Greetings from purgatory you improvised monkeys.
The news is absolutely saturated at the moment and I’m not going to touch on any current affairs this week.
I’ve had a disappointing few days and I spent most of it in the abyss of my own head and did loads of fiction.
So as promised, I’ve done a short story for you. It’s a bit of a weird one, but I’m happy with it. I was in a state of flow for most of it.
The best way to describe a state of flow is to use the example of a child playing with Lego. The kid has no idea what they are building, but they continue anyway. It’s only when it is done that you can kind of make out what it is at a guess. You may see a dinosaur, but someone else may see a giant buttpug.
A bit like cloud watching for the reader I guess. It’s what you project onto the piece, rather than what the writer is trying to project. Human beings have to make sense of things and your brain will come to its own conclusion about everything.
Even if it is ridiculous shit like 5G causes Coronavirus.
I’ll definitely have my podcast running this week and hopefully I can upload number one on Sunday. Very exciting.
Thank you for the donations to my Patreon. I managed to get all the gear I need to start recording, but I urge you to sign up to it. My content is free, but for the price of a Coke or tube of Pringles, you can pay me for something I enjoy. If you can’t that is also OK. You can get it for free. The Podcast will be the same.
The only bonus of subscribing to my Patreon is that I am publishing my novel there, and I’m doing a chapter every month.
https://www.patreon.com/Blacksheepwriting?fan_landing=true
Ice Cold Family Values
So there I was.
My hand in my pocket, holding onto a box that makes a rattling noise in my pocket. There’s a boy next to me, my son, at least I think he is my son. He looks like me, I don’t remember having him, but for some reason, I know he is mine. He is smiling at me and I smile back, reassuring my boy that we will be OK.
I remove my hand from the pocket of my formal trousers and grab onto his. His hand is clammy and warm. Beneath his smile is a fear, possibly the same fear I have.
We are alone in this street. I don’t know this place, but it looks like there should be loads of people around as many shops occupy the curbsides on both sides. There are cars lined up all along the sides, every bay is taken, but there is a pattern to them. Just black ones, with shiny silver wheels that glimmer in the light that bounce off the immaculate shop windows.
I’m compelled to move west, I don’t know why, but something inside me tells me to go that way, with my son.
We fair dodge our way up the street, I pretend to ignore the repetition of shops and cars. The road seems endless, each measurement of distance exactly the same as the measurement we just passed. At this point, walking faster seems meaningless. I am tired, and my boy with his tiny legs will also be as tired, if not more. I watched his legs as we walked. For every step he was taking, I was doing 1.618, the ratio that defines aesthetic beauty. We walked for what seemed miles and I have had time to measure the ratio of our footsteps.
I feel woozy again and I stumble to the most solid concrete structure I can find. It is across the street, next to a sign that says ‘Turkish Bath’. I make my way over there as quickly as I can, slowly losing grip of my son as he resists my sudden change of trajectory. I’ve only ever been drunk once in my life and I felt a bit like this. That’s partly why I became a teetotaller, I have to be in control.
My boy will be fine, nobody is around and he can have a rest. I’ll get him some Hubba Bubba or a Honeycomb Toblerone when I get back to him.
As I lean with my palm on the solid concrete structure, I watch him from under my arm. He is waving at me, and he has a big red balloon with him that is floating precariously just below a sign that says ‘Couples Therapy’.
I remember there was a time when I used to be married to a wife, I forget her name. No I don’t, her name is Michelle. She left me because I was have considerably more sex than what she was, she didn’t like this. I’m not sure why, but I loved her I think. I took everything in our divorce, because I had a solid prenup and always made sure I placed everything in my name. I also refused to have kids, I always thought I’d be an irresponsible father, I’m just too selfish to be responsible for another life.
I look down again ready to spew and I notice that I am wearing Wellies and a speedo. The box I felt before was now sitting just below my testicles and pulling on my pubes. I grab them out and decide to check what they are, it is a box of Codeine. I’m not sure why I have it, but I place it inside the left foot of my boots. My son still waves at me, but now he is eating a Twix and he is offering me the other one with the hand holding the balloon. I could do with a Twix and I start to make my way to him.
Just then two big Island boys grab me by the shoulder, they are twins. I can see it on their faces. They pull me inside the baths and place me inside a room that looks like an operating theatre. There, I’m greeted by an African lady, at least I think she’s African. She is black, so yes, I don’t know any black people, so anyone black is African to me.
“So oi’ll put dis gown on ya,” she says in an Irish mans accent. I didn’t see that one coming.
I try to say that I don’t want to, but all that’s coming from my mouth is “Erm. ooh, err.” I sound like a baby seal being clubbed to death. My words are all that I had in this instance, as resisting physically would be a futile exercise. The Island twins are still behind me with their enormous arms which are crossed like bouncers at a nightclub guarding a door.
The black Irish lady nurse with a man’s voice slips on my gown with the dexterity of a Trappist that is setting up the boardroom. She makes a point of flicking the tip of my penis as she ties the silver braided string that holds the gown together at the waist. The gown is cold and flimsy, but somehow makes me feel less exposed. I haven’t worn Speedos in well over twenty years and I was getting a boner from the penis flick. I felt pure awkward.
“The Doctor will see you now,” she says in her strong Hiberno accent. I’m still confused by this.
I’m under no illusion that I need help, my son needs me and I have no control or any grasp of my actions or reality. So I nod in approval, I know I can’t speak.
I get ushered through a massive french door. The doors audibly shut behind me and almost pushed me forward. I’m alone again.
The doctor’s office wasn’t an office at all.
It was a vast expansion of emptiness, like a big warehouse. So big that Tiger Woods could drive a golf ball in there and still not hit the back. There are pictures of turtles and fish and dolphins on the walls all the way through, in repetition. Like it was rolled on with a stencil.
Down the middle of the expansion is an enormous swimming pool. A pool that is crystal blue and still.
I feel the need to get in, and I do.
It is cold, very cold and I feel my breath escape my lungs as I let out a roar, an animalistic roar that sends sharp pains through my spine all the way around to the front of my ribs. I watch the ripples form perfect expanding circles all the way across the pool. The capillary action brings the water up and over my nipples and I pull the gown all the way over my head to remove it.
As the last bit of cold brushes over my face, I open my eyes and I see the doctor standing on the side of the pool.
It’s hard to explain what I’m looking at. The doctor is my favourite actor, Steve Buscemi. He is wearing a red t-shirt with blue pants and a pair of blue Converse. His hair is spiked up and he is carrying a skateboard.
He smiles at me as I look up at him. I don’t get starstruck easily, I’ve met Lucy Lawless and Pink before, but even then I wasn’t as awestruck at this.
“Do you know who I am?” he asks in a calm voice that sounds like he is speaking into a fan.
I know I lost my voice but I try.
“You, you are Steve Buscemi from the movie Fargo,” I utter, holding my throat, surprised that I can speak.
“No, I’m Bart Simpson. I act like Steve Buscemi who acts in movies,” he says as he starts removing his clothes, starting with his pants.
You don’t have to be a homosexual to have a fascination with another mans penis, so as he removes his red shirt, I make quick point of looking at his uglies. There’s nothing there, it’s completely smooth like an Action Man.
He dives in without a splash. A perfect launch, then a jack-knife and an inaudible splash. I lose him for a few seconds and he surfaces in front of me like a skinny hippopotamus. Eyes above the surface like a somnolent croc about to strike.
“What’s in the box?” he points to the box of Codeine behind my left shoulder.
“Meds, I don’t know who it’s for,” I say.
“Can I?” he asks.
I nod and with a tiny flick of his legs, he swims over and grabs it. He removes one from the box and holds it in his palm.
“Do you know why you’re here?” he asks.
“I don’t know, the last thing I remember before I found my son was at the clinic getting a vasectomy. Then this happened. I need to get back to my boy. He is alone.”
Steve, or Bart, whoever he is snaps back at me.
“You fucking idiot, you don’t have a son. You are like your father, irresponsible and selfish. You fuck everything that moves and you don’t have the empathy needed to be a good person. Do you know any boys of ten years old? Who is the last person you met who was ten?”
“I don’t know anyone,” I say trying to think of someone.
The doctor stands up in the pool, I can see his milky white pigeon chest that is dwarfed by a set of nipples that look like full sized gorilla fingers which include the fingernails.
“Is it me? Am I the ten year old?” I ask him. I feel a bit nervous.
“Anyone else?” he asks.
“Well, well I did have a brother that was ten when I was six. I don’t remember him at all. All I know is that he died after falling off a rollercoaster when my Dad and his mistress took him to the fair. I don’t remember him. I just remember the pictures of a little chubby boy with fat fingers. My Dad was a terrible man, he didn’t care for my Mum at all. She blamed herself for everything,” I start to cry.
Bart smiles at me and submerges his head back under the water and I can see him take a gulp of water and puts the Codeine on his tongue.
He leaps up and places his mouth over mine, I try to fight him off. I can feel his gorilla finger nipples pluck at my chest hairs for extra grip as he forces the water and tablet down my throat.
He lets go and I feel sick again, in fact I haven’t stopped feeling sick. I shoot a beam of vomit into his face, and him feeling groggy as well, fires one back at me, straight into my mouth.
I move away from the haze of bile that floats around us and I let out another heavy flow of stomach contents.
This time it launches me straight down the pool. The watch on my wrist shows 120kph. I am a speedboat. Flat on my back with my eyes pointing to my feet, my erect penis as the rudder. The pictures on the walls look like lazy brush strokes with a dried out brush, long smudges of unidentifiable objects.
This is the fastest I have ever been and I’m getting faster. I don’t feel sick anymore. Any ailment I have or had, is being expelled through the perfect stream of vomit that propels me.
“Wake up cunt.” I hear the Irish nurse.
I feel like I’ve crashed my boat against the edge of the pool. My head is pounding.
I open my eyes to the sight of blood and ice and I can’t move my neck to see anything but the water.
I try to talk, but again, I have nothing. I can hear him leaving as I move my arms to the pain I feel in my sides where my kidneys are. I feel nothing but a gaping hole with soft bits that feel like jellyfish.
In the reflection of one of the red ice cubes I can see my beloved ex-wife being counted out some money by a man that looks like a fat version of Connor McGregor.
I think about my brother.
