Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
We Need To Talk
Look, before you start, I know, okay, I know. Its just that, well its not you, its me, really it is. I was trying to make this work, I really was. I was making such an effort day in and day out, I really wanted this to be something... special, and yet... well, look where we are. If it was special we wouldn't be having this talk.
I think the important thing for us both to realise is that we tried, didn't we? You kept coming back and I kept writing. Admittedly it wasn't always good, in fact, I daresay lots of it was downright crap, but we made that effort, went that extra mile, clicked that little bit harder and typed that little bit faster, but you have to wonder now, where has it got us?
The inbox is clogged with junkmail, there are bandwidth thieves stealing from the archives and we're both just so weary of it all. Its the same things going round and round and round and we never seem to actually get anything resolved or done. No... don't say anything yet, let me finish.
Look, its not you... you're great, you're funny, erudite, good looking, and best of all you keep coming back, I don't know if I've told you recently how much I appreciate that. But you see, its just not working out and I have to face up to reality and tell you that, otherwise I'm just fooling myself, and you. Its me, it really is, I'm just too lazy and my life is really good at the moment and I can't spend time coming up with self-deprecating content. I usually flake out over the summer months, you know that.
So lets just say that for now, we'll remain friends, maybe stay in touch and check in from time to time. You never know, I might write something that'll remind you of why you came here in the first place. Until then...
A Cheese Sandwich
So I didn't really know what to do for lunch today, like? And I was all like, well what about something simple and all that, right? So I got some white bread and I spread some Spreadable onto it in a thin layer with a whippy little butter knife, yeah? And then I took some mature English cheddar from my fridge? And I was cutting the cheddar into pretty thick slices figuring I would make a proper doorstep sandwich and maybe smear some Branston pickle on the cheese, yeah? So anyway that's like, when the sandwich spoke to me.
"Please. Don't eat me!"
And I was so just not paying attention at first that I'd already spooged a big dollop of dark brown sticky Branston pickle onto the cheese and was smearing it around with the knife before I even realised what had happened. I stopped and put the knife down, yeah? Cause you do, don't you, when a cheese sandwich talks to you, right?
"Oh, please don't eat me!" it pleaded.
"Who am I talking to here? Is it like... just the cheese talking, or the combination of cheese, bread, spread and pickle that has become a gestalt entity far more intelligent than its component parts?"
Because you would ask that of your cheese sandwich if it started talking to you, am I right or am I right? Right.
"Um..." tried the sandwich.
"Cause you're using the first person and are obviously self-aware. You've also anticipated what's likely to happen to you so I guess you have further developed cognitive skills than your average sandwich and finally you've got a sense of self-preservation, so the question really becomes is your plea genuine or is it just a keenly developed survival instinct?"
"Please don't eat me?" the sandwich said once more, with just a hint of doubt and a lot of spicy, pickled tang.
"Okay, I'll agree not to eat you if you can say something other than 'please don't eat me' how does that sound?"
And that was like the first time in my life where I totally witnessed a Shakespearean pause as delivered by a bread and dairy combo.
"No deep stalemate?" it said tentatively before trying again with "Data element pose! Oatmeal speed net!"
Anagrams are good enough for me, so I put him into the salad shelf in the fridge with the chocolate bar that talks in palindromes and the stick of celery with Tourettes.
Nuts
Bruder bought a coconut, he bought it for a dime,
His sister had anudder one she paid it for de lime.
It was a hot weekend and we were dehydrated from a long night clubbing and the dangerous drive home at the hands of the world's most paranoid and road safety-devoid Nigerian illegal minicab driver with bad teeth and a proclavity to use the automatic windows of the passenger door to keep me from falling asleep. We went trawling for food, although she looked radiant in the sunshine I felt like a ghoul in my dark clothes and sunglasses.
Strange notions take over your mind when you've only had four hours of sleep and so I picked up seedless grapes, a cucumber and a coconut. She assured me that she had a hammer before I paid for the coconut.
She put de lime in de coconut, she drank 'em bot' up
She put de lime in de coconut, she call de doctor, woke 'im up
Cut to her place and I'm outside on the decking with a clawhammer and the coconut, having gobbled up all the deliciously refreshing grapes and even peeled a few for her. Two blows from the hammer and the husk cracks like the San Andreas faultline under pressure to make a decision between east and west and I pour the clear milk into a coffee mug. Inside the husk is the snow white flesh of the coconut and I move to the kitchen to begin removing it for consumption.
With an Ikea paring knife, sharp as buggeryfuckit, with a bobbled plastic purple handle for perfect grip I begin prising the flesh away from the husk, reminiscing on how my stepfather managed to stab himself under similar circumstances and wouldn't it be funny if it happened again.
And wouldn't you know, but it did. Right as the mental image of me stabbing myself formed in my head the knife slipped between the flesh and the husk, carried on along the insides of the shell and embedded itself into my left index finger just above the inside crease of the first knuckle.
I wasn't even shocked, it was as if I had intended to do it. I removed the knife and cleaned the cut, and she dressed it with a candy pink Hello Kitty plaster and we ate coconut dipped in coconut milk as we watched Sunday afternoon TV in the summer breeze. Perfect.
Put de lime in de coconut, drink 'em bot' up,
Put de lime in de coconut and call me in the morning.