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.
Good Boy
If you were to see my dog you would know. Not immediately, not straight away, it would take a few minutes but you would be able to guess pretty quickly, and a glance into his eyes would confirm it. Somehow humans are disarmed by the innocent cuteness of a newborn baby, a sweet little girl or a puppy, well my dog retained that throughout his years and the first reaction is always; "aw, how cute, isn't he sweet?!"
And then they do it, they do the one thing that has condemned my dog to eternal suffering. Maybe first they want to pet him, maybe they want to ruffle the fur on top of his head, or stroke underneath his chin, he loves that. Sometimes dog people will pat his flanks, knowing that a dog enjoys that second only to a hearty scratching against a rough brick wall when an itch sets in. My dog doesn't itch, or if he does, he doesn't feel it, he doesn't feel much of anything.
Once they've shown my dog the attention they think he deserves for being the cutest, sweetest dog they have ever seen they want to take something of him with them so that they can remember him, show him off to their friends and say "look, isn't this the cutest dog that you ever saw? Doesn't this dog put all other dogs to shame and make them look like scruffy mongrels?" before telling them where they can find my dog so that they can see him for themselves.
Years of being the cutest dog on the planet and having his picture with their camera phones has drained the soul of my dog away, bled it dry. If you look into the eyes of my dog you see the kind of eternal sadness of a man who had everything and lost it on a bad throw of the dice. It is this sadness that you see only if you look at the dog and not the furry body he inhabits.
Lucidity In the Sky With Diamonds
I'm twenty-eight years old, what the fuck am I doing owning an umbrella stand?
Star Spawn of Head & Shoulders
I was on my knees in the shower cubicle pumping the plunger back and forth in a frenzy, attempting to dislodge whatever clog trichinobezoar of hair had wedged itself down the pipe and was now causing every use of the shower to swamp the bathroom. There was a burble, a gurgle and a satisfying slurp as I lifted the plunger cup away to peer down the plughole.
The plughole peered back.
The plughole blinked.
Another burble and gurgle and bubbles of translucent rainbow-sheen foamed up from around the eye below the plughole, popping and permeating the air with chemical fumes which left me giddy and dizzy. As the sensations washed over me I came to realise that I could now understand the noises issuing forth from the plughole.
"Pthgurle'urble'yurble who dares to disturb my aeon's long slumber?"
Through the psychedelic haze I gazed into that awful ecliptic iris and the surrounding swirls of the cornea, unblinking, unable to break the gaze and look away, transfixed like a man watching his own impending, inevitable destruction at the hands of some ancient behemoth.
"Pthurble'gurgle speak up, I can't hear you."
"Cthulhu?" I managed to ask.
"Yurgl, yes, who did you expect? Don't you know the saying Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?"
"You mean In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming" my mind translated through an orgiastic explosion of unused synapses and hitherto undiscovered mysterious mental connections and untapped cerebral potential, "you mean..."
"Pttthrbgle, Yes, it is I, great Cthulhu, once more retu..."
"You mean that bastard estate agent screwed us over again and sold us a house atop the ruined temple of R'lyeh?!"
"Silence mortal, how dare you interrupt me mid-Pthruplet! I shall burn this planet in a holocaust of humanity, a turmoil of tentacles and orgy of ichor now that I have been awakened by your persistent sucking on my eyeball. I shall require an envoy... you will do nicely..."
The magnitude of his words, which seemed to be bypassing my ears entirely and etching themselves directly into my skull, caused me to collapse backwards, waving the plunger in the air in a feeble attempt to ward off the foul stench and imagery that The Great One described. Cowering in the cubicle I didn't hear my girlfriend enter the bathroom.
"What are you doing with that plunger?" she asked, and then frowned, "have you been sucking all the liquid unblocker I already poured down there up again and getting high on the fumes, you idiot?"
Had I?
HAD I?!
Tiny Hypodermic Needle
Before going to bed last night we decided to leave the bedroom window open and the blinds tilted to favor a steady flow of cool air into the bedroom. The downside to this was that I woke up much earlier than intended. I lay there in a drowsy state, knowing full well that once my eyes had been opened they wouldn't close again. I enjoy those moments when there is nothing that needs to be done, nobody wants anything or expects anything and I can just drift away in my own thoughts with...
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
An insectoid noise, something close to my ear. Fuck. I flinch my head a few times, which, in the soft embrace of the pillow is like trying to roll a whale through marshmallow. The buzzing is thin but close. Its not a fly. Cock, its a mosquito. I could stand to have a fly crawl on me if it meant I didn't have to move, but a mosquito is entirely different. I'm going to have to move. Worse, I'm going to have to open my eyes to slap the little fucker.
Eyes open. Bright world. Gah I hate insects. The noise is close and I spot it on our lovely white snowy sheets; its a monster, it could probably have drained either of us dry of blood before we were able to protest. I imagine a mosquito the size of a grapefruit trying to make it back out of the room between the slats of the blinds. I wave one hand in an effete and thoroughly pathetic manner. Had I know then that that was my best opportunity for splatting the beast I would have put a bit more effort into it.
It buzzes around a bit with that thin weedy buzz which isn't a real buzz, just a persistent noise of static, up and into the canopy that would have been festooned with fairy lights if we hadn't busted them when moving house. My eyes are wide open now butits vanished. Using ears of the hawk (+10 effect for three rounds) I scan the room, even closing my eyes in an attempt to recreate Daredevil. A distinct lack of Jennifer Garner in tight red leather leaves me disappointed but I remain resolute to defend my bed companion from the evil probosci of suckiness, something Ben Affleck was unable to do with his movie.
The buzzing comes closer again but I can't see it. I feel like Biggs, unable to shake that TIE fighter and look behind the bed canopy that descends along the wall behind me. There he is alright, sat on the wall, plotting, with a tiny cackling laugh and a twisty mosquito moustache. I try to gauge where he is and splat him from the other side of the canopy, but miss. There is the groan of someone whose sleep is being disturbed.
More buzzing, heading straight for me. I grab for a book on my nightstand, missing AA Gill's erudite assassination of the English, Rich Hall's pastiche of good ol' Southern country life, Neil Gaiman's latest collection of shorts, the Walter Moers book I'm reading as a bedtime story to my sweet, a war book that my girlfriend is already referring to as "Snippers" (sub-title: Invisible killers performing daring feats of barbery deep behind enemy lines) and finally pick up one of the really bad Heinlein's I have with a pulp sci fi image on the cover, ironically probably the most valuable book of the bunch.
There is the clatter of a wallet, ipod and pair of glasses falling to the floor as they are unbalanced from their resting place on the pile of books and the groan beside me gains persistence. I must defeat this insect quickly before he awakens my beloved! I swipe at him with the book and he disappears like a John Williams score into dark and lonely waters. I consider singing a few sea shanties but can tell that the wakefulness index in the room is already well past 75%.
She's risen to the level where I was when I first heard the buzz. Able to understand, but inable to act. I stroke the hair out of her face and ears... wait... I mean the hair from her head, I don't mean she has a beard and hairy ears, anyway, and I whisper.
"There's a big mosquito in the room, I'm trying to splat it. Stay asleep."
Thats when one arm shot out from under the covers and... No, she didn't catch the mosquito without opening her eyes. That would have rocked. Seriously. She pulled the mosquito-net canopy around the bed. Wow did I feel like an idiot.
Distilled
She asks me what we are listening to and I give her a carefully cultivated enigmatic smile.
Seventeen years ago: I have discovered a faint interest in girls. There are things going on now that make it obvious that they are different. I've been told not to pull Emma's hair and despite the fact that she kicked me in the ghoulies I've been forbidden from returning the favor. Instead I am told to accept her gracious apology and her mother will explain why she shouldn't do that to boys, in private. She says sorry, I try to communicate that everything is fine and forgiven just with the corners of my lips. She takes immediate offence, thinking that I'm laughing at her apology and she kicks me in the ghoulies again.
Fourteen years ago: I am sat in the darkness, the quietest room at the party with only the coats for company. Anna Jordanova comes into the room as if in response to every teenage yearning I have had in the last year and is suddenly taken aback to discover I am there. I imagine that the light from the crack in the door illuminates only half of my face and I must appear some sort of brooding and deep intellectual to be sat in the dark at a party while Europop music floats through from the main room. She asks if I'm ok, and I give her a smile and slight snort of derision as if to say is anyone? I am about to tell her that I have fallen in love with her when she turns to shout that I'm going through everyone's pockets.
Ten years ago: I have walked her home, she says she's not tired and says she'd like to see where I live so we turn around and head across town again. I won at poker and she told everyone about her sister cutting herself and we talk about these things as we walk. She spies me limping as the shoes rub against my heels and I take off my shoes, lacing them together and slinging them over my shoulder. I feel like Huck Finn, traipsing through life without a care, only to realise that she's Becky Thatcher and is seeing my best friend who had other plans this night. We stop outside my apartment building and she says she'd like to come in. I give her a smile as if to say but you're with Tom Sawyer, and it can never be cherie. That night I sleep alone.
Six years ago: I am new and fresh and innocent in this town, without knowing one area from another. I travel everywhere by Tube to lay the groundwork that will later be stitched together by walking from place to place above ground years later. I don't know any better and watch people on the Tube trains intently as they treat everyone else like ghosts, staring into the far-distance but somehow avoiding collisions. The girl next to me smells nice and looks up from her book. I hit her with my best smile and she looks back down without pause.
Three years ago: There isn't much time, the music is loud, the atmosphere thick with smoke, I barely know her, having filled in all the blanks with flighty fantasy so that she is everything I could ever want. We kiss and the moment is emblazoned into my psyche and will have repercussions that will change everything but tonight is still tonight. She shouts over the music that it would never work and that we live on different continents and I say nothing but answer with a smile. We understand each other perfectly.
She asks me what we're listening to again, asking if I didn't hear her the first time and what's with the goofy grin and I go back to the drawing board.
Lag
I wake up and the aisle seat next to me is empty. I check my watch but we've crossed so many timezones that all I can say for certain is that its twenty minutes past the hour. The window seat passenger is asleep and I lean over the empty chair to peer down the aisle at the rest of the passengers; all asleep too. I appear to be the only one awake, at least, I hope the pilot is still awake, or at least one of the more capable air hostesses. Where has my wife gone?
I unbuckle the world's most pointless safety feature in any mode of transportation ever and stand with the awkward motion of someone whose legs haven't caught up with the fact he's awake, bent over limbo-like to avoid pressing against the fully-reclined seat ahead of me.
Its eerie to be awake, crammed into such a small place with so many sleeping humans. I feel like I could draw magic marker moustaches on everyone, including myself to avoid suspicion. I spy a few dribblers, hear a few snorers and suddenly realise that even the babies are asleep. Babies never sleep on planes in my experience. God dammit, where is my wife?
I wonder if all the passengers in first class are asleep too. If I was getting unlimited champagne and a private library of DVDs to watch I wouldn't waste my flight asleep. Tentatively I peek beyond the veil and see that they're all asleep, in those little pods that supposedly let you sleep perfectly flat, providing you regress to a foetal position. There is a strange scent on the recycled air.
Suddenly it hits me; gas! Everyone has been put to sleep by some sort of gas circulating through the cabin and the plane has been hijacked! But who... my God... my wife! She wanted to go to Bermuda! I should have realised that when the look of disappointment changed to firm resolve on her face she was going to get her way by hook or by crook. Just as she berates me for being a juvenile immature idiot of a man, she's always been a stubborn uncompromising cold-hearted bitch. Fine, I figure, and dig out a magic market from my carry-on bag.
Basics
What if everyone knew something and you didn't? What if all those young couples had discovered that the secret to happiness was to have a child, and to raise that child and upon doing so the child would one day turn to them and say the one thing that would bring them fulfillment. What if the mad ones were the ones that had seen beyond the facade and saw what was lying underneath, the deeper meaning, the point of it all and that had driven them mad, falling face down screaming into an egg sandwich.
I start to discuss this with my friend and his face goes blank. He doesn't understand why I have to attach importance and meaning to everything, why can't I just embrace the random nature of the world and my place in it? Have another beer.
I look into the beer and watch the patterns of bubbles as they fizz to the surface. I see through the liquid and into the glass, through to the table beneath and I ponder who made the glass, who made the table, who made the beer, the taste of the beer on my tongue and the chemical reactions that make the sensation pleasurable inside.
He calls me back to the here and now with a thumped fist on the table, there is a splash as beer as it sloshes over the rim and trickles down the side of the glass. I catch a pearl of beer as it slides down the vertical surface on one fingertip and suck on it.
He redoubles his attack. There is no deeper meaning, no higher purpose. We look for basic things in life, a comfortable living situation, sustenance, companionship, entertainment. If something doesn't provide one of these then we have no use for it, no time. We live as selfish individuals within what should otherwise be a complimentary society, working towards a common goal, instead we are also the first species to have the ability to wipe ourselves out entirely, working at a diametrically opposite purpose to our biological mission; to procreate, to perpetuate, to survive.
I look up from the sustenance at my companion, entertained by his lucid ramblings, finish the drink and head home to my comfortable living situation with hopes of attempting some procreation when I get there.
Consensual Reality
"They are colluding with you, the whole world" she says. "They are doing it because they want you to feel happy. When you are happy you provide them with entertainment and they like being entertained. When you are unhappy you do not entertain and they would rather keep your delusions alive than have you be unproductive."
I feel like I'm trapped in some virtual reality construct and I furrow my brow and gaze back quizzically.
"Everyone has the same sense of paranoia about whether what they do, what they offer the world is worthwhile. If we didn't have insecurities that were easilly played upon then advertising wouldn't work. Maybe they'll like me more if I wear the right shoes, smell like appleblossom or come out with pre-approved slogans. We don't believe it ourselves, but its easier to go along with the crowd."
I find myself thinking of an election I heard about a few years ago when common sense went right out the window and everything broke.
"A friend will tell you that you look great even if you don't because they expect you to tell them the same in return, reinforcing their perceived reality. They don't want you to pick out their flaws, they just want to be told that everything is fine. But me, I'm not your friend, I don't stand to benefit from telling you half-truths. I'll tell it to you straight and I expect you to do the same with me, are we clear?"
This is certainly the toughest pre-school introduction day in history. I want my parents...