Pleurisy

PLEURISY.


By D. Jonas Laurence



One day we got pleurisy.
We did not know the symptoms of pleurisy.
George said,
"I don't know…I feel like I have eaten a bad curry and I am gonna throw up at any moment."
Peter said,
"I feel as if a zepplin has been rammed into my bowels. I haven't had a shit for days!"
Simon said,
"I feel as if I have been to Africa and have been attacked by those flies that lay eggs in your skin,…until your skin erupts with maggots!"
Jill said,
"I feel as if I have been out for three days in a row drinking cider and taking pills until my eyes are gonna explode!"
Diana said,
"I feel as if I have contracted syphilis and am going mad…more mad each and every day…"
Philip said,
"I feel as if I have been ass-raped by a group of hillbillies, then tarred and feathered, then left for the ants to eat…"
Gemima said,
"I feel as if the crushing cruelty of man has weighted down upon my head like a steel dumb-bell for so long that my spine has become like a twisted spring."
David said,
"That's just life for you."
And then he died of pleurisy.


THE END.

Abuse

ABUSE.


By D. Jonas Laurence



I guess he had always treated me bad.
Always forgotten about me.
Never thought about the harm he was doing me.
Never giving a moments thought.
Acting without conscience.
Doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.
Hurting me.
Battering me.
Bashing me.
Forcing me into uncomfortable situations.
Abusing me.
Everyday.
Abusing me.
Killing me.
Little by little.
Bit by bit.
One piece at a time.
One cell at a time.
One atom at a time.
Until, finally, I got up enough courage and left him.
I escaped, somehow, I escaped.
I got away from him.
Left him for good.
And for a while it was good.
For a while I felt better.
I felt alive.
I felt free.
My wounds began to heal over.
I began to think thoughts that I never could’ve before.
I began to plan for my life without him.
I had a future to look forward to.
A future unbound by abuse.
A future of infinite possibilities.
But, then, he came looking for me.
Like I had always known he would.
And I realised that I had been deluded myself.
I realised that he would always be coming after me.
He wouldn’t stop.
Not ever.
And he would always know where I was.
He would always have a sense for what I was thinking.
And I realised that I would have to outsmart him.
Outthink him.
Outplan him.
And probably, in the end, kill him.

II

Since a young age he had drank too much.
Partied too hard.
Taken anything he could ingest.
Mushrooms, l.s.d., ketamine, ecstasy, speed, cocaine, rohypnol…
Sniffed glue, sniffed aerosol cans, sniffed paint, sniffed marker pens, sniffed correction fluids…
Smoked hash and weed and resin and oil.
Got high all the time.
He crashed cars.
Crashed motorcycles.
Crashed bicycles.
Crashed parties.
Went days without food, without water, without sleep, without consideration…
And these constant binges hurt me.
Harmed me.
But he didn’t care at all.

We had been together for ever it seemed.
I couldn’t remember not being with him.
Although I think it was around the age of ten or eleven when we first noticed each other.
He killed a fantail bird and cried.
I just cried.
And I still cry.
I still cry.
We lived together in his parents’ house for a while
(his parents seemed disapproving of my ways)
before we moved into a small apartment of our own.
He worked mindless jobs for money.
I just dreamed and drifted away.
Then the abuse started getting worse.
Every night he drank or got high.
Every night he abused me.
And I put up with it.
For a long time I put up with it.
Like a stupid woman coming back for a beating.
I put up with it.
And then I realised that all the abuse was damaging me.
And I realised that I would have to get away before the damage was irrefutable.
And so one night as he lay sleeping, snoring, I slipped away.
And like I said before I was happy…
Until he came for me.

III

The night is cold.
I feel it on me like the breath of a demon.
The infinite stars shine like my infinite thoughts.
Each thought is a star in the darkness.
Dying in a blaze of light.
The dew glistens on the ground like glass shards of a wine bottle.
Things move in the bushes near by the train tracks.
Things can smell me.
Smell my fear.
He can smell me too.
I am like bloody ground beef to a shark.
He is a shark.
A dumb animal seeking its prey with instinctual cunning.
That is what it has come down to.
Instincts against intellect.
The body against the mind.

I remember how I used to talk to him.
How I would try to make him see the damage that he was doing.
How having me around should have made him stop.
But there were always excuses.
Always more parties.
Always more alcohol.
Always more drugs.
And I remember how I would try to stop him going, but he would always be stronger than me, and soon I wouldn’t have the strength to try and fight him.
Then I would just shut down and he would do whatever he wanted.

He is coming now.
I am sure of it.
The bushes and trees have gone quiet.
Like death.
In the distance I can hear the train coming.
It is the train of my salvation.
It is the train of my hope.
And now I hear a crack of a branch and kick of a stone.
And I can see through his eyes.
See the train tracks.
See the bushes in which I hide.
He is on the other side of the tracks.
The train is getting closer.
Closer.
Closer.
He is stumbling now, mindless, drunk probably, coming closer as well.
Closer.
Closer.
The train lets off a blast of its horn.
The ground is shaking.
The noise is louder.
He knows where I am.
He has almost reached the edge of the tracks.
The train is just around the bend.
I hope that he doesn’t realise what I am doing.
I try to clear my mind otherwise he will somehow cotton on.
Somehow, in his mindless state, he will feel my plan.
And he is so close now.
And the train is so close now.
And, although I am scared to death, I must wait.
Wait until the last moment.
When the train is upon us I will show myself.
And if I have timed it right he will step onto the tracks just as the train comes.
And then I will be free.
Finally I will be free.
Free from the abuse.
Then I will be alone.
Then I will be able to live and dream and just be.
Alone with my thoughts.
My magical thoughts.
And he will not be able to kill me anymore.
I will just be.
A brain.
For that is what I am.
A brain.
And he is, was, my body.
And he always abused me.
But I escaped.
And I hope.
I hope the train kills my body.
Smashes it into a million pieces.
Then I can slide and crawl around the Earth.
With just my thoughts.
With just my pure, non-abused, thoughts.
And I will be free.
I will be as free as the stars in the night sky.
I will be free.



THE END.

Drunken Battle Scars.

DRUNKEN BATTLE SCARS.


By D. Jonas Laurence



Come home, drunk, stagger into bed.
Wake up, got a broken finger, twisted knee, herpes.
Get out of bed, ankle’s sprained; fall to the ground in a heap.
Whole day wasted with a hangover. Drank too much whiskey. Again.
Two days later I’m fine again.
Go out again.
Drink beer and whiskey again.
Two nights later, come home, falling into gardens on the street, tripping over parked bicycles, puking on parked BMWs.
Somehow make it in to bed.
Somehow fall asleep.
Wake up, got cigarette burns on my chest, ligament damage to my hip, got a maggot burrowing into my upper lip. Smell bad. Got leprosy. Got the bird flu.
Two days later I’m okay again.
Go out once more.
Drink beer and whiskey and crude oil and rocket fuel.
Seventeen nights later, come home, naked, ass-raped and bleeding, nose bitten off in a street fight (nose was found and placed in my shirt pocket, but I have lost my shirt), skull fractured when I fell from a children’s playground swing, hepatitis, haemorrhaging pancreas, kidney stones, sun spots, grey hair, impotency, malnutrition,…
Somehow fall to sleep.
Wake up in a puddle of blood.
Teeth knocked out. Shat myself. Puked myself. Pissed myself. Spermed myself. Ear-waxed myself. Snotted myself. Pused myself. Sweated myself. Drooled myself. Not in a sound state of mind.
Half a day wasted with a hangover.
Watch pornography and sport and action movies starring Bruce Willis.
Go out the next night.
Go for one beer with a friend.
Find myself, six in the morning, drinking vodka with a Bulgarian transvestite, I can’t remember when I lost my friend, he could be anywhere, I could be anywhere, but I’m not…I’m here with the transvestite.
And am I just drunk or is he/she starting to look good?
And am I just drunk or am I rubbing his/her leg?
And am I just drunk or does he/she have her hand down my pants? Playing with my balls?
Twenty-two hours later, come home, decapitated, with the AIDS virus, acne, completely bald, fingers missing lost in a card game somewhere with some Ukranian gangsters, nose bunged up with cocaine, liver stolen and sold on the internet, big toenail ripped and just hanging on.
And so I waste a week. Call in sick. Stay in bed. Dream of Elle McPherson nude and with various things plugged up her. Masturbate so much that I wear all the skin off my pecker, until veins hang from it like pieces of red wool from a fat knitting needle.
I’m in a bad way.
But the next week I’m fine again.
So I go out to watch a band but drink fourteen thousand litres of beer and can’t remember who they even were and then I find myself in a brothel in Amsterdam which is strange because I don’t live in Holland and I am being whipped by a fat, balding, middle-aged American business man, and I’m tied up on a bed and I am naked and so is he but he is wearing a Zorro mask and screaming “Ariba! Ariba! Andale! Andale!” and it’s quite disturbing to find yourself in these positions, so I don’t say anything (because I have a gimp ball in my mouth) and wait for him to finish, which he does by shitting on my chest, pays me five hundred dollars and leaves.
So I go out drinking whiskey with the five hundred dollars, just to get the taste out of my mouth (and what that taste is you don’t want to know) and I find myself a week later on a Russian cargo ship breaking through ice towards the North Pole and I am playing Russian Roulette for two thousand dollars and a kilo of heroin.
Unfortunately, I lose…


THE END.

Small Pleasures?

SMALL PLEASURES?


By D. Jonas Laurence



“This small life is what you must concentrate on…the big questions will be answered in the end.”
- Kęstutis L. (translated from Lithuanian)



And you think life’s small pleasures pass me by? I was on a bus from London to Southampton. Two hours and ten minutes of journey. One hundred and thirty minutes….
I began drinking beer twenty-five minutes before the bus departed – that was my first mistake. I already needed to go for a piss then, but I chose to drink a can of Stella Artois and smoke a ciggy. Priorities are strange at times, what do ya think?
I got onto the bus and found a seat where I continued drinking in the way that sometimes grips me, my bladder beginning to swell like a bagpipe even as the bus fired and farted into life at Victoria Station. I started reading my T. Coragesan Boyle book of short stories, drinking a beer. When I had to turn the pages I placed my beercan in the mesh netting that is used for magazine holding on the seatback in front of me.
I read like a man possessed intent on devouring as many words as possible in a blink of the giant eye – a small rat of pain was already beginning to gnaw at the recesses of my brain like escape from smoke – fire was next, fire was coming.
I continued reading…
I continued drinking…
And when my can finished I opened another, as always.
An hour later I couldn’t read anymore – the rat was running from the flames, claws scratching the bagpipe of my bladder, the pain tearing at my insides too much for one man to bear.
If I would have laughed I would have pissed myself – that much I know for sure.
I fidgeted like a man in the electric chair waiting for the gates of hell to open – tears in my eyes, staring through them at the digital clock at the front of the bus that just plain refused to change.
Time had begun to stand still or crawl like an old snail.
Waves and spasms and contractions racking my body, I couldn’t take it anymore – Charlie Urine was gonna poke his liquid yellow tongue out at me at any moment.
When I was young(er) I could holdout for a piss for hours, no problem, but now I knew with a crystal clarity that comes in moments of great distress that I could not hold on – I was gonna piss myself right there on a fucken chariot knifing through the night on some motorway who knows where, too embarrassed to use my empty water bottle as a bedpan.
In desperation I stood up, unsure of myself, unsteady from the cans and from the motion of the bus, and threw myself down the aisle, the bald spot on the back of the drivers head flashing in the headlights like a last lighthouse in a storm, half a pack of chewing gum stuck in my mouth like tobacco in a hillbilly.
“Are we stopping?” I whispered in his ear like a pervert, my voice squeezed in anguish.
“Next stop in ten minutes.” The driver answered in a cheerful Scottish voice that went well with my bagpipe, his eyes never leaving the motorway – sparing him the horror etched all over my face.
“Can I go for a piss there?” I blurted out, forgetting all the manners I was ever taught about language to use with strangers, my voice now unmasked and pleading, invisible hands squeezing my bladder like housewives squeezing melons on a Saturday at the market, my body doubled over in pain……
“Well…….yeah,” the driver replied, giving me a quick strange look out of the corner of his eye “But why don’t you use the toilet at the back of the bus?”
I took a quick glance back into the gloom of overhead lights and noticed for the first time the square of the toilet resting peacefully at the back of the bus, just behind where I had been sitting all of that time in agony, before I took off like Ben Johnson at the ’88 games.
I almost flooded the thing.
The toilet was filthy. It stank. The door didn’t shut properly. And it was heavenly, a release, and I felt more alive than I ever have before.
So I celebrated by going back to my seat, picking up my book of short stories, and opening another beer.
It tasted like champagne or canned gold.


THE END.

The Man In The Drain

Before todays story I will just tell you about something that happened last night. I was out drinking with a friend of a friend. She was drunk and some how started talking to a group of black people. Now, living in Munich, there are a low number of black people if you compare the city with London for example. But, so, anyway I said hello and where are you guys from etc. But they were so convinced (for some reason) that I was going to be racist that everything I said they turned into something it was not. When I said "How are you?" one lady said, "What you think just because we are black that we are not okay?!"
When I said "Where do you come from?" one lady said "Oh I don't know my mother had sex with so many people I don't know where I am from." as if I was insinuating something like that.
Every fucken thing I said was twisted around until they could almost accuse me of saying something I wasn't.
In the end I just said,
"Fuck you guys."
and drank my beer in peace.

So here is a story for today.




THE MAN IN THE DRAIN.


By D. Jonas Laurence



Over the months and years that he had lived in his small, run-down, apartment, ---- took a lot of showers. Numerous. In fact one a day, sometimes two a day if he felt like it.
And ----, like most other men of his age, used his showers as a place to;

a) Clear his throat of excess phlegm and/or mucus
b) Clear his nose of excess snot and/or mucus
c) Clean his ears
d) Pee
e) Masturbate
f) Vomit (usually after excessive drinking)
g) Shit (usually an accident and usually after excessive drinking)
h) Squeeze boils and/or pimples
i) Trim toe and fingernails
j) Shave pubes and other unwanted hairs

And so, after months and years, you can imagine how much of all the above had built up inside ----‘s drain.
And a freak occurrence occurred one day that made this build-up of scum come to life and wreak havoc and mayhem at every available moment.
For one day ----‘s cousin and his wife and daughter were in town for a meeting of some sort, something to do with the strange church they went to, and, after the long drive, they had asked ---- if they could possibly use his bathroom to get freshened up before they went to their meeting.
---- was not working at the time and had not minded them using his apartment for an hour of so. After all they were family – no matter how distant or strange they were.
So on one fateful afternoon they had arrived at ----‘s apartment. ---- was amazed to see how old his cousin and wife had grown, but was even more amazed at how old their daughter had become. Was it really that long since he had seen them?
His cousin’s daughter was now twelve years old, and the last time ---- had seen her she was six months old.
My, isn’t it strange how time could just slip on by…
So the cousin and wife had quick showers, combed their hair, put on their church going clothes, poured cologne and perfumes on themselves until they stunk like skunks.
Then it was the daughter’s turn. She was obviously not excited at the prospect on spending an evening with her parents at a church meeting, and slunk into the bathroom slowly before slamming the door and locking it.
Thirty minutes later her parents were banging on the door and finally, after much shouting, the mother was allowed to go into the bathroom.
Another twenty minutes went by, murmurings could be heard, until they both left the bathroom.
---- was thanked for allowing them to use his apartment and then they were gone in a chorus of promises to see one another soon.
---- went back to watching television and that would have been that except for a couple of freakish coincidences.
You see what ---- did not know was that the daughter had just had her first period in his shower (hence the conference with her mother) and that the planets just happened to be in some sort of special alignment that gave power to the blood of the virgin woman.
So as her blood had flowed down the drain it had come into contact with the build-up of ----‘s shower habits and had somehow given life to this ball of piss, shit, come, vomit, hair and toenail cheese.
And this ball had awoken as if from a long sleep and had found itself trapped in the drain and it had begun to strengthen and attempt to free itself.
And all the time ---- just went about his normal, everyday, life – oblivious to the thing that was gaining power with each moment, and gaining power with each new ingredient added to it’s strange mix by the daily showering of ----.

And so, one day, while ---- was showering, peeing absentmindedly on himself, the drain burst upwards with tremendous force. It knocked ---- off his feet and his head hit the edge of the bathtub with a loud “clunk!”.
And then the thing made of shit, puke, pus, jism, pubes and ass dreadlocks was free.
And it looked down at the unconscious ---- before it.
And then it stretched and undulated into various shapes until it found one that it was happy with.
And then it looked down at ---- once more and decided what to do.
And then it did it.

So now the thing lives a happy life.
It is not it’s life but it is a good life. It is happy that ---- is not around anymore and that it could change it’s form to look exactly like him and then take over his life.
I know that it is happy because I am it.
I am the thing that came from the drain.
And there is one thing for sure, next time a cousin, or aunty, or nephew, or brother, wants to use the apartment I am going to say no.
I mean I have fixed the bathtub, fixed the large hole, but that is not the point.
For it could just happen that the planets are some how aligned in a very special way, and it could just happen that a virgin bleeds in the shower…and I can not have the blood giving life to things that are dead.
You see…
I have a man in my drain.


THE END.

Business Plan.

BUSINESS PLAN.


By D. Jonas Laurence



Stop drinking so much.
Stop sleeping in so much and wasting the precious day lying in bed.
Stop wandering around and doing nothing, looking out windows at the dying sun, looking across courtyards of eternity trying to catch a peek in a neighbours window – into their lives that are so much better and more productive than yours.
Be more productive.
Be better.
Write great stories of bullshit for people to buy and give you some of their money.
Get a cool haircut.
Grow a big goatee beard.
Become famous.
Take a lot of drugs and drink too much.
Become irratic in your behaviour – it will sell more.
Beat up people in bars.
Get arrested almost every other month.
Check into rehab.
Preach about sobriety before falling off the wagon.
Date supermodels and maybe give one a black eye.
Get tattoos.
Go crazy.
After a while become sane again. (important)
Get someone pregnant.
Lose custody of a child.
Learn to play guitar and start a band.
Release an album that no one buys.
Buy a big house.
Ride motorcycles.
Crash motorcycles.
Almost die of:
Motorcycle crashes.
Drug overdoses.
Getting shot by a drug dealer.
Having a stalker try and stab you.
Getting cancer.
Syrosis of the liver.

Be cool.
And then become uncool for a few years.
Then become cool again – even cooler than the first time you were cool.
Make people believe that at any moment you could self implode, that you could be gone. Make people realise the fragile beauty of life is it’s fleetingness.
Be saved from yourself by your friends.
Return to your family and recuperate and soak in their love of you.
Grow a full beard and long hair.
Take to wearing big black overcoats and walking city streets in the rain.
Be photographed in small cafes drinking espresso and smoking cigarettes.
Talk on your mobile phone a lot. (it makes people curious as to who your are talking to and what about)
Release a book of poetry that everyone hates, that is laughed at by critics, and yet becomes a best seller….in Japan.
Be photographed on beaches in exotic locations while you are:
Cheating on your wife.
Looking too fat.
Looking too thin.
Drinking a beer.
Surfing.
Smoking a joint.
Kissing a man.

Live in New York, at some place like the Chelsea Hotel.
Take some more heroin and cocaine – as long as some one sees and leaks it to the papers.
Go to really cool parties at the Playboy Mansion.
Start a rumour that you might be seeing Paris Hilton.
Go to basketball games and sit at courtside yelling insults at a certain player until they start screaming insults back at you.
Act in an arty independent movie.
Win an award and turn up unshaven and drunk. Be funny.
Start doing charity work.
Get more money than you know what to do with.
And then work extra hard at making even more money – for no reason.
Buy cool clothes and cars.
Appear on MTV Cribs.
Remember to forget to pay your taxes.
Lose all your money.
Become bankrupt.
And then become a millionaire again in about two years. By selling your autobiography.
Finally sit down and relax and ponder your life.
Then try to do something that is actually real.
Maybe then you can be happy.

All this I am going to do.
After I have a wank.
And watch some TV.



THE END.

The Pregnant Capsicum

THE PREGNANT CAPSICUM.


By D. Jonas Laurence



Today I cut open a yellow capsicum and found that one of the inside seeds had somehow grown into a miniature capsicum; the size of, say, a cherry tomato.
(The miniature capsicum was yellow, as well, but was shaded with green. It had come loose inside but you could see where it had been joined to the larger capsicum, like a belly button.)
The capsicum was pregnant and I cut it open and removed the seeds (and the baby capsicum) and threw them into the overflowing rubbish bin.
Then I cut up the capsicum and made an omelette with it.
So, in theory, I violently aborted the capsicum before cutting it into pieces and eating it. The evidence of this abortion I flung into a bin with little afterthought.
The bright sun shone through the dirt-smeared windows and made me warm.
I sat down and ate my omelette and felt good about the world – but I felt sorry for the capsicums.


THE END.


2nd April, 2007. Munich.