Monday, March 31, 2008

 

So, yeah, I used to be one of those. I mean, that commercial, where they take the burrito with the appetizing-looking lettuce and stick it in the grill, I mean, I used to get the shivers. I still don't like that one, I mean, why ruin perfectly good lettuce with perfectly good flame grilling? That doesn't make any sense, right? I mean, like, I used to be a cold lettuce, cold tomato, cold plate, cold fork, cold room kind of guy. If the server wasn't aloof enough, I couldn't get started.
See, but then I discovered the reason it happens. I got my first salad with instructions.
What beats hot fat, right? I mean, as far as food. Or sex. Or skin care. Or siege weaponry. Nothing, right? Hot fat is just good stuff, that's my take. I hadn't tried it before, but now I'll never go back.
You just get about a tablespoon of dressing. See, I used to be a sinner that way, too. I used to be one of these, two cups per three cups of salad blasphemers, and my sans-a-belt pants and shirts size 'big' told the tale to any lookers. You don't need cups. Heck, you don't need much dressing at all. A tablespoon feels sinful, once it's hot. It feels like too much, like you actually need those croûtons, a foodstuff I've never been able to get behind, fresh, canned, frozen or bacon, crunchy shit on my salad has never quite sat right.
Now I'm a lettuce, tomato, pickle (right? but it works), raisin, pistachio, radish and most of a tablespoon of some tasty dressing kind of guy. It's done me in, as far as the cold salad goes. You gets no flavor when you eats cold food. It's a sad fact, but ooh, that hot fat and lettuce does things for me.
I wouldn't have believed it, and didn't until it was sitting in my mouth, delighting me. So there ya' go.

by MisterNihil 3:23 PM

 

Once, maybe, but no more!

by MisterNihil 3:22 PM

Thursday, March 27, 2008

 

When the strains of music first hit his ear like a feather made of pure razor blades, he was sitting in a cafe, typing on a laptop not unlike this one. His fingers whizzed madly on the keys which clattered and creaked under the unaccustomed pressure of creation. The story he wrote wasn't good. He knew it wasn't good. He felt he must keep writing, though, under the possibility that it didn't know it wasn't good, and that he might hurt the feelings of his fickle muse if he did not commit fully to the first inkling he'd had in weeks.
The story was one of tears from the eyes of the jolly: a huge, fat man sat on a porch, drinking a mixture of lemonade and bourbon and thinking about the previous years of his fat life. The entire conflict of the story was so internal as to be communicated only in the movements of the fat man's stubby fingers and his piggy eyes. After two thousand or so words, the fat man began to weep, spilling big, greasy tears down his face.
It was at precisely that moment, though, that the music broke his concentration. It drifted on a stray wind and struck his ear drum, making the tiny bones in his head rattle and hum. He looked away from the screen upon which his story had been maniacally unfolding, and looked up into the sky.
It was in that instant that he felt his muse stand from her seat opposite him, sniff once, insensed, and leave. He looked back to the screen just in time to see her flip him the bird as she danced out, already panting hard and looking for another conduit. His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He finished his coffee in a long draught and turned again to the story.
He finished it lamely with a simple "But then the fat man died, the end."

by MisterNihil 12:27 PM

 

Sound my barbaric Yip under the floorboards of the world

by MisterNihil 12:17 PM

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

 

You can't find the source of the fire until you put it out. See? Your limits are insane. What kind of silliness is that? It's like not knowing who you are until you're dead. OK, so maybe it's not like that.
Maybe it's like waking up on the East side of the tracks when you went to bed on the West and you have no memory of moving. It can't be much like that, though, 'cuz it's more like opening a large box of coat hanger, all lined up and perfect, all white plastic and yellow wire, full of potential and possibility, but then actually only full of the potential and possibility of clothes hung up in the closet. No, it's not like that.
Maybe it's like being drunk on a pole twenty or thirty feet in the air, and needing very badly to eat a pizza, but having only miles and miles of green crepe paper whistling in the breeze, smelling of dust and pressed wood, just generally not being useful. Perhaps it's like driving a little car up the side of a glass wall while a Peruvian Lion licks the bottoms of your feet, slowly and sensually, clearly trying to get you to crash the damn thing.
No. It's not like any of those things. Maybe it's like not knowing who wrote a particular little snippet of language until you get to the bottom. No, nothing's like that:

Labels: Absolutely Chuffed

by MisterNihil 10:22 PM

 

Absolutely Chuffed, Your Honor

by MisterNihil 10:21 PM

Monday, March 10, 2008

 

"I've lost my way." He looks puzzled, but not unpleasantly.
"No, you're in the right place." She stands in the doorway, blocking the traffic which consists, at present of one. Her robes are black and fall to the floor in sheets.
"No, I'm not supposed to be here." He turns his head to the left, like a curious dog.
"You are. I have the list, and you're right here. See." She makes no motion, moves only her mouth.
"Where? I don't see anything." He cranes his neck to see if she has, perhaps, moved an arm.
"Nothing? Well, maybe you're in the wrong place." Her tone betrays nothing.
"Well, I was told that I was to be here. I was told that this was the right place." He relaxes, visibly more comfortable.
"Who told you that?" She moves her elbows up to cover the entire width of the jamb and sets her feet further apart as if preparing for a charge. She bends her knees and lowers her center of gravity.
"Well, some lady in a doorway. I didn't get her name. She was quite adamant." He smiles and puts his finger to his nose.
"Well, what are you supposed to be doing here." Her voice sounds steady, still as sure as when she first blocked his way.
"I have no idea why I'm here, only that I was told to be here." He laughs a little on the last word, spiraling it into several ghost syllables.
"Well then, you'd better stay." She bends her knees still further, setting for a charge that doesn't materialize.
"I'll do that." He turns and slides down the wall, moving to a sitting position.
"You do that." She relaxes a little, but remains vigilant, "but you'll need to clear the hall for the other people. They'll be along soon."
"What other people?" He smiles up from the ground.
"The others who are coming down the hall. You can hear them if you try." Her voice finally takes on a note of agitation although in the main it remains calm.
"They will step over me." His eyelids droop.
"They will not. I have seen them before, and they are not the type to step over ones such as yourself." Her eyes dart from him to the inky distance.
"Oh, they're not so bad. Just give them a shance." His speech begins to slur.
"No, sir, they are quite as bad as all that. Please sir, go back the way you came!" She shakes a raised finger in his direction, her gaze now held by the hallway.
"Nigh-nigh," he says, and his body fades into the stucco of the wall.
"Well, he can't say I didn't try," she says, and shrugs.

by MisterNihil 3:49 PM

 

"I don't even know why I'm here."

by Christy 2:41 AM

 

“I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Well, that might be a good place to start.” He was angry and sarcastic, and looked as if the one thing he truly wanted to do was slam the door in my face. He didn’t, but I could tell that he wanted to. It’s not that he doesn’t have a good reason, really. If our roles were reversed, I’m not sure I would have been able to show the same restraint. After all, I did practically rip his heart out of his chest and do my own special version of “Riverdance” all over it. And I don’t suppose sleeping with his older brother helped matters much.
Why had I gone to see him that day? Was I looking for some sort of forgiveness? I seriously hoped not because I doubted that it would be forthcoming given the barely restrained anger dancing across his face. Or maybe I was just looking to torture myself further by reminding myself of what I’d given up. And for what? What did I get out of the whole situation?
Absolutely nothing, unless you counted the guilty conscience that has become my closest companion.

by Christy 2:40 AM