Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

The Cotton Knuckle
by Nathaniel G. Moore

One Christmas day I had purple hair and a younger brother who had a brown tooth, half an eyebrow and a fractured finger. As these ailments compiled, I wrote the song, the chorus being (to the tune of Dina Blow Your Horn)

Brown-tooth, half an eyebrow, fractured finger…
Brown-tooth, half an eyebrow, fractured finger…
Brown-tooth, half an eyebrow, fractured finger…
Brown-tooth, half an eyebrow, fractured finger...

These were ghost qualities at this Christmas in particular, as he had none of these characteristics, however, he had acquired them over a series of domestic events prior to this date spanning the period of 1984-1988. The brown tooth came, from his mythically apportioned babble, a language at five years old which came out in a cowboy twang… as the result of sitting naked on his bum ill in front of the toilet, his jaw or chin, yes, his chin resting on the cool porcelain and his mother, who doubled as my mown mother accidentally let the lid fall. Perhaps the fibres of cotton tickled the plastic lied forming a temporary microscopic cotton knuckle. This microscopic knuckle bunched up after brushing against the lid, causing its finally appointed power transfer to push the lid down onto my brother's front tooth. This tooth had just started to grow in, and at full bloom was a hysterically object of mockery for the neighbourhood and I to draw from for months.

My brother and I lit fires and took pictures but we were no arsons. We both knew we'd make it big someday, my brother went to Marine Land and decided he really wanted to work with mammals that wouldn't fit in his bedroom. He would have to leave the house for this job. Our cats, gerbils, newts and hamsters all fit in bedrooms, however there wasn't much of a career in store for my brother in the domestic animal kingdom. It's just a note, perhaps to illustrate that although chemically processed foods nourished us in synthetic orgies of saran wrap and carbonated lemonade, we admired the vegetarianism of our hamsters and gerbils. We relished the silent auction façade of our goldfish living in ultimate time-bomb surrender. Never exchanging harsh words, the goldfish and we existed as ants and earth, sun and skin, fist and pane of glass.

No. That last relationship had to do with my relentless temper; at six anger I cut my hand on this friend's door and he said to me how I would forever have less blood than he and how I'd never catch up to him and I washed in the bathroom, the blood down the drain and my paling face in the mirror. I've bled since, however I have no accurate number and no longer have contact with Brian, whose glass door cut me open and stunted my growth.

Nathaniel G. Moore will probably forgive.