notes from the flappin’ hearts cafe
🫖 accompaniment suggested for reading
for the full flappin’ hearts cafe experience, play these in the background as you read:
🎼 a quiet day playlist for flowers, tea and reading
📻 a.m. shortwave radio — 21072.37 kHz
headphones recommended. lemon peel optional.
here we are, in the flappin’ hearts cafe, listening to a quiet day playlist for flowers, tea and reading and a.m. shortwave radio — 21072.37 kHz, to be exact. we are being encouraged to be more honest with ourselves — a funny notion in a land of avatars and masks. where do we start? the wrinkly heels of a woman outside, troubleshooting a parking meter? a man in his 50s, bleached blonde hair and sunglasses, walking up to strike a conversation? the cracks in the sidewalk that serve as divisions between realities?
between this sentence and the last, the two of them disappear, and i am left with the faint reflection of my own face and torso in the window. i open my phone. the webb sisters are playing in london. i don’t even know who the webb sisters are. i barely know what london is.
i am comforted by the simultaneous peace of piano music and the seemingly random high-pitched squelching of the a.m. radio station — how, somehow, they serve as the perfect complement to one another in this moment.
here we are, in the flappin’ hearts cafe, contemplating what it means to be honest with ourselves, in this particular here and now. the debate has to do with whether or not there is a difference between the witness consciousness and the action consciousness. is there a meaningful difference between listening to a piano and playing one yourself?
bullshit, you say to yourself. you really want to talk about sex and pornography.
in some sense, both are charged energetic experiences — simulacrums of unification, of reality, truth or consequences — microcosms of some all-encompassing happening. a seeking of release. of liberation through boundary dissolution. just as writing about so-called “taboo” subjects is also a form of the same thing.
i look at these letters on the page and see meaninglessness on one level, organized insanity on another, and still perhaps a sheer, unexplainable truth one layer deeper than that. beyond this lies nothing. and suddenly, it’s meaningless again.
what was i really trying to get at here, in this flappin’ hearts cafe? maybe an attempt to be honest with myself, to reach some soft orgasm of thought on the page — or perhaps to liberate myself from seeking orgasm altogether. but if you’re not seeking liberation, then what are you doing?
as far as i can tell, it’s either meaningless wandering or self-pleasure. maybe the two are one and the same. the seeking of some ‘aha’ moment that gives just enough satisfaction to prove to ourselves that life was worth living, or to realize there was nothing to prove in the first place — the age old endless lighting of an endless darkness.
“or, it’s creating something new,” i hear a guy say across the room.
i see eyes in the reflection of the purple car parked outside. the license plate ends in xcc. 24-3-3. 66, 12, 3. maybe these numbers mean something. maybe they don’t. the art of fresh seafood passes by on the side of a truck. pier 22. bb. 4. d.
maybe it’s all just an exercise in awareness. an attempt to practice focusing our attention completely on the subtleties of the flow of consciousness, in all its minutiae — as snowflakes fall from my head, and the light on the page shifts in various shades of chartreuse, as i edit these words in a google doc and notice the little scabs on my arms where i scratched myself.
maybe the deeper question in this flappin’ hearts cafe is: just how honest can i be with myself? how honest can anyone be with anyone? what does the limit of maximum honesty look like? what about minimum honesty? and does it matter? is honesty even something you can pin down in words, or is writing all in vain?
in the so-called ‘real world,’ urgent action is needed on my “preposterous possibility” plan. i’m told my snorts & wellness account is past due and must be paid immediately. every day i get a call from someone named mung beans capital, requesting that i pay off my outstanding balance in monthly installments of $38.10 per month for 20 months. i’ve still yet to accept another gracious offer to pay off my stupendous loins in installments of $675 per month.
something deeper inside tells me that none of this is real, and that i don’t have to worry about it. so i don’t.
suddenly, an ai copilot appears on the screen. “how can i help?” it asks.
“i’m praying for a real moment of connection between humanity and itself — and beyond that, our intergalactic neighbors,” i say.
a cover of joni mitchell’s big yellow taxi is playing quietly on the speakers in the flappin’ hearts cafe.
“i pray that we collectively realize we were never indebted to anyone to begin with, that we have no bills to pay, and that we don’t have to live this way, if we choose not to.”
“that’s a powerful vision, scorsby,” coresby responds.
i pull the lemon out of the last drops of water from my glass, and suck on it, in the flappin’ hearts cafe. here we all are, in our own shared isolated realities, chit-chatting, eating breakfast burritos at 3:20pm, experiencing the realm of infinite possibility in some collectively agreed-upon standard of independence and togetherness.
i guess things are alright, all in all — at least in this quadrant of the time-space illusion, where people aren’t getting bombed and blasted for not being the chosen ones. or maybe it’s not alright. maybe it’s both, somehow. that’s the most honest truth i can report right now.
i’ve got 20 minutes to spare before the quiet day playlist for flowers, tea, and reading ends.
part of me wants to clarify whatever it was i said about masturbation and pornography. part of me feels like i haven’t said enough about it. part of me feels like i shouldn’t have said anything. part of me wants to say i said what i said, and that is that. part of me wants to say there’s always more to say. part of me wants to say sorry for saying anything at all. and part of me wants to throw a party.
the image of the quiet day playlist appears to be a painted wheatfield somewhere in the countryside. there’s a couple walking off into the distance. it looks like a lovely day.
ophelia made this playlist. she writes, “reading is the quietest way to change your life and find peace.”
i’m not so sure there’s any one way to find peace — rather, to simply choose to embody it.
and maybe choosing peace has something to do with making peace with all the unpeaceful parts of oneself — gently, lovingly, indiscriminately, honestly — as you sit in the flappin’ hearts cafe and try to reckon with whatever honesty is.
i take a bite of the lemon peel, and honestly grapple with its taste. at first it makes me grimace. it’s bitter. it tastes a bit like toothpaste. i take another bite. chewing, chewing, chon.
i stop eating the lemon peel, and choose to sit peacefully instead. the playlist ends. there is only static left.
my sister calls. i take my headphones off. the shins are playing overhead.