Metaphysics

A Story by A Spleen

Why does this feel like yelling into the night knowing that it's not far enough?

And so the story goes, the boy dropped the stars. Every single one, fell down. And he had traced them all together and so he had been holding up all of them. But then he dropped them, because he had to turn and ask her. “Has he ever drawn you a sort of sentimental nice?”

There would be a wait, and the moment will hang by her strings.

And no he won’t didn't hear a thing other than honesty in his voice, his heart plummets at the thought of that bus stop he’d neglected to wave to. And he can’t help it but turn away. So those moments sit, cut down and swollen with ignorant silence. And so the story goes, the boy will diligently follow his heart’s orders and march to her house. Utterly s**t-faced, sprawled face-down in her backyard wondering, “Has he ever drawn it for you right?”

And of course her bohemian boyfriend, will never find this boy funny or clever. Raining under his beret, He’ll shield her in the covers. No doubt re-assuring her that he could, in fact draw her anything she wanted. And that the devilish drunk will be gone by later in the morning.

And the other girl will march all the way from her bus stop (missing it’s service), take off her clothes, mutilate herself and crawl up the side of his stair case all purple with no feelings. And when he’s not there. She walks in anyway. Breaks down the door, and tries to find him hiding. But he’s playing Romeo elsewhere. She’ll find instead empty bed sheets. Pill packets fall out upon her lifting the stained sheets to her breast. She kisses the empty air between them, and says “you better hope that whatever it is that’s under your bed loves you forever.”

And then she leaves. And never comes back.

Teary-eyed he’s chased from the lawn by the artist, with a broom. Like a cat.

And then he leaves. And never comes back.

Instead he stops midway down the street. Removes his clothing, feels sharp bitumen pain him as he lies down. Especially his lower back. And then starts to clamber a much larger staircase.

And when the morning was all said and done. The bohemian, the boy, the want and the need. He’ll hurtle himself somewhere between everything. All sticky, he’ll turn to the sky.

In fact he’s sitting there now, smiling.

“I’m trying!?!” he’ll say whilst wiggling a quill through his skull’s big ole’ crack. But it’s hard sometimes. And so it should be.

Sometimes he wants to change the script etched on his head’s other side. It’s interior. But it’s important to know that some scripts you just have to live with. And so instead, he’ll add to it. Blindly, madly. Until from further past the ceiling, the ball and chain ‘round a wrist, a revolver and to the paper, stops it’s metallic cackling. The taunting as it shakes. Until there’s a skull and head all shot through the paper.

Something soaked with madness, dancing above his face and,

making the most of it’s saturation, laughs and points.

The night’s can be painful, and he can see many faces. Some friends, some are cold strangers.

Sinking into the sheets is easy, as a rule of thumb when it comes to life. Pulling distorted fiction (or her) out of the bed sheets has proven itself to be much more of a task. But he’s sure that if he did, she’s be right at home on his shoulders where he’d spin her around, laying his doubting family to rest. Laying their doubts to rest.

“You’re a handsome young man why haven’t you got a girlfriend?”.. Pow! Pow! She’ll be shootin’ lasers out her eyes at ‘em.

“You’re an intelligent lad, why don’t you put your mind to something?”.. She’ll take me by the wrist and fly me out through the ceiling. And they’re left to fight their way out of the roof debris that has crumbled down upon them.

But he knows what real livin’ is. But it’s something that has to be driven out of him. Easier said then done. And art can prove to some to be their only escape, but the best things he ever liked where bashful and young, and wet and crazy. Ideas that start with “I couldn't sleep so then I…”

And he knows this… But before he ever get’s a chance to be restless, he’s woken by the morning. He doesn't bleed, there isn't in fact any trace of blood through the paper. It’s dry and neat and he writes with a picture by the paper. Of him as a young boy. Smiling like he was supposed to, at cheese. Now he couldn't do that. It’s just not funny.

He writes to remember why he’s here, the little part that no-one likes. That doesn't wear leather jackets and is nice to people because it wants to be. There’s nothing enigmatic or striking about it. And he writes to build that back up together again. And it makes him smile in both realities. And it makes him keep writing.

And so he’s doing it now.

Smear, Splatter, Repeat.

I guess it’s kinda like yelling into the night, knowing that you haven’t yelled far enough.

Smear, splatter, repeat.

But liking it like that.

And so he doesn't the jingle the chain. The chain that’s wrapped from halfway past the ceiling, ‘round his wrist and to the paper. Because that’d be rude. That’d be like charming a hundred alternate realities to cheer you on, and then spitting in the air. And turning and laughing, and saying “Now you have to see what I wrote, sit and cringe you c**t.”

And that’d be SOOO rude.

But last night, I couldn't sleep so then I… And the gun clicks.

Sorry about enlightening this fact, this idea. But the spotlights gotta shine somewhere, and so it happens upon a lad named Morny, whom is tall, dark, weathered and lonely. In a kitchen. With a knife.

And his bird is squawking, through it’s cage in the corner of the living room adjacent to where he is standing now. And for a second he was stopped and couldn’t figure for all the life in him, as morbid as he was clueless, exactly where to put the kitchen knife. It’s kinda like the feeling of not dancing at a school formal or a disco or whatever. Somewhere where you’re supposed to be dancing.

“Dance then shall we?”

There was a time in Morny’s life when he actually felt the need to get better. So being well-adjusted and human he visited a specialist. But of course it posed great difficulty for Morny to describe his symptoms. The best he could do was to spit out the following (and he would cry later when he recalls how tedious, how alien he’d seemed)… “If feels like a clenching of the chest, and I have sweaty toes. Like it’s being squeezed out through there.” That’s not lovely, you can’t collect the puddle you’ve made and pretend it’s anything more than just that. She smiled back, but he reckons she was repulsed. It’s not metaphorical for love, it’s for something in me that’s ugly and no-one else can frame it, size it up and say. “Yes. Yes I like that.” And this can be drudgery, this can choke like a killer at times.

“No.”

No of course not.

Just under the sink. In the cupboard under the sink, place it in it’s sheath. And rest it on the cutting-board in which his mother, in a few minutes time will use to feed the dog. And the dog’s eyes have changed now that it’s hungry, because they always do.