Two Husbands'... Part 2, Chapter 31

Invited To Leave The Office

2 Husbands invited to leave the Office!

(The Two Husbands get to leave the office; and the Two Wives will be doing something new too, at the same time, in the jungle)
 

NARRATOR

Two Husbands are invited by numbers

to leave the office (which is like home to them)

to go find their two wives.

Somehow, the numbers are

going to lift them.

They say they will!

And here they are!

Six and Seven and Eight

with them on the window-sill

at the edge of their office space.

‘What is it like to be falling with numbers?’

    the Husbands wonder.

‘How can these numbers get us anywhere?’

The numbers have come back

and invited the Husbands

to leave their offices with them;

to go to the farther reaches

of our globe:

    over to the Andes,

    to the Ganges,

    to the Willowbrook...

Over the mountains,

over the Pacific

to the Islands...

where their wives sit,

naked and yearning,

thinking, in the jungle, of such triangular

    weaving patterns

    and unloosening knots on rugs

that will help get them out of there, somehow

(perhaps, by magic transfixiation of the kind Native Chieftain.

And by learning the super teacher-training wisdom

of the persistent Witchdoctor; and applying it pointedly).

Look how the Native Chieftain

    lolls his head.

Look how he is powerfully taken over

    to slumber;

just like the Husbands are powerfully

taken over by the numbers -

    off the studio ledge

    to the farthest continents away;

    over palm trees and coconuts

    and deserts raw, forbidding

    and rain forests

    and peanuts

    and pineapples -

until they are going to settle down

and land somewhere.

Day of clouds

Reverse Plot Synthesis

(The Narrator is seriously thinking about plots now, as it seems that the Two Wives, with the Witchdoctor’s help, are planning to travel away from the jungle somehow on their own)

NARRATOR

Two reverse arrows are going to cross in the plot!

applied with two smart lives each,

    in carriage and transport.

They are forced by different magic spending.

The arrows will cross and the protagonists will

land in different places.

One group - the Wives - will land back at home.

And the other - the Husbands - will possibly land

right where the first group left from: 

at the jungle Chieftain’s village!

ONLOOKER

Reverse plots

are the antithesis of each other.

NARRATOR

Cross-making paths

    charging over,

landing differently.

ONLOOKER

Soon to be disappointed - the Wives.

And lost - the Husbands.

NARRATOR

It is a sample of

reverse plot synthesis.

Here, let’s say, the numbers have taken

the Two Husbands across country

    and sky

in order to land close to where

    the Two Wives were.

But the Wives are gone,

using spider-wear warp stratagems,

on their magic toil cloth

    taught to them

by cunning-mad Witchdoctor

    to bypass or escape

    the usual jungle drool

and badness that was encroaching

    all around them

(yet, still nice was the sleeping Chieftain

unaware, in underwear, of their departure).

ONLOOKER

Wait, for a moment - the Wives aren’t gone, yet,

Can we examine what the Wives might use for propulsion

to leave the jungle village; in contrast to how the tall,

boxy numbers are capable of traveling from the city?

Witchdoctor and the 2 Wives

(End of Chapter 31)

Two Husbands'... Part 2, Chapter 30

Included In Two Numbers

 

Numbers in the window

 

(A joyous richness permeates the atmosphere of the Two Husbands’ offices as the new formal numbers continue to address the two men)

 

NARRATOR

This number Seven is very good!

Sharp but dangerous - but good.

Floating, flying, bouncing,

banging, ringing,

saying...

 

NUMBER SEVEN addressing the Two Husbands,

Lout! Louts!

Get your bags ready!

though you get none.

Get ready, for I am here!

We’re here!

All Sevens, all Sixes, Sevens, Fives,

Fours and the rest.

All Zeros, complete.

All the blank nothings you have

forlornly but justly imagined.

And, we’re here,

    we’re here!

And we’ll bank you over

    continents,

    Saharas,

    oceans

and so on, in space-less space

and timeless, formless,

    unchanging time,

to your brave and hardy wives two

    (busy elsewhere

    but not forgotten).

So, the sense seems in you

    to go there -

    where they are not forgotten.

 

I think we numbers can take you there.

But, you must take care

    to be included -

    fitted in to us,

    wrapped in.

 

NUMBER SIX

Yes, mantled over.

 

NUMBER FIVE

Speeded.

 

NUMBER SEVEN

Put to us - meaning, flown away

from here - as if bird-powered.

So, use your two hearts to get into

    this business.

It is highly different than economics,

or any chemical inventing.

 

SMALLY

This is unbelievable!

 

NUMBER FOUR

Yes, it’s more easily stabilized.

You will like it better for this sort of traveling,

if you fit in. So try it.

Seven will figure it out.

Seven won’t release you until

you are ready and waiting.

 

NUMBER SEVEN

So, compromise.

And become Dutch, double-dutch -

mixed up with us number-times all!

 

(The Husbands are quickly inserted into two of the numbers)

 

BIGGY

We’re bunched in like

a mummy’s coffin.

 

SMALLY

Yeah, it feels like

I’m spreading

like wheat in a mixer,

twisted and turned

by number Eight.

 

BIGGY

Or Seven.

 

SMALLY

Yeah, how do they do balancing?

 

BIGGY

How do they do spinning or traveling?

Isn’t it amazing?

 

SMALLY

Maybe... They are used to going somewhere, mixing in;

even though they say they want to be considered, always,

as being separate - as only being their own selves.

Yet, they extend indefinitely.

 

BIGGY

And that’s how we stand in them.

 

SMALLY

Or, lay down!

 

BIGGY

Will we reach our wives

using this numbers’ rebellion?

 

SMALLY

We’ll find out!

 

BIGGY

Or, will they reach us, traveling on numbers too?

How will our numbers combine with theirs accurately?

 

SMALLY taken aback,

Maybe in mid-air? Or in mid-space?

 

BIGGY

Maybe we’ll smash into them?

 

SMALLY perturbed,

This isn’t a scientific experiment

    used by us.

We are traveling on the numbers’ own power,

   not on ours.

So, let go of all conjecturing!

 

 

(End of Chapter 30)

Two Husbands'... Part 2, Chapter 29

 

By Their Own Numbers Possessed

Witchdoctor, 2 Wives watching

ONLOOKER

It occurs to me that

the building the Witchdoctor built

is a square, stretched-out heavy thing;

impenetrable probably, almost -

except by the sharp-ended bramble twigs

    that he fashioned into

    puncturing numbers

to go inside of the building.

And, before inching them in softly,

he has super-consciously made those numbers

(to be able to communicate a great number of things)

    enchanted -

not resplendent, not glorified

but very receptive. Receptionairy.

NARRATOR making notes,

WORDS FOR THE WITCHDOCTOR’S ACTIVITIES

WITH THE NUMBERS IN THE BRINE

Wet, briny numbers inside the building.

His commands - their listening.

Signals, within the mud, going over

oceanaries, continents and waves

all the way to the east coast of North America.

These connections

are going to bring the Husbands

out of their offices.

WORDS FOR THE WITCHDOCTOR’S METHODS

FOR POWERING AND MANIFESTING

LIFE-CHANGES IN NUMBERS

He is affecting so-called inanimate objects,

which are always going to be

spinning inside of themselves anyway, we think.

In a way,

he reaches in

through his tongue

like an ant-eater

to stir and hook up with those

inner components inside of

inanimatory (inanimate) matter.

He will, like a honey stick,

attach, whip up and stir around

and draw out and wrap them

around his tongue (or on to your little finger!).

And thus, he will have already smeared it on

and all over; and gotten it ready

to present to the gods.

He is ready to propose and send

such a sweet message to the gods that they will enjoy

licking or dragging it along over the waves’ brines

spraying above the deep,

until it gets inside the city walls; and high up above,

through the Husbands’ windows, goes in

to enwrap its sullen (but fertile and procreative)

enchantments upon their jotted pages -

and all over, up on the walls of their graph.

And then it shall come down

    over them.

And they’ll be dragged out of there,

    like fish in its netting.

Thrown out - but safely -

    from the windows;

ready to ride upon the larger numbers

blown up and manifested moving

by the Witchdoctor’s incantating spells

from his far jungle habitat.

The Two Wives watch!

(The Witchdoctor sees the Two Wives in their hiding place)

WITCHDOCTOR, explaining to the Two Wives,

I am trying to get your two husbands to come here.

I’m trying to provide means, locomotion;

    a strong enduring vehicle

    for them to travel upon,

without them thinking or planning about it;

because, by this development,

they’ll have to be taken by surprise

    and be carried away

    almost against their will,

by being just barely persuaded,

    (or knocked up against)

by my jungle-charmed phantoms;

and by their own numbers, possessed!

But, suddenly, inquisitive Ladies,

you’ve interrupted the crucial scheduling

of these proceedings. Now... I must assume

that the Two Husbands were just barely getting going

out the window on the numbers when...

TWO WIVES

We shouted out and showed ourselves here!

Oh, no! What have we done wrong?

WITCHDOCTOR continuing calmly,

... When your husbands must have turned back,

astoundedly, only a few feet, to the edge

of the roof...

TWO WIVES

Oh, no!

WITCHDOCTOR

...and landed stably there,

each on his own two feet.

Witchdoctor and the two businessmen

TWO WIVES, relieved

Sigh...

WITCHDOCTOR

And the great numbers gone!

disappeared, distilled, evaporated

and ménaged - remunerated all out -

    like no trace of clouds

    or birds in the sky!

So, you Two Wives will have to go get

the Husbands yourselves.

You’ll have to go away from the jungle

back to your far away city to be with them.

(Now, the Two Wives now have to think of a way to transport themselves back to the city - with the Witchdoctor’s help)

NARRATOR

It looks like the Two Husbands appear on top of the building.

Maybe the Witchdoctor sees them, maybe he doesn’t?

They are disoriented, let loose,

from their levitating number bulbs floating up.

They’ve just made it to the roof’s edge

and are not going anywhere, anymore.

Is this really true?

ONLOOKER

The Witchdoctor can’t really tell if his animating formulas

are working now; because he has been interrupted by the Two Wives,

He assumes that the Husbands’ traveling numbers have been

permanently delayed. What do you think?

NARRATOR

I don’t agree! I think it’s the opposite.

(End of Chapter 29)