GREEDY FOR KISSES

 

(Note: This story was written to be read aloud. If Allen Ginsberg were alive, I’d ask him to chant the thing.)

Where they came from no one knew. But it didn’t take long to find out why they were here. They came for kisses.

They started out slowly, carefully, choosing people who wouldn’t be alarmed, who weren’t afraid, people who wanted to be kissed. This showed they were smart. This showed cunning. They kissed housewives waiting at home for their husbands to return from work. They kissed husbands hurrying home to their wives. They kissed working women after they had time to freshen up, working men and women after they had taken naps. They kissed girls, tender, sweet, beautiful girls, standing on the doorsteps after their first date. They kissed downy cheeked boys with perfumed hair and pimply chins, swaggering, petrified, mouths open but not knowing what to say. They kissed girls who’d been around the block, loose-lipped girls who liked the touch of fingertips and flesh, who liked kissing. They kissed the boys who liked these girls and the boys who didn’t care for girls, the boys who didn’t notice them, and they kissed the girls who didn’t notice boys. They kissed the two-year-olds, the one-year-olds, the newborns, feather light kisses on soft shell skulls, whispering kisses, breaths of air. They kissed the perfunctory grownup morning kiss, the coffee kiss, the lazy summer kiss, the comrade kiss, the kiss of evening, the kiss of firelight and shadows, the kiss of state. They kissed the lover kiss behind the ear, the nuzzling kiss, the bare neck kiss, the goosebump kiss, the touchy feely kiss, the kiss that melted hearts and hardened nipples. They kissed the father’s kiss on the eve of battle, lips pressed against the forehead of the son, hands cradling the beloved child’s head. They kissed the kiss of gratitude and relief on victory, the kiss of liberation, the tarty kiss of whores, the kiss of fortune-hunters, the wet-cheeked kiss of mothers, the kiss of coming home. They kissed the bishop’s kiss, the rabbi’s and the imam’s kiss, the kiss of blessing over newlyweds and newly born, the kiss of comfort on the deathbed, the kiss of solace, the kiss of love, the kiss of everlasting life. They kissed the feet of lepers. They kissed the flickering eyelids of dreaming women. They kissed dogs and cats and guinea pigs. With sloppy, wet and noisy kisses they tickled the bellies of little boys.

All this kissing spurred debate. Naturally, there was concern. The issue wasn’t so much the kissing as what the kissing led to. And what was behind it. What it meant. And also the time that was lost for other things. Time for work. Time for play. Time for problem solving, community affairs, business, shopping, sports.

How much time was lost? No one knew. Who had ever thought to quantify and measure kissing? And who would be the best to do so? Who were the experts? The ones with the most kissing experience? Could they be relied on? Wouldn’t they be fatally biased? The ones with the least? The detached, objective ones? Wouldn’t they be likewise biased? Wasn’t objectivity a form of disdain?

While these matters were being debated, the kissing proceeded. Reports trickled in, erroneously, that it was slowing down, when in fact it was just changing gears. With a foothold gained, they, the visitors, turned their attention to the harder cases. But first, to soften them up, they jammed the world with song.

A kiss to build a dream on, a little kiss each morning, baby let me kiss you, kiss me kate, kiss me carl, pucker up, kiss me in the rain, kiss me on the bus, kiss and tell, kiss and don’t tell, kiss me to the music, kiss me on the lips, kiss me all over, suck my kiss, steal my kisses, this kiss, that kiss, kisses sweeter than wine, kisses like honey, our first kiss, the last kiss, besamè mucho, kiss me quick, kiss me slow, sealed with a kiss, shut up and kiss me, kiss off.

Old songs, new songs, pink songs, blue songs, rock and rap and rat-a-tat, trance, dance, stim, ballad, songs of every shade and stripe and kind. It didn’t take long to get the people of the world singing. They seemed to yearn for song. This accomplished, the visitors turned their attention on other media to manipulate.

Day and nighttime television was flooded with re-runs of romantic sitcoms. New sitcoms, with a focus on the kiss, took up what remained of prime time slots. Documentaries uncovered and revealed the nearly universal practice of kissing. They traced its evolution, and the evolution of lips. Newscasters noted the steady rise of kisses per capita, and on-the-scene reporters interviewed recipients of the biggest, the loudest, the sweetest, the most audacious kiss. Movie plexes sponsored contests. Studios bankrolled a spate of new kiss-centric films. For every act of violence on the silver screen, directors shot twice as many acts of kissing. Films got very long.

The internet was the last to be taken and didn’t go down without a fight. But even nerds and anarchists, it turned out, could be taught to want a kiss. The spate of pop-ups and viruses that self-destructed in a mesmerizing blaze of light, triggering memories and pseudo-memories of the wonderful sights and smells and sounds of kisses, were clever, mathematically complex and irresistible. Kiss blogs—klogs—became the rage. Businesses shot up, trading in kiss paraphernalia. The price of kiss futures soared.

These foundations firmly in place, the visitors began the second wave of their attack. They kissed the ones too busy to be kissed, too embarrassed, too fearful of touching or disease or someone else’s breath, too wounded by kisses, too important, too hopeless, too ugly, too tired, too bored. They kissed the women who heard voices and feared to be touched. They kissed the wailing, raw-nerved babies born to crack cocaine. They kissed the men who had nightmares about being kissed. They kissed the women who’d been physically abused by kisses. They kissed the boys and girls who stank of halitosis. They kissed the men and women ravaged by disease with sores and blisters on their lips, they kissed the burn victims whose lips were gone. They kissed the doomed women of unspeakable beauty, with lips like cherries, gleaming teeth and picture perfect smiles. They kissed the ones with rotten teeth and buck teeth and snaggle teeth, and the ones with no teeth at all, whose lips curled under their gums in the act of collapsing into their mouths. They kissed lips that were too fat, too thin, harelips, overpainted lips, dry lips, cracked lips, lips too dark, lips with blemishes, cruel lips, mocking lips, lips of traitors, lips of heroes, lips of spies. They kissed the men who had other things on their mind, pale men, nail-biting men, tough men, tanned men with lips like muscles, lips of steel, coming from the gym, the boardroom, the trenches, carrying shovels and diplomas, carrying briefcases full of papers, carrying guns, busy men, quiet men, hardworking men, they got kisses too. They kissed the tribal warriors of Africa. They kissed the streetwalkers of Dubuque and Bombay. They kissed the freedom fighters of Asia and South America. They kissed the extremists and the terrorists. They kissed the mercenaries. They kissed the hardened criminals. They kissed the runaways and the refugees. They kissed the Pope. They kissed the Dalai Lama. They kissed the Undersecretary of State while he was delivering a speech. They kissed the Vice President while he was thinking up a plan for war. They kissed the President, who longed to be kissed again.

They kissed nearly everyone in the world, with nearly every kiss that you could name. The French kiss, the Belgium kiss, the Down Under kiss, the Round the World kiss, the lingering kiss, the sucking kiss, the icy kiss, the burning kiss, the one-lipped kiss, the flicker kiss, the biting kiss, the tender kiss, the closed lip and the parted lip kiss, the sweeping and the dashing kiss, the fey kiss, the honey kiss, the stolen kiss, the cheek-to-cheek, the peaches-and-cream, the silent kiss, the noisy kiss, the Fish, the Lizard, the Drops of Blood.

The world, oddly, did not come to a halt, nor did life grind to a standstill, but things did change. With so much kissing it was hard to carry on as before. A few diehards railed about the past, but most people accepted the new status quo. On the whole, most people adjusted nicely.

And then one day the visitors departed. Just like that. They were here, and then they weren’t. The reaction was instantaneous: shock—world-wide shock—followed by confusion, panic and despair. Why had they left? Would they be back? Where did they go? Had they found someone else? What had gone wrong? Who was to blame? What would become of the world without kisses?

So many questions. So much grief, sadness and woe. Would the world survive? Could its citizens provide for themselves what up to then had been provided for them?

Many did. It was astounding really, once the shock wore off, how quickly people recovered, how resilient the human race turned out to be. North, south, east, west: the citizens of Earth kissed as they never had before. Morning, noon and night, on the road and in the air, by land and by sea, eyes closed, eyes open, arms at the side, arms entwined, fleeting kisses, friendly kisses, sexy kisses, standing, sitting, kneeling kisses, kisses blown through the air, kisses underground, kisses falling, kisses rising, kisses upside-down. Such a show of solidarity, such unity of heart and mind. Survive? Oh yes. The world did more than survive. This was victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. This was a triumph.

Which was not to say there were no difficulties. The human race did not become what it was without obstacles to overcome. Opinions varied as to the proper way to kiss, the proper frequency, the proper place, the proper time, the proper style. And also the proper state of mind, the proper thoughts and feelings to have when kissing. By and large, these conflicts fell into the realm of friendly disagreements, neighborly disputes, jokes, good-natured teasing, and the exceedingly rare and hardly to be remarked upon ethnic slur.

Naturally, with time some of these disputes persisted. Some widened. Some grew more intense. Kissing could be done correctly or incorrectly. It was really quite simple. Who in the world would willfully choose to do it wrong?

Who indeed. It turned out that there were wrongdoers lurking everywhere, across every boundary line, over every fence. Edicts were posted, warning these delinquents to change their habits and their ways, but in return, these rogues, these villains, issued threats of their own. Tempers flared. Conflicts deepened. Kissing became a cause célèbre. Lines were drawn.

The leaders of the world responded. There was grave concern, but beyond concern, solidarity and resolve. Peacemakers were called in, diplomats, generals, social scientists, professors, pundits and politicians. What could be done to put an end to the unrest? How to stop the discontent? How could these schisms, these charged polarities, these wounds, be mended?

There was widespread debate and discussion, and the answer, when it finally came, was as obvious as it was profound. Inevitably, it led back to the question of why the visitors had left and how to get them back. The answer to this lay in the discovery of some new information. There was an island near the equator, a large, jungly island, where kissing was both common and highly evolved. The visitors had little to offer the natives of this island, who were cordial but on the whole nonplussed by their arrival. There was no bowing of the head. No bending of the knee. The natives kowtowed to no one when it came to kisses.

Surely, to beings who could travel to the stars and beyond, such a reception was a breach of etiquette, a slap in the face, a slight, possibly of galactic proportions. Never mind that many in the world had at first been suspicious and resistant to the visitors’ advances. The islanders were worse: they’d been indifferent all along.

The course was clear. Troops were mobilized, vacationers removed from the island’s idyllic jungles and beaches, fishing boats sent back to port. The island was encircled by a ring of battleships, each flying the colors of the world, and at dawn of what would become known as the Day of Reconciliation, it was destroyed.