Comedown Machine
INSTRUCTIONS
Please insert the Comedown Machine where it hurts the most. [1] Insert it then forget. The machine will automatically mold to your body to provide maximum comfort, regardless of whether it's been attached to a hole, a protrusion, or a wound. The machine accepts all. When it believes that you have healed sufficiently it will self-destruct. [2] Please do not be alarmed by this. Think of it as saying goodbye to a friend.
A NOTE FROM THE DESIGNER
This product was created out of intense pain and bitterness. At the time of making it I wasn’t aware of multiple side effects. By the way, the machine is a misnomer. It makes everything go up until it is difficult to stop. Up and up until you reach the crux of it. Before beginning a slow descent. I used to be a smoker. Did you know that? You might not know it from looking at me because after my daughter stopped talking to me I started taking care of myself. But right after I created the machine I almost went back to smoking. I had a tattered old pack of cigarettes right there underneath my nightstand. If I had found a lighter that night I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’m thankful every day I didn’t think to lick the flame from the stove.
OUR MOST GLOWING ENDORSEMENT
The day after getting the machine I got on a bus. On the only unoccupied seat was one satchel, two dogs, and three ex-lovers (by which I mean four pools of wet). I sat down anyway. The sky turned a rainy purple the moment I touched it. The day was not yet over and I’d already swallowed all my money. I couldn’t find a bandage anywhere and I didn’t want to get blood all over my hard work. I didn’t know it at the time but the next day I would get laid off from my job, which was to stand behind a fortune teller and spritz her in rosewater while she skimmed people’s hands and fondled marked playing cards. I had only gotten the gig because I was good at being invisible and slowly the machine was making me visible again. That day, I was so close to the brink, to the edge, that I began to mad lib it all, to improvise. I waved my arms in the air like a magician and from my fingertips came flowers. Big, yellowy-orange ones, they could have been canaries or maybe dandelions. After a while they all began to bloom. People blew money on me, snorted jewelry and rhinestones until they flew through the air, told me I was a miracle worker, it was a happy little day. Ticked a box in a folder. I was heading up. I didn’t yet know that once you reach a certain level of inebriation you can’t really turn back. Falling on your knees only works when you can still walk because after that people say that you’re crawling around not giving an apology. For me the machine was a green little thing that fit in my pocket. It looked sort of like a pill box but for you it could take whatever form. It could be a person a hot meal a mirror reuniting with someone you love. I led the entire bus in three rounds of karaoke and split a beer pretzel with thirty different bleeding mouths. The bus ended up carrying me home and spilling me onto the sidewalk. Lying there on the grainy concrete with the machine lodged in my sweat-slick palm I watched three stars swim into the tops of the trees and for a split second I swear to god I could see my face.
[1] Trust the machine. Trust us. Everything is made out of taking and taking. Changing and changing (if you’re lucky). A customer once said: I just wanted to come down, but instead I’m stuck up here. In the clouds. How? Why? How did I. (How?) Breathing is fickle. The sun’s just above me. If I’m lucky, once in a while I get to touch the moon.
[2] No returns allowed.