Revenge. In a joint venture with a chain of hospitals, they've set up the franchising as a for-profit association, called the American Society for the Spread of Filth and Epidemic Disease (A.S.S.F.E.D.).

The Planned Parenthood operation is also doing well. Their spa here promises to relieve the public relations difficulties which plague the Mother Organization, and perhaps even help resolve the national abortion debate. Clients come to town for the waters, stay for a few days, and then go home,
leaving their troubles behind them. The prosperity of the local motels is a recent development. The women were rarely staying more than one night, so there were always quite a few empty rooms. Then the Motel Directors started watering down the water. Now the women stay longer, and the occupancy rate is close to a hundred per cent.

Over the years, the Bubbling Brook Company has established itself as a bulwark of the motion picture industry, supplying it with a whole panoply of mutants to be cast as dragonlike monsters, alien life forms, bipedal turtles, and the like. Residents are quick to point out that any dinosaurs you might see around are not prehistoric leftovers; they're newly evolved.

Generations of children have been brought up around Toxic Wells. Kids frolic for hours after school on the playgrounds and ballfields down at the Squish Meadows Play Area. On hot afternoons they can go for a dip in the Greenish River out by Fish Kill Point, or go boating on beautiful Lake La Treen. On
weekends, you can drop them off for the whole day to enjoy the exciting unsupervised activities at the "Devil May Care" Amusement Park; be sure to pack their bathing suits, and their inhalers.

In upscale neighborhoods such as Sterile Wetlands Plantations and Radonhurst, people fastidiously maintain their houses, their grounds, and their "For Sale" signs, which they refurbish or replace at least once a year. Homes are surprisingly affordable! You can get full details from the helpful people at Love Canal Realty, conveniently located in the heart of downtown, at the corner of Elm and Chestnut.

The Raven
Ngoc Nguyen

The sun burned bright and hot, and the earth below was dry and desolate from its searing heat, a wasteland, a barren legacy. It was dead and lifeless, except for a solitary raven that soared precariously close to the brightly burning disc in the sky. Of that entire panorama no sign of life could be spotted. The raven, quick and agile in its element, surveyed the surrounding landscape as it flew. It searched for signs of motion, for any indication that it was not alone, not utterly abandoned. The only motion it was able to detect with its ebony eyes, however, was its shadowy silhouette that followed along the ground below as it flew. Nothing, the raven thought to itself, so it banked to the left, first by shifting its center of gravity, then by throwing its right wing-tip higher into the air than its left.

So far, nothing had changed. The earth was dry and waterless, and except for the intermittent colors of charcoal and dust, little else was visible. The endless searching for another soul yielded no trace of life either sentient or otherwise. Moreover, there was nothing to even suggest that this planet ever supported a rich biosphere teeming with myriad life forms that were intricately dependent on each other for their survival. All that remained of a once fertile world were the multitude of dunes, canyons, and rocky crags left over by the eons. Perhaps, the raven thought, this place never really was alive with fauna and flora…perhaps it was all a wild dream, a flirtatious hallucination. With that thought coursing through its feathered head the raven gave a loud, shrill cry through its beak. Its cry was to no avail, however, as there was no one to receive it.

Plaintively, the raven swung around and descended onto the highest rocky crag situated nearby. Using its outspread wings as brakes, the raven deftly landed in a single bound. And, with the wind blowing indifferently through its feathers, the raven regarded the surrounding geography. It was hollow and void in every direction. And the only sound audible was the silence. The raven began to feel extremely alone, isolated, and forgotten. He was the only islet of life in an ocean of lifelessness. As the raven contemplated its sad existence, from afar off, in the distance, a black horizon began to emerge from the distant west. The raven, intrigued, fixed its unfailing eyes on the dark horizon. It was advancing, and rapidly. The advancing line of darkness encompassed everything from north to south. The sun, as it turned out, was being darkened. With eyes upward, the raven was able to make out that the moon was coming between this world and its sun. It was a solar eclipse, the first one in ages. The raven was transfixed by the event as it gazed upon it…and, for a brief moment, it had forgotten its gloomy reality. The raven found comfort in what it was seeing, for it had considered it the mysterious answer to its avian scream. Is Creation speaking to me? the raven asked himself. Then, a single tear flowed from its weary eye.

Seconds later the surrounding earth was violently pockmarked by showers of meteors. As the earth moaned and heaved under the fiery impacts of iron and rock from space the raven did nothing to save itself. It did not have to. Even though the raven was ready to die under the impact of a meteor, it was spared by the eerie fact that it stood on ground that the meteors would not touch. Meanwhile, the eclipse neared its moment of culmination. The former silence that the raven was witness to was now replaced by the thundering echoes of each meteor impact.

Finally, the ensuing fires from the countless showers of meteorites had set the planet ablaze; and the solar eclipse was at this moment at its peak, fully obscuring the sun. The planet was an inferno; but the raven and the spot of earth it had stood on were spared.

Then the sheets of meteorites abated, and the fiery earth began to transform from flame to violent, upward bursts of springs of water. The planet was now entirely covered by water, and a moisture-laden atmosphere. And, in a manner that can only be called supernatural, the earth divided the waters and formed oceans and discernible lakes and other bodies of water.

Then from soil grass grew lush and green. And more complex plant-life, like flowers, berries, trees and even whole forests sprouted. Then, from the simplest to the most complex, animal-life appeared. The planet was becoming renewed in every spectrum—the soil and ground was inhabited by creatures that crawled and crept along the earth; the plains were filled with quadrupeds that traveled in herds; the oceans were filled with all manner of sea-life; and the firmament was home to legions of fowl.

The raven was overjoyed to know that it was not alone…but as soon as it opened its eyes again it realized the inescapable truth of its existence—that, ultimately, it is only alone that it can know itself.