STEALING THE BELLY-FLOWER

Started writing again- this time pure fiction without pictures. Might do a bit more...

STEALING THE BELLY-FLOWER IN THE LIGHT OF THE FUTURE

(work in progress)

by Greg Giordano

Haruku/i Shimada exploded out the door of the Bank Du Japon- his breath was like the panting of dogs chasing the rabbit at a dog race. But in truth he wasn't the dog- he was the rabbit. Several security guards and Parisian Gendarmes pursued him with earnest. The potted plant in his arms was large; the size of a canister vacuum from the 60s; or an oversized vase. Clumps of dirt and wood chips jumped out of the pot and litter the pavement. The plant- a tiny palm tree sapling the size of a pear was hastily shoved into the pot by Haruku as he ran from the bank- the original plant- some unfashionable and ugly office fern- was ripped out by Haruku to make room for his tiny possession. He. pressed on with an intensity that was normally not his way. Haruku/i was a transgender-designated androgynous-fashion editor for a Akihabara Newsite called YESYOU.JP -a portal to trend obsession, famous people and gadgets- Haruku/i was a self-admitted lazy coward and prided “him-self” on not caring much at all for anything difficult or important. Parties, cellphone-of-the-week, fashionistas and drugs were “his” life. All that changed- she thought. All that was over.

S/he had the quality of desperation that you would associate with people beneath s/his stature. Addict-thieves, or the insane. Or those American women who kidnap and steal children from pregnant women's bellies. Haruku/i read on the Manichi report that the way these insane American women do it is to kidnap some suburban pregnant mother at a shopping center or supermarket and without anesthesia- cut the baby from the mother's belly. These in-utero baby-nappers then run off – bloody newborns in there arms; swaddled in whatever can be found- like a black leaf and lawn bag or even some freshly purchased percale towel from Bed Bath and Beyond. That was what Haruku/i Shimada imagined he looked like, running around the corner from the Bank Du Japon in downtown Paris at 1 P.M., like one of those crazy women who had just cut a fetus from it's mother and dashed off, police in short pursuit. He imagined the potted plant soaked in blood and amniotic fluid; trailing a tooth-cut umbilicus- slipping on the mess as he ran in his 237,000YEN Perseus Kamchatka lambskin espadrilles. Haruku imagined the onlookers as intrigued, aghast, dumbstruck- which was the case- sliding on birth-gore as he ran in the Perseus Kamchatka's- shoes that he stole two days ago, because he couldn't allow himself to part with them at the boutique on Rue San du Blanc. He couldn't afford them on his fashion editor wages- but as Kiku said so many times to him on their “shopping sessions”, “...if God didn't want us to be a kleptomaniacs, then he wouldn't have made expensive shoes, darling, WE DON'T PAY...”. The blood and birth sac bounced up in the air then underfoot splashing and she skidded to the left, as he ran. That was because it wasn't his imagination; the emergency-potted, prized Encephalartos woodii, probably one of the rarest plants in the world- was cut from the belly of Haruku/i's target; his “client”; he cut it from the belly of a sumo wrestling, fat-fetish internet pornstar named La LUNA, aka. Ikumi Sakamoto under her understandably loud protestations in the ladies room of the Bank de Japon's Safety Deposit Box vault.

Because the plant was soaked in blood and amniotic fluid; trailing a tooth-cut umbilicus; he was to say the least, easily found in the teeming masses of Paris' business district. WHERE THE HELL IS ROY'S VAN?!, s/he thought, grabbing the Pharos 3470 HTC GPS phone from a fashionable and super-convenient jacket cellphone pocket, find me-find-me-find me!

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