Very occasionally, and with a sufficiently (if suspiciously) extended window for attribution, eventually, the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, do go right. Admission season is here, and I got the offer I wanted. Barring the breakout of World War 3, a color uprising, a deadlier covid variant, or some other force majeure, there is … Continue reading A victory for Jacks
Category: Memories
On the GREs
Oh, for the love of Montaigne, for the death of nuance, what the actual fuck.
On farting and vanities,
When you sing, I grate bones.
The Painter and the Thief
When a hardened man breaks, it is all the more shattering. Such is the agony of being seen, in a world accustomed to unseeing.
London, again. (Pt. 2 of whatever)
People are kind of like plants that way. Once you yank them out at the root, they don’t grow so well.
London, again. (Pt.1 of whatever)
If to seek out the pleasures and sorrows of one’s youth, as cautioned Camus, is a kind of folly certain to be punished, then punished I will be.
On living for ourselves, and a death-day reflection
“April is the cruellest month.” Trauma has a peculiar effect on me. Prompted by dates, places, smells, passages of text, or fragments of music, my body - the muscles, bones, cells, nerves, neurons and all, harmonize to re-enact an affective experience of that ordeal. The mind attempts to forget, but some primordial agent still holds … Continue reading On living for ourselves, and a death-day reflection
Of pants and mannequins
If you’re wondering how I’m getting on with my daily writing challenge, my dearies, this is what it looks like. Those chicken soup gems I poop out are few and far between. Usually they’re just a snarl of thoughts snarling from the page gnarling to be seen. So this is to document to you, that … Continue reading Of pants and mannequins
On blue
There is a special kind of blue only found in this country, heralding the arrival of lords and kings and captains of nations, the blue of Man’s subjection of the elements. A royal blue, a celestial blue, rolled out across the heavens for the most heavenly of guests. A Presidential Blue. #00117F is a … Continue reading On blue
Home
It was first known as 'the house', 'my parent's place', 'back there', a cage, my prison. Schoolmates used to ask if they could come by and play, when we walked past my door on their way home. Before I run out of excuses, they stopped asking; soon they stopped sharing that walk with me too, … Continue reading Home
Unravel – loneliness and its antidote
“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald I pretended I was not myself during the time of my mid twenties. The country was already stuffed with returnees and I wanted to be different. A … Continue reading Unravel – loneliness and its antidote
Unravel – the Metaphor
Those sharp little fangs bit down and drew blood and he knew it was a metaphor. Fast friends, they had met on New Year’s Eve and she was in his life for 175 days. Some days he had felt so close to her that his wings melted and felt his monstrous heart plummet from the … Continue reading Unravel – the Metaphor
Unravel – Prologue
A month after my 30th birthday, I found myself perilously employed at a job I resent, functionally broke, estranged from family, inconsolably lonely with an anguished heart, and hospitalized for two weeks from complications during retinal detachment surgery – which had no apparent cause in the first place other than to add to the cascading … Continue reading Unravel – Prologue
My 4-step coping strategy for panic attacks.
It begins with the world closing in and the floors and the desks and the walls and the crowd and the trees and grass and the skies bending, bending towards you with vehement intent and the space around you spinning, spinning into a whirlpool of red, yellow, orange and green then bright, bright light scorching … Continue reading My 4-step coping strategy for panic attacks.
Welcome to me.
TJK; I doubt y'alls are actually reading this, but if you are, hey - welcome to me. I have been a writer only in the most technical sense - that words are tipsily tapped out from beneath my thumbs in a tangle of thoughts, all of it me. But I am not a writer in … Continue reading Welcome to me.
The Guinness Sigh
The sigh that follows a protracted, tantalizing gulp from a fresh, cold pint of Guinness is paradise. That luxurious satin nectar of bitter ecstasy filling around your tongue, your gut, your blood. It's the hard-earned sigh when propping up a stiff foot after a long hard Saturday, where the fifth cup of coffee … Continue reading The Guinness Sigh
On friendship, and parting
There should be a better word than sorrow for friends parting. Cherished friends, to whom you’ve subtly grown close, over a surprisingly few moments of connection: that one morning perched on the balcony of your regular restaurant sharing toast and poached eggs, the sting of the winds tempered by a spring sun; or the wintry … Continue reading On friendship, and parting
P.N. Setepenre
Is today's sunlight same as yesterday's? Kind of brain-scraping when you think about it. There's nothing intrinsically different, in the sense that they're all made of the same 'stuff' - electromagnetic radiation from the sun. Which would make sunlight truly egalitarian - to kings and beggars, sunshine is sunshine. Life has been shitty lately. Supposedly … Continue reading P.N. Setepenre
Silence
I'm not terribly good at writing dialogues, mostly because real-life conversations seem to consist of two or more people taking turns talking, over and at one another, making sounds that pass through each other without stopping and disappear. It's never as lyrical as they should be. People don't really talk like that, you might … Continue reading Silence
On almost burning to death but not quite and now he’s not sure how to react to it all and to the shitstorm that is living.
Ido almost burned to death last night. It’d have been an embarrassing death. His trusty old electric heater got covered by a fallen towel and set itself on fire, while he napped a few steps away. Rest in pieces, iridescent old friend. Many a night of warmth and comfort you have brought to him. Fitting … Continue reading On almost burning to death but not quite and now he’s not sure how to react to it all and to the shitstorm that is living.
Remembering Mrs M.
When I was a kid, if the air in my home became too still to bear, I’d escape to my friend D’s house and spend the evening playing Oblivion, watching the Big Bang Theory, and riffing on his guitar. I never stayed for dinner, though not for the lack of invitation. I still had the … Continue reading Remembering Mrs M.
The old man at the hospital
They discarded him in a puddle on the gurney by the window, crumpled between a mass of robes and linen, tangled in a mess of bandages and tubing. Lights painted him in shades of yellow and blue. Eyes shut, skin taut, ash tongue protruding from a barren mouth. Between arduous breath his withering husk would … Continue reading The old man at the hospital
The search for whimsical things. Pt 1.
The family next door has lived here since 1954. The ones upstairs moved in a year later, but when the original owners died, their children had the place stripped and refurbished into a studio, now inhabited by an American or European expat whose only encounter with me is the cacophony of her sex life at … Continue reading The search for whimsical things. Pt 1.
On Gratitude
I am at the tail end of a crisis made endurable by the fidelity of friendship. Let this be a memento that through hardest times there were those who offered the rarest gift, without supplication, and thus the anguish brought on by the utter rejection of some was redeemed by the unconditional validation of others. … Continue reading On Gratitude
Sunday
It's the way Sunday morning feels, aloft, everything else in the world suspended. You wake up to the tickle of sunshine, to a serene stillness occasionally rippled by faint snoring from the silky silhouette besides you. You can’t help but smile at the memory of last night as you tiptoe around the mess on the … Continue reading Sunday
Home
The rebel act of a wayward son.
A Pilgrimage, Part 2 – How to Wreck a Paradise
Missing the point.
A pilgrimage, part 1
I’m on a pilgrimage of sorts, a lonely trip into the mountains of Shangri-La, in search for clarity and catharsis. Clarity I have yet to find. Catharsis, I’m halfway there. I travel to wander. Pick a destination and head there. The destination is not the point, the journey is. You’ll wander into the middle of … Continue reading A pilgrimage, part 1
On my birthday, a suicide
This is my cycle. I know it well. It begins around Christmas, subsides with the onset of spring, and burst out in full swing at this exact time of year. For most of my life I was a passenger inhabiting a vessel, watching with detached eyes, feeling it all, but unable to act. But now … Continue reading On my birthday, a suicide
On memories and selfies
The earliest theatrics must have happened in our heads, because our memories are just neat little stories. Some of us battle monsters, some ascend from rags to riches, some embark on heroic quests, some are on a long voyage home. Some live delightful, romantic lives, some come to tragic ends. We all began somewhere and … Continue reading On memories and selfies
On Writing
I’m trying to become a better writer. Consider it a mid-year resolution, or more appropriately a quarter-year aspiration, since it’s neither mid-year nor was there any resolve involved. I’ve been thinking about developing a hobby, and writing is a close as it comes – a craft, a thing, a time sink into which I happily … Continue reading On Writing
Lovestruck
Oh. That was his thought when he met her. She was pretty, for sure. Frazzled, curly bleached blond hair streaked with strawberry, greyish blue eyes that refused to hold his gaze. She wore a looping white T with black squares. A massive scarf coiled around her and made her look fragile. She had a meandering … Continue reading Lovestruck
Death of a friend
It was lunch time. Izzy gave me half a BLT, I shared with him my French fries. We sat against the wall and braced the rain and chilly November air and became friends. We were kids then. Two stupid, broke and starving kids trying to survive London, scrambling from gig to gig making ends meet, … Continue reading Death of a friend
A case of toxic parenting
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. --- This be the verse. Philip Larkin A kid came to our center today for emergency counseling. Within seconds, before they even left the car, it became apparent that the mum was the problem. Anger, bitterness and resentment radiated … Continue reading A case of toxic parenting
Memories of a childhood friend
I used to write to her. They were songs about stars and the midnight moon. Sometimes she was cast a spectral beauty, the shade of a Renaissance painting, the perpetually adolescent vampire queen (we were both Anne Rice fans those days). Those stories were invariably about her and her boyfriend. She thought I was mocking … Continue reading Memories of a childhood friend
On sending young kids abroad
A child is born, a new subject of negligence and trauma of modern day parenting. But at the age of nine you toss him out of his native environment into a land far, far away, into a language so utterly alien and a heritage worlds apart from his own. The minds of children are malleable. … Continue reading On sending young kids abroad
Farewell to J
J and I met on one soggy afternoon at a charity networking event. She was there to represent her organization, I a creeping wallflower looking for new causes to attach myself. We struck up a conversation, thus beginning roughly two years of friendship. It was one of those relationships made up of long stretches of … Continue reading Farewell to J
Part 2 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
For some years after meeting the bespectacled grape-eating finger-licking demigod, I became a devotedly religious child. I was a ‘somethingist’… or whatever that cult was called. For once in my life I felt a sense of serenity, knowing my life was secure, that though I walked alone on dark and foggy roads, a greater force … Continue reading Part 2 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
Part 1 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spagheti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
On his sixth birthday, the Mother took Peter to meet the oracle of her Sect. Peter remembers two things about that trip. One, that it was a restaurant which served fried scorpions as an exotic dish, and he spent most of lunch peering into a terrarium wondering what it'd be like to be stung by … Continue reading Part 1 of Many: On the search for God, Eternity, the One, the Flying Spagheti Monster, a supernatural solution to all his earthly troubles…
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