Shyly Pompous

To you or I

2011-10-26T02:17:00.002+01:00

Here I am, surrounded by towers of sin and intoxication. I breathe the acrid air and taste the traces of rust dust. The Sisters cackle at their own jokes. They mumble and mutter their words as they chitter and chatter about their loves and hates and giggles.

The pounding hearts in the Temple of the Dead resonate across the air, feeding my ears the sounds of the multitudes. Their groans and moans punch their way through my skin.

I am distracted by the Sisters once more. They froth at the mouth and flick their arms around in some secret sign language. My brain fails to comprehend their gestures and ceases to function.

At the blackness, I catch a glimpse of one of the Sisters. She glances back, our peripheral visions crossing. I taste her lips, from a distance. They feel silky and small, taste of soft pink fruits. Light, sweet and not innocent at all. She gestures to her Sister and giggles.

I feel invisible, an intruder, voyeur, a fly-on-the-wall. Then I taste her warmth through the metal grille and I notice I had been holding my breath.

The wood underfoot hardens and grows and pushes me higher, enough to reach the sky. I watch the Sisters below me, as they chatter on amongst themselves.

The air grows heavier and my breathing slows down to an irregular rhythm. The chains around my throat and wrists and ankles, constrict and choke me. I regurgitate my words and my voice fades to a lonely silence.

For the rest of my eternity, I inhaled the Sisters' singing and muttering as the coldness tugged at my heart. I was left loving them all, and hating them all. They were the Sisters I hated or loved.

Omni

2010-12-05T08:08:00.003Z

I woke up in a confined space and I can't remember how I got here. I was unbound but there was not much room for movement. The cell I was in was sterile and constricting, and the plastic walls themselves propped me up.

I could hear the other inmates, in the cells next to me and also the floor above me. I could smell their perspiration permeating the prison air. It suddenly dawned on me that we were moving. The floor beneath me rocked sideways and shook irregularly. Occasionally there was a rough bump which, had we not been confined to such small cells, would have thrown us about like rag dolls considering our weakened state. The inmates collectively breathed in sharply at this, then some muttered and some others stifled a desperate sniffle.

It was pitch dark and I could only guess where it was that they were taking us from what I heard. I tried to concentrate on the sounds coming from beyond the cell walls, but the other inmates were distracting me. Someone from a cell which couldn't have been too far from mine, shouted weakly, "We'll get out of here... soon. Stay strong, broth-". His pep talk was cut short by another jolt as the floor dropped away from us then came rushing back up, flinging us against the roof and slamming us down hard again.

Mustering the fragmented determination that was left in me, I pushed either hand against opposite cell walls and supported my body as I pressed my face to the cold wall. The walls gave off a faint chemical smell. I tried to listen to the moving outside world to learn more of what might happen to us when we get out. If we ever do.

After an excruciatingly long journey, our death camp truck stopped to an abrupt halt and the cells shook savagely one last time. Then silence. Every one of the inmates was listening hard and trying their best to gauge what comes next from the sounds outside. Even the snivelling inmate in the cell at the far corner from me quieted down to a voiceless whimper.

There were two or three different voices I could pick up. They were unclear and very probably obscured by the padded thickness of our cell walls. The voices were loud, full of energy and punctuated randomly by a sharp glassy clinking sound. Someone from a cell behind me spoke to his neighbouring cellmate. I ignored him and continued to focus on our surroundings.

The sounds continued to rise and fall and the glassy tinkles emerged every so often. I still couldn't make a word of what was being said, except when the speakers came close to our container. I heard the words "hung-ery" and "raucous" and also "part-ey" a couple of times.

At one point after a momentary lull there was a sharp loud crack, like a cannon shot, which shook us all. The quiet weeping started again, this time accompanied by the remaining inmates' scared whispers and hushed warnings.

Then it happened. What we were waiting for happened.

The roof of the containment cells were lifted away, ripped off, taking the upper floor of inmates with it. They disappeared into the bright light that blinded us the moment it entered our cells.

By the time the glare subsided and my eyes settled to the glimpse of the outside world, the prison was a raging chaos. Some of the prisoners in my block screamed, others cried, and others rocked about violently against the plastic walls of their cells, letting out only mumbled nonsense. I realised that these inmates had been gagged and bound. Wrapped, from top to bottom in the metal sheeting they used to calm the rowdiest of us. The skies had enormous flesh-creatures hovering above us. They swooped down and lifted the unfortunate prisoner into the bright oblivion above. Someone next to my cell screamed, "The vores! It's the vores!" seconds before he was plucked away from his cell.

Madness struck. The screams turned to moans of pleasure and yearning. The more of us were chosen and lifted skywards, the more I wanted to be with them. Chosen, picked and taken with the rest.

I couldn't help but smile as I watched Vanille, Ms Fudge and Delight disappear with the fingered monster as it snatched the three at once. I pushed down against the cell walls and lifted myself as high as I could go, desperately hoping to attract their attention.

I must be worth something. I did carry a whole hazelnut inside me, after all.

Your court

2010-11-27T01:19:00.008Z

I am your jester, you are my king.

When you demand it, I dance for you.
When you wish it, I play a fool.
When it amuses you, I rhyme in verse.

When you worry, I cheer with you (for you).
When you laugh, I laugh for you (with you).
If you're silent, I sit at your side.
If the court is tedious, I irrittate them all.

All of this I do for you.
For I am your jester, you are my king.

Until that day you cast me aside.

Stripped my costume and took my face.

Until that day, my KInG.

Until that day, I killed you.

And ever

2010-11-21T00:04:00.002Z

I slowly edged closer to her under the sheets. She was so very warm and I snuggled against her, careful not to wake her.

I gently moved my hand over her perfect thighs and felt her smooth skin with my fingertips. I ran my fingers around every contour, over every ridge; the subtle rise of her hip, the small ridge of her knee, up the back of her thighs reaching the frilled bounderies of her undies.

I loved every inch of her flawless body.

My hand slowly and smoothly slid onto her abdomen. I lay my hand flat and felt the bottom of her rib cage with my little finger. Her every breath slow, warm, deep. Her ribs moving with her every breath, heaving, up, down, filling my ears with her heavenly presence. The light touch of my fingers reached for her bare chest and I could feel her heart, rhythmically thumping its muffled beat. Time slowed down to a viscous stop.

Her breasts soft, her skin so peaceful it made my hands feel worn, rough and cruel.

I gently pressed my forehead to the back of her head and inhaled the sweetness of her hair which invaded my nostrils and eyes.

My other hand crept carefully into the nook between her neck and the pillow and I reached with my fingers to tenderly stroke the muscles of her neck. She swallowed abruptly and I froze, hoping she would not awaken.

I wrapped my hand around her waist, fitting my knees against the back of hers, her back curved against my chest. Her warmth embalmed me and I lay still listening to her breathing.

I kissed her nape through her hair and tightened my grip around her neck.

She struggled and I held her down from her waist, locking her legs with mine.

She tried to cough and could now only wriggle against me as I choked her.

A strangled gasp escaped from her lips as she elbowed my side and thrashed uselessly.

I pressed harder feeling her windpipe against my fingers.

I held her and crushed her with an unrelenting passion.

I kissed her on the back of her neck, her hair was on my lips and on my face. She was warm and I lifted my head and whispered heavily into her ear, "I cannot love you more than this."

Forever about you

2010-11-17T15:11:00.001Z

Seven.

One. The four-year old boy. Sleeping in his bed. Didn't hear me approach until I put my hands around his neck. I left him wide-eyed and with a crushed trachea.

Two. His sister. Two years old. Eyes heavy, drifting in and out of sleep. A slight agitation from her part which I subdued quickly. She may have even swallowed her tongue.

Three. The father I did not touch. I broke a window before I left. Allowing his two children to deprive him from clarity of thought and provoke an irrational reaction, I waited outside in my 1969 Dodge Charger. A scream from within the house. Then a roar. Then silence. A moment later, the man rushed out of his house and sped off. I followed him. His erratic driving took him away from his suburb. I watched as he drove himself into the corner of a house.

Four. A forty-three year old mother of two. She was about to drive off from the open car park. Stabbed her five times in the throat. Turned to the children in the back of the car.

Five. A five-year old girl. She was screaming. Then gurgling.

Six. A girl, strapped in her baby chair. She watched silently and not understanding what I was. I left the knife on her red-soaked lap.

Seven. I pushed the gas pedal hard and the speedometer dial feebly climbed to 180. 185. 190. I closed my eyes. 200. The car rattled and the passenger door creaked. 210.

My cat Poe

2010-11-06T19:35:00.002Z

The old man, my father, he sat in his workshop. His heavy wooden workbench lit by a dim flickering oil lamp. The old hag, my mother, sat beside him on her ancient chair, wrinkles on her face matching the splintered texture of the wood. She stared blankly down at the dusty tatched quilt thrown across lap. The quilt was dirty and mostly devoid of wool stuffing which always made me wonder if it kept her warm at all.

My father was tinkering and determinedly screwing something in place. His workshop was his cave, it was a dangerous and scary place. He sat on the crooked stool working at his contraptions. Whenever I mustered the courage to peep into the room, I rarely saw him move or potter about as one would expect for one within a tinkerer's workshop. I much fear that he sensed me and his stillness had many a time caused me great discomfort which forced me to leave the place as quickly and as quietly as I had arrived.

His hands hovered over his workbench littered with all manner of screwdrivers, ratchets, cranks, saws which were meant to hack or jig through wood, metal and stone like a knife through warm butter. On the walls hung multiple viciously-toothed hand saws, named after equally savage fish; Barracuda, Moray, Hammerhead. The hag sat in her same chair in her same pose everytime I managed to peek inside. Was she even my mother, was she alive?

The old man's workshop was the scariest thing I had ever seen.

Until today.

It was past midnight, and as usual I had dreams plaguing my mind with horrors that kept me tossing in my bed. This night I woke in fright with a numbing pain inside me. Excruciating fire racked my bones as I sat up in my bed, waiting, hoping for the torment to be just a continuation of my nightmare.

It was not. I looked at the black devil cat coiled at the foot of my bed, undisturbed by my somnumbulistic thrashings. It slowly opened one eye to look at the rictus etched on my face, and a damning blink later it returned to its sleep. I winced and looked at the palm of my right hand and on it, on the fleshy part between the index finger and my thumb, I saw I had developed a sore. A small pustule, not larger than a kernel of corn. It was dry and old, wart-like.

I was furious. Without a second of consideration, I fled down the stairs and straight into my father's workshop. Threw my left hand blindly over the tools, grabbing at anything and everything, wishing one of the shapes will feel useful. I ignored the scratches and jabs, the cuts and grazes left on my hand.

Finally, I found what I was not looking for. A small round-bladed scalpel, the surgical kind. The edge of the blade looked blunt and had a thin veil of rust around the edge. I quickly made a small clearing on the workbench, enough to fit my splayed right hand. And with my palm facing me, I started to dig and cut at the pustule until there was no more of this foreign flesh left.

As the old, wart-skin fell and I wiped off the blood in an oil rag, I sat on the hag's chair heavily. My offended hand throbbed with pain but I felt victorious over this nightmare pox. I raised my hand to my eyes and prepared myself to measure the damage and conjure up any excuses for such a strange wound.

What I saw petrified every muscle in my body. In disbelief I convinced myself to touch my wound, feel what was inside it.

My stomach heaved and the room started to spin.

In the cavity produced from my slashing, where the wart was, embedded in my dermis, there were two pairs of feline incisors.

I retched the evening's thick tuber soup onto the cold stone floor.

In half a second of recovery and lucidity, I dared a second glance. The teeth were still there, gnawing at my own skin. The gums they were set in glistened a visceral pink. The nerves in my hand fired in rapid succession overwhelming my brain's ability to register pain.

The dim oil lamp went dimmer out and the room turned black.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the floor, surrounded by several of my father's tools which I must have dropped as I fell.

And the scalpel. I grabbed it and without a flicker hesitation I stabbed my right hand.

I cut my skin.
I slashed at the muscle underneath.
I twisted the blade and the bones cracked.

The following morning, the nurse had to adjust the strap to hold my stump against the gurney, before giving me a dose of potassium bromide.

My Forest

2010-11-03T21:10:00.001Z

My only forest.

I walk beneath your tall trees, feeling your natural silence surround me like a cold cradle.

Far removed from the sounds of the city, the cars, the streets, the people, me.

As I step onto your damp earth, the hushed rustle of leaves above my head, I listen to nothing and I think of nothing but you. The sodden crunch of your yellow rust foliage under my feet humming itself into my ears like one last lullaby.

I find the tree I was looking for and stop.

Your outstretched arms call me and I yearn for the friendly embrace only they can give me.

I nail my message to your trunk and discard the hammer.

You eagerly hold the rope as it twists around your boughs.

Holding it tight as my body falls against this tree I was looking for.

My only forest, you can now hold me forever.

I won't leave again, my suicide forest.

Moving in

2010-10-23T10:12:00.001+01:00

"I'll end up in your kitchen eventually," you said.
"No you won't, darling," said I.

"And incidentally, I saw you take the silverware. All my fine cutlery and I know you were handing it out to the other maids.

"You see, I know all this and don't think for a second that I didn't see through your concern last night, when you asked me if I wished the door shut. There was no draught.

"Darling, that blue jar you left me with will not make up for my missing wares.

"So next time I see you, sweet one, I hope you would have rid yourself of all of my silver, because if you haven't, I will stab you with it."

Breadcrumbs

2010-10-18T13:00:00.000+01:00

The rift grows wider.

She breathes heavily down my neck, ignoring him completely. He stares at her, wanting. Gasping, grasping across the darkness of the room.

He doesn't. He won't.

If only she knew what he knew what they both did when they did and why.

Never.

Then she wanted to go back to the stars.

To get away from it all.

Shooting star

2009-11-11T22:52:00.001Z

Today a star died and fell from heaven. It dropped into my outstretched arms. I could see it was filled with love. It was the love of a hundred angels.

In the time before time itself, the angels would cry out against their masters' injustices. For this, they were punished and their wings torn. They wept and fell from the heavens, leaving behind them nothing but a trail of bitter hope.

Then when time began, the planets breathed. Those angels who could not speak, collected their fallen brothers' remains from the skies. They gathered their lost hope into a hundred small mounds in their masters' gardens.

When the suns ran red and the moons bled silver, the rabid wind blew.
It blew over the mute angels.
It blew against their wingless brothers' skin.
It blew over the masters' gardens.

The flightless angels still weep.

Scab

2009-10-13T21:27:00.009+01:00

I woke up, covered in dust. Sand on my eyes, muddy crusts running down my cheeks like dried river beds.

I sat up straight and touched the sun-warmed spot at the back of my head. My skull was uneven, and my fingers explored the ridge on my scalp with a feeler-like eagerness.

The ridge peaked into a large mound with a hard scab on its tip.

I instinctively picked at the scab with my broken finger nail. A sharp hairline pain ran through the ridge, my skin, my skull, down my neck and into my left shoulder.

As I turned my head to investigate, the muscles at the base of my neck knotted up, tightening into one short, excruciating twinge of sudden nerve impulses, heightened with a sense of disorientation and confusion.

My left arm was different.

I had no phalanges left.

My wrist was scattered on the ground next to me.

The bones of my forearm were splintered and hugging my shorn muscles.

A twisted shard of steel, charred and searing, had been savagely introduced into my shoulder, up my neck and through my cranium while I was out of my senses.

I touched the alien ridge on my head and an electric pain ran through my body again. With an unexplained determination, my right hand felt around my deformed skull, registering the shape as my brain, or what was left of it, tried to valiantly interpret the shape.

The rough scab kept drawing my fingers to it. With every touch, a pulse of horror was transmitted through my body, making the surviving scraps of muscle tissue flick and tense uselessly. A masochistic sixty two seconds later, I touched the ground.

I slowly spread my fingers wide, enjoying the coarse texture of the hot sand on my deadened skin.

"Sir! Here's another one"

Click.

"Yessir."

Click.

"Registry Kappa, Omega, two, four, score, Ipsilon, Gamma, one."

Click.

"Permission to O.N.W., sir."

Click.

"North Watch executed, sir. Out."

Click.

"Boom Biddy Bye Bye."

Click.

Boiling

2009-04-29T00:54:00.000+01:00

It's fucked, this love thing we do.

We fight, we kiss, we make up. Just like the song, but then I killed him.

I was chopping onions with my nine inch kitchen knife, because it's my favourite.
And it reminded me of the flavoured nicotine smoke.
I copied that trend from my friend, Krista. Sweet girl, she was. She used to dip the end of her roach in her glass of wine before smoking it. Made the shit taste better.

A pity I didn't like her hair.

My name is Mike Robe

2009-04-22T09:29:00.000+01:00

The last contract I took was the one that killed me.
A statement like that is impossible for me to say, were it true.

The sequence of events that lead me to accept my last contract can all be traced back to her. That girl with the sun in her eyes.

We met for the first time, about two months ago. I bumped into her as she was walking down Main North, on her way to the mall, no doubt. She was carrying one cloth bag, straw-coloured fabric with the word "Chic" embroidered onto the surface and surrounded by purple and red sequins. It was strung over her right shoulder, the one I bumped into. That is how I noticed.

She gave me a look that I will never forget. A kind of glare, which hid a latent interest behind her eyes. Her lips twitched into a quick insincere smile. She mumbled a duplicitous apology towards me and went on her way.

A day later she was on the same road. Holding the same bag. I moved towards her and deliberately bumped into her same shoulder again. She gave me the same smile and muttered the same apology. This time, she adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder. I smiled at her and she smiled automatically, in a somewhat more sincere expression this second time.

The next day I took my brothers and sisters to meet her. We all walked down the same road at the same time. We walked into her in unison. Jostled her, as she dropped her bag to the ground and fell to her knees. The expression on her face was very honest this time and it was one of pure and unadultered fear. She stared down at the asphalt, wide-eyed and coughed blood into her hand.
My brothers, sisters and I watched on.

From that day on, we lived with the girl with the sun in her eyes.
In her lungs.
About two months later, she had a violent coughing fit. I was forced to leave her. Her lungs died with her.

Note

2009-04-16T10:47:00.000+01:00

You're sad. You are fucking sad. Your friend died today. You say you cared, you will never forget. Listen to yourself, you dumb fuck. You're a sociopathic liar with an attitude and no life. The lies you spin, the falsities you spread about others; that is your lifeblood. You live off other people's adulation, which you generate for yourself by distorting truths and facts. You believe yourself to be loved and deep inside you know you aren't. I have no pity for you. You should be tied to a rock from your neck and left to rot in a dried-up well. People like you are the reason for hatred. You reek of fear and you fear the world around you, you ill-fitting leech. I apologise. Calling you a leech is an insult to all annelids. You will pay, I have no doubt about that. Your rumour-mongering is a disease like the virus you are. I wish for you nothing but pain, physical and mental pain. Solitude. You don't deserve compassion, you don't deserve sympathy. My feelings towards you fuel me. You are, rotten as you are, my force. I admire you for moving me to such extremes. I loathe you utterly and unfailingly for all you are. My self-hatred is strengthened by your existence. May you forever roll in emotional torture. I will be the one stoking the fires. I am giving my blood for your damnation. You wanted attention and adoration from others. Here is my final act in your honour, you faceless nullity.

"This is the note we found inside the victim's abdomen, sir."

"Bag that meat up,
"Who's up for a burger?"

A Washing Well

2009-03-12T09:41:00.000Z

I open my eyes every single morning. So far I do, anyway. When I crawl out of bed, no, jump out of bed. Crawling tends to prolong the process and I may get stuck in that phase between feeling comfortably warm and blissfully unaware under the bedsheets and stepping into a cold, unloving world where I get to be an insignificant cog wheel in the behemoth that is 'The System.' I call that the 'Oh-fuck-not-again' phase.
Big fish eats small fish and I'm plankton.

Ten minutes later, I'm in the shower watching the water swirl helplessly down the drain, taking soap suds and invisible grime with it to sweet oblivion. This is where I ask myself how and why.
Why do I do what I do?
How did I get to do what I do?

I don't have an answer.
It's frustrating. I lose myself in music, other people's music. My brain is far too stubborn to allow me to create things.
A glance towards the fresh morning sky flashes a glimmer of hope at me. It waves it quickly towards me very much like how an elder sibling waves that much-coveted pack of gum that I've been waiting to chew on all day, then snatches it away with a bastardly smirk on his lips. Those same lips I will split open with my bare knuckles in a few years' time.

There.

A moment's distraction and I lose my train of thought. Gravy train. Gacy. John Wayne Gacy.

Perhaps I should rent a costume too. Watch the world die from behind a mask. Look at a seventeen-year old shoot his classmates in the head, then turn the gun on himself. "He was a relatively normal boy." Define normal. Relative to what? You?

I will watch a suicide bomber blow himself up into a red mist, frame-by-frame, as captured on camera. Twenty dead and forty-five injured.

I'm going through a collection of mugshots.

I can go through archival material on drug abuse cases gone wrong. Laugh at how the thirty-five year old man sliced his face off with shards from a broken mirror while on PCP, because, "they were under my face."

A smile is on my lips when I read about the middle-aged woman, ex-teacher, charged with sending "lewd text messages" to a fourteen-year old boy. Sex Offender for at least ten years. Her family and friends have abandoned her. Left her to her fate. What of the boy? Crass and fake. Reporting news for the sake of sensationalism.

I look at my arms. There is no space left.

Fuck you.
This is where I remember the "Fuck you" monologue from the 25th Hour.

And this is where I heat up the scalpel blade over a candle flame.

Rock Salt

2008-12-24T10:11:00.000Z

cockle shells and silver bells
cockled shells and silver bells
cuckold shells and silver belles
cuckold shells and silver bullets

I slammed my closed fist into his face, then recoiled instinctively as I felt the skin over my knuckles split with the impact. His nose cracked. His blood on my hand. My blood on his face. I pushed him aside. Ran.
With the battered kitchen knife in hand I flailed wildly ahead of me. Swiping at my unseen assailants.

There was a knock on my door.

"Uh, dear? It's a lovely day outside... why... uhm.. why don't you go outside?"

"No mum, I don't feel like," I replied quickly.

"You should enjoy the sun, maybe meet with..."

"What friends?" I interrupted her. I knew exactly where this conversation was going.

"But, son..."

I intercepted her next sentence and said, "Look, mum, I prefer to stay here, I'm working on a... piece of music, you know. I need inspiration, I need to concentrate."
I quietly hoped that my tone didn't give my lie away.

"Yes, but you're always... you really should go out some more."

"No point, really. I have to get this done anyway, no point in wasting time outside."

A short moment of silence followed, which I lapped up like a hungry dog. My hands were already scribbling on the notepad I had open on my lap.

"Look, I'm fine here, don't worry about me. I'm not doing drugs and I'm not planning to blow the school up," I said flatly.

I allowed myself a little pause then added, "I promise. Heh."

The last sound came out as a snigger more than I wanted it to. I focused on the shotgun-like shape I had sketched.

I chuckled to myself, discretely but loudly enough for her to hear me.
She sighed, I think. I am quite certain that was a sigh I heard.

I instantly pulled out my I Pagliacci CD from the CD rack next to my bed and dropped it in my CD player. I stabbed the 'Next Track' button thirteen times, then pressed 'Play'.

"Ok," she lingered and tapped on the door with her finger, "Ok, then. Dinner will be ready soon."

"Cool," I said, trying really hard to sound cheerful, then concluded, "I'm starving."

I have a feeling she smiled. She must have convinced herself I was not lying through my teeth and head downstairs into the kitchen.

'Recitar mentre preso dal delirio'
As soon as I was sure she had left, I flicked the 'Stop' button on my CD player.
"Shut the hell up."

We had roast chicken and potatoes that night.

The next day, a home-made pipe bomb went off in the school's toilets. The east wing. Men's. It destroyed the entire row and part of the gym walls too. No one was hurt. I didn't have to hand in the essay for my Sociology class. That gave me another week to work on it.

Never

2008-07-03T09:03:00.000+01:00

It creeps up on you, really.
Death, I mean.
It's unexpected most of the time, especially for the ones it leaves behind. They feel that death appears suddenly, pouncing on their loved ones like a mountain lion. Or like one of those huge leering clown faces popping out of a gigantic box in a horror Luna park.

Arn's death was similarly unexpected.
He was 29 years old and lead a mediocre healthy lifestyle. He smoked a hefty amount of cigarettes daily. He didn't do drugs and rarely binged on alcoholic beverages.

"Smoking x cigarettes a day will reduce your lifespan by n years."

Arn died from a 'Grade 6 ruptured cerebral aneurysm'.

His sudden cessation of 'being there' with his friends, left an unexplainable void in most of them. Some mourned sincerely for their loss, others mourned because it was the ethical thing to do in times like these.

Nonetheless, they all gathered later that year on the 23rd of December. Festivities included the following activities: Drinking, smoking, playing loud music, drinking, doing some light recreational drugs, drinking, being generally rowdy and causing as much of a mess as possible to the host's apartment. The host happened to be Arn's cousin.

"Who wantsh the Magnum!" yelled Ken, who was nicknamed Magni. He was well-toned and wearing a skinny top which accentuated his chest and arm muscles. He wasn't a big man, but he had a relatively strong punch which he enjoyed distributing only amongst his closest of friends. Magni also had a penchant of showing off his buttocks, when enough spectators could be found.
Magni was standing behind a makeshift bar with enough alcohol to make a small village go blind. He was mixing his own cocktail while bopping to the raucous sounds of speed metal. The cocktail turned a poisonous brown-green when he lifted it over his head with a victorious shriek. The highball glass looked like it was dragged over the bottom of a lake in the middle of a nuclear dump site.

Well into the latest hours of the night, the bottle party celebrations continued. The occasional jock-like and homosexual actions were performed. The one they called Tunny enjoyed peeking over someone else's shoulder while they relieved themselves, at which point he would belch loudly in their ears.

"Gathey up mothas!" yelled Baldwin, his voice reaching a broken pitch over the blaring noise. Baldwin was, appropriately bald. He was of chunky proportions, but not fat. Just large. He had a round head with small eyes and a pair of biceps of a rather wide circumference. He would play the part of 'Sacha' or 'The Russian' in any action movie where the indestructible thug wielding an unconventionally large hand-held Gatling gun would take about four or five fatal injuries before actually dying.
"Gathey up!" he screamed unnecessarily.
He was holding a quart pitcher of the ugly 'Magnum' cocktail high over his head, glaring at the rest of the people gathering around him.
Someone turned off the music suddenly. There was a faint ringing in the air which seemed to be a group of residual sound waves too staggered to leave the bedsit.
Baldwin turned his back on the group and nodded at a photo of Arn. It was framed in a simple metal frame with no glass or plastic sheet to protect it. The frame was guarded by two unmatching candles on either side. Both of them were lit.
"To Arn!" said Baldwin with a low voice. The rest of the people in the room lifted their drinks and chimed,
"To Arn!"
"To Arn!"
Then the group proceeded to chug down their drinks in one breath, lifting their glasses again when emptied of their diverse contents.

What followed that was a very brief moment of silence. There were no gods, no religions, no time. Just this transient remembrance of a deceased friend. A conglomeration of men and boys bound together in an imaginary brotherhood.

That is when I saw Arn. He walked up to me and tapped on my shoulder once. His typical austere expression was frozen on his face and his skin looked white.
"They'll remember you for a while. Some day," he told me aseptically.
I couldn't see his lips move, so I shrugged my shoulders.

The music roared back into life.

I walked towards the balcony and looked down at the street below. A group of random strangers had already gathered at the broken body lying there with its legs twisted in an awkward and impossible position. A woman was crying in bleating staccatos, but she kept her distance from me.
I looked back over my shoulder, into the apartment. Magni had just lifted a highball glass up above his head.
"Who wantsh the Magnum!"

It was the crack of dawn when the ambulance arrived. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the cold iron of the balcony railing. I could see them lift my body into the black bag. The woman was still sobbing, but now she was clutching onto a small paper cup with what looked like hot black coffee inside it.

I wonder for how long do we have to go through this again.

"To Arn!"
"To Arn!"
"To Arn!"

Autophobia

2008-06-18T14:15:00.000+01:00

I rode through the lashing rain as fast as my steed could carry me. Wind in my hair and all that. I splashed through many a puddle, ankle deep. I'm glad I had my riding boots.

And riding crop. No human could drive a horse that fast without some form of aid. Bull tail. Amazing what it can do. Dried, treated, tanned, hardened to the toughness of a sapling branch. I could whack it across a hobo's face... again. Poor thing never saw it coming. I was told his right eye is blind and sealed nicely with a nacreous cataract. The stuff of angels.

I don't care really, it's all I do now. It's all I remember. Angels.
I yearn to sit quietly with a glass of ruby port or sherry in my terrace and reminisce about old times. The warm sunny afternoons, the balmy grey evenings.

Now, I can't stop running. I have to run.

Damn it. There. Can you see it?
Right there! Damn, damn, damn.

Rain puddles swirled with a life of their own, their surface sheen marred by the relentless hammering from the skies. A myriad of minuscule ripples forming and dying and forming and dying. Microscopic multiverses imploding into themselves.

Lives lost.
Souls devoured.

Damn it! I whip my horse faster and press my chest against its mane. I can feel its fiery breath against my face, singeing my eyebrows.

The small pools of rain darken and thicken like oil and grease, tendrils and wisps of the noisome fumes rise and reach towards the fleeing rider. He rips through them like rice paper and runs. And runs more.

Fuck.

IDD

2008-05-23T08:51:00.000+01:00

It's a long day.

A really fucking long day.

Directly

2008-04-28T13:08:00.000+01:00

ABSTRACT

A study conducted on twenty-three subjects of ages spanning from twenty to twenty-five years. Each test subject was conditioned by being fed copious amounts of Stilton and Roquefort cheeses, washed down with a robust Barossa Shiraz from 1984, primarily to induce the most horrific nightmares conceivable for the duration of the tests.

Several interesting conclusions were drawn to date of writing this study. The study and experimentation proceeds beyond the publishing date and any further results will be published separately as Appendices to the study herein.

Iron of two and a half inches in breadth

2008-03-28T13:56:00.000Z

"That is not my tale to recount. It is my brother's.

"I can tell you of my last lover and the first time we met. He was gaunt and bruised, but I saw him hobble towards me. He headed towards me, he didn't know me at the time. His eyes were fixed on the ground, at his feet. Poor thing, he must have been so tired!

"I can only imagine what he's been through, and one can only wonder what happened to him before that night.

"I pitied him, somewhat. Like one would pity an injured stray, perhaps. It was something about him that made him stand out amongst the crowd that surrounded him. That same something that entangled my interest around him so quickly. He shone, glimmered like steel in sunlight. It was as if the rest of the world paled while he was around.

"He stumbled closer and I noticed that his wrists bled. The ferrous scent of his blood filled my nostrils as he stepped up on the podium, close to where I stood.
He brushed against my elbow! Oh, it was such a frivolous and childish excitement that rushed through me, like he was my reason for being during that brief moment of contact. I couldn't help but smile at him.

"I didn't try to be seductive, but alas, I much fear that I couldn't help myself. I gave him my best disarming smile I found the strength to muster in that instant.

"Then I thought to myself, this is my moment. The only chance I may get before I lose him to the grey, loud crowd that enveloped him. Without a flicker of hesitation, I lifted my hand to his neck to stop him in his tracks.

"He looked into my eyes, with his tired, bloodshot eyes. I maintained my smile for as long as I could.
He didn't seem to resist my attempt as I leant towards him to kiss his lips.

"His lips were chapped, but it felt as if my kiss would instantly heal them and restore them back to their full unbroken beauty.

"I visited him three days later, to that same spot. He was still there, waiting and swaying slightly like a thin branch in a breeze.

"I miss his eyes, they were so pretty. They should do something about the crows around here.

Hymnus Apollon

2008-03-26T11:20:00.000Z

He loved me on the operating table.

The corax-headed apprentice pecked at my entrails as I lay on the cold stone. My flesh unfurled in an Acherontia styx imitation.

I had been washed in saline ether, a liquid of occult origin.

Liver:
It was removed carefully with a sharpened black steel scalpel, doused in vinegar and watered-down ale. The smaller of the apprentices held it between its mandibular mouth parts.

Heart:
The ventricles were punctured with a shard of ice from the glaciated peaks of Mont la Douce. This done, after the pericardium was lifted.

Stomach:
It was emptied of its meagre contents and filled with the stubborn texture of deshelled land snails, which were previously soaked in serpent blood for three days.

Brain:
Cured in a pyridinium salt.

Lungs:
Each of the organs were flattened with an ash wood mallet, to chase the living air sprites from within. The right lung was fed to the ravens in the east. The left, to the carrion beetle in the south.

Genitals:
Hermaphroditus' gift did not go unnoticed, but it left my corpse without thanks.

Bones:
My calcified buttresses were extracted, bleached in bovine urine and later ground. The fine result was halved into two clay vessels, the cooking of which had left intricate convolutions of mesmerising complexity on the surface.
One half was turned to ash, to be used as pigment.
The second half was handed out to the villagers in the west. The spirits and entities they are in commune with will finally acknowledge their incurable despondency.

In conclusion, one does not learn from one's mistakes.

The art of t(h)rust

2008-03-26T08:21:00.000Z

Most worthy subjects,

It is with great pleasure and delicate titillation that I write this to you. It pleases my pineal gland and such other udders my dying body may possess in its most intimate and secret recesses, that you have accepted this task with such brisk excitement and questionable bias.

What my consorts and I consider to be worthy of our time, is the following, my beloved.

A good lashing, early in the morn, the second hour prior to sunrise.
Over the eyes and with plenty of maquillage. I advise the use of a small rotund brush, the bristles and shape, like that of a pine cone. The paint itself, dark or misty. The tremble of a night shade.

Which brings me back to that gland I spoke of much in my treatise, at the Court of the Departed. A tiring venture, which left me, for many a time, dozing on the podium, like an irate bat in a cavern with streams of light.

Nonsense, I hear you clamour, most devoted subjects.
Allow this blank space that follows to be your moment of silence. We shall meet afore the minute.

Honoured and depraved loyals alike, I urge you to act immediately. The sanity of the eyes around you eats into your being. We cannot allow this. In all our infinite and most demented wisdom, we may not acquiesce to the demands of the Crone.

You must have seen her chicken legs and crow's feet. Terrible, terrible, and more terrible, I tell you.

My beloved, you are incoherently egotistic and charming, your watchful eye for the unnoticeable details has pained me and astounded me, and I love you.
Yes, I love you, my subjects, in the way the Baron of Aufgrund loves his gold purse.

I must now end this divine prattle. The Crone is at my gates and I must feed her, oats and mill seed.

The Baba is a delightful hag, she is.

A brief farewell.

The Tower of Life

2008-03-25T20:55:00.000Z

Drown him thrice!

You mean plunge him in the river three times.

Yes!

If he drowns, he's not a witch. He floats and it is most definitely sorcery.

Milord? Why are you referring to the witch as a 'him'.

It pleases me.

Yes, milord, of course.

The hammer.
Yes, milord, I hold it 'twixt my fingers.

Squire, stop talking that way. What are you, in the eighth century?
The twelfth, milord.

I cannot stand insolence. You will be burnt at the stake with the witch. He needs company.

Her name is Anne, milord, and if it pleases you, allow me to suggest beheading.

Very well then.

Verisimilitude

2008-03-25T15:08:00.000Z

Salutations my lovelies.

It was a night of careful cogitation and heated deliberation with my many personas (six of Royal Albert’s Old Country Roses tea cups of Earl Grey were enjoyed, and a dash of milk with each).

The count, who kept tapping his silver-topped ebony cane against the mahogany desk all throughout the imaginary conference, was the first (and only) one to speak.

“A challenge is what I propose, esteemed friends and colleagues.” He interrupted himself by lifting the warm porcelain to his lips and with his little finger well extended skywards, he sipped the tea (plain with no milk, no lemon, no sugar).

Tap.

“A fair challenge for all the worthy ones, for magniloquent reciprocation, my honourable associates,” as he rolled the black wood between his slender fingers. He eyed the congregated surreptitiously and proceeded,

“I thusly invite you and your own, my darlings, to provide me, hereunder, with anything your minds conceive. We will solemnly promise to ruminate and speculate on your brain births you care to share, in due time but with unbound regard. We will nourish and nurture this nascency with amorous devotedness until its begotten bears its own breed, and so on and so forth. ”

He concluded his monologue, by taking another small sip of tea and tapping his walking stick against the desk.

I am not quite sure as to what this meeting of mind(s) produced after its conclusion, I dare say.

I did, however, enjoy the Earl immensely.

Use your fist.

2008-03-25T09:26:00.000Z

The Waterman walked into the office with an abnormally large water bottle over his shoulder. The five gallons of polypropylene-blue water sloshed noisily as he grinned stupidly to the room.

On the other side of this fine example of twentieth-century corporate architecture, the blonde Solenodon, squeaked and polished its whiskers hungrily.

"This is crazy, you know that, right?" he told me. I looked at him over the edge of the manuscript in my hands and shrugged.
"I don't care, really. Takes one to know one, you know," was my trite response.

"Look, we can't sell this. No one wants to read about bad..."

'A fucking trip!' yelled the Waterman at the rodent, who was by now, licking its paws clean.

I slammed the sheaf of papers hard on the desk as I stood up.
The printed letters on the manuscript moved about suddenly, invisibly, and reformed into a 253-page long transcript of an image from Lieberman's mind.

"You're the damn publisher, Lieberman. Deal with it." And with that, I walked out of his office, stomping harder than I normally would.

Mostly for added drama.

Le Paradis Noir

2008-03-13T11:01:00.000Z

He lies through his teeth.

Her jaw is broken.

She has a split personality.

He's autistic.

He's a sociopath.

He's socially inept.

She lusts after her colleague.

He's promiscuous.

She's into BDSM.

He enjoyed torturing and killing stray cats when he was young.

He's a cutter.

She calls herself a biastophiliac.

He likes stalking his class mate.

She’s having an affair with her sister’s husband.

He has an incestuous relationship with his younger brother.

He just hacked his company’s secure server.

They are waiting in the van for the Ketamine to wear off.

He just killed the two underage girls.
He covers their face with the bed sheets, because he can't bear their stares. Their hands are severed at the wrist.

“To stop them from scratching me, sir” he told the police officer, later that day.

He spoke calmly, “Therese, that’s her name. She is twelve years and ten months old.”

He rubbed his nose against his shoulder, his own wrists pressing against their metal constraints, “Dana is precisely eight years and two months old, today.”

He grinned strenuously.

Over 2,000 Volts rushed through his body.

Nothing

2008-03-07T21:49:00.000Z

I opened my green box and looked inside for images.

A handful of skulled moths fluttered out, carrying a smell of old dust and libraries on their legs.
On the velveteen lining with colours of black and bloody crimson lay two pencils.

One was broken and worn. The other was brand new, untouched.

Noise.

I shut the green box unceremoniously.

Gingerbread Beans and Raspberry Puzzles.

2008-03-03T21:16:00.000Z

I believe that today, my exploits will not be easily forgotten.

I started my charge, bugle in hand, reins in the other.
I changed my mind.

Stopped.

I then encouraged my steed to take a few steps backwards with gentle prodding of my Hermes' Ankles.

Spurs, for those of you illiterate in mythology of the basest kind.

I handed the brass tube to my lesser. He took it without question.

Then I started my charge. Reins in hand, naught in the other.
I smiled in satisfaction as the cavalry unit, nay, my cavalry unit, ran over the cliff and speedily met their demise on the jagged rocks below.

A classical death scene, I thought.
Classical tragedy, perhaps?

Either way, the next sunrise will clear my mind.

The waves would have washed the cliff's feet clean by then.

His Gilded Clobber

2008-03-02T15:53:00.000Z

The chorus sang louder.
Their angelic voices reaching the skies and merging into a beautiful medley of atmosphere, green fields and playful flute notes, hopscotching their way into his mind.

The singing subdued gently, enveloping his heart with its subtle caress, laden with melancholy.
"Look to your path, at the golden light," he thought, "Don't forget the night."

His trembling fingers wade through the treacle-like air and reached for the volume control. Grasping the rough-edged cylinder, they twist withershins.

The ethereal tenor blew tenderly across his ears, slowly fading into a vast silence.

He wiped a tear with the back of his hand, smearing its saline texture over his creased skin.

Forging @ Team

2008-02-29T15:52:00.000Z

...or a headache.

Nevertheless, my mind wandered and grazed in verdant pastures of forbidden interests. So I came up with this and before the Waterman could say, "Thank you for attending," I was scribbling frantically on my mental writing pad.

Foraging for words most archaic and/or pleasant to the ear.

Dismiss the concept, esteemed reader, that this is a crumbling cork pinboard where my inconspicuous daily happenings be suspended for your perusal. It is an undertaking I cajoled myself into maintaining for as long as I can muster the cerebral power required to do so.

Pompous verbiage aside, I urge you, my willing conspirators of this cleverly-masked catastrophe, to recrudesce unto these pages ever and anon, like pustules on a leper's skin.

A brief farewell.