Birth?

A few nights ago I wrote a story. A whole story. It feels so good to be able to say that. Sure, it is only two pages with one and a half line spaces between each line, but... It is a whole story.

It tells the brief tale of two children, two brothers, and what they find beside the creek. I would post it but I am just so proud of this work that I think I will submit it to... some establishment which publishes short fiction.

The best part is that I wrote the whole thing at work, on two pages of regular printer paper. I typed it up, edited briefly and am now circulating it amongst close friends whose opinions I respect when it comes to my literary productions.

So, if you were looking for something other than what you found in this post, I am sorry. I just felt the need to share this great news.

Snips [3]

Yay, more snips. I still don't take pictures because I am lazy and tired all the time. Also, I wrote the last part when I was drunk and dramatic, so forgive me the excess.

:

cut jeans, collared shirts;
flashes and studio lights
in the crystal ball?

...

He feels the anxiety creep up his toes like a five year old's night terrors realized and begins to bite his fingernails. They bleed quickly,matching the speed of his nibbling. The blanket falls from his confidence and he is shown his true image: a scared boy in a town much larger than anything he is used to.

...

i want a girl
with a fire inside
her head.
i want a girl
with legs up to here
who walks over there.
i want a girl
who likes to go down
to the library.
and i want a girl
who wants me to know
it's okay to say i like comic books
and who thinks they're cool too.

...

The rose wilts and he tosses the petals in the freezer. To cool their beauty and bring it to the blackest ends. The dying green turns to rot and refuse, the ooze on the leaves giving a hundred shades of putrid scent. Where is the romance of a dying rose? When will the symbol mean something again.

Have A Good Day

I have a job. It isn't a good job, a hard job, a tiring job. It is a job. I work to get paid so I can live and work to get paid. And after every midnight shift, the walk home is a walk of shame.

You may be familiar with the walk of shame. You may have even taken one or two or twelve in recent months. You don't necessarily feel totally clean or proud of what you've done, but you know it was worth it. Or you hope it was. That is how every midnight shift at my job makes me feel. I walk home and wonder if I am really spending my time in the best way. Shifting my sleeping patterns to the undead hours, my eating habits. The sun hits my face as it rises over the diminutive buildings on the main street, a familiar roadway, and I wonder. What else could I be doing? Is there something I should be doing?

But it doesn't matter. I work to get paid so I can live and work to get paid some more. I feel a little dirty, a little self-disrespect. A level between zero and point-zero one accomplishment. Lost time. But it doesn't matter.

My workspace is tiny.
Tiny as a microorganism.
Minuscule is the impact
of the register's balance.
And yet I sit
with music on,
watching the cars drive by.

Misfortune; Treason

I am a part of history. I am the filler, the space between the big names. The air between the grains of sand or the time it takes for glue to harden. I carry the impact of a millipede and the burden of a breeze, with a voice no louder than the noise in black space. I am a day with contenting weather, a bead of sweat on a gigantic organism. The sun does not rise or shine or fall for me, the seas do not roll their waves and run their currents for me, and the books do not bend their spines into creases and breaks for me.

I am the hunter with no blade or bow, a man without fists, bearing no power to strike. The blade with no edge. The edge with no vertex. I am motion without energy, kinetics without force, friction without touching.

A wishing well has no magic; it is superstition. Success is subjective and dependent upon the context. Prosperity is in the heart. A family, for one, is a measure of worth; for another, a curse.

I am a part of history. The part that gets left out of the history books.

You are, too.

"I Told You So"

The worst part about fucking up is realizing that someone at some time told you exactly how it would end. They gave you a hypothetical situation and you found out it was a prophecy which came true.

So, now you've fucked up and what do you do? Cut your losses? Stick it through? It's a choose-your-own-adventure where every decision leaves you with your mouth full of defeat and your pockets wide empty. And unlike a c.y.o.a., your failure affects the people around you too. There isn't a thing you can do about it. You fucked up, and now they have to deal with it as well.

What do you do? Stick around so they can deal with it better, and slowly wean your way out of the mistake? Or do you abandon the ship with the women and children and leave the first mate to drown or save himself? These are the questions...

The Internet Made Me A Cunt

I know what you're going to say. Well, one possible thing you will say. "Will, you can't say cunt! That's profane!" And you are right. But you are also a cunt. It isn't your fault, and I don't mean it in a terribly offensive way. It's just a fact of life. The internet has made you a cunt too.

Now, it is true I am prone to overgeneralizing and simplifying, but everyone on some level has been formed into a lesser human being by this beautiful heroin a favourite author of mine dubbed cyberspace. First of all, it has made everyone a whole bunch less literate. My grammar feels sticky in that last sentence, but whatever. The individual may strive to keep his or her words long, but these lengthy (often three or four characters longer than the abbreviations) are always swamped by the cunts typn n shrtfm.

Additionally, the internet has made you less social. And again, I hear you voicing your protests: "I am on Facebook fifteen hours a day! How is that not social!?" to which I reply: you are a cunt. If I never had to read that eight character proper noun of a waste of time again, I would be most certainly pleased. With said web site, you can take a backseat to a friendship. Instead of actually hanging out with your pals, you can virtualize your fantastic good great times by reading a pointless survey they've filled out. Instead of having great fantastic good times with your chums, you can pretend to talk about meaningful things and type to them 'how r thngs? uni iz gr8'

I despise this. But, I must be honest. I break the rules myself. Quite frequently, even. I occasionally use too many commas, and start words with conjunctions. Sometimes, I even write incomplete sentences. Even I fall to power of the abbreviation from time. And for this I am a cunt. I am breaking the intangible laws of English because of the internet, just like you, your best friend, and all the people you pretend you care about on your friends list.

This could be a full essay but really, your patience wore thin after the first two paragraphs.

Ghosts; Admittance

There are hours in my life where I feel like someone slipped me a hefty novocaine trip. I don't know why. I've had a good day, a great day, but I want to tear the skin off a squirrel and hit someone in the ankle with a shopping cart. Out of boredom. Indifference. Apathy. The sun rises while my eyes are awake and I don't care. Bombs could fall and planes could crash and babies could die, killing their mothers during childbirth in a natal pandemic, but I wouldn't care. Wouldn't blink.

Is apathy really that terrible? Is indifference that mortal a flaw? If I don't care about a thing, nothing bad will ever happen to me, right? If I keep my mouth shut and my eyes on my own, laughing or shrugging everything off, good and bad, it's not that bad?

It's too late, my writing is shit. Don't really care. Who reads this, they'd understand. All three of them. Mind blank.

Ghosts don't stay where you leave them. They haunt you. Town to town, geographic positioning irrelevant. Your ghosts stick to you like semen on the bottoms of your feet in the shower. They don't stop haunting you until you handle them in whatever ghost-busting way works for you.

I'm a user. I have been since I found out it's easy. Every moment in my life is a transaction with at least one unknowing participant. I can't apologize for this. It's in my nature. Like a sociopath with killing or a butcher butching. I'm a manipulator. I say the things people like to hear, want to hear. I adapt myself to be who they want me to be. Slightly. And never permanently. I think I've lost myself and these are no woods. My SELF, not just myself.

Who the fuck am I.

Snips [2]

I've upgraded 'Snips' to all-out writing orgasmorgasbord. They will now include things like haikus or prose or other weird little things I have around. Perhaps photos if I take some of those.

Here is today:


all the keys he holds
unlock misery and friends;
suborned, he clicks still.

. . .

They do the big city zombie street shuffle. A little to the left, a little to the right, bobbing side to side, inch and then another. A sigh, a frustrated breath, a baby's carriage takes up space. Increased steps, passing on the shoulder and the curb. Dodge the trees, absurd.

. . .

the notebook's pages have all disappeared
he opened the cover, it was as he had thought
they took their leave, did not give notice
now he's a pen and a tongue and no place
to speak his mind.

the boat has dropped its oars to the lake
he had somewhere to row, no way to go
get out and swim? with the fish and the frogs
backstroke to the home of the beavers
they don't give dams.

a pair of broken lungs can't breathe
and a knife without a handle cuts on both ends.

Snips [1]

He smelled the mint from the woman's gum and his ears drank in the melodies from his iPod, and he thought: of a girl he missed; a girl he never knew; a girl he dreamt about

. . .

They talked about things intangible; French grammar and the similarities between une planche roulette and a sailor's she-ship.

. . .

He watched the pair sleep from across the room and had to leave. The cold concrete greeted his bare feet with welcoming shivers and he licked the lips she kissed when he bent over to brush her cheek with them.

. . .

There's a nazi on the train and I want to tie him down on the tracks and watch as his fat wrist and sagging fading tattoo turn to red pulp and charred flesh.

Digital Top Droppings

EDIT: I am doing this.


I have been writing little snips of prose in my phone's memo pad since I bought it. The pieces are not connected and sometimes they are songs, sometimes they are parts of a story I have to tell but haven't formed yet. These snips ('snippets' is way too matronly for me) are limited to 512 characters, which makes them perfect for... you guessed it, blog posts. So if you're reading this, should I post the snips from my cellphone onto this blog and maybe one day I'll turn a few of them into a fully connected story?

Oh and I know Moe (of Moesnoseknows fame) will say yes, but what about ... any one else?


((If there is one blog you should comment it is this one))

Sans Serif Name Drop

Hello, Internet.

We have to have a chat. Not the kind of shorthand, acronym/abbreviation orgy of misspellings and insults you are used to. No, this chat demands your attention and doesn't flash by you in a flicker of one-hundred forty characters or less. So let's get down to it: you demand too much of my attention for such little payoff. I sit in front of your glowing tubes and peruse your many, many catalogs of vapid entertainment, top 10/15/20/25/100/150 lists, your articles that appear to have been written after several tumblers of rum.

And I hate every time I click my mouse on a snippet of text, underlined and in hyperlink blue (or purple, on an especially mundane day). I hate having a favourites bar with text that would have worn away, were the buttons real for how often I press them. I especially hate how I know there is a far deeper secret than I see on your surface. I know there are glorious places in the folds of your skin, and underneath that skin but I can never find the right path to them.

And your ability to 'connect' my peers and strangers? It is fueling our disconnection. Forgive me for being a hypocrite, old friend, but you are disease, spreading virally. Your spread and influence are creating a shockwave of malpractice in your users. You allow marketers to attack us with their wired ads, popping over and under and up, infiltrating the corners of our eyes with their banners promising naked women or fast cash.

I cannot stand your willingness to say whatever comes to your mind. I am not one for self-censorship - your target audience doesn't need to accept your statements for their reception of the information you bear is the unwielding reason of your being - but when you reduce yourself to becoming a puppet for those speak with no worth you become a useless entity, a fox with broken legs and a shaven pelt. Step up, my friend. You have more importance in you than to be an advertiser's Elysium.

You have many useful tools, I will never refute this fact. But you need to organize yourself in such a manner that these tools are on clear display, so I can use them when I need to. Take your translating sites, your magazines, your games and your (archaically illegal) downloads, and organize them. Make yourself into a suitable figure, one that is shaped from x to y to z on neverending axes. You will thank yourself for it. You digg?

Parles-tu un peu de francais?

Think of an island, full of beautiful things. Like bananas. Or sunsets. An island full of sunsets. Think of this island, your paradise. Now, imagine being on the island. Feel the sand on your feet and the sun on your skin and the salt water in the air you are breathing. And you are blind.

This is the way I will live in this new place, the Frenchland. My blindness is my inability to speak the language, my island the conversations floating through the air to my left and my right. As hard as I try and no matter how well my French accent when I am de speek-ing de English, I will still be the blind man on the island. But my sight will be granted, soon enough. Struggle shall doubtlessly be an occurance but I will grasp the tongues with my fist and twist them until they are my own.

This is alright. I know what I signed up for when I packed my bags and moved my boxes. Come visit some time.


Afterthought/Aside: If you live in town, let's spend some time together!

INTERMISSION

No serious entries until I am in Montreal.

Sorry 'avid followers.'


PS. You should leave a comment to let me know you are anxiously awaiting a new post.

Susurrus

Today, this word was stuck in my head as I methodically, mechanically, mindlessly washed dish after fork after tray at the pizzeria I work at. I could not remember what it meant except that I had read it used to describe the flow of the waves on the ocean. But I knew it related to my life. It is a beautiful word, susurrus. The waves whisper as they crawl atop the ocean's surface. The static of the television screen emits a repeated hiss. Life goes by with a rustling of its leaves.

My hands are soft now, from the dishwater. And the grease in the air still clings to my hair and skin. In a week and some days, these concerns will be gone. The Frenchland will have swallowed me whole with its mouth the mountain town. In a year, there is a black space. I see myself in Limbo, floating among the nothings, the nevers, and the nots. Five years from the now, the limbo has vanished and there is only blank space. That place is Beyond nothings and nevers, Beyond everything. It is unpainted, with no foreshadowings. Past that remains the Beyond. But for now, there is grease on my skin and grit beneath my nails. And I cannot wait for the Frenchland's teeth.

Limbo does not scare me. It is a comfortable zone, one I have seen many times in my short history. Long-term plans elude me like that girl with the perfect dress and perfect shoes and perfect hair. But Limbo is always there, ready to tell me the plan. I will figure it out as I go, it says. And Limbo moves ahead, minute by minute, as do I. And the Beyond forsees Limbo's movements and takes brief steps, ahead by moments. But eventually, there will be nothing left. Beyond will become only a memory and Limbo a place I do not want to call home. There will be wrinkles on my skin, a lack of hair. And a quickly dawning realization that this is the end.

And when that moment comes, my life will have passed through the universe with the quiet susurrus ripples in a pond's broken surface make.

This Little Piggy Goes to Market; This Little Piggy Brings Us Death

There is a sliding door in my father's new house. It opens to bathroom #0.5 on the first floor, which is essentially a white closet with a toilet, a sink, and a mirror. The other night I was brushing my teeth to a song when I glanced behind my right shoulder in the mirror. At the doorway. Beside the sliding door and the inside of the wall was a deep black space. I froze, my mind panicking for a very brief moment, then I relaxed. I got curious, and turned around to look into the darkness, unsure what lay at the back of the tiny crevice. I could not break the darkness. Fear wrapped a fist around my gut and I quickly turned back to the sink, averting my gaze from the harmless blackness of the door's home away from closed. I do not know why I was afraid then, but I do not think I will gaze into that hole again tonight.

I do not ever feel comfortable swimming in dark or especially deep water. I have an irrational fear of sea monsters. You may be hovering over that comment link, ready to say "No, Will! Sea monsters is a totally rational fear!" but I am disappointed to say that it is not so. Simply put, sea monsters do not exist. There are no giant water serpents or carnivorous, many-tentacled beasts swimming through the depths of the Lake Pollutario or the Larry River. However, I am still afraid of these dangerous creatures ripping me from the surface I so avidly doggie-paddle across. Whenever I think about these deep waters, I see my face as one of the aquatic beings drag me under and it is not a pretty sight. My mouth is open in a vacuous "AHHHHHH!" and my eyes are popping too far out of their sockets, my pupils tight with fear. I watch as my hands sink below the surface for now and ever, fate deciding I am to be the meal of an overgrown water snake. So, instead of swimming around for lengthy periods of time, I jump in and quickly swim to the ladder, fear shaking my spine and making my arms and legs forget the swimming lessons I took in my younger years.

It is no wonder to me why I am afraid of these things. I think about sea monsters every day, and I would say that sea monster-related articles are number one on my Wikipedia searches. And the crack in the wall? That fear I attribute to the various horror films I have watched alone, sometimes in the dark. No dark crack is ever just a dark crack. There is something lurking inside every shadowed hole and blackened rift. Or while you inspecting said rift, something will stealthily make its way behind you and get you/gut you where you stand, that look of surprise on your face showing only to the darkness.

These fears are irrational, yes. Perhaps a small level of paranoia as well. But that is why I ignore these fears whenever they surface. I don't have to be afraid of murderous psycho ventriliquist dolls or men and little girls in masks with knives or big water dragons with teeth and tentacles. I can say "I am not in danger," and as long as I do not enter a horror film through the broken fourth wall, I will be fine.

I read recently that in the same time the media has been broadcasting about this 'swine flu pandemic' in which seven people have died (as of April 29), thirteen thousand people have died from the regular flu. And you are afraid of the swine variation? That seems a little irrational.

Suns; Doters

Summer is a lover. It is hot and wet and gets you naked. All the best things are done with summer. Like a lover.

Two years ago I met a girl who never left my head. We were good, then we went bad. I'll take half the blame for it, but fuck if I didn't try to get her back. It didn't work. This girl, she left my life for a long time after that. Almost a year she was absent. I was angry with her, with the whole situation I found myself in, the discordance between us. I haven't tried so hard for one girl in my life. She made my sentences stop short and my cheeks to flare up as I summoned the courage to try a new line of conversation, one she might actually respond to. It never worked.

On the last occasion we spent time together I played my hand too swiftly, burglarizing a touch of her lips when she wasn't all the way ready to give. So she's been gone for another year. She was too stubborn, too strong to do the usual thing that night and just give in to a dude with an interest. And I think that's part of what makes me always go back to her, even if it's for nothing. It's some sort of Wild Hunt for me, following the wisps of hope through the bushes and the brambles for a kind of fulfillment. Even if it's for nothing. And I'm not trying to make that sound chauvinistic, or like she's some kind of trophy, because I'm not that kind of kid. Whatever is at the end of the Hunt, that's what this is. And I don't mean the carcass.

Now it's summer again and she's risen in my life once more. Prospectively, anyway. Maybe this summer will be the one I finish the Hunt. The weather's nice, the girls are wearing shorts again. All the best things are done in the summer. Like a lover.

Ghosts Don't Stink; Ghouls Can't Walk Through Walls

Hello two a.m. friends. Well, you are two a.m. friends to me because I am writing this at two a.m. I'd like to talk to you about the undead. I have an undead problem.

Ghosts follow me around these streets, you know. The memories of my pubescence stink up the sidewalks, the pathways, the old haunts. It isn't nice being stalked by your self. Your history. Do you know those times when you think of something embarrassing that you did and your cheeks flame up and you carefully watch every action you do to make sure you are not being an idiot when in fact taking all that time has made you look like a fool? Those kinds of things occur a lot when you move back to a town full of ugly specters. I see girls I knew in high school and hope to the left and the right that they do not remember me for the caustically defensive geek I was when they last knew me. I duck from the ghouls I used to be friends with because I know their chemicals and my compounds only form noxious gases now. And I walk the streets remembering the times I've spent on them, alone or with my father or my friends.

The girl in the park and I met on her birthday. That girl's best friend and I, dating through a tumultuous winter, two fumbling kids messed up in the dark. The boys and their milkshakes, crossing the tracks. The older friends and their basement games, dice and devils with sharp teeth, red lights. The three girls in one month, running through them like a box of tissues almost empty. Haven in the back of a used bookstore, older guys and staying out late, a twelve year-old boy. The fight in the snowlit twilight. Kisses by the train. Shouting "Fuck you" to the dark countryside. Smelling cigars and feeling safe. Getting sick off a balcony, telling everyone "I love you." Leaving and feeling free. These are the things I remember, the things you do not.

These are my ghosts. These are my ghouls, my goblins, my bumps-in-the-night. These are the things that make me flush with embarrassment or a grin to crack my lips apart. And no matter how hard I try, I can't kill them. I don't know if it's because I love these creatures or because I am simply incapable of murdering them due to some supernatural invincibility, but they will not disappear. I can't kill my past, but I can make sure my future is one thriving brilliant beast. A unicorn or a griffon or a beautiful girl or something regal like that.

So my two a.m. friends, I just wanted you to know this: I'm learning how to deal with having the undead for neighbours and stalkers and watchers and friends. It's not so bad, once you get past the smell.

Hope Fiction; Writing Dreams

Let me tell you a story, a short little pseudo-fictional narrative. It is comprised of events that have yet to happen in the lives of myself and those close to me, namely the Best Friend.


Woolen Bones, a young man, has just moved to the Frenchland, to the City of the Mountain. He is unsure of his skills in the local dialect and does not have much in the way qualifications for employers to consider him. He moves in with his best friend, Ddd, who lives in the City and is fluent in the dialect. When he is not working at his shitty no-dialect-necessary job stocking shelves at night, Woolen Bones auditions for student films. He finally gets a part and has to quit his job to make time for the shooting schedule of one weekend.
The film's shooting date swiftly flies by and Woolen is now short a source of income, although he has appeared as a supporting actor in a fairly well-made student film. Ddd says he'll get the rent and not to worry about it this month, that Woolen can pay him back whenever he can. After securing another shitty job, this one utilizing his modest knowledge of the local dialect, he auditions for another film. This one is a studio film, albeit a small local studio. He gets another part, again as a supporting actor and, again, has to quit his job for the shooting schedule of one week.
Woolen pays Ddd back for the rent with three-quarters of what he makes off this supporting role and they go out to celebrate and Woolen ends the night spending the rest of the pay from the film on bottles and shots. Two days go by and Woolen realizes he won't be lucky enough to get another minimum-wage job where the local dialect isn't necessary and sets his sights higher. He goes to the different magazines operating in the City of the Mountain, magazines which print in the Majority Tongue. And he waits.
Two weeks pass by and finally the phone rings for Woolen Bones. One of the magazines is looking for a mailroom clerk and asks when he is available. Woolen says immediately and starts work two days later. A month or two later, his supervisor discovers a piece of writing Woolen accidentally left on a table in the mailroom and shows it to his supervisor. Woolen is called in for a private meeting and leaves the meeting with the task of writing an article for the next month's issue.



Dreams are nice.

My Father

Watching my father play with my year-and-five-months-old half-brother, asking him things like "What sound does an elephant make?" to which he replied by pressing his lips together and blowing a long noise that sounded like he was forcing a 'p' out along with a 't' and a 'b,' and walking him around the deck and yard, I, possibly for the first time in my life, felt proud of my dad. We didn't have the nicest experience living with each other for five years (almost to the day I believe), and now I'm living with him again (almost to the day I last left), if only temporarily. Seeing him interact with my little brother, showing so much love... It surprised me.

For most of my life my father has been perpetually pissed off and frequently cynical. After I discovered a whole new world of music from what he had shown me, this gap has stretched and widened between us so far that we can barely see one another beyond the horizon. It hurts me that most conversations he and I have keep me on the defensive, constantly fending off his cynicism and utilitarian beliefs. The only time he and I agree on anything is about movies, and only subjectively good blockbusters. We both like loud noise and explosions in a summer action flick, with some suspended believability, but as far as I can tell, he doesn't enjoy neurological films, whereas they are my preferred films.

I say 'as far as I can tell' because, honestly, my father remains a mystery to me. His isn't an icewall that keeps people out - he is not impassionate and distant. He is a burning inferno, frightening people away from their own person. I am afraid to be honest with him because I do not think he will approve of my ideas. And it is not the typical father's approval I seek, it is a man-to-man approval. He would not approve of my views and would scoff at them and tell me how wrong I am. His caustic tongue and abrasive tones keep me from speaking to him about my life experiences.

This is all in person. When I spoke to him on the phone from university, he was nothing but supportive and caring. He said he thought that it was a really good choice to take life as it was presented to me, and fully backed my decision to not return to university in the coming fall. He gave me advice about moving to Montreal and the things I should do this summer. All on the phone. As soon I got in a car with him, I knew things were going to be the exact same as before I moved out. He doesn't treat me like his serf anymore, this is true, but it seems as though he believes I owe him something.

This summer will be a tough one if I have to live here for the entire time before I move to the Frenchland. If I get a job in the Other Town, I will consider myself fortunate for the escape. This place is not a prison, but it is not a home. What do you call that?

The War of the Bear

We waged our assault on their bastion of sanctity with the utmost naivete. We were not supposed to be there. It was their land. Their music played loud; we could hear it from outside. Some kind of bar blues, not too down-tempo, not showing its Black roots too obviously - the way they like it. We brought our wallets and our contemporary clothing, the energy of our youth and tossed these things toward their solace like we were catapults. But they did not let our siege pass by leaving us unscathed.

The first casualty was Guts' wallet. He pays his seven dollar entry wound and orders himself a pitcher of Red. Surprise washed over him when he discovered it was almost twenty dollars. Later, he asked me to split it with him, maybe as an act of desperation, trying to save himself. The beer wasn't worth the cost.

Next came the battle of the pool table. It was a long, arduous battle. Initially, I had planned on taking part but attrition and comfort in the wooden swiveling bar chair set in. Gravy and Guts wanted to play a game, but the old-timers had been playing game after game since we arrived, and up came two other men. I assumed they were military men because they were built like golems. Guts went out for a cigarette and Gravy confronted one of the old men. This one had dirty, shoulder-length hair parted down the middle and was wearing a Neil Young shirt he probably got before the night before, with pants that made him look like a bull dyke. Gravy insisited it was his turn to play, but Scraggly said no, Gravy wasn't the one who put the loonie down for the next game. And beside that, Golem One and Two were here now and Guts wasn't.

Eventually Guts came back from his cigarette, finished the beer I had been keeping watch over and headed to the pool table. Golem One wanted to play, Gravy was gone, and Guts just wanted to play someone. Guts lost hard.

The rain was still pounding when we went outside for a smoke. I looked to Guts and said I wanted to leave. The girl we were smoking with told me not to leave. Guts said I wouldn't. I don't like being predicted like that, not out loud. The rain convinced me to stay inside and stay a little dry, so I didn't leave then.

We went back inside, but only long enough for me to take a piss and hear from the stall the band's vocalist jeering at a fellow band member as they pissed side-by-side in the high-school styled urinals. The vocalist left without washing his hands. I used my sleeve to touch the door handle.

I found Guts shortly after, and we left. A failure of a night, and of an assault I am glad will not be presented to me again.