Letter to Satan

 

Dear Satan

I wish to make a complaint.

About unsatisfactory service
received from your minions.

 

Tempted with glossy ads
promising granted desires
for all prepared to pay the price:
I signed a deal
agreeing transfer of my soul to you
at death.

In return, it was stipulated
I’d gain lifelong grandmaster skills
exactly matching those possessed by
former world chess champion
the late Bobby Fischer.

 

Several weeks elapsed.

Seeing no change
I phoned Daemonic Plc
customer care team.
They assured me complex abilities
might take months developing.

 

Trustingly, I waited a whole year.
Anticipating.

Yet remained on the same mediocre level as before.
Still miscalculating during games.

 

After ringing again, some details were checked.

Then infernal staff informed me that
due to glitches in data entry
the single “talent” passed
had not been Bobby Fischer’s
or even chess-related.

But, instead (mistakenly)
derived from a certain Nobby Fischer.

An obscure, Scunthorpe based, tobacconist
successful only at completing “easy” crossword puzzles
in his local newspaper!

 

Given such gross mismanagement
I am appealing to your Luciferian sense
of honour and fair play:

by requesting our contract is immediately
annulled.

 

Yours Faithfully, etc.

 

 

 

PS:

 

I hope this matter can be swiftly resolved
without any recourse to

 

 

a higher power?

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

(2011)

 

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Hi everyone!

I’m reaching the end of blogging past prose, here.

My attempts at humour have had less appeal than sad poetry.

Writing feels even harder this week as, aside from all my other symptoms,
depression has recently spiked. Pulling me toward giving up altogether,
while enveloping work in an atmosphere of futility.

But I’ve ground out another post, anyway.

 

Hope you are all well?

Comments are always VERY welcome!

(Art on the blog is mine.)

 

Thank you for reading.

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( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / depression / fiction / humor / life / mental health / poetry / reading / story / writing )

 

Advertisement

Nympho Nazi?

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      Please do not read if easily offended!

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Recognising my desperation, the guys at chess club suggested dating sites.

Being a pessimist, I was doubtful about joining.
But still signed up.

 

Sole success came in the form of an improbable beauty.

Her profile picture drew me.
I’d always adored blondes.
Incurably.
Hopelessly.

“Far too young. Way out of your league,” my inner voice judged.
Then I read she sought “Hot times, with older men.”

Hmm?

 

After messaging her, surprisingly, I soon received a contact number.

Our initial conversation followed an unexpected course.

“Hi Magda.”
“Hi Ken.”
“The bio says you’re pansexual.”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask a related question?”
“Ooh, go on.”
“Is there a role you especially enjoy?”

“Nazi slut.”
“Meaning?”
“SS uniforms. And cock!”

 

“I noticed your rune-shaped earrings.”
“Very good. Did you also fancy pounding me with your hammer of Thor?”

“I planned on going for a meal, first.”
“Sounds rather lame, Ken. The only thing I want to watch you eat, is me.”
“Hey! I could be vegan.”
“No need to play innocent. I’m a dirty girl.”
“Dirty?”
“Yes: I swallow. And I take it front and back.”

“I shall bear that in mind.”

“You’re a funny guy. Which is why I gave you my number.”
“It’s easy for me. If I need a laugh I just stand before the mirror.”
“Aw! You look quite distinguished, with your grey hair.”

“I’m starting to like you already,” I said.

 

“We live in the same city, Ken. Are you free tonight?”

 

 

My penis urged my brain to drop its qualms.

I paused.
Remembering the last sixteen, lovelorn, years.
Five thousand four hundred days:
yearning for a woman.

Unending physical loneliness.
So intense, it felt as if I wore my own touch deprivation,
in an unseen suit of aching body armour.

Why reject this unique chance to gain relief?

 

Magda was pleasant enough, allowing for her provocative style.
Might she be giving me a kind of female “test”?
I’d surely often failed those, in the past?

 

Would I ever get such an opportunity again?

 

 

 

“You’ve gone all quiet on me,” she said, softly.
“Sorry, Magda. I got distracted.”

“Can you make it, tonight?”
“Umm…”

“I have some videos, to get you in the mood.”
“That may not be necessary.”

“Are you coming, then?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Guess you’ve talked me into it”

I heard myself say.

 

 

 

 

 

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(2011)

 

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Hi everyone!

 

This is almost the last of my old prose.

I was anxious over how much to self-censor?
While reluctant about excluding such work altogether
(as I’m blogging all types of past writing, not just musings and poetry).

 

Art on the blog is mine: I hope you like it?

 

Comments are always very VERY welcome!

 

Thank you for reading.

 

 

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( art / beauty / blog / blogging / fiction / humor / love / mental health / reading / relationships / sex / story / writing )

Horny toad

 

 

 

“The night had gone OK, until Dave tried getting his knob out.”

“Cringe!”

“Where was this?”
“The Horny Toad.”
“Crap pub.”
“Yeah, he knew somebody in the band, though.”
“When?”
“Friday.”
“Was it The Tampons?”
“Who?”
“They got a fit bass player: she’s proper stacked!”
“No. And I prefer flat-chested.”
“Wuss!”

“Do you wanna hear the story, or what?”

“Alright.”

 

“The group were late…”
“Hey, was it Sword of pork? They just released Wedding tackle.”
“Can’t remember. We mainly scoped the local talent in there.”
“Thought you preferred The Newt & Gherkin for that?”
“Well, he’d told me their singer attracted women like flies round shit.”

“You felt up for some rock chick style poon?”
“Full tattoos and chlamydia, mate!”
“Lol!”

 

“Six pints on board, Dave’s messing about in front of these girls.”
“Are you pretending he isn’t with you, by then?”
“I’m looking the other way, as he gets hit.”
“Bit of handbags?”
“I only saw him fall across a table, hand down trousers.”
“Did they have boyfriends in tow?”
“Thankfully, no.”

“What was he doing?”
“Said one of them asked who Mr Percy is: he offered to show her.”
“Lucky you never had more trouble.”
“Cider drinkers, eh?”

 

“So how big is it?”
“What?”
“His donger. Vlad the Impaler.”
“Don’t know.”
“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Why would I be interested?”

“Because you are gay!”

 

“F**k off!”

 

 

 

 

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(2010)

 

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Hi everyone!

Though I have avoided alcohol for 40 years and rarely spend time in bars,
this piece attempted to imitate a type of non-PC banter, once overheard among young men, after several drinks.
For the crudity, I apologise.

Please do not take it seriously.

Most profanity has been edited out; but some retained, for the sake of authenticity.

 

It was also a writing experiment: at using only dialogue, with no added description.
I hope you found it intelligible?

 

Comments are always VERY welcome!  😊

 

 

Visitors may now be relieved to hear I did not produce much prose after 2010, and thus,
shall soon resume blogging my more usual musings, and depressive poetry.

 

(Art on the blog is mine.)

 

Thank you all for reading.

 

 

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( art / blog / culture / depression / fiction / fun / humor / life / mental health / music / reading / story / writing )

Disorientation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why she picked me, I don’t know.

Across the crowded square a woman heads my way.
Then stops.

“Where is hospital?” She demands, abruptly.
Sounding irritated.
Like somebody whose day is being made unnecessarily difficult.

“Just up there,” I point.

“You come with me!”
“Sorry, I have to go in the opposite direction.”

“Where do you live?” she asks.
“Around the corner…”
“In Kingsdown?”
“Yes.”
“We live there.”
“Oh.”
(I wonder why a local would need guiding to the hospital dominating our skyline.)

“What do you do?”
“Er…”

Finding her attitude confusing, I consider whether to attempt explaining my illness, or seek refuge in vagueness.
She immediately changes the subject, again.

“Where is Dighton street?”
“Behind these offices.”
“You show me!”
“Really, you can’t miss it,” I gesture.

“Where is police station?”
“Along that road…”
“Take me to police station!”
“But it’s quite easy to…”

“No!
You come to police station with me!”

 

I’m even less keen on this request, than previous ones.

 

While searching for some polite remedy, I suddenly become aware of a short man, and  young boy, standing next to me: sharing embarrassed smiles.

Turning, the woman begins angrily scolding them.
“What is your problem?!”
She exclaims, as if they are persistent nuisances.

The child’s look seems to say:
“Thank you, but she is a little crazy. We’ll take over now.”

Noticing she appears to have forgotten about me, I move away.
Still hearing her berate the silent males.
“What is your problem?!”
She repeats, loudly.

 

I felt relief mingle with shame.
At my failure to reduce the suffering of others, around me.

The city held so much unhappiness.
Including mine.

Depressed and sick, I viewed myself as useless:
saw my helpfulness as vain.

 

Thus I walked, more sadly, on.

Toward the distant mall.

 

 

 

 

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(2006)

 

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Hi everyone!

Hope you are well?

My old prose resisted another transition to poetry, during editing, this week.
Though the writing seemed tempted that way, slightly, at the end.

(Any art on the blog is mine.)

 

Your comments are always VERY welcome! 🙂

Thank you for reading.

 

 

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( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / culture / depression / life / mental health / poetry / reading / story / thoughts / writing )

Trapped by the system

Lostness  (9)

 

He sat in a hard plastic chair. The room had doors on each side. One way led to offices, unseen by the public. Another to a waiting area.

He had been summoned here, but not told why.

A man entered, leafing through a large file. He spoke without eye-contact.

“I asked you to attend to inform you of the decision of the Commission.”

Who were the Commission, he wondered. What did they know about him?

“As empowered by the Act of 1976, section 25, it has been decided that, in view of your persistent and wilful inability to obtain suitable employment: you should be charged with failure to maintain yourself. Which carries a possible penalty of a fine and/or a period of imprisonment, not exceeding three months.”

So the state would have its revenge against an offence of nonconformity. He must grovel before the dismal god of work?

What to do next?

He wanted to be a writer or artist, but could not see the path forward. Some way beyond his current isolation and depression. A critical inner voice undermined such hopes. With fear that any feelings of potential were just another illusion.

 

(15/12/1978)