The Exquisite Corpse
In which I write spontaneously about the adventures of that beautiful anatomy in an homage to French surrealists. The cheese and wine bottle are interrupted! What happens next?!
Reader’s Note: “Exquisite Corpse” is a writing technique from the French Surrealists where people collaborate—write one line or word then pass it to another to add to it. You may have played this when you were young but called it “telephone.” The goal is to assemble unexpected images and phrases. In this exercise from my grad school days, it was a solo challenge. Enjoy!
1.
The beautiful bottle of wine and moldy brie with lucid and enigmatic furiosity stumbled into the men’s restroom. Thus, they did find lonely and philosophical the languid and fragrant exquisite corpse.
Their pawing was interuptus! Their antique intrigue on pause! Now they were aquery—the fromage du stench and bottle de pulchritude—from base to cork. Runny with dignity the brie began: “Are you the exquisite corpse? Think will you? Deny it can you?”
“Willfully,” muttered the exquisite corpse. It filled the space forsaking the privacy. It seduced deep blushes from the bottle’s secret innards such that venom punctured the brie. Tinged green it executed a slap to the sad exquisite corpse!
2.
Space equals restrooms. Privacy includes stalls. Oenophiliacs demand such items and revolt against any obstacles! Even exquisite the corpse must be removed! They tussle; the cheese mauls soft flesh like flies .... like cast iron skillets...on eggs!
"Thump! Zoomf!" howls the exquisite corpse.
"Kerplowie!" intones back the stinky brie.
But too late they have forgotten the space—the vital lack of it. The bottle leans endangered. Corked up it has no voice to escape when it perilously tips over. Watch how it kisses the mosaic underneath of the men's restroom with its glass face.
Thus, CRACK! Spilling and leaking, it cries all its mysterious red liquid into the open palms of the floor.
3.
Once lucidly and once furiously, there was no real enigma about a beautiful bottle plus an aging cheese stumbling into a restroom public of toilet bowls, flapping lids, agape stall doors, and pensive mirrors for this very opera. Act one they meet. Act Two they go to the watercloset as escapees. Act Three they mingle shamelessly BUT NOT today thanks to the exquisite corpse.
Now the broken formula presents the bottle not as handsomest and the brie tattered and smudged while red insides paint the body of the bathroom floor. Unintentional— maybe? But certain—concretely. The brie cannot compute the cost.
"No!" screams the brie and exeunts forthwith and away from the unbeauteous bottle and exquisite corpse.
4.
What is a bottle all alone? The once bottled form thoughtfully sweats. Stall doors always swing open. Toilet lids always fall closed. But a spilled bottle cannot tip upright; it is vulnerable on the bathroom floor. Is this the end? Not today thanks to the philosophically exquisite and sad corpse!
The cheese departed hastily but the exquisite corpse is honorable. It lies into the mess; it does saturate the oceanic crimson. It absorbs the heart of the lovely bottle even its sharp edges then hobbles out and away. The doors are agape. The lids flip and the mirrors still emptily stare in the men's restroom, but outside, the flesh of the exquisite corpse is happily stabbed. The bottle is full again.
By Sarah Dzida (2011)
Author’s Note: I immediately thought of this artist and his series of work—based on Neruda’s poetry—that I saw in 2014 at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. It was hard to decide on which picture to share! You can learn more about him here.