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.
Legacy
The electric shaver had been used once and only once before. My mother had bought it as my father lay wasting away to cancer. The chemotherapy had taken away his hair. I had always felt safe knowing that I'd have a full head of hair late into my life and now it didn't make a whit of difference. To compensate my father had started growing a beard, a thick black bushy beard.
My mother didn't like the beard, it made him look like a different man. Not the man she had married. Not the man she had raised two children with. Not the man she had run away from only to come back to. The beard made him someone different but she had always been more forward thinking than my father so she bought the electric shaver.
When I write the book though it will be a straight razor. It will be kept in a leather pouch along with a white badger hair brush and the bar of soap she will use to lather him up. When I write the book I will be over six feet tall and my sister will have a quirky mental illness that has been a burden on our family but one that we cherish her for and she appreciates it. When I write the book I will feel something more profound.
The day he died was like letting out a breath you have held in so long that the taste in your mouth has gone stale. Your eyes are half closed and your lungs squeeze. You expel the air like an evil spirit and as the muscles ache the feeling is like cramp inside. You realise this is how it feels to be empty inside; the next breath won't fill you up again. Nothing will, not for a long time, not until you adjust to the loss.
My mother went upstairs and took the electric shaver with her. She broke open the security tag and pulled out the contents; the booklet with a smiling clean-shaven young man being stroked by an elated blonde on the cover and instructions in seven languages, health warnings in nineteen, the samples of shaving gel and aftershave, the plastic cover, the recharging dock and wire, the travel case. Everything fell to the floor as she climbed the stairs, holding just the electric shaver.
When I write the book she will have tears in her eyes at this point. She will be supporting herself on the banister. She will be pulling herself up the stairs. She will be physically dragging herself closer to the man she intends to say goodbye to. When I write the book I will be strong at this point, and resolute. I will make a promise to my dead father that will see me through the plot. At the end I will lay his ghost to rest.
I followed her up the stairs and watched as she held the electric shaver to his face. She pushed the only switch on it. The device remained inert and she checked to see if it had caught on his beard. I left the room and returned with the charger. I took the shaver from her hands and realised that she was shaking quite badly. We sat for a few hours in silence, waiting for the shaver to charge up. When it had charged my mother removed the beard, first with the trimmers, then with the flat discs. When she finally revealed the man she had loved underneath, the tears flowed quietly down her cheeks and she kissed him goodbye, running her hand across his cool smooth chin.
When she was done she got up and left the room. She gathered up all the pieces and put them back in the box. Then she handed me the electric shaver, good as new. But as I say, when I write the book, it will be my father's straight razor, and I will cut myself with it and swear a blood oath to his memory.
I think of all these things as I stare at his face watching me from the mirror as I shave.
Dating Paradox
I always knew I had pulling power with women. If you were to see the bevy of beauties I've dated over my lifetime you'd see that there was an invariable quality to them that was a cut above the norm. In fact my mates had given me the flattering moniker of Mr Irresistible after many an occasion where we had all gone out and I'd been the only one not going home alone (except for the one time when Kevin and Gavin went home together but it has become taboo to speak of it)
Gavin had bet me £500 though that I would not be able to take his sister out on a date. I had of course accepted, being the cocksure stud I know that I am. Even with the additional conditions that I had to show up dressed like someone out of Miami Vice, with a cheap aftershave on. My confidence remained unshaken even with Gavin's words ringing in my ears; you'll never get her out the door, never ever, no way.
I knocked and there was no answer. Maybe Gavin had cheated and not bothered to warn his sister I'd be showing up tonight. I knocked again, louder this time and there was a shout from inside: "Its open!"
I opened the door and walked in, striking an immediate pose and flicking my hair aside for effect. Nobody was there though so I sauntered through to the living room to find her there...
Like Jabba the Hutt on steroids she covered all three seats of her couch. Discarded food wrappers and empty multi-packs of soda littered the floor around her couch. Gavin had been literally right, I'd never get her out of the door, not without a forklift. But I've been known to be an ingenious man, as well as devilishly handsome and suave. I knew what to do when the Irresistible Force met the Immovable Object; we'd order take-out and rent some DVDs.
The Imposters
For the sake of argument let us assume for the following post that my job is to feed greased voles into a steel pipe helter skelter and that my success in this job is directly related to how amused the voles are when they pop out the other end all dizzy.
I have been doing this job for just over a year now, it is exhausting and has turned me into a drone, its taken a lot out of me, and has put a great strain on my sanity and my relationship so when performance review came around I was quite eager to find out how my efforts were going to be rewarded.
"We're going to give you an 'average' rating for this year's performance" my boss told me.
"We rank you as a responsability level 6, category C, on a schedule lamba-nine with an additional twenty percentile duty scope" my boss's boss told me.
"Cost of living increase included" the HR Director told me.
I sat looking at them all, blinking like a looney tune that someone has just switched the lights off on.
"Right" I said. "What about all the extra hours? What about the friday nights staying in here until ten or eleven? What about the company parties I've missed? What about all the voles and how dizzy and amused they are?"
"Well, we haven't had the most encouraging feedback from the voles" says my boss's boss.
"And we did give you time off when you had that stress fracture across all ten fingers at once" says my boss
"Gold star for you though!" says the HR Director.
My face is ashen for a few moments and suddenly they all burst out laughing.
"I can't keep a straight face!" wheezes my boss through tears of laughter.
"Help me, I can't breathe!" says my boss's boss.
"The charade can't be kept up any longer" says the HR Director. "D, you haven't been very attentive otherwise you would have noticed something. The company you work for, its a dummy company. We don't really grease voles and slide them down helter skelters, we just pretend to. Everyone else realises this and doesn't take it so seriously."
"Like me, for instance, I'm supposed to supervise you greasing up the voles, but I couldn't care less! I'm actually writing a book on stress-related injuries and illness" says my boss.
My boss's boss leans over "And all of my management decisions follow a manifesto we found on the Internet"
"And I look after my employees the way I play The Sims" says the HR Director "it amazes me that none of you have wet yourselves or set fire to the building yet. By my projections you should have four times."
They continued to laugh and slap the tabletop and clutch at their sides. My expression remained unchanged, but underneath the table my hand crept slowly for my lighter
When Dogs Rule the World
"Welcome to WINDOWS VISTA, NEW USER. Voice recognition software is active by default, would you like to create a new profile now?"
Woof!
"New profile for user ROLF created. What would you like to do TODAY, ROLF?"
Woof, woof, grrrrowl, ruf!
"Opening new connection to the MICROSOFT NETWORK, your portal for all your online..."
RUF!
"Connection diverted to FIRST BANK OF ZURICH, please input account number"
Bow-wow-wo-wow-row-ruf. Rrrrrr, row-howl-wow
"Please input four digit PIN"
Ruff-grr-rowr-ruff!
"PIN incorrect. Please input four digit PIN"
Ruff-grrow-rowr-ruff!
"Account accessed. Main menu. 1. View account details. 2. View balance. 3. Administer account transfers. 4..."
Ruff!
"Administer account transfers. Where would you like to divert funds from your private Swiss bank account to Mr Gates?"
Bow-wow!