For frame of reference: https://youtu.be/I0rVovLWCXw
Cosmic Lottery
By Tyler Mobley
The initial burst of laughter startles, plexiglass didn’t see you there.
Jumping out of my seat at the top of the track, reaching for the
volume knob, the worst passing before appropriate reduction.
Why is it every time the engine turns over laughter fills my cabin?
Spooky technology, a street thief affair, pocket picking entanglement.
The phenomena has evolved, Aces High had its hour, RKL enjoyed
a spot then Ache with Me was out alphabetized by Dane Cook’s
Abducted. Comedic concrete, cementing the three minute bit into
my mind is worth the occasional inconvenience.
Nothing better than nailing the spaceship landing sound effect
in real time, not confusing it with the summoning sound of the blue beam.
An idea forms, shaping a path I didn’t realize I was on, becoming aware of a
tune being played on my most personal strings, Ahab’s lampoon,
spotlight meaning. How “Sometimes I’d just go hang out in the woods,”
becomes “God damn it they’re huge Indians, alright good game America,”
hits home in inflection alone. A long ago listen at gas station along the
Gulf of California I snapped my fingers twice and said, “country country,”
a friend in the car shouted, “Spain” thinking he’d been put on the spot.
No, just reenacting American foreign policy.
There is no way of knowing who put this flying saucer on this shirt.
A token to when algorithms began listening in, the shirt advertised
on my feed seemed summoned from Cook’s bit. Blunt, bold
“Get in Loser” over the silhouette of a man being sucked up by his
chest in a beam of light through a grove of trees. There came a day
while wearing said shirt, on a hike through the woods a passerby
would say, “I like your shirt,” insert life achievement notification,
the moment years in the making. Immediately a cone of light
strikes the ground disappearing the complimenter.
Bones say uwww searching for ground, an image of Earth recedes to black.
Familiar with the Earth rise perspective it took awhile to realize this reality
was no reproduction. “Wait, wait, is that? That’s really?” Silence, a door opens
with a hiss of escaping air, words never make it out, shocked stiff locking eyes.
Walk Where You Want 