Bottled Emotions (qt)

 

Pour a glass of, say, Peter Lehman's 'Margaret' 2015 Semillon. Etiquette: swirl, smell, taste. Catch rumours amongst the notes of lemon blossom and beeswax. Enjoy for twenty minutes.

Unfurl the latest Catnip Page from around the complimentary cigarette of catnip and tobacco. Unfold the blank page and light the dart. Writing materialises. The page is a catalogue.

In the top-right corner of the page is a section titled 'On the Shelf', which is a turn of phrase because this particular market does not necessarily have retail space. Readily (ish) acquirable goods are listed. As of 2/2/23:

₵$67    Ghost Tobacco ( 20)

₵$15    Bloody Mary

₵$8      Bug Powder (p/g)

₵$60    Eldorado Green (qt.)

₵$1      Slut Root (p/kg)

₵$30    Marital Aid Potion

₵$50    Quetzlcoatl Feathers (doz.)

₵$5      Blue Roses

The bottom half of the page is titled 'Behind the Counter'. Another turn of phrase. The products listed here are rarer but definitely for sale. Perhaps their respective prices do not materialise. Perhaps objects are priced by what people are willing to exchange for them.

Take, for instance, the price of cultural appropriation - no wait, that is a bad example. Take, for instance, the price of Bottled Emotions. The progenitor of these bottled emotions is Easy. Easy lives with his parents and their two corgis. Every afternoon brings the same precarious ritual.

'Hey, son. How was your day?'

 To which Easy has once replied: 'Fucking bullshit the boss is a damn lunatic.'

The younger corgi will misread the son's anger as directed at the father and become a yippy alpha-female, to which the mother will respond: 'Shush, Mary. Mary, shut up. Mary. Mary! Shut the fuck up, Mary!'

At which point the older corgi will try to jump off the couch so as to reign in the younger. Because the older corgi is recovering from spinal surgery, Easy will have to restrain and/or catch the older corgi. The younger corgi will misread this as violence and thus begin nipping heels. The older corgi will thus begin asserting himself in the form of bitten arms. The father will have started shouting at some point.

So now Easy answers with 'Yeah, same old same old' and bottles his emotions in a Ball Canning Jar. The jar is now full. It glows light purple. Easy has no need for this night-light that ominously represents his emotional repression. He seeks to sell it and so meets with James the pornographer. His sales pitch:

'People watch porn so that they don't have to, you know, go out and interact with people and convince them to sex, right?'

James, not a great start: 'That is a share of the market.'

'It is a diversion of natural process for convenience's sake?'

'Sounding very manosphere, at the moment.'

'See, I found it through the scholarship around Gravity's Rainbow, which is froooom '76? The argument goes that masturbation keeps people from interacting with each other and therefore scared of each other, which keeps people supporting the state. Why do you think it was called the sexual revolution? To quote the Illumatus! Trilogy: it's not fighting in the streets, it's fucking in the streets.'

Wow. Just wow: 'I am trying to make pornoganda for the government.'

'Which is why you want these bottled emotions.'

James blinks.

Easy continues: 'People watch sit-coms and the like for the feels, to emotionally connect with fictional characters. A diversion of natural processes for convenience's sake. A good work of entertainment which makes you feel something, and not have to interact with people to experience the same emotions, is pornography of the soul.'

James feels an erection blushing.

'So, I propose you take your porno scripts and swirl them in these bottled emotions. You will have your audience simping on two different levels.' Easy clasps hands. 'I want the magic flag.'

Turgid with entrepreneurial zeal: 'Deal.'

So a quart jar of Bottled Emotions costs the same as a Magic Flag. This procrastinates the answer asked eighteen paragraphs ago. (No, it does not beg the question because that means something else.)

The Magic Flag is made out of poly-something-something, a fabric which interacts with the pineal gland of the beholder. The Magic Flag depicts colour codes of the nationality or the ideology which will put the viewer in the best frame of mind. There are some caveats, flags which magic will not become:

a)    the white flag of surrender, so as to not give anyone the wrong idea

b)    the flag of Suriname per agreement with a travelling circus

c)    the red and black of platform anarchism. Nobody has figured this glitch out yet

Easy wants to gift the Magic Flag to his father. Father's Day past, Easy gave him a Tino Rangatiratanga, the Māori flag. The father, a white New Zealander, wanted the flag not in order to identify with the Māori people but to hoist a subtle middle finger to certain elements within the neighbourhood. Also, a fleeting glance at the standard New Zealand flag indicates no difference to the Union Jack sharing Australian flag and, furthermore, the Tino Rangatiratanga is more aesthetically pleasing.

Easy is not afraid of his father being accused of cultural appropriation. The neighbourhood is outer suburbia but averages retiree, middle class but dynastic. When his employer insists he spend a week (of three months accumulated) of paid leave, Easy obliges and spends a Tuesday night drinking Spring-Load Firecrackers, which are a shot of monkey booze chased with pale ale. He gets chatty with Kristy, merry with original sin.

Easy: 'Wassis all abouts confidence wishes bullshit-'

Kristy: 'Yara dumbt just need ta go out, talk to some chicks like, -'

Which goes nowhere productive but numbers are exchanged and slipped into pockets. 2D 6 Hr 2 Min pass before Kristy empties said jeans pockets in preparation for laundry. Vague recollections are gathered and Kristy sends a text the number: the doctor has that thing I told you about. She gets a reply: Who is this?

Right. So Kristy texts the what, whom and how to get there. Easy recovers from sneaky hair-of-the-dog with his own vague assurances and follows the text's instructions to a houseboat on the River Murray. He boards, finds Dr Smateushin Pateushin tipping medical waste into the water.

She assures him with a smile: 'It's mostly organic. Old bones, sinews. The carp love that shit.'

They do, and gobble it up.

Easy farts nervously and points at the boat's flag pole: 'I have the Magic Flag.'

She strikes rehearsed pose, leaning weight onto left leg whilst slightly twisting and leaning right at the hips, hands pinning bloody surgical apron  to her waist: 'And what can I do to get around that?'

He begrudges grin-nearing-smirk: 'I want The HUD, and I want it installed.'

(On the opposing river bank, an angler reels in their line.)

She plays coy: 'I might have it here somewhere. I'm not quite sure what you're talking about.'

He continues: 'I play The Long Dark and other survival videogames. I keep my characters healthy - fed, warm, exercised. I keep my characters in better condition than myself.

The HUD, when installed, will allow me to see my own health bar - hunger, thirst, lust, anything which, if neglected, will make me grumples. It will let me know if I need to masturbate or drink a glass of water. It will function like motivation built into my brain. Like an Instagram feed of inspirational quotes but with fewer topless dudes and misinterpreted aphorisms. Far less conceptually disturbing.'

Dr Pateushin agrees.

So: a quart jar of Bottled Emotions costs a Magic Flag. A Magic Flag costs The HUD plus installation. Considering that Socrates is mortal, Bottled Emotions therefore costs an installed HUD. A definite answer has thus been arrived at.