and all they had under the overcast sky was a small boat they shared
The old man would drink from afternoon till morning and sleep all day He wasn’t good for much. Had cancer of the liver and enough kidney stones to add about a newborn’s weight in his core
“So I’m drinking,” he said. “Cuz I wanna bring it earlier. My end.”
“Well,” said the girl. “You’re drinking my money. I work hard for that shit, you know?”
“Shut up,” said the old man. “You’ll have all the money in the world after I’m gone. You can sell the boat and maybe borrow some money and get yourself a small, cozy apartment somewhere.”
“You’re delusional,” said the girl. “With the money this boat’s worth I’ll be lucky to get me a doormat. Used.”
“Don’t be disrespectful now,” said the old man. “I love this here boat like my wife.”
“You never had a wife.”
“Well shit! I love her as if she were my wife, okay? And she’s worth something. She’s worth a lot, I tell you. If you think she won’t be enough to get you started nicely in life, well, you should’ve gotten yourself a husband.”
“I don’t need a fucking husband. I’ll get one after I get out of poverty, not before.”
The old man watched the gray clouds above. It might as well have been grass to his eyes. “Oh, I sure hope to see that day from the other world. You think I’ll have to look up to see it? Or down?”
The girl didn’t answer
“Anyway,” said the old man. “I’m sure it’ll happen one day, my dear. Until then... Keep writing, okay? You’ll come out with the hit eventually. I know I haven’t been of much use to you in this life. But hey, maybe in the next. Maybe, as God reaches with his hand to take me above, I’ll bite off his little finger and spit it on the boat to you. Use it as a pen. See if you’ll write with it a story no eye could ever ignore. I want this for you, my dear. Even if I’ll trade my heaven for it.”
“Oh, you crazy old man.”
“I’m a serious crazy old man. Crazy enough to see heaven in you making it with your writings, dear. Thus, no matter how bad or evil I’ve been I know I’ll be going to heaven. I believe in you.”
She said nothing. Handed him a can of beer and went back to her writing
she got him in the left temple with the steel skewer
She could tell the kid was expecting it and just gave up the fight, the struggle
it all ended in that night
for all of them
except for her
Her life just then began
and four and a half years later we from the facility call her Nill and attend her daily sermons in the art room
She tells us about the futility of life for the human being. How it’s nothing but a cancer in the fabric of reality, an anomaly that grows and grows and corrupts healthy tissue
but don’t let the theme fool you
this is not about human beings polluting the planet and hurting it
No. It’s far more spiritual than that. It’s metaphysical
The cancer is the human being’s ego. The part that desires to create things in its own image, to serve it, to admire it
Wasn’t everything so perfect before? Plants and animals and fungi were just here. Going on about their flat existence. It was perfect. But then the anomaly, the cancer suddenly came into being. The human
capable of thought. Therefore of creation. The only living being capable of creation, capable of being more than its natural instincts
We should have gone extinct a long, long time ago
had it happened everything would’ve been pure to this day
The only salvation is then for all of us to accept the truth and be set free in death
No matter how you look at it you can’t disagree
These days not even the doctors disagree
She has elevated all of us to her level
Now we know what to do with life as soon as we get out of here
she vomited and came out of the bathroom with colorful spit on her chin and in her hair
lied down in bed
"Better on your side," I said, "not your back."
And she said, "Does it ever grip you?"
"What? Hangover?"
"No. The longing to... to just return home. Home where you grew up. Where the world was introduced to you."
"No."
"C'mon, really? Never?"
"I do get nostalgic at times. But then I remind myself that nostalgia is just another form of depression. The most pleasant one, but... still a form. I have enough of them, and an extra one is not welcome. Not as long as I can do something about it."
"You're cold. But I don't mean nostalgia. Not exactly. Look, you ever, uh, planted flowers in the garden?"
"I don't remember. Why?"
"Well--"
"Actually, I do remember this one time when my little cousin and I placed an apricot seed in the ground. Of course we hoped for an apricot tree to grow but... Well, you know how it is when you're a kid, patience is never among your attributes. The younger you are, the less you have. My cousin, he was younger than me. So he lacked patience more than I did. As the days passes and the apricot tree didn't show up from the ground... his patience reached its end. That was it, he wanted to dig it out and look at the damn seed, see if it sprouted or whatever. And I told him, begged him to stop that stupidity and give it more time. I was very serious about it. But the more serious I was the less serious he grew until eventually it was a sick game or him versus I with him constantly threatening to unearth the seed, a menacing, cartoon villain grin on his face all the while. I had to hold him back and then, still grinning, he'd swear he won't do it if I let go. I let go and he immediately went back to the spot we buried the damn seed and after he did it a few times I... guess I snapped. I punched him square in the face. Pretty damn hard indeed. Hard for a kid, I mean. Immediately the blood came rushing out and fell on the ground. Right on the spot where we buried the seed. Now, I know it would've sounded so damn poetic an' all if I said the apricot seed took his blood in and grew a tree, but c'mon, this is real life we're talking here. He just bled from his nose and shrieked like a fucking devil and I wanted to just punch him again. Harder. Yeah... I didn't do it. It was too late anyways. Grandma came to the commotion and I got my punishment. Nothing too extreme, just... just something to remind me of that time when I tried to plant something, create life, and... failed because of somebody else. That's my only memory of trying to plant something. Not very happy as you can see."
Right but she fell asleep in the middle of the story
wouldn't be the first time
this is real life after all
it can't go like in fairy tales or even ordinary tales
Had it went that way she would've empathized with my story, I guess, and seek to console me in some way
had it went that way there would've been some poetic justice somewhere, just ready to poke its magical head out
he found one crumpled cigarette in his breast pocket straightened it gently, expertly between his palms put it between his lips and lit it
He was on the roof watching the afternoon skies
a bit drunk
He pointed at the plume of smoke he exhaled and said, “The trick is to stay in the game until you’re the only one left. It don’t matter how good you are or how you evolve. Just stay in the game until you’re the last one.”
The smoke vanished before him, raising to the skies
He nodded. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
He finished the cigarette and went back down to the wedding
"The hell happened this time?" we asked but we knew it had to be another street brawl
He was known around town for those
for always starting shit and then losing horribly
There's no honor in winning he used to say. If you win it just shows you picked on someone weaker than you
Wise words of a drunk man
"So who was it this time?" we asked
and he said, "Some fucker from the bar."
"No shit. And why though?"
"I heard him talking. Said that his wife ran away from home and left him with the kid. Some four year old. So I asked, where the kid at then, an' he looks at me with the side eye and says the kid's at home. An' I asked how the hell he leaves a four year old alone at night like that, and then he tells me to mind my own business. He probably locked the kid in the basement so he could come out and drink and get shitfaced. I know motherfuckers who do that. I used to be one of 'em. So... I hated myself through him and him through me. And there was but one quarter of a step from there to a fight. We held it outside an' I got my ass kicked. Meaning I chose my opponent wisely. I always do."
"The guy left his kid locked in the basement so he could come to the bar and drink?" we asked
He seemed to think deeply about it. Wiped some blood from his face in the meanwhile "Yeah!" he finally burst. "The asshole! Hey, I know, let's drop by his place and give him a lesson. Let's make the night better for that poor kid."
"Right," we said. "An' where would that be? Where's he live?"
"Oh fuck. I should've asked him before swinging at him, no?"
"You should've done many things, old man. But for now, why don't you go home?"
He shrugged. "Ain't got any. I mean, not anymore I don't."
We put together some money and sent him to the nearest bar. Enough to get him through the night
The next day there was news of a homeless man dying in the streets
We're still trying to figure out if it was him or not
I'm afraid he was a bit too good at picking opponents
he was one of those writers whose bio said something like 'It is not my choice. The muse possesses me like a demoness and I write because not to do so would mean to have my soul tortured by a thousand bites and scratches of her fiery fangs and gelid claws. The only way to delay her devouring my soul is to put the next word down. And I strive to do just that. My destiny is therefore set in stone. I am a writer.'
he was also an amateur photographer and filmmaker Currently exploring the niche of torture porn
He was 34 and still lived with his parents who apparently didn't understand his artistic side and were constantly trying to crush his dreams into oblivion with ridiculous, outworldly demands like 'When will you get a real job and move out?'
He pitied them Pitied the blindness of their souls the deafness to real art and the artistic nature that oozed from his very being
It was like they had Jesus Christ in the flesh in their house but would not understand or care to acknowledge it
Poor souls
Anyway his latest project got him in a bit of trouble with the law
Something to do with a seventeen-year-old staring in one of his experimental movies
and now he knew he had it all figured out Just like the Messiah, he had to die, had to suffer to no end so that the blind herds could come to know his truth and understand his art
He denied his parents when they tried to hire him a lawyer
Had been Before he suicided Overdosed on some pills or something like that
He had a few novels to his name and some short story collections
Other than that he only left behind a daughter who several days after his cremation brought her boyfriend to her house and said to him, "Look, since you wanna be a journalist and call yourself a big fan of my dad’s works, I’m gonna give you something to write about tonight. For your magazine. An article about the departed genius."
"Really?" He smiled, expecting her to share some of her father’s unpublished manuscripts or something like that. It would surely aid in his journalist career. Put him ahead of the competition
But she grabbed the urn that contained the great writer’s ashes and said, "Yeah. Look, I’m gonna pour these into the toilet and take a shit over them. You can write about it and take pictures too."
"What?"
"Hey, you don’t meet up with a story like this every day. Take it or leave it."
perched on top of his desk the doctor looked down at him as a teacher would at a failing student
"Say," began the doctor, "are you even trying to stay alive? Or do you seek the quickest death possible that can't be labeled as downright suicide? You smoke all brands of cigars and add up to three and a half packs a day and drink random alcohols you can pick up and keep at it until there's no more in the bottle. Your liver is done for. The lungs beg for death with each tentative of breath. Veins are as rigid as rusty pipes. You don't even have feeling left in the skin. So what's your big idea, pall?"
Despite all his shortcomings in the health department his eyes were as limpid and innocent as a newborn's
He pointed them at the doctor's and said, "Oh, I have many big ideas, doc. Thing is, they're only big in my head. Once they come out and others see them... Well, they just aren't so big no more. Average at best. And that's what I do all day. I get those big ideas out of my head and try to show them to others."
The doctor took off his glasses. Watched him in a new light. "Buddy... did you not understand the question?"
He sighed. "Doc, I think you didn't understand the answer. So let me spell it out for you in your own language." He cleared his throat. "I'm a writer."
The doctor put his glasses back on. "Ooooh, now I get it. Hah, why didn't you say so from the start?"
"That's the problem with us, doc. We never like to admit it up front. Only the young and those who actually made it will say it up front."
"Ooook, in this case... Well, I guess there's nothing I can do for you, nor is there anything that has to be done. For a writer, you're perfectly healthy."
"I know, I know. I just wanted to see if I could get some morphine..."
Daydreaming as a profession 