GRRRRrrrrr

Pot Belly

THE HUNGRY MAN CHRONICLES: PART 19

Continued from PART 18

Everywhere I looked, the light was frenzied around me, it was eager to enter my eyeballs, and at the corners of my vision, it was performing the Mexican Wave. I swam through the sea of light out of the cafe. The sky was golden although the sun had not come out yet. The urge to go shopping arose in me, so I began to saunter to the end of the road where it met with a busier main road with shops and cars. Shop windows glistened in the sun like gleaming jewels, behind them were the objects of the hearts desire: items which you could caress, love and own. I pushed my face against its reflection to steal the treasure with my eyes. I tried the door of the store, but it was locked. So many stores that teased me with their wares, but none were open to receive my business.

Then a glint caught the corner of my eye, a gleaming edifice slowly swallowed my vision. The steel and glass monster loomed over me with an authoritative shadow that it cast onto the road and surrounding buildings. It seemed to say, I am your master, you will kneel before me and for that reason was I drawn to it, an invisible force propelled me closer. The windows were filled with beautifully adorned mannequins, draped in the finest fabrics and each one portrayed a different scene. One window displayed a long banquet table with mannequins seated along one side and facing the street, each lady was dressed in an exquisite evening gown and put into various poses, some appeared to interact with one another and others were eating. There were taxidermy fowl and foxes chasing each other around and under the table on a floor which was covered in artificial autumn coloured leaves.

Suddenly, I heard clanking from the closed front doors, the jostling of mechanisms as someone from the inside was unlocking them one by one. A minute later the doors swung open, and another minute later I was wandering around the large department store. Elevator music was played at a volume just below what might be considered loud by most people, the soothing sound of xylophones pumped out of the retro wooden speakers, played to the beat of a relaxed heart. An army of colourful fabrics and glittering jewellery paraded the aisles, readied for my inspection.

The ceiling was a homogeneous diffused flickering white glow from hidden fluorescent tubes. I couldn't see the source of light, but I could detect their audibly low frequency thrum in the air. The open plan space, uninterrupted by partitioning walls, seemed to span indefinitely in all directions, and the dull monotonous lighting provided acute visibility for all the objects and signs beneath it. The smell of cellophane, corrugated cardboard and perfume hung in the air.

This is all quite nice I thought to myself, I could do with a new suit. I found a store directory next to the elevators and took the elevator to the fourth floor for formal wear. A pair of formally attired mannequins greeted me as the elevator doors opened. It was quite empty although once again, well lit and spacious. The same ambient music was playing as downstairs. There was a huge sign hanging from the ceiling that said 'Men Swear', as I strode over towards the section, I couldn't help but be annoyed by the typographical error; I kept staring at the space between the S and the n, trying to will it shut, the closer I got, the more significant the gap, and the more frustration it gave me. I approached a male mannequin and punched it in the face, it rocked for a few seconds on the stand and stared blankly at me, my fist began to ache and I swore loudly.

“Hello Sir! How can I assist you?” said a soft, effeminate male voice. I turned around to see a jockey-sized man in a pink shirt and blue waistcoat with the store logo on the chest pocket which contained a calculator and a pocket protector with a gold ball point pen clipped to it. He pouted, and raised a thinly plucked eyebrow at me.

“I need a suit!” I said authoritatively, and straightened my back, and aimed my chin towards his cleanly shaven face.

He clasped his hands together with a nod of acknowledgement and an extended blink as if to further emphasize his acknowledgement. “What kind of suit are you looking for? Any particular occasion?” he brought his clasped hands towards his chest and leaned his head towards me, bringing his ears closer to await verbal input. The pungent smell of aftershave mixed with hair products infused the air, and made me giddy. He looked like he was waiting for me to punch him in the face, I cranked my bruised fist shut, and saw that there was a hairline crack on the face of the mannequin that I hit.

“I'm looking for a suit to attend a formal dinner in, I need something smart and snappy, you know what I mean?” The words seemed to rattle off his head like tennis balls, as he nodded eagerly to each syllable as it left my mouth. I clicked my fingers and he snapped out of his trance.

“We have this suit.” He swept his hand down the length of the mannequin with the hairline fracture on its face. It was a seventies vintage baby blue polyester three piece suit with a black shawl lapel.

“No thanks.”

He stood there slightly stunned, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, no thanks. What else do you have?”

“This is the only suit we have in the store.”

“Why didn't you just tell me that instead of ask...” He looked lost, “Okay never mind, let me try this one then.”

I had expected him to get me a brand new suit, but he meant what he said about it being the only suit they had; he began to strip the mannequin, and in the process there was a tearing sound as he tried to manoeuvre the trousers around the rigid posed legs, at which point he quickly checked the damage and brushed it off, “It's fine, don't worry, nothing to see.” He handed me the items of clothing and ushered me in the direction of the changing rooms.


that's all I got

'Komodo & Me : A Love Story'

Love is in the air. Jonathan Piles, a retired eighty year old civil engineer discovers love when stranded, as the sole survivor of a plane crash, on an exotic but dangerous island ...

Edwardo's Last Stand

What The Incubus Saw

THE HUNGRY MAN CHRONICLES: PART 18

Continued from PART 17

After playing around with an Australian accent in my head, I drifted off to sleep – when I got back into the dream, much to my dismay - someone else had eaten the rice pudding. There was the wooden donkey souvenir that I had lost in Buckaboo standing on the table next to the empty dessert bowl. I picked it up and rotated the object in my hand. “I'm so glad I found you again!” I exclaimed excitedly to no one in particular, and then a black bird landed near my feet, so I decided that the sounds from my mouth were for the benefit of the visitor.

The clown-face wood donkey looked the same as the one that I bought in real life, with one exception, it had a long donkey penis made of rubber. The rubber section was connected into a hollowed out cylindrical stub of carved wood and was fixed into place with an inset nut and bolt. The whole object had been crafted with extreme precision and attention to detail; everything was done expertly, from the carving to the painting. It truly was a remarkable work of craftsmanship. Perfect in every way. Except … it was vulgar and tasteless.

“What ever was I thinking to have ever considered purchasing you?” I said jokingly. The black bird squawked. I held the object by the protruding rubber penis which was three-quarters the length of its body and three times the width of my hand. The rubber bent, and the wood part dangled on the end. I waved it up and down, and the wooden donkey bobbed on the end. “Do you want this wooden donkey, bird?” I said to the bird and dangled the donkey's rear in its face. The bird twitched as if trying to dislodge something from its head. I laughed, “I bet you are jealous that I have this, it is a truly silly object but I shall love it and hate it at the same time!” I hugged the wooden abomination. The bird stared at me for a second, then flew away.

I laughed for no reason. It made no sense but it felt good. Then I realized that I was in a dream. The sudden revelation of being in a dream felt ecstatic, as if the white light of enlightenment shone on my face. I felt that there was a mirror on the wall to my left, I turned that way, and there was a mirror. Once again, this felt good, it felt like being god. What did I look like in my dreams? - I was curious to see. The reflection wobbled as if the mirror was made out of jelly, configuring itself into the image of a clown-faced donkey with a grin that stretched across my peripheral vision; it was the same as the one as I was holding, except that in the mirror image, it was in the place where my face ought to have been, and my own face was transposed upon the wooden donkey's.

The mirror faded and I woke up. There was light coming through the window which at first suggested that it was already morning but in fact it was just overspill from the spotlights of a giant billboard on the building opposite. I hadn't noticed it when I entered the room so it must have been recently activated. It probably explained why the room was unoccupied, the lights lit the entire space as if the sun had dropped out of the sky. Even when I tried drawing the thin moth-eaten curtains, the light still managed to invite itself in. So I didn't bother to try sleeping again, there was no clock in the room, but judging from my wakefulness I assumed that I had enough, and would go for a walk in town and maybe get a coffee.

I got my clothes from my room without waking up Wana. A quick peek at the clock revealed that it was 6:02AM, so all in all, I got about ten minutes sleep in the upstairs bed, which wasn't bad up until I discovered that it was only ten minutes and then I started to feel sleepy again. My eyelids weighed heavily as I pulled the front door of the hotel open to be met by a refreshing cool and the bluish streets lit by the brightening sky and street lights. A few birds had already started scribbling chirps in the air. I yawned, and went in search of a cafe where I could ingest some stimulation to deal with the harsh reality of lost sleep.

Without knowing where there was a cafe, I just kept dragging my feet along the street in the hope that I would eventually encounter one. The streets were fairly quiet save for the odd loner walking rapidly to get home after a hard night of partying and street sweeper who was oblivious to all but the dirt on the road. A small cafe presented itself across the road. Through the store window, I could see a few people and the smell of bacon leaked into the street like a beacon for those who sought such hangover remedies. All I wanted and needed was coffee, and I knew this place held my rejuvenating elixir. I made a beeline across the empty road and almost got hit by a car that appeared out of nowhere.

A bell above the door tinkled brazenly as I entered the warm room. A casually suited young man was smoking a cigarette in the corner besides the window. He glanced at me as he sucked on the cigarette, then concentrated on the task of extinguishing the butt.

There were a few columns of dirty plates stacked up on the counter, and behind them was a woman on a stool immersed in a tabloid. I moved to an unobscured section of the counter where she could notice me and waited. A wrinkly old woman was swiftly carving up oily slivers of bacon and shoving it into her mouth. There was a clock on the wall which was covered in grease, 6:53AM. Ten minutes passed and she still hadn't noticed me, I considered coughing or clearing my throat to get her attention, but decided to wait a bit longer, the old woman had nearly finished her breakfast and I placed my hopes that something would have to happen then.

7:12 Woman finishes her breakfast, puts a tip on the table, gets up and leaves.

7:16 Man lights another cigarette.

7:25 I clear my throat, “Good morning!” I say to the lady behind the counter as if I just walked in. I hold a smile on my face, sufficient enough to hide a grimace.

She looked up, “Good morning sir!” She said it so chirpily that I could have forgiven her, but I didn't because I quite enjoyed the feeling of directing some latent malice towards her.

“Busy day?”

“Yes, extremely.” She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. Her appeal for my sympathy made me despise her even more, my smile had waned and I quickly propped it up again.

“Oh dear, what a shame.” I said and empathically rolled my head to one side with a tense smile and unblinking eyes. I froze there in an attempt to allow my frustration to dissipate through my skin.

“So, what can I do for you?” She grabbed a damp cloth and hastily wiped the counter top.

I controlled my demeanor, “I'd like bacon, eggs, sausages and hash browns,” recalling what I saw the old woman eat earlier, “and a cup of coffee, please.”

“You mean our special big breakfast meal?” She pointed at a blackboard on the wall which described the breakfast that I wanted.

“Yes that one.”

“We stopped serving that. Only served from five to seven in the morning.”

I felt myself boiling up inside. “Oh, what a shame.” I dug my nails into the counter top, “So what food do you serve now?”

She looked annoyed, “Chicken pie.”

“I'll have that and a coffee.”

She told me the cost and I handed her the money, then she lethargically took a pie from the fridge and threw it in the microwave and slammed the prison door shut. There wasn't enough coffee in the pot so I got a little over half a cup. The microwave bleeped after a minute and she put the pie in a napkin and handed it to me. I went to sit next to the window, there was a man sitting down with his elbow jutting out in my path, I could have avoided it, but because I was in a bad mood I decided to bump his elbow out of my way as I passed through.

I sat on the table adjacent to the smoking man and scorned him. The coffee was cold, any heat that was in the pie had migrated into my hand; the filling disappearance would have baffled even Houdini. I showed my contempt for the cold and sodden pastry by producing an exaggerated loud chewing sound with my mouth open. Then I slurped my coffee making sure that I could be heard from across the room.

The man with the cigarettes had tried to ignore my display of repugnance. I could tell that he was a loyal patron to the establishment of terrible service and disgusting food, so naturally he was an enemy of mine. I could not allow him to get away with his smugness, so I walked over and asked him for a cigarette. He looked at me blankly so I pointed to his packet of cigarettes and loosely performed a smoking gesture. Reluctantly, he opened the box and handed me one of the five remaining cancer sticks. I grabbed his lighter, lit the cigarette, then exhaled a lungful of smoke into his face and went back to my seat to brood about my vandalized tastebuds.

The cigarette was strong, the most accurate way to describe the flavour would be dried horse dung mixed with bits of plastic; the perfect complement to a breakfast that would make mass murderers confess. I retched a bit, some vomit rose up to the peak of my throat and slid back down as if to say that it wasn't going anywhere near the stench in my mouth, but actually the vomit assured me that my internal organs had not been poisoned for I was still able to produce bile, and that improved my morale.

I stared at the ashtray, it appeared to magnify to enormous proportions such was my concentration upon it. I could feel the nicotine racing through my blood and into my head and the feeling that it was pushing my eyeballs out of their sockets. Oh yeah, this felt more like it. The particles of ash sharpened in my vision so I could see their crisp outlines against the tar stained ceramic. The clown donkey from my dream appeared inside the ashtray, staring at me with a huge grin on its face, “Hey yeah! You like this, right?” It danced around, stomping the freshly fallen ash, and creating a mini dust cloud. “You like watching me dance? It makes you feel sexy?” My head swirled, and the room span with it.

I looked away from the ashtray and the room flashed for a few seconds then settled down. My body felt tingly. Everything looked a bit brighter, a bit sharper, then I felt that there was a excellent day ahead of me. I stood up, my knees wobbled for a second as if a surge of energy moved through my legs from the ground. I felt bigger than the room. I saluted to the smoking man, and thought it was a cool salute as I performed every movement with utter perfection an fluency, he saluted me back as if commending my skill. I felt a word at the back of my throat waiting to be expelled, then I shouted out, “Man!” it felt great to make that sound, and more words bubbled out of my throat, “I feel good! And the world is wonderful. Thank you for making my day!”


to be continued ...

Self-Employed Plague

THE HUNGRY MAN CHRONICLES: PART 17

Continued from PART 16

Hanging out with Andrew and Wana was a fun experience, even though the pizza (without tomato) ruined it for us - as it would for any discerning pizza eaters. Turns out that the gun he was carrying wasn't real, it was just a toy, and the deer he brought along – turned out it was real, except for the brain which was plastic; Andrew had removed it from the deer's skull and threw it from his tenth floor balcony as an experiment. But nonetheless, I felt an urgent need to sleep after the evening's frivolities – fear seems to have the effect of draining all your energy, also the pizza (without tomato) was a tiring culinary excursion.

I kicked the door shut, after I said goodnight to Wana. I tore off my clothes as if they were on fire and got under the pungent bed covers in eager anticipation of a pleasant slumber. The sheets felt powdery against my skin, no doubt some form of flea protection, or just dried semen, I giggled to myself at the hilarity of the idea then promptly fell asleep. Someone, or something (if you want to be dramatic about it) crawled into the bed with me as I was about to eat a delicious rice pudding in a dream, and the resulting panic wasted the adrenaline that my body had finally recuperated in the preceding REM sleep. I didn't move, probably was petrified from shock, but my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest, and that would have caused me to scream with the rationed blood to my brain. “Goodnight again” said Wana. All I could do was stare at the glowing green digits of the LED clock – 2:23AM.

When I was a kid, I used to hear stories of night demons who would visit in the middle of the night and suck the soul out of the paralysed victim's nostrils. In this case, it was a crossdresser who I was adamant to permit to suck any appendage of mine. Finally, after what seemed like a few hours, I sprung out of bed, and my feet connected with an oily carpet; my toes curled up as a reaction to the slimy grime. I hit the light switch. The incandescent light bulb flicked on just in time for me to see a cockroach scurry across the wall to a darker corner of the room. I aimed an index finger rigidly at the bed, ready to hurl a barrage of words to the offender. At the focus of my finger pointing was Wana, fast asleep. I looked at the clock again. 5:35AM!

Wana looked quite comfortably asleep, so just in my underpants I crept out of the room and closed the door quietly behind me. I climbed the stairs to the next floor. Another dimly lit corridor that looked the same as the one below but less grimy. A door creaked open, and just as I was about to recede into the darkness of the stairwell, a skinny man in his Y-fronts slipped out of the room. He caught me slinking back and we both froze on the spot, then another door slowly opened and a larger man in yellow stained Y-fronts snuck out.

Both men closed the doors behind them and tip-toed towards the stairwell where I was standing, they ignored me and tip-toed down the stairs. I followed them. Downstairs, the lobby was filled with about twenty men in just their Y-fronts. I felt like I didn't belong, so I double stepped up all the way to the top of the stairwell.

The top floor looked clean, the carpet looked washed and the light bulb was bright. I tried a door. Locked. The second door opened and I cautiously opened it. Dark inside. The light from the corridor provided enough illumination to determine if the room was occupied. The bed was made and the room smelt like lavender air freshener. Exactly what I was looking for. An unoccupied room which the cleaner had forgotten to lock. The clean sheets felt so good, that I almost felt guilty that I was contaminating with my filth covered body, but was too tired to care.


to be continued ...