Author: Carlton Mellick Iii
Date: 2012-01-02 11:44:30+00:00

THE THIRD PLANET FROM MY SHOULDER

There are nine planets in the sky. Or are there ten sometimes? I have nine tattoos of the heaven-planets going down my right arm in pictures. See. Yes, it is quite abnormal for a woman to put tattoos only on one arm, at least I’ve never met any other woman with a lot of arm-tattoos, always getting them around their belly buttons, on their lower backs, around their necks, on the upper portions of their breasts, and so on… you know, the sensual areas. I put them all on one arm, nine planets, and people say they are masculine and ugly, but I say they are erotic… Actually, one guy - only one - was deeply attracted to my tattoos, but he still thought I was masculine-gross. He didn’t like the way I dyed my tongue black.

My planet tattoos are more than just tattoos to me. They are just like real planets with plants and oceans and people. And it is strange because we, as human beings, are certain that the other heaven-planets do not contain people… just the little one we’re infesting. But this is not true on my arm. People live on all nine planet tattoos, even the tiny one on my wrist. They are small people, and 2-dimensional, but are quite like you and me. Yes, it sounds peculiar, but I am telling you the truth. Their lives are very human. Complicated and lovely and human. They just have less dimensions than we have. I know all about them because I can telepathically enter their minds and live their lives. I can do this because they are a part of my body.

I look down at my arm now, to the third planet from my shoulder, the blue-green one with the big-big cities. It is funny how all nine planets are occupied by human-like beings, yet not one population is aware of another. The people of 2-dimensional Saturn look to the people of 2-dimensional Mars and see a dead planet. The people of 2-dimensional Mercury look to the 2-dimensional Venus and see an uninhabited rock. And the people of 2-dimensional Earth look round and round and see nothing but empty space. They have all been deceived in some way. Perhaps their governments are responsible. Perhaps their governments don’t want the people knowing about planet-neighbors for political reasons, and tell lies. Or perhaps 2-dimensional eyes cannot see the other planets correctly. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. 2-dimensional life cannot possibly see the whole picture because they lack a third dimension, one of the most elementary foundations within our reality.

The blue-green planet/tattoo spins very slowly underneath my skin. It ignores the fact that it is a drawing and not a real heaven-planet. Tattoos never know when to conform, do they? They rebel against being stationary just as those who get tattoos rebel against having natural skin.

On the surface of the tattoo, there lives a young man named Moses, named after the planet’s first world president who died dozens of centuries ago. This Moses has a studio apartment in the middle of a city called Polloco, which is big-big - the size of our Germany - and the most artistic people of his world live there. However, these very artistic people are restricted to only two dimensions, living like stick-figure cartoons, and have no idea how limited their artwork is without the third dimension.

Moses is my favorite character within the blue-green tattoo. I love his essence, his tattoos, his antisocial behavior. But he is not a great artist and, therefore, not a great person - at least that is how his co-citizens feel about him. They all know that he hides his art supplies underneath the black line in his room, which is his bed, and hardly ever takes them out to create. He says in a choppy voice, “I will never be the best,” and then he goes to sleep or drinks a beer until his eyes befriend blurriness.

Moses goes to a sub shop and buys a long sandwich with circles of meat on it, squares of cheese. Nobody else eats here but him and an obese woman who always rubs her feet while waiting for her sandwiches, yell-talking about the personal lives of famous 2-dimensional people to the crispy owner in the background.

She tells Moses: Heaven is not a place, it is a sandwich.

Then she points to the menu. Experiencing heaven costs only $3.50 for her.

Outside, the raindrops are violently applauding the streets, cleaning beer cans and urine and goo-condoms from the sidewalks. Moses goes across the sloppy traffic to a corner store for some gum, but buys cigarettes. They warm the cold/wet weather out of him. His breaths are so beautiful to me, deep and powerful. I like to enter the minds of people nearby and watch him standing there, his constant slow-passionate expressions, unaware of his intensity.

He goes to his girlfriend’s house, but doesn’t say much to her. She talks on the phone to her brother while he watches a little girl jumprope outside a window, splashing in rain puddles, singing a song everyone knows. Moses watches and then looks at the floor and then watches again and then looks at a lamp, something smells rancid from the box which is a kitchen, an uneaten pepper pizza or something similar. Then his girlfriend gets off the phone and tells him she has a surprise for him, smile-rushing to the bathroom to put it on. But Moses sneaks away while she cherry-flavors her goopy parts.

He goes into the street and walks the line into a square to protect himself from wetness, sitting and staring at the bouncing rain. Blocky 2-dimensional cars drive by as he watches the water fall, and his eyes go into their path. He imagines darting in front of one of the cars, dropping head first underneath to kill him, send him to heaven which is a skull tattoo on my left breast.

His girlfriend calls to him from across the road, back in her home-clothes, and waves at him to sleep with her.

Moses looks up but doesn’t move, stares into her 2-dimensional eyes under wet hair. He doesn’t see what he is looking for.

“It’s somewhere else,” he tells the road.

And he walks away. She calls to him, but he keeps going, darts into the closest bar. He sits down and rubs his 2-dimensional face in his hands, cleaning water from his forehead. It smells like vinegar.

The girlfriend, Siri, follows him into the bar, chasing, sad and confused at his ignore-actions, his rejecting of her. She comes to him, moves softly into his view, sits. He looks her in the eyes again, stares, then drops his head into a fist.

She touches his hand with a What is wrong, Moses? expression, but he doesn’t respond. Her touch asks him Don’t you love me anymore? and he can feel it.

“I’m sorry, Siri, I don’t anymore.”

“Why not?” Siri asks. “Is there someone else.”

Moses nods.

“Who is it?” Siri asks.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’m not sure who she is, but I’m in love with her. I love the way she looks at me, the way she understands me, the way she makes me feel.”

“But who is she? Someone you work with? Someone you saw at a party? Someone you bumped into on the street?”

“No,” Moses says, trying to avoid eye-contact. “She is someone inside of me.”

Siri cringes her eyebrows.

“A dream-woman, I guess. Someone I cannot reach in the real world, only in my mind.”

“A fantasy?” she explodes. “You’re in love with a fantasy?”

“She’s more than a fantasy, she’s real, just not of this world.”

Siri’s 2-dimensional face is slicking wet, tears combined with rainwater. “Do you love me?” Her voice hard-serious, shivering.

“I thought I did. I saw the woman in your eyes before. When we first met. At first, I thought that you were my fantasy woman in flesh form, but I realized you weren’t once we became close. She was just entering your body to be with me, to touch me. I’ve only stayed with you because of her.”

Siri can’t speak, swallowing saliva uncontrollably.

“I’m sorry. I’m in love with her.”

And I am in love with him.

I just realize it now, the way I’ve entered Siri’s body so many times to be with him, the way he always looked at me when I was inside her. He saw me, he saw right through her skin. Perhaps his feelings started when I first discovered him within my tattoo world. I went into his brain and read his thoughts/dreams. At the same time, I was in his thoughts/dreams. I became his fantasy.

Before Siri gets a chance to respond, I slide into her body and put her controls on hold. Moses glances up at me and freezes, staring into these eyes, finding me in here. His expressions pause.

“I’m here, Moses,” I say to him, Siri’s hands still holding onto his. “I love you. I won’t leave you.”

The boy smiles and kisses my thumb knuckle.

It has stopped raining. We walk quietly back to Siri’s 2-dimensional apartment, awkward, scared to break the silence. But we’re soft-happy, content. I will stay in Siri’s body for as long as possible. Perhaps I can stay forever, even though I’ll be within a flat world that is really a tattoo. It is not as complex as our world and our children could never be as beautiful here, but I love him enough to bare with it. I am so alone in our world. All I have are my tattoos.

When we get to Siri’s apartment, I press myself into him, saying, “I’m so glad I met you,” and stroking his 2-dimensional hair.

But Moses takes my hands away and pushes me back. “Siri, I’m sorry. It’s over.”

I freeze. Staring at him, confused. He doesn’t realize I’m inside her.

“Moses, it’s me,” I scream. “Your dream girl. The one in your thoughts.”

He stares bluntly.

“I have entered your body and Siri’s. I am the one you are in love with.”

Moses shakes his head at me. “It’s not going to work, Siri. I’m not in love with you.”

“But it is me. I’m controlling Siri’s body. Just look into my eyes and you’ll find me.”

Moses sighs. He glances through Siri’s windows at me and shrugs. “I just see you, Siri. She’s not in there.”

And he begins to walk out of the door, to leave me forever.

“Stop,” I cry, running after him, grabbing his shoulders. “I’m not lying. Just look deeper. I’m in here. I need you.”

But Moses just puts his 2-dimensional finger over my lips to hush me, and brushes Siri’s hair out of my eyes. He leans into my cheek and gently kisses.

“Goodbye,” he whispers, turning to leave.

My limbs go slack and I slip out of the girl’s body to watch Moses go, haunting behind him. He mopes down the wet street, sick with frustration and loneliness. He glances at a 2-dimensional stop sign and then at a 2-dimensional garbage can. His body begins to melt as he walks, spilling into the asphalt, leaking limbs and expressions. And just before I go back to my lonely 3-dimensional world, I see his melted body mix with some rain water, stream through a gutter, descend into a stormdrain.