Jester's Manifesto

A Short Story...

Fiction is a pathetic barrier. That's the title of this story. Fiction is a pathetic barrier. It's a tepid shield like those translucent barriers futuristic warriors carry around in video games. Being serious is very important, otherwise you're conceding to evil. If you play around too much there's no watchdog groups guarding the Jerry Sanduskys of the globe. But serious is the same as unserious, they're just expressions for moments shorter than infinite, dog. Funny people are seriously unserious, and serious people just aren't in on the joke yet. You're only serious until you fail at it, which is usually always. Tragedy is the birth of comedy, remember. This story needs a main character, myself for simplicity. My name'll be Ra's al Ghul because I've seen Batman recently. Wake me up as a fundamentalist Christian. A delusion within a dream within a dream while drunk. Give me soma-flavored ice cream. A comatose pacifier. A drum full of rib tips, you know, some kind of lethal sedative. I'm not sure if my reality is real or I've imagined it. That's just a disclaimer if this whole reading goes beyond overreaching. Don't let it explode on you, we might take a stab at something decent here. You might temporarily entertain the thought of being a better human being before you go back to welding a robotic AI woman who takes to you in kind, or Photoshopping the face of Gillian Anderson to some pornographic image.

Ah, here I am. Ra's the name, inhabiting the empty space of a pretend story page. No relation to the comic book character. Some conflict's coming to this story soon. But where does it come from? Is it the need for momentum? The need to push forward? A sense of motion blurring your reason until you're convinced reality isn't real and your surroundings are a hoax, dog? Why's reality evil, dog? I sit here contemplating, stroking my long white beard in my tall throne. It's a tall throne, alright. Like the kind they sell only in heaven. You know what's south of heaven? Hell. Hell and a Slayer album. And you know what's north of south? North, probably. And heaven, that's near where I sit upon this tall, grimey, shiny fake golden throne. Sigh, it's supposed to feel divine in here, not like urban decay and Big Lots furniture. Yet here I rest in this empty chest of a warehouse in downtown, oh, let's say Milwaukee. Yeah, Milwaukee's a ghost town of crumbling buildings. Good imagery here. Just here on my throne that rests over 30 feet high stroking my excessive beard and passively passing judgment on what things I can make of reality. There's a scaffolding nearby. There's a staircase on wheels in here, too, so I may reach my throne. Like the type you'd see at Old Navy on occasion so they can promote ugly shirts from the ceiling above. Wedged near my chair is food in tin foil and a bottle of Mt. Dew Code Red filled to the brim with piss. It probably would taste better now than it did going in. Hey, my cells needed sustenance, and nothing starts a party for your body's tiny living organisms like the fireworks set off by Code Red. Remember that: Code Red. This is not product placement.

The story's conflict is coming soon, I promise. Will it be About a Snatch? A crab? A clam? Abraham? No, it shouldn't be about women, because stories about women are too obvious and the idea with fiction is to avoid the obvious and the apparent, those things you deal with in day-to-day real regular life. No, we can't have that. An open real, honest examination of life might lead us down the harrowing path of good health and resolve. It might make for some cultural awakening to the frightening, scary point where reggaeton is no longer considered listenable music. Mt. Dew Code Red? How's that for a subject? Yes. It's about as frivolous as talking about women and I sit here drinking it from my dirty brass chalice. This is the life, sitting around and silently judging things while not contributing anything. No, this story can't be about soda. Soda has no drama to it. It's got to be about war, and theft, and child molestation, and having to endure a long line at Quizno's. Seriously child abuse you asshole society of motherfuckers? I mean, come on, is a chilled bottle of soda not satisfying and indulgent enough? Perhaps rape's necessary for one of the ingredients, I don't know. What else would compel such sick behavior? No, these subjects are too dark for print. Not literally of course, unless you type all the wretched things in bold. Torture, rape, these are bold behaviors. But not good story subjects. Fiction is a disgusting medium and form of communication, no? Sure, you could tell the truth with facts but that's a medicine no one wants to take. Nowadays we need Flintstones vitamins. Let's face it: we're all evil. Nikola Tesla never got laid and look what he accomplished because of it. If you loved your father, you'd search for a cure for death instead of browsing Facebook for pussy. But he brought you into this earth, and you don't love him, because you've spent 2,000 man-hours wanking when you could've been curing cancer. It brings up an interesting dilemma. What's the point in all your science, hard work and humility, if it's a laxative no one's willing to pass through their goddamn digestive track? What's the point of your faggoty facts if you can't convey them in a way that's compelling? Then you're just more boring data in storage somewhere in South Dakota. Fricking South Dakota, that state's like the decaying grass in an abandoned lot of land that sits behind a parking lot in the rear of a grocery store. It's that useless. I mean, but most things are useless, so South Dakota perhaps is the most idyllic inhabited place on the planet earth? I'll justify the use of bigoted slurs somewhere before the story ends, don't bail on me now. We've got a bond, reader. No intolerance intended.

The idealist throne room

So I'm sitting perched upon my really high, close-to-the-ceiling throne smoking the last half of a fag and thinking provocatively. This story is only being spoken in my head. I don't like the title. I stated it before the flippin' story, it can't be any good. It couldn't possibly channel the ideas that will unfold that surely I don't know about yet. Yes, this story will be brilliant. It will be meandering and unfolding in a novelesque fashion where not even the author knows where things go. Will someone die? I'm the only character so far. I value my trite life. Stroking my beard here, just thinking. You know, owning a throne this tall sucks when you remember you have to go to Target at some point, or use the potty. Both these events happen in my life at about the same frequency. Target, shit, Target, shit, Target, shit, rejection letter from a hooker, Target, shit, Target, shit, death. Modern Life: A General Summary. Excuse the French. Cursing is impolite, though only really harmful to the sensibility of stupid people. But I've nothing against stupid people. Wake me up religious. Wake me up as a fundamentalist Christian. Wake me up as someone who watches The Mentalist religiously. Christ. What a sad life. My life is aimless and plotless. Certainly there's some contrivance, whatever that means. Why do people hate truth? Can I shove what I wrongly dub an 'organ' into your pink cavern in an act of shameless desperation, chubby girl at Subway? Why can't I say that. That girl's a little thick, okay. She's chubby, and nothing against her, but she'd probably take that as some sort of slight. A slight! When actually, she's a tad above that weight, generally, and it's a gesture most polite. Look, I'm a realist, not an idealist. You could get me free subs. I can introduce you to fetishes you won't be able to shake for forty years. Eventually my neediness would drive her insane and she'd give me the axe in a form quite literally and taxidermize my body and one day we might make an episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not. To me that's a fucking legacy. That's something you can reference. Not the guy who invented battery door covers. Who the fuck knows that guys name? Not to mention the pig did a shitty fucking job because they always break off and require duct tape. I hope your entire family tree has been extinguished by the time of the printing of this writing, pig. This is too indulgent and off the rails. Back to topic.

Okay, fuck it, man. Women. Probably. They're mysterious, dog. They're mysterious, I think, stroking my long, long white beard. That's misogynistic, some would say. Some women would say. Fuck those stupid pigs. When a man says a woman's mysterious what he means is that love is mysterious and that people are mysterious and that trying to grasp any understanding of the chaos that drives and permeates our souls is ultimately an endlessly complicated thing. It's not all about gender, women. You're no more nails than we are hammers. Stop pigeonholing us as pidgeonholers of you. We're all stereotypes and stereotypers. Yeah, what's the great complication of this novel? Or should we say, short story. No fluff here. A comedy of errs? A tragedy. Yes! A tragedy. Here's a tragedy for you: a writer must also be delusional enough to convince himself he's part of a fictional fucking realm in order to make his fantastical story interesting. That's a fracking sad rainy-day faggot story. Oh, yes, to justify the f-bomb, you should know that when I'm not bird-dogging bitches on days Tuesday-through-Sunday, on Mondays I like to stay at home spooning with my young, handsome male lover who goes by "Too-Toned Tony" (or Anthony for long)(which he is)(long, that is)(get it, he's very long)(longer than this sentence runs on). Yes, now that I, myself, a fictional character have decreed my unrepentant omnisexuality, I can cop out and say it's kosher for me to drop all sorts of weighty words like queer despite their vast amount of social baggage regarding intolerance. Also, I am a black. So, anyway, I was out on the town one day hanging with my niggas when I saw this bombastic broad chillaxing at the local Stop 'N' Go. Whoa, was she ever rotund in the right areas! This gal was straight making me act a fool. What was her name? Uh, well, all the popular female names I associate now with girls I have deep personal vendettas against, so I can't just name the first thing that pops into my head, now can I? But I've never met a Jane. There we go. Jane was a hot-ass bitch from along the way and I was her non-literal pimp. Pimp is merely a term I use to describe my go-getter ways and affluence. Currently I stay on the grind with my niggas down at Milwaukee's version of the Large Hadron Collider, it's a scientific laboratory learning place for studying tubes filled with food coloring and placenta. On the weekends I teach philosophy in-depth to panhanders, the last true purists in my pretentious opinion. We get in deep and dissect ideas and ruminate and pontificate and dabble in sexual topics that would make Freud blush, and word up it's never over until we brush up on Tesla.  Oh, and Galileo is straight up always dope. Also I wasn't black before that sentence in which I stated so, and will not be black after the end of this paragraph. I'll justify this fact somewhere before the story ends, reader. Don't bail on me now. Remember, as a fictional character I'm free to be as homophobic, sexist and racist as possible with impunity. Word.

Yes, Jane, good ol' Jane. Everyone has one right? Haha. Whether it's Jane, or some guy if you're a girl. Or some transsexual. Or a segment of fence with phallic attributes that you stole from the back lot at Home Depot because you're an objectum-sexual. We all have people to reach out and try to touch like brass ring. Yeah, you know. Jane is not a real girl, totally not a compartmentalized creation by an 'artist' to represent his misplaced longing for a girl from a real-life fractured relationship. Haha, that would be tacky and distasteful. Fiction stories are basically a way to spice up your diary so people can finish it before throwing it across the room. That, and in hopes some short-haired hairy girl can lick you in pity because she related to your exaggerated gloom, while you lied and said, "Yeah sure, you could definitely be a Suicide Girl." You know, when you meet a girl and start sad-bragging all your past woes and how you're deranged and fricked up? And she tells you how her dad molested her, well, not molested, but refused to pay for her gas once she turned 28. Yes, life is a harrowing endeavor and we the people can make it better with a simple philosophy of love. And that's where the hot tail comes in. That's where generic Jane arrives. Good ol' sweet, well-endowed, shy country girl Jane. She was kind of plain-looking, but not a plain Jane. Of course, by plain I mean a natural beauty of simple elegance and grace God does not simply bestow on just any bad bitch, only the really finer hoes and such. Her beauty could crack the sun. She was a tall glass of water. She was a tall glass of holy water, that's what she was. Purity penetrated her every pore, radiating out of it giving her an aura like an angel. She was Mother Teresa, minus the sadistic pain-loving tendencies and secret meglomania. She was beauty and grace, and eloquence contorted her face to poetry even when she would masturbate. And she did often, because when your nethers look as beautiful as fresh Bubbleyum, it's your duty to stay stylish and blow a bubble periodically. That could use further editing, but then it wouldn't be as honest.

The realist throne room

Myself, I, Ra's, good ol' low-key, no-nonsense Ra's sat perched upon my throne, my shaky throne. My shaky throne of filmsy design, mimicking my sanity, I sat and pontificated to no one and imagined this story, the story of my life. How did I end up here decaying and writing an autobiography in my stupid mind in my free time? I'm no writer. I'm a scientist who makes a hypothesis and refuses to look at facts. Even for a story no one will read it's pretty boring thus far. It's self-serving. Oh, come on. So was everyone else. You know all the greats just wanted to cum. Hemingway yadda yadda, something about birds being pretty, please oh please let me cum. What rubbish. What foolish hogwash. I don't wanna get laid. I wanna play lazertag. Yes. I want to roleplay in a zombie apocalypse scenario on the outskirts of Flint, Michigan, because let's face it that place is decaying anyway. I want to roleplay a scenario where I'm loved by Jane again because by gosh I've become a better actor since then! Oh, girl. Oh, I swear. You'd be so convinced I was worth your time now-a-days. Her dad seemed nice. Her ass seemed fat. I've never been camping. We could combine all those things in one for one heck of a trek! Yes, yep, yeah, fantasy life. Why am I thinking to pass the time? Who the fuck thinks? Apparently, no one. That's why we live in this world where torture rape and war coexist in an incestuous relationship with pornographic high definition trailers on CNN hosted by Nancy Grace. Can't somebody take something seriously for once? Even if it's something as unserious as me? Why can't Ra's al Ghul just step out there before congress and spit out a Goodfellas reference? Why can we only quote Plato? Are we that detached from reality to deny our own lack of intelligence? Must we namedrop philosophers whose time is done and not give credit to a more deserving modern god like George Carlin? Are we forever stapled down to the same maligned position of what's proper where we bitch about text messaging and pregnant reality TV whores instead of the systematic mutilation of young men via circumcision? You cunts better come correct. And boy, was that girl Jane not one of them.

No, Jane was not a cunt. She didn't even have one, now that I recall. Like a mannequin, girls that sweet don't need a nether region. A sweet, sweet girl, endlessly undeserving of ever being called a cunt. She was the type of girl you'd eskimo kiss in public. Shame, shame! Normally, rational beings are against PDAs, but Jane was worthy of this exception. She enjoyed to ski, but she was definitely not a snowcunt. She loved snow, and was obsessed with the West, but she was definitely not an Eskimo. God darn I loved that broad. I loved her broad, manly shoulders. Not as much as Tony's, mind you, but that's irrelevant. Man, she was a tomboy, rough-around-the-edges type with an occasional fine taste in flair via the latest Rocawear gear. She, divine is she. As only fiction can be. Things had to come undone eventually, like the side buttons on her ski pants. It wasn't bound to be! Nothing is! Nothing's free. Free of unpredictability, that is. There's only a few things that are predictable: boredom is cureless and things will be stupid and painful. That's life's whole shebang, gentlemen. Gentlegang. Gentlewomen. Gentletrans. Go with the flow, that's the hot ticket. Otherwise you'll fall victim to some sort of disorder like schizophrenia, where you're forced to write at a fevered pace as your only means of staving off anxiety and keeping a keen grasp on sanity. Or something. I wouldn't know, I'm not writing. I'm a scientist and philosopher, as stated in this here story that I'm telling only myself in my head to an invisible audience. I hope they haven't found it boring.

Is my life a work of fiction? What else could it be? Could I be a Smurf here upon my throne masturbating while feeding myself through a fricking funnel so ceaseless? And perhaps my throne is also a shitter so I never need leave my seat. No, yes, maybe this throne's a La-Z-Boy sofa custom modded to a -- fucking god damn it someone sent a text and broke my stream of thought. Oh, well, that's the modern age. There's no grace in keeping it real. Reality's stupid and boring and pointless and that's why honest men finish last, because they're dishonest men. Life only works as a delusion. It's a dream. The moment you start pointing out its absurdities and inaccuracies you look like a psycho, because everyone's going apeshit like the lunatic-dirty-idiot-loser-big-headed stupids that they are. Realists are party pissers. This is why even the most virtuous people of our time didn't have any real balls. Martin King Jr., those preachy twats from punk bands, those burning themselves alive to fight the system never changed a thing. We're proud to claim we're beyond the days of medieval torture, a time despicable and dark. Now we have a bomb to blow an entire city to nothing within a minute, we're sailing toward better times. I have no conflict here. No story arch. Fuck the female. Fuck the planet. Fuck whatever's making the earth warm. Fuck the war, the tortured, and the raped. We live in an imbalanced earth of adults acting like children so when they get fucked, fuck 'em. I'm here stroking my beard until it all decays and until then stay out of my hair.

No, it can't end on that note. Blind rage is the cynic's cop-out. Even if that would've made a killer ending. They say only the suffered have credibility. If that's the case, I'll stay incredible. The only thing suffering brings is pain. Without the earth there's no Jane. All the gloom and the aches are survived by a peppering of Eros. A little here and there to keep you going a moment longer. Life's a turkey baster full of tears, dude. If you really think about it. You get a good turkey, you stuff it full of nonsense, then you force it to be juicy against its natural properties. What. If I had a million dollars, Jane, lady, I'd spend it all to be next to you again one night. Sure, that's about 5,000 nights worth of high quality hookers, but girl you heard it here first: your love is worth more to me than 5,000 hookers. But I don't have a million dollars. I have a million dollars worth of ideas I don't know how to market. But that metaphorical million dollars I'd give to you over those hookers in a heartbeat because I feel that strongly about you. And okay I wouldn't give a metaphorical million dollars to you, because realistically that would be insane and I care about my family and future, only one night? And who are you to be bribed, shit. You can't buy love, but you can say a girl's worth more than a lot of hookers and hope for the best. There's a million dollars worth of romance in these lines, and that's something physical money can't buy. Though I would sell the rights to this piece of shit story for a small fraction of that and let the prospective buyer claim it as their own thus effectively buying love. Ugh. So in order words: money can buy love, and impossible is nothing. Here propped upon the throne I stay, my chalice full of Mt. Dew Code Red beginning to warm.

Oh, here it goes. Let love in, folks. Is this theatrical enough for you? I'm stroking my long beard and wearing a Jester's uniform. At least in some sense. At least some substance I can pull from this flaming wreckage. Honesty is rewarded with spit, but someone said betrayal's better still than loneliness. So I guess spit keeps you humble. Oh, some more beard stroking. And some smoking, yes. A pipe full of tobacco for the thinker's troubles. How's this tale going? I thought and thought and thought. Fiction is a barrier for truth. Friction is what you get when you give truth. You tango on with words, and actions, no matter how grand or subtle. Spewing sense at an innately irrational world eventually ends with your life or sanity. So we enjoy love as that tiny bit of chaos that's comprehensible. But just barely. Eventually you lose footing. You've convinced yourself they're all right. You start to slip. Also my grandma's father is black. You can't go on. You can't win. Slow and steady wins the race. Midnight craving for spit. Refrigerated and microwavable varieties. Spit on a stick. You start to slip. Shun this dumb world. Let us rebuild! Let us start again in the blank canvas. Let's recreate a perfect new world in Minecraft. Pigs. Vengeance begets vengeance begets vengeance. Oppress evil, never engage it. Cognitive dissonance. Feeling good is feeling next to nothing. If Nothing were name for a best friend or person. If Nothing's a bit of loving, or a wink or an email. Or pity or spit. By those definitions I want Nothing. I sat in my high throne, passed out on soda. Beginning slightly to slip.

Fairweather Lover

He picked up the pen determined. This was it, he thought. His niche. Writer's block was never a problem but this was a related burden that would be gone, and it was how to write. Thoughts would no longer be dammed. Before there were hesitations, now the ink and the pad were out for a special occasion. This time there was a philosophy founding the method before the paper. No longer afraid to misstep, he set out to write in experimental form. No longer would the words labor, they'd spill out as beautifully as afterbirth. He would go by a rule of thumb stated in cinema, a simple line, declaring "Art should not be used to settle scores." The lines were right, they were. Just as the notion that asks to "Keep personal remorse from the poem." But why, he thought. Perhaps the closeness distracts you from the glorious fairness of objectivity. Certainly it makes you appear more virtuous and selfless. But the word 'appear' is an important part of that prior sentence and only the vain care for appearances. From now on he would write his words with all substance and no style.

What is the real idea with writing, he thought. It's to convey relatable emotions and reach people, amongst other things. Selflessness is just as relatable as selfishness, he thought. Why the need to drape words in dishonesty, separating it from a plain and boring diary, he thought. It had to to be the melodrama. Melodrama makes any medicine easy to swallow. There's a playfulness most ignore, he said to himself tapping his pen on the paper's snowy blank slate. There's a chin-tickling irony separating what's fun to read and the insufferable bores. An affable, lovable quality to words written in amusement versus a forgettable, clinical approach. It brought up ideas on how the best found facts in the world would matter not should their finder not have an interesting way to convey them. Articulation was the vital, virile asset. His pen was sweating with stress and aching to spill some ink. His head told him to be objective with a story that suspends disbelief. But why. I want to be believed, he thought. I want to be believed, he knew. This approach would be different. This time the pen would be direct. It would be open and ugly like an onion with its pervasive odor, but equally powerful with its gritty, grimy layers and eye-wetting effect. Effect, that's it. And sentiment, that's what it needed, not plot. Plots are for Christopher Nolan. What you get here would be bone and flesh. What matters. The bare minimum.

Back to the drawing board he thought of the essence behind words. He thought of the only thing worth striving for. He thought of the ecstatic truth rooted behind every motive. All those things people want to say but can't say for this reason or that, so they yearn for some alternate entity, some alter-ego, some image, some hero pent up in their imagination where fences pose no hurdle and words no repercussion, and spent feelings can be hurt but they're bulletproof to shallow wounds. Maybe that would be the character he'd create, a shadowy figure impervious to awkwardness, anxiety and the common pains. Shadow Man, that'd make a good title, right? An anonymous figure, just like the author, scapegoating its problems by remaining in darkness. Think of all the metaphorical implications of the word 'shadow,' he considered. The story was already so clever. Oh, no, this route wouldn't do. Cleverness is fun but quickly one sees the fancy fog hides the river's lack of depth. And with that, Shadow Man sunk back to the lonely depths of Earth. Yes, yeah. His shadow fell right through the ground to the molten core of which he was born.


After the untimely demise of Shadow Man the author thought of different metaphors to express what needed expressing. Expression itself could be no less than the worst form of egotism, he thought. Done correctly, perhaps, there could be nothing more holy. A holiness so pure it would be stripped of religious connotation. You can't imagine a white that bright, not here, not at the end of the tunnel to the afterlife. But there are still fears when you write, to put oneself out there in the open for cringes, criticisms, opinions and embarrassment. You're baring it all, and that's why you need a Shadow Man. He's mythical, supernatural, the purveyor of the essential and the killer of the superficial. Yet there was no special man, just some man sitting down with his thoughts and a sacred canvas ripe with its ache for touch. If that mythical hero were here he would sit next to him and whisper confident words of advice in his surely Godlike voice, he thought. "Don't be as I am," he'd suggest. "I'm merely a being free of light. I'm only bulletproof because what can't error won't exist." And with these hints the mythical figure in the man's head helped him to unveil himself and step into bright light of the stage. Perhaps there's a Shadow Man after all. Perhaps he takes after Freud's idea of the insatiable id and the idea is to lasso his elusive omnipotence while subduing as few natural movements as possible. He plays the part of a beast bound by the chains of morality under the watchful eye of the ego. Yet the same freedom spiritual progress forges discards the veil of delusion.

He tapped his fingers. What a great way to convince yourself, he thought. Still, the futility stopped the words from spreading ink. Realizing life's a movie might mean it's easier to direct, but all the more hard to suspend disbelief when experiencing it. "It's not can I do it," he thought, it's "Why should I bother?" The only answer left was pettiness. Survival's a good reason, even without a determined goal. But what of the lingering unanswered questions of every score not yet settled. Perhaps they could be indulged and filled to the brim if for only a placebo. Writing could prove therapeutic, if you have hands, pen, pad, and somewhere to go. Which pettiness to pick on, he thought. There are so many. There are so many. Art is not about score-settling, he thought. Maybe it's about mending, and not the corrupt spreading of disease to camouflage ego bruises. There's a parasitic part of the psyche that wants to see the world burn so no one will notice one man's hideous deformations. Stop sharing needles, he thought. Don't mix your perverted, dirty blood with the public's. Suture, don't tease old wounds. He looked at his phone for the time. 6:24PM. It's just a tool for communication, he thought, though it hadn't been used in quite a while. He considered why. Was it the burned bridges or a lack of effort to build them. Likely the latter. He looked at his pen. It's just a tool for communication, he thought.


There was a girl of bone and flesh. She, she was the perfect subject. She wasn't a shadow, no. She was quite pale, actually. More importantly than that she wasn't a shadow. She was a breathing, living thing. It's important to add the living part in case a potential reader doesn't understand by the time they've read the breathing part, he thought. Despite acknowledging an invisible audience he didn't write anything down yet, it remained fresh and forming in his head. The story was becoming vivid and manifesting like greens and moss and leaves. What could he say that was interesting and wasn't petty. He had had her in a dream. How pleasant, he thought. It compromised entirely of lying next to her with a few indiscernible whispered words but mostly seeing her from behind. Her beautiful form, her black t-shirt, a silhouette, colors desaturated by darkness, a true hourglass figure. Sleeping, with hair still in ponytail, with long strands escaped down the sides, with messy baby hairs making an outline of tuft like a lion. She was a lion kind of girl, he thought. He was thinking a lot, he thought. All that happened after that was waking up and that wasn't as fun. There was no year-late reconciliation upon waking, no. It was just a dream, and although bittersweet, it was the best dream with a single exception. It couldn't rival the dream where he was back home, with his dad's new car parked proudly in the living room, before going outside and pissing meters wide on the side of the garage. The silly moments weren't the good stuff, it was seeing a small white horse silently staring at him in that same garage, and lassoing it as he pushed the button to seal it before the automatic door. It was a beautiful symbol but what of its meaning, he thought. Was it the turn of the tide when you catch a white horse in a dream. Was it symbolic for the strives toward getting what you want. It was perhaps just a dream with no subconscious insights, it didn't mean a thing. At least no guns were involved.

What of the girl, he thought, now leaning back in his chair. It's cliche in a story. Time to execute the girl. She's to meet her demise like Shadow Man. This can't be about a girl, not wholly. There's got to be something more. It can be about drive and desire and how women are so often its impetus. He considered cliches. "She's my backbone. She's my better half," he thought. That's what they always say. Was a good word ever written without the catalyst, a stick, a firm grasp, a finger in women? It had to be the reason we don't write with both hands, he thought. He quickly discarded his juvenile cynicism. It's been too long. Lingering doubts. What could've been done different, he thought. He could've been more playful, or more open. He could've driven Micro Machines near the barren lands of her mons pubis like a modern romantic. Her parents don't deserve that, a guy who would drive tiny toy cars near their daughters privates. Not even if he were recreating that part of Into the Wild on her deserted netherlands. Granted, it's less disrespectful than fucking her privates, he thought. That should earn points with them. Why can't a man just have his way with a woman and drive cars near her private without others getting involved. Except maybe insurance companies, he thought.

By now he was on his bed, looking around, glancing menacingly at his desk. The light of the lamp was bright and eager to provide refuge for written word. Who even writes anymore, he thought. We all type. With that he recalled the recently deleted emails detailing the fall and failure of events between them. Six letters, maybe seven, most of them long. Masterpieces in their own right, maybe not to anyone, but no better puzzle pieces could've fit between two people. That's the personal glory that comes when you throw selfless ideas out the window and focus solely between two humans. That's why you can't have it in art, because it's intimacy, and what we're afraid of most is the truth. Now they've been deleted and they're lost like Atlantis never again to see the surface. Perhaps they're lost somewhere on Google's servers, or being read by the government. Maybe they're saved in her inbox. Who cares, the sentiment is forever imbedded in my thoughts, he thought. Things couldn't work out to an amicable end. Do they ever, he thought. He had acted like a gentleman even while dubbing her leering ex-boyfriend a twat, an admirable feat to do both at once. Thank god irony can solve even the most flagrant faux pas. The idea came to his mind that perhaps like his thoughts a potential story could start backwards and end at the beginning. Yes, that could be the ticket. It could start with despair and end with the freshness of budding friendship and romantic conquest. Quickly he dismissed the idea as another gimmick. He went to rest his head.

What I wouldn't give to know what was truly on her mind, invade her privacy, smash her hermit shell and loot what's inside, he thought while laying about and shifting slightly. Most of all he would've asked if she understood his desire was driven by irrationality, not her admittedly fine-tuned bare body. There's nothing more or less than this. It boiled down to his opinion on love, like, and associated acts such as sex and soulmates. He paused. Certain types find themselves inline with other certain types, and their sameness is the result not of chance, but a simpler reality, entailing those with likeminded motivations must eventually cross paths, pushed by their sorrows or wants toward certain interests, and each other. It can't be chance, at least not always. You see it proof enough with every happy couple. The rule applies just as well for tepid people and situations as it does for extraordinary ones. He meant coincidence and how contrived it really is. Again, he struggled to articulate a comparison big and bold enough to encompass this grand epiphany. What of two souls on separate sides of a pyramid finding each other on the top. Too sappy, he thought. Why, he could find some way to relate his own personal, real experience into his pending story. The woman's contrary nature, stern and subtle disposition, and angst of over a landlocked town found her in a new city. Certainly there would be little coincidence if his position in similar waters led him to similar conclusions. If said couple were to meet eyes one day and speak in the same venue it'll be less a coincidence than seed growing in soil. He wondered if she got that admiration to him meant following the whim of what felt right regardless of irrationality, because its what forms the base of kinship in the first place. Love so closely correlates to madness, at least that's what Agent Smith said. When has The Matrix ever led anyone astray, he thought. And he felt not love for her, but an irrational approach is valid all the same when you like someone. Once fear fades irrationality is what keeps you footed in this plane of existence. He wondered mostly two things.


Lying about the bed still considering prior events he grew silent and tossed and turned a bit in search of comfort. Eventually he lied there, staring at the ceiling, doing nothing and thinking little. He brought the paper within grasp and lied down with pen hovering over it like the earth's most insignificant sword of Damocles. He was getting close to the end of thinking and the beginning of action. It had been one of those inspired moments and surely would lead to fruitful writing. His mind became quickly distracted again. A bed is no place to forget a woman, he thought. It reminded him of the great place they both stayed, just to visit, where they both came at once. He thought of all the misconstrued reasons she thought a man might want to see a girl repeatedly, and how hard it might be to undo a thousand years of stereotypes of sex drives and rough egos and a libidos with sophistication comparable to yard animals. He wondered if she was a fairweather lover. He was proud to have coined the term, a play on words that seemed to accurately describe things, albeit a bit unsure. It was a concern that a girl might destroy a calender full of pictures of good times over a few red marks on rainy days. But it mattered not, because the female didn't care and didn't attach easily and all these things people use to ease themselves when they fear their feelings. He wondered if she knew he had gone seven years without someone, more or less isolated, the same length of time it takes for every cell in a person's body to regenerate. He wondered if she knew he had been caged and re-created like Frankenstein and reborn according to the words of science. He wondered if events would cause her to recall a painting they discussed. "Fairweather Lover" might make a good title, he thought. People like that sort of unabashed melodrama. He wondered mostly two things.


He decided to stop the delusion and admit personal remorse is inseparable from the poem, the painting, the picture, the story. I don't want to suspend disbelief. I want to be believed, he thought. There's no way he nor any writer worth a salt could write a word of fiction. Truth is what we seek, and it permeates the most ludicrous fantasy or dream. A few tell-tale memories and lines dialogue came through reverberating. Her pledge to disown an ex if requested was a consideration he did not entertain. It wasn't worth it to be an asshole, not even to a conniving worm during a trip to the Pacific Northwest where she all but begged for rescue. He recalled a self-serving apology. He remembered being left in the dark. He laid back teething his pen and staring at the blank canvas of a ceiling representing all the room still left to write another page. Most telling was the time they encountered a panhandler on the street and she stopped to speak, politely declining his request for money. When pressed, she mentioned not acknowledging someone denies a person their humanity. And here he was, the studied project of a love affair, denied as much regard as suitable for a beggar. Bums get a bad rap, he thought. Perhaps panhandlers are seen as lesser because beggars can't be choosers and our ability to decide is what makes us human. Don't go back to distracting yourself, he thought.

Through this he wondered mostly two things. One was if she would look back at the time fondly, an oddly persistent question. The other, he forgot. It had loitered his head like a begging man delirious with need. Had it been bogus, this whole thing. How could a person's humanity ever take second place to apathy. It may make sense after all, he thought. We go out of our way to shroud our problems in metaphors and fantastical stories so no one notices when they breakdown. One side can claim they were wrong and make like things are resolved but it's not the case. There's no bow on it, or else no word would get written. No word regarding feeling need be written again, he thought. He slowly pushed paper from the edge of the bed. He found his way back to selfishness since it's what really spelled the end. That fault was entirely his. He couldn't feign friendship like he couldn't write a story about a girl, or helping others, or settling a score. He could only consider his faults like a dog chasing its tail. He could only whimper over the abuse in hope of a mercy killing. He could only wonder if his hidden attempts to maim and mend were hidden enough and hope they weren't. He couldn't write at all for he hadn't a reason to start, let alone see it to completion. Or his motivations would be self-serving reasons. A desire for closure, a meeting, an understanding of which he was not deserving. He had no interest, no wisdom to bestow, no catch, only some indefinable impulse toward meeting an end. He tried to remember one thing.

Yeon Xes Zorbis, Or: The Greatest Band That Ever Existed

Little is known about me on the web or by the inhabitants of "reality." In the early '70s, I acquired copious cash money, and have lived off that and the vegetables that will grow on my sandy island. It all started with my band, "Yeon Xes Zorbis," or as some know it: the greatest band that ever existed.

It was around 1969 when I began experimenting with a drug that would change my life forever — unfiltered hatred of hippies. My travels found me abroad where I met a mystic in the then Soviet Union. He was a strange, silent, bearded man, that refused to speak, and communicated only through drawings and sign language. He recommended a man of my personality type would best seek enlightenment in the mountainous regions of northern India. After a few hours contemplation and a long distance, over-the-phone divorce from my loving wife, I was on my way.

My travels lead me bare foot (you try to get leather sandals in India) across desert sands, jungles, swamps, and lakes. Aside from the threats of mosquitoes, deadly snakes, and hypothermia, my trip was generally successful and without peril — after I killed the seventeen bears inhabiting the cave I was destined to call my home. Don't worry, the bear children were spared and only slaughtered for feast once they were of age (R.I.P. Bobo Jr.).

This isolation stirred my spirit and sparked lucid dreams. Yet, I wasn't wholly alone. There were other gurus, journeymen, musicians and mad scientists hanging about in the nearby caves. It was like an apartment complex for pseudo-enlightened posers. Occasionally we'd socialize and share wives and beers, but for the most part, nights in the mountain-caves were cold and lonely. All of us went on to do great things. One of the wives became a prominent witch in West Africa. Tool Time's Al Borland got his start in construction there. The man next door's home was filled with bats, which later inspired an immensely popular comic book superhero, "Guy Who Hates Bats."

Back to isolation. So yes, I was mostly isolated and shit, eating grass and local wildlife to survive when not contemplating matter, crystals, and the life-force. The deafening silence cleared my thoughts to an eerie point. All television's brainwashing was undone. All of my schooling done gone unlearned. All the hippies were out of sight and mind. And within that silence, came the sounds.

Music is what began to play in my ears. Like the later works of Bach and Beethoven, only pretty, it played and mated with like-minded musical textures inside my domespace. Instruments and sounds meshed together, blending and blooming like the most beautiful, erotic, fat-assed roses. Those initial moments of inner growth were the highlight of my life — before witnessing Sister Act in 1997. Only in this isolation and quiet could the magnificent sounds manifest, and I began to write them down in boar's blood on a nearby wall. It was exciting to receive this gift from God. It's as if all the sounds from my past had been sifted, and lifted from that were the C.R.E.A.M. of the crop.

After a week and all that jazz, I got tired of using animal blood and contacted my artist friend — who dubbed himself "Quagnon vem Bario" — to borrow some paper and charcoal. Writing the music down became an obsession. Meanwhile, my dreams were becoming more lucid than before, and the ones about strangling cats stopped. Instead, they were replaced with dreams of my power animal, a short-necked giraffe with tiger stripes. There was only one thing I needed to do before leaving India: finally attain true enlightenment.

To celebrate my successful and more frequent lucid dreams, I began blood-letting. I also stopped hanging out with the Guru Gang, drinking their cavebrew, and abstained from self-touching for at least several weeks. In addition to all this jazz, I boxed the rocky walls like Rocky, practiced punting nearby swans, cooked stews made primarily from water and wallflowers, and meditated from a bed of flaming coals. This led to what I believe was my permanent bout of enlightenment.

On one peculiar night — after heavy meditation, song-writing and swan-kicking — it came in the most lucid wet dream. My power animal ran up to me and mouthed the words "Yeon Xes Zorbis." The giraffe then cleared his throat, and added, "That, my son, is the keystone — the rite of passage toward conquering your own being, gaining stability on the narrow but true path, and tagging lots of hot pussycat." Bewildered, I did not let my poppin' nerves get to me. "You must bathe in the blood of lamb and stop kicking swan," he continued, "That is what my words mean, in addition to their several other definitions, and then there are interpretations and yadda yadda etcetera. You know how that bulljazz goes, my loving son." Through telepathy, I let him know that I understood, and gave thanks. Only a couple days later, I left to the States.

Upon arriving home to my castle in California, I snubbed my music friends Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Arvo Part, who were all doing some benefit gig for — not against — breast cancer. Their music is petty, indulgent drivel, I thought, compared to the opuses and poetry retained in — and later written from — my spirit-soul. Over the next few years, I began to experiment by playing these delightful songs and anthems, both with preexisting and self-made instruments. I sent an early tape to my then best friend Old Charlie Manson, who quoted, "These joints are pretty rockin', dog." He went on to do great things... with music.

There was one small problem. The songs were too good. It was like God came down from the heavens and shat his inconceivable holiness upon mankind. The masses weren't ready for it, but who can prepare for such a revolutionary, intelligent, and truly transcendental work of art? They were made on makeshift instruments, including all the four elements. Burning wood chips, hammers, controlled fires, exploding automobiles, pistol-whipped cats, cocaine, jugs of water, a flux capacitor, and boxing nun puppet covered in mud, were all used to transfer the sounds in my head into audio. Innovation was the backbone of the sound. Naturally, I knew exactly what to call the band when the final print was pressed — Yeon Xes Zorbis.

Von Bon-Bon Quak Yabbo was the title for the debut effort. The album stayed at the top of the charts for years in America, besting Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. The public reaction and praise was dopeloco. The recordings caused John Lennon to recant and admit he now believed in God. He also reportedly whispered, "I'm a hack, please shoot me," constantly to himself after hearing ...Quak Yabbo. The Beatles broke up shortly thereafter.


The album that changed the world.
At the height of our fame, the backing band and I played live shows all over the place. We would improvise. Some nights we'd just chop wood on stage and while humming. Others, we'd strum violin strings with vintage holy ornaments to hear the sound it would produce. One concert in Rio, our sound comprised nothing other than mic'd foosball tables, with panhandling wiccans furiously playing them in exchange for lunch. The crowd went ape-crazy for it. Typically, we included our fan-favorite single, "Does a Brain Cry?" during the encore.

Yet good things often come to an end. The band was banned. Kids listening to the impossibly great work stopped abusing drugs, and listened to this record instead. It's said the music was so incomprehensibly good, it took three listens before you actually heard anything. The audio was so intricately layered, it induced relaxation and euphoria amongst listeners, akin to that of heroin. Others simply couldn't handle the complexity and turned into vegetables. Kids dropped out of school per their audio addiction. In the coming years, cassettes proved dangerous, as people would crash into 7-11s and trains while strung out on this divine music of hope and transcendence.

This started my depression. I wondered how great a band could really be. The purpose of a music made better to me, meant to go above and beyond; to defy limits; to blend calculated intelligence and unconscious honesty; to comfort and satiate the audience by maintaining high art, in the context of time and modern life; to create the brightest, most vibrant art of which my soul is humanly possible; to bring the funk so bodaciously, young teenage girls would drench themselves upon hearing the bassline.

The few who didn't become zealously attached to the music, didn't get it or protested it. Amongst fans, Yeon were treated as the auditory equivalent of God. Others held an aversion, denouncing the sound as the work of Satan. With the banning, riots began between the fans and the government. Eventually, it was declared illegal to even mention Yeon Xes Zorbis, and that's why you won't find it on Google. All recordings were burned or trashed.

Since then, isolation is all I've known. Much like my time in India's mountainous regions, I've returned to world without peril, and with a pessimistic view toward society and projecting a positive influence upon it. This injustice perpetuates my confusion in regards to human understanding, paralyzing any ability to write or create new ideas. Left with me is only the knowledge that the world isn't ready for high art, as mo'fuckas never get it, anyway.

There's nothing left to show from this fallen empire. No records, no pictures, no ticket stubs. A guru friend of mine is still in prison for having a rare copy of the album (I'll find a way to free you, Mumia Abu-Jamal). Nothing exists but millions of dollars and this gargantuan island. Aside from the album cover, only medical records prove my role in the greatest band that ever existed. 6,000 groupies and every STD in the book later, this man's managed to still stand, broken spirit and all.

originally posted 10.12.2009

Yes, No, Yadda, Etc.

Samantha brought Charles back to her apartment through seduction. A kind cold and calculated, with the lure of no strings, and it sold. He was made to expect one final fuck, a farewell. A no hard feelings, good luck with future endeavors sort of thing. That, and she offered to return the few dozen records he had gifted the girl over the years.

Upon his arrival, Charles noticed the changes in his ex after the months unspoken. She has lost a dozen pounds, seemed proudly content and level-headed, and had shaved her lush brown hair to stubble. The hair was the big shocker, but she's the kind of girl that can pull anything off. Her new appearance mimicked that of her soul at its lowest heart rate, at its most pure. Her eyebrows had lost width, too, as they were recently tweezed.

They shared wine and spoke well but reserved. It was congenial yet objective, and more clinical than a doctor visit. Her deceit was planned and uncanny. Upon inviting Charles to the bedroom, Samantha immediately took control of their intimacy. She undressed them both, and stayed on top of Charles, eyes open and glaring down at him in an almost predatory fashion. After the fuck finished, she got up and returned with two refilled wine glasses. Getting in bed, she clicked on to Discovery, a channel she hated but Charlie loved.

They drank the wine. For a good few moments it almost felt like old times. They were both sane and in bed doing nothing important as it had been when they were in love. Eventually, Samantha guided a sluggish and slurring Charles up and into the patio area in only his boxer briefs. The patio was past the kitchen, right behind of the house.

"I want you to tell me what you think of what I've done," she said.

Charles entered the patio. "Where's the light?" He asked as a door slammed behind him and locked. At this point he was too tipsy and indifferent to realize what happened. "Okay, got it." He spun in a circle noticing the patio room with its boarded up windows and exit door. "Looks the same to me," he shouted, "Just empty and no more band posters." He grabbed at the door to the patio's entrance to return to the living room, but it wasn't budging. At the center of the door was a diamond-shaped window missing its glass. Charles was drunk and perplexed.

Samantha slowly stepped toward the opening in the door and used it as a speak hole, whispering, "I've locked you in."

"What?" replied Charlie, continuing to struggle with the door's knob. "Open. Open up you stupid cunt! I only came here for the records."

Samantha peeked her head near the opening, "It's so hard to have an open and honest dialogue with you. This may seem insane, but you've driven me to it. You're in no position to be vulgar." Charles could hear the creaks in her steps as she left to the fridge and tinkered in the medicine cabinets. She threw bottled water and a couple of aspirin through the hole. "You should be sobering up."


Charles stood with his back to the crimson door dividing the two. Their voices were only slightly distorted by their separation, adding a distinct sort of echo and power to their words. "I have nothing to say to you on a personal level. Holding me hostage won't solve anything."

"You've held me hostage. You're manipulative and controlling and just because you can articulate yourself better at times doesn't make that alright. And it certainly doesn't mean I can't be just as crafty when I put my mind to it. Take this for example. This is all your doing."

The man noted how a voice he thought angelic could quickly take on a demonic tone given a quick change in context. He leaned his back against the red door. "This is a horrible thing to do to someone in this state of mind. I'm not saying anything to you regarding us."

"That's your choice. You don't have to, just like I don't have to open this door."

"You're fucking crazy."

"No. You merely perceive me that way. What I really am-whatever I'm doing-is entirely a response to your behavior. I'm doing something entirely rational for how you've treated me. If you're really thinking I'm a fucking nut now, you know what you are for driving me to this extreme. You're worse."

Charles was silent.

Samantha continued, "You're just pathetic. Everything about you is a scheme. You're just like you say your father is. You think seven steps ahead just so can predict people ahead of time. Guess what, that's not human. Then you say awful things, but your self-pity and self-hate is your excuse. It's not an excuse. You're an asshole and you know it, so you should change, but you won't. You're too hard-headed and hard-wired in your ways to ever be reached."

Charles stayed silent.

"Am I getting through to you?"

"...You've said it all before in variations."

"Shut the fuck up," She sternly responded. "You've got a glib response for any situation, no matter how unrelated."

Charles paused a moment, before adding, "Most situations aren't that complicated, at their core. Everything relates."

"You're so well-versed in this bullshit philosophy of yours. I know what your friends don't, that your hard shell is bullshit; camouflage."

"Yes, I've heard this," Charles insisted. "Yeah, 'Everything I believe is a gray area,' then you say I use this to be vague and hide weakness, etcetera, etcetera."

"It's the truth. The truth you can't confess. Locking you up isn't a desperate measure. I don't want to be with you, be in bed with you, or be near you. That fuck was as meaningless as you wanted it to be. I just want to hear it from you, about me, and about your flaws-the big ones. Not the petty ones where you say you procrastinate or something simple."

Charles said not a word.

Samantha continued to stand near the door Charles was locked behind. "You're so difficult, only because you want to be. It's pathetic. You're a grown man. I pity the girl you run into next."

Charles didn't speak.

"You're difficult just for the fuck of it." Samantha was letting it all out while Charles stayed locked up and forced to listen. "I don't care about you just as you don't care about me. But you hide, and you run away from problems, and you avoid any potential hostility with mad skill yet you pepper on the passive aggression like mad. ...Say something."

Charles took a sip of his water.

"Only you can't run now. You've shit your own bed. After so many years you leave without word. Yes what happened is fucked, but it almost pales now in comparison to how fucked you're being. You selfishly just want to avoid all hurt at all costs, but if you took the time to look closer or empathize at all for once, you'd see I'm hurting and it would hurt you more." Samantha was finding her rhythm. "It would hurt you more to avoid me than to simply spill it. And here I am trying to humanize myself because you have the ability to shut yourself off like a machine when you sense things are getting too hot. I'm a real person, though I'm not treated as one. I wake and shit and shower and shave my legs and curl iron my hair, and occasionally, I think of you. And it's always something good, and it's always something bad. I still don't talk to my Mom. I'm still in love with my dog. I still play your records even if I don't like them. I still hate kids. I'm still upset over what happened."

Charles said nothing.

Samantha brought her lips closer to the opening. "I don't want anything from you. I don't want you in my house. I certainly don't want you as my caged pet. All I desire is your honesty in response to mine. To say what you think and feel about me after what we've been through. Which may not be much, but if my life and well-being aren't significant to you at this point, you're an incredible liar. After everything, you could at least invest your thoughts so I can better myself as a person. I want that from you, not your avoidant personality. After years together I'd expect that courtesy, but the only way to get something out of you is under the pretext of fucking. I've needed to get this off my chest but all you do is ignore me. Now you have to hear my words. Give me your drunken honesty now that you're locked up and can't throw anything. You've driven me near insane. You waste of fucking flesh. You can't do anything well outside of cumming and being shy and ignoring things and playing the part of a broken man. My only solace is knowing you're worse. My madness can't begin to match yours. But today you've met your match. I'm lowered to your level and you're not getting out until you explain yourself." Samantha leaned against the door and slid down to a sitting position.

Charles was silent a good while, and sitting now, too. "It's so many things... it's..." Charles struggled to articulate, "a bit of everything. Even as friends, before us, I adored you and admitted it. Or maybe that's what I said I felt. I don't know what I am, like most people. I am a liar, though not on the surface." Charles leaned his head on the door. "I am... a liar to myself, with my delusions-white lies I've told myself to make my life easier, to make me more approachable, to make me seem more human. I've repeated them so often I don't doubt that they're true even now. In my mind I have a great deal of confidence, in reality I'm not sure it's a good deal. Like the way I act fearless during confrontation so I have no weakness to exploit. It's easier to not do this face-to-face, by the way, I'm not sure if that was your intention. ...Perhaps I'm oppressive, certainly I'm conniving. I would've notice how fucked it had gotten had I not fell for it myself. This is the stuff you want to hear, right?" Charles paused. "But I've a temper as well. When I grabbed you and pushed you, I know it hurt me more than you. You have no idea. I'm not pulling some self-pity trick either. I know it's no consolation but I'm not trying to console you. I hate you the way you hate me. Its funny you mention my gray areas so often when I only see things in black and white. I'm one extreme or the other. Anyone not a friend is an enemy. But it makes sense in a way: action and reaction, yes and no, yadda, etcetera."

"I walked out. I left you. I left you in the dark. I changed my number. You'd still catch up to me. You always confused me. The way I am with extremes, you are with moods. They know only hot and cold. And all these confusing things factor in, until I'm lost and the cost of sanity is to shut myself off. I am not good or bad, not that I want to be in the gray area, but neither side has sold me yet. So I walk the line and it's a great weight in trying to decide between the two. It's simplistic and maybe wrong, but we're either all unconditionally compassionate or we're all cannibalistic. ...I rarely articulate myself this well, it must be the wine. I don't know which of those I believe humans are, but as it stands, I love you and hate you. Regardless of that, my gut tells me I want nothing to do with you. Another part of me says something different, I'm sure, but I've shut it down, so it's irrelevant."

"I only really tell you the good things I feel about you, so I guess you want the bad. You're shallow and neglectful and ...indifferent, but not always. You have some naive belief that all your friends are well-meaning. You're just as conniving. You don't lie on paper but use truth at your own convenience. You know, you won't lie but you'll carefully work around things that will make you look bad. How am I supposed to react to your words like, 'I kinda like when men ignore me'? On one hand I thought less of you, on the other I understand. By the end of weighing all these things I don't know how to be a man or if I am one. That's just one example. But somewhere a line must be drawn, right? Even in gray areas lines are drawn to separate the grays from the grayer grays. Eventually the garbage was going to snowball to a point where something happened. Yes and no, yes and no, yes and no... I don't know. I'm trying to keep my train of thought." Charles was quiet a moment.

"You're equally psychotic. Don't try to weigh it. What am I supposed to say, everything at its utmost extreme? Are you like me in that way, black and white? Was I supposed to mention the weight you gained, or how I don't like when your ironed hair curls up after sex or a shower and gets all messy? Should I have mentioned your shy awkwardness and referenced your disdain for my friends? These are small things, like symptoms or something, not the real illness. And I know what this is about: our attachment and how you still want to be friendly. You've got a wide-eyed goodness and want to be friends with everyone. I can't not draw a line, because... life without lines is chaos. I can't be all-accepting and not have views like that. Having no views is a view. You approached me in your flirtatious way, then decided you didn't want to-drawing your line. Yet I drew my line around a different version of you. We cancel each other out."

Samantha said nothing.

"You're right on the money with most of my flaws. I ignored you for so long and it was dreadful, and I am worse than you, no doubt. Sadder still I resent you for not doing more, knowing full well you cared a bit and I didn't care at all. You're sly enough to fuck without love. While I'm primal and angry and close, and all these things you don't seek. And I really do resent you, for the games you've played. Sure, I like being difficult, in the way you like drama. You give attention only when ignored or berated. You'd rather a man treat you like shit than be bored. It's difficult to understand. I don't know who I am or what to be."

"You fucked up and fled the crime scene."

"I do what my intelligence and confusion and ignorance dictate." Charles paused, "Why insist on continuing this?"

"The need to know."

"Nothing can be known."

"Yet somehow you know that."

Samantha unlocked the door.

Her eyes began to moisten. She added, "You continue with the same self-pity. You're worse than me no doubt? Please, stop. I appreciate your ability to finally be honest, or more honest than usual. I've cried for you. More often then not it's not about hurt, but loss, stupid longing. It wasn't your hurt so much as it was the arrogance in your words, willing to discard everything that came before them. It was your inability to just 'get it.' It's the good in you that made me sad." Samantha left to sit down at her table.

Charlie got up and opened the red door. He sat at the table next to Samantha. They were not facing each other. He sat silent a great while. "I'm forever in limbo. I don't know what I want. My meanness brought about yours. I made you frown, but felt I deserved a chance for every time I made you smile. I left because I always fuck everything up and don't know why, and don't want to be a part of that mess. That's why I haven't been with anyone. I don't want to believe cruelty is the currency of the world, but it's the side I've seen. And anyone without a bit of sadism in their blood doesn't have a pulse."

"I don't agree with you," she said.

"I don't know what I mean. I don't know what's right. Maybe you were right to say you think life's a good thing. I don't believe all the good between us could just fly off in thin air. But nothing's perfect."

"Everything's perfect." She stood up, Charles soon followed. They faced each other in a corner of the cozy kitchen. "And you said life is a bad thing. It's neither. It's probably indifferent. Maybe you're right and we're all sadistic. I can be cruel and far from perfect, but that predator/prey stuff is mostly an excuse to be bad. And what isn't perfect? If we can think it and talk about it, we can change it. It's all just so strange."

The couple embraced.

They both wept a timid amount but neither party could see. Samantha said silently, "I don't want to hear from you ever again."

Charles kissed the side of her face. He pulled back to look at her, "I know. I understand."

"I know. That's why I hate you," said she with a smile.

Dedicated to that nameless person you perceive a certain person to be.

Healthy Delusion

Nolan knelt before Emma's grave and placed a flower near its base. "I'm here thinking to myself, and wondering if somehow you can hear this. I suppose I could say it aloud but if I believe in spirits I should believe in their telepathy. Somehow speaking to you was easier before now, in my head, when I was lying in bed just thinking about what I'd tell you if you hadn't gone. Now that I'm finally seeing your grave my thoughts are messy. I didn't bring you a rose because you hated them - what woman with class wouldn't? They're too cliche. What we shared was a bit better than some simplified version of romance and cardboard hearts. Instead I brought you a flower from the park you always took me to. I don't even know what kind it is, but it's pretty, and it's significant somehow. I didn't talk to you for so long before you passed away, even if it was only a few days. You needed kindness. That's everyone's need, it's immediate. There's a quote I like that goes, 'There's no time not to love.' ...It's much easier said." Nolan let out a sigh.

"There are many things I'd like to say, like how any man must know absolute despair before he's prepared to appreciate real happiness. Any man or woman. There, are you happy? Misery and cruelty are unpleasant things but they forge an understanding. It's a good thing. Maybe not a good thing, but a necessary one. For instance, now that you're gone, it's hard on me. I've been miserable long enough to get over your missteps and can only focus on my mess ups. I can look at others' actions in a positive light but nothing I've done gets the courtesy. I'm bad, if I wasn't, you might still be alive. You're in heaven now, maybe, where you belong. You know I don't believe that, though. You're six feet below me and you're decaying matter, so why am I here and speaking to you? Your family wanted you to have this stupid stone and they don't even realize it's the last thing you would've wanted."

"It's so easy to say now that I've had guilt, when it was impossible to say before. Why should this be easier in death? It's non-sense. An apology never solved a single shit. Instead, I'd try to make up for it by doing good things and buying you things, but I'm sure it came off transparent and pathetic. I don't really believe that, you were kind and gentle to my gestures. But it's hard not to be hard on yourself. Without some suffering, you can't remove the little pricks of pain that come with misunderstandings, or understand how they come about. And I know this has been said before. It's certainly not news to a smart girl like you. 'If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man's life a sadness and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.' That's a quote by Henry Wadsworth something. It applies. And the ridding hostility part isn't about letting people walk all over you, it's about not holding hate and resentment when you judge and treat others."

"My view on things is cold, yet somehow understanding, for even the bad things. This didn't match well with you, with your frailty and kind-hearted naivete. I'm not wholly understanding, but somewhere I fell for the silly notion of unconditional love... so long as I have cages and keys for the people who disagree with me. Everything's contradictory, because some things aren't. It's not easier in death. I'm not really talking to you. It's easier in life to say what you need to say but we avoid it as if there's any great fear or consequence that could result. It's all in our heads. Is it because it's easier to deal with pain if we emotionally play dead? That's the excuse for our slow unraveling of delusions and deceptions and fears. But it's just that, smoke and mirrors. But hey, what's wrong with smoke and mirrors? Are they not entertaining?" Nolan let out a sigh. "Sometimes hurting others is the only way react to hurt. Admittedly it's an archaic method. But see I've been speaking in general terms, like I'm giving a lecture, 'cause I can't admit it to someone who's not alive, or even myself. Here goes: I hurt you. You've passed away."

"The time I went to see you, some hours by train, I was afraid. It had been so long since my last visit. I feared you'd be indifferent since our time ended on a bad note. More than that I feared I would die in a trainwreck. I'm always thinking about death, but nothing amplifies that feeling like the potential for joy, because then something's at stake. Things are only exciting when you walk the tracks, and there, awful things are unavoidable. I feared dying without knowing if you cared, but more so I feared dying without you knowing that I did. Imagine your life flashed before your eyes and you were left with uncertainty. Then it happened. I hope you died without doubts. I have a long life to ponder it, and study and try to justify my actions, all for cowardice and coincidence and an inability to communicate. I wish you were around to whisper to me, 'It's okay, I understand,' and finally be aligned and honest, and read each other perfectly for a minute, just one. I think that only happens in movies, or in great circumstances involving brave men, not cowards who shy away from words."

"You're gone and I shouldn't expect a response from a ghost. Maybe it's better left ambiguous. I can delude myself into some implausible scenario where all the wrongs were eventually corrected. Instead I'll say perfection awaits the day you come back to life. I'd rather hold the delusion that somehow things can be mended, for the sake of my health. But perhaps I didn't care much if I was willing to let you die. Sorry I couldn't cry here. I'm not owed the satisfaction. I won't come back to visit you. You better than anyone know how out of the ordinary it is for me to dabble in the supernatural like this. That and I don't want to bump into your family. If there's anything good I can tell you before I'm gone from you like you are to me, I'll go with what works... sleep well, sweet dreams." Nolan slowly got up and walked away.

The Purposeless Detective

Life is rough. That's why I got in the game. I spent my time on the streets drinking from a flask and looking for purpose, even if it was trouble. You walk the crowded streets of a city and you're bound to run into something. Someone's going to hassle you, someone's going to speak to you, someone's going to sell you on something.

Me, I'm not too lonely, just bored. That's why I wandered in the living painting of this city's nightlife, just another brush stroke against the bright lights and the deep shadows. I'm tired of work, but I rarely do. I schemed to make ends meet. I sought solace in the peep shows, the strip clubs, stolen cable with its porn channels. Yet eventually there's that point you get to where you sink or swim. That's when I joined my line of work.

Having a familiarity with this city's seedy underbelly has worked quite well to my advantage. I've seen things bizarre that would sound ugly on paper, but the more you deal with morbidity, it's more funny than anything else. I've hit clubs with hidden hallways leading to the underground. People are drinking, doing drugs and fucking but it's all in their idea of good fun. The kinky stuff usually goes on someplace upstairs, but the freakish shit always goes down in the basement. The middle ground is for those who haven't picked a side, a sort of purgatory for the normal. Whatever you call it, it's all right beneath the surface. All of it resides in a dike just 6ft below the normal waking earth.

I have no judgment for the drag queens, the coke heads, the submissives tied and clamped, the self-mutilating types, the lost and the bored. I'm no different. I've got the same disease just a more advanced strand. I have laws to uphold but I don't fly straight. My work is undercover. I don't waste time taking bait from the degenerates and lowlifes at the bottom. They're puppets to their vices. It's the men at the top that I want. That's my draw. The real dealers and the murderers. That's what got me this job. That's what cured my depression and erased most my angst and boredom.

It's all an act from the outside, but inside, I fit right in. I don't relate to these people but I remain fascinated. I've seen snitches cut up and never heard from again but I've never been sniffed out as one. Those fallen fools go in my paperwork as part of crimes so corrupt and large they couldn't stick in court. The make a lie big enough and keep telling it thing is true. The head at the tops' tentacles reach so far down and hold such an influence, even most the bigger crime I come across gets written down rather than reported.

But this all changed, because I was a bored motherfucker with purpose. That's the key to creating ambition. That's the motivator without interest. Give me something to do with this talent God's granted me. He gave me arms so I could grab handles and mow the lawn. He gave me creativity to put two and two together. He bestowed boredom to whip me for ever lagging behind. Like the criminals and their strings tied to every part of this town, I'm strung along, too. The lasso is wrapped around my leg but at least I know it, and I know I'll never free myself.

Dragging along, I rid this dark town of crime and disease, but I ain't any happier. What's purpose once it's gone? What's a detective to do when he's righted all the wrongs? I can't rejoice. I've been strung along by God and it's not my choice. Of course, God's always been a synonym for fate. Some said love. Some claimed love. A girl I tried to love told me that's what God was. It isn't, God is fate. And after I finished solving the last crime all that was left was contemplation's overbearing weight. Back to the basics, back to beginning. To call it pointless would be redundant.

This free time only leads to thought of free will. I've read and watched videos on the subject, but as I get deeper I'm subject to tunnel vision. I've read philosophers in all their wisdom trying to convince themselves life's worth living. Even though there's no real control and we're just pulsing vessels with souls craving gratification. It's a rigged game forced down a path and not even a frown will change that.

They gave me a medal for my work. But what good's a detective without murder? As good as The Sun without Earth. As good as a mother without her kids. I'm a man without purpose. I was never smart or deserving of any authority. I never had stern ethics, a straight face or merit. Why am I writing this? I guess retelling this shitty story is therapeutic.

I tried to do things right. I'm a vegetarian but ate meat amongst murderers. I had to kill a man and didn't seem to mind. It proved to the bosses I was cold-blooded. Had I said no, they would've known and it would've been my life. I would've been shot on sight. That's a fair price. You can bet that was never written down in any reports. It's a game of chess with these fellas. If you want to take down the king you can't fear to lose a knight, a bishop or a queen. Especially not a dame, and lost mine I did. So you knock off a peon, so what? it's not like it keeps me up at night. As ugly as it sounds, an end can justify the means. Of course, I don't really mean that. But once it's started, it's started. It spirals infinitely and there's no stopping it. Like when the Bible speaks of original sin. I am born in the wrong.

It just keeps going. So much so it's bleeding into a second paragraph. There's no justification for any evil but once you do it's a free-for-all. That's what I believe now. I can't claim there's such a thing as "a little perversion." It's pollution that doesn't dissipate with care. It's part of our beings and we've got to find a way to deal with it. It fluctuates but it won't go away. It's an ugly curse and innate. That's what I believe, anyhow. These beliefs help me deal with God's fate and that idea of original sin. You can't plant a dead thing in earth and expect it to blossom.

Yet sometimes I want to cease writing words to no one and believe the lies. Like the dame that inspired me to believe roses weren't ugly and she shit them. Even if for a moment, that feeling of growing up under God and Santa Claus returns to you, warm and enveloping. Humans are good, life's a good thing, and all these other enticing simplicities. My wandering mind and detective work freed this city of crime. I've got paychecks to spend as I wish, but instead I'm buying and eating from cans of beans and stuffing my face over the sink. I just eat to make my stomach shut up, it's not the reason I'm living. It's not my calling.

If things reverted back to purity I'd probably be as insignificant as water or even less. There'd be no carnivores or herbivores, it would all regress. When it got hot I would boil and steam, and when it got cold I would freeze, but nothing more. That would be a life without perversion, murder, deceit, and hardons, but who says those are bad things? Think of the humor death breathes into comedy. Think of the strange way joy is influenced by suffering.

Evil's not going to end and I don't understand these strings pulling me at my shoulders. I could move to another district and solve their crimes, but solving these didn't solve mine. I didn't learn a goddamn thing. I studied the criminals, bled, wept, killed, and tried, yet I'm back at the beginning. God teases me as I sit in my messy studio working on sketches. He brought me back to old friend alcohol and cigarettes. These aren't going to kill me. A dame's as good as dead to me outside a rough exterior. These gripes and vices lead me here and shut her out. She was collateral damage in my cure. Sorry if you don't understand this, it's poorly written. That's what happens when you write selfishly.

I guess I'm neglecting part of the story. The glimmering light of hope that obscures your pessimism, that dresses up your suffering under the disguise of redemption. A lass, the type of person fate sent you as bait, until you're cooking for her and buying Christmas presents. You're taking her on dates and neglecting your true love, skepticism. It's flesh and a kiss at a cost, but which? A little piece of you, but that could mean everything. It could be the last inch of you that impedes your progress toward happiness or your true being. Maybe that lack of lucidity is key, I don't know.

Those ideas went rotten and ended in my bin. Now I've got a new plot to do away with God's damning, endless noise. And fate's string that guides me through this lovely, ugly city. I'll leave my town in perversion the way I found it. How, I don't know yet. But I'm capable. And anything beats a bored soul. And only rebellion gives you the truest illusion of control. Maybe I'll blow a hole in the prison and help free all the convicts. Or commit unthinkable crime to really stir up some shit. And make the leap from hunting to hunted. Rationality never made much sense to me, not when it leaves you on empty.

With all those bloody crime scenes, there's still nothing sinister enough. Even all the heinous stories I've heard don't impress me, in my mind I've done worse. There's no dirty alley filled with junkies, whores and worms darker than the human psyche. I want to really make the mayor proud, make his stomach turn. I've got to go all out against the innocent, not the wicked. For idling, for believing they're innocent. Using every bit of wisdom the job's given me to be proactive. Long-lasting. Exacting. Perhaps balance can be restored through hideous acts of murder, manipulation and other depravity, and help perpetuate the inevitable. There's no cure for boredom. There's no answer that's certain.