Pajiba

Your punctuation is perfect.

I don't get it.

Oh, I get it. It's about White Crystal. Ha. Good one.

D'oh. Font tags only work in Preview.
That's just... mean.

Ah yes, the soft underbelly of the universe. I knew I would find it here.

While trying to think of something snarky to write I actually scrolled back up to take another look at the post. It's going to be a very long week. If I wasn't already at work I'd call in and go back to bed.

Deep in the dangerous Brazilian rain forests of South America, there is a small but deadly tribe of pygmy headhunters. To the surrounding clans, this tribe is the stuff of myth and legend. Some say that they are not pygmies at all, but horrible demons. Some say that they are a tribe of ages past who was cursed by God to walk the earth as beasts. The only thing that everyone agrees on, is that whoever they are, they need to be feared.

Nearly thirty years ago, a British professor specializing in the field of linguistics traveled to this remote region of the jungle studying the language patterns of the locals, and how it differentiates between clans. While taking a meager walk through the woods one afternoon, he happened to stumble upon two very tiny naked men who were in the middle of a conversation. When they noticed him, one of the men turned to him and said, “My dogs had a terrible fight this morning.” He stared at the two pygmies for several moments, then had a massive coronary and died on the spot (this had nothing to do with the two naked men, but an entirely separate set of circumstances for which his wife was eventually put in prison). The discovery of the men might've been lost forever, were it not for the Linguistics Professor's driven young assistant.

This man, a young American named Nicholas McLachlan, came with high hopes and a bright spirit. He was a passionate and dedicated young man. While rummaging through his predecessor’s notes, he discovered the rumor of the lost and dangerous tribe that was supposedly lurking in the jungle, and decided that if he was ever going to get any conclusive results for the regions various languages, then he’d better search them out. He went alone. His guides were too afraid.

What he discovered would shock and amaze the exciting world of linguistics (the field of linguistics is wrought with harsh competition).

He stumbled across the lost clan of pygmy headhunters by chance after almost a week of trudging through the wet forest. The tribe, despite all the nasty rumors, was actually a very friendly and personable group of headhunters. They had a rich culture and deep curiosity for the outside world, and welcomed the young man into their camp with open arms.

The most interesting thing about the clan, even beyond headhunting (which wasn't nearly as bad as all that, once you take into account the decorative pots that were made from the skull remains), was that they had a language that was not entirely unlike English. They didn’t use the same alphabet or phrases, but phonetically every word sounded remarkably like common English words. their words however, took on entirely different meanings. For example, it was not at all a strange occurrence to be walking through town and to hear a local yell out “Hey Lou, come over here and lick my asshole.” Which meant, “It is a good day, is it not, my friend?”

Despite the fantastic improbability, they developed this language completely independent of any English-speaking people. This baffled Nicholas and he set out to discover the reason for it, even if it would take him an entire lifetime. He delved into his work with passion, and though he was lost to the outside world, he quickly became one of the clan. Naturally there were several instances in which he nearly got himself into a fair amount of trouble by saying “hello” to people. These situations were quickly defused however, once he managed to explain that he had no interest in anyone’s mother, and it was simply a case of mis-communication.

Eventually Nicholas became so comfortable in the clan that he wed, and had several children, who were all very normal looking, though a little short. He successfully taught them how to speak both versions of English in case they ever wanted to venture into the outside world, which his oldest son Ricky eventually set out to do. When he came of age, Ricky (short for Rickadickadiddy, a proud pigmy name) left to have his adventures.

Ricky, though an athletic and handsome man, was not too intelligent, and often found himself getting into trouble when he would mix up the different versions of English. He’s never had a girlfriend for example, because that word is the equivalent to “Life sucking demon” in his land. Ricky also shunned ever going to College, because in his home College is the word used for “Hell.” Some would say that the similarities between these meanings are just too strong to be ignored, and that perhaps Ricky was smarter than he has been given credit for. Others would say that this couldn’t be the case, because he could also never quite grasp the concept of riding a bike, due to the enormous confusion caused whenever he’d come to a "Stop" sign.

Ricky moved around the country quite a bit, and currently spends his time translating books into his other language, and drinking large bottles of alcohol. He tries to frequent as many bars as possible, and is completely comfortable starting fights with random people who don’t even know what they’ve said to offend him.

You may have met him. And if not, at least someone very much like him.

Man, I hate this space.

I see what you did there...Stupid privileged post..

So Superasente intrepeted this as a Rorschach post?

Mmmmmm, sexy polar bear.

Release the Jesus Cobras!

Just twice more. I promise. Unless the Jesus Cobras command me. They are so persuasive.

Pooty Tang done, done it again!

TL; DR.

Well, I don't know what I was expecting . . . better than a dead dove, anyway.

I'm not going to play your little game today, Rowles! Do you hear me! Do you hear me! Come back DA, come back. The nipples on that broad, holy smokes. You fucking white republicans, I hate all you sons of bitches and I can't wait until you fuck this country up so I can bang all your wives and girl friends. I had just graduated high school and during the summer before I started college I got a job working as a receptionist at a condo for retirees. Anyway one night I get a call from the daughter of one of the tenants asking me to go upstairs and check on her mom because she was trying to reach her mom all day and couldn’t. I go upstairs to check, mom was ok, she took the phone off the hook because she didn’t feel like being bothered. I go back down stairs to call the daughter to tell her that her mother was fine and she just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Later on that night the daughter calls me back and we strike up a conversation, one thing leads to another and she comes over to visit her mother. After she finishes visiting her mother she comes down stairs and we start talking again, bop bop bop, beep beep beep and this broad is going down on me right their in the manager’s office. Me being the professional, I told her that me must both be very careful because I didn’t want her to get caught. This went on for about two months before it ran its course.

You know what really grinds my gears? How the damn comment diversion on Saturday turned into a free fuck time machine. I mean, some of us put some effort into coming up with really cool moments in history to visit only to return to thread and see a list of who people would do at the '88 Oscars. I don't even know why I try anymore.

Then again, a free fuck time machine would be a kick ass diversion and a great name for a band. Complaint retracted.

A great tribute to Strangers With Candy. Well done.
Happy Birthday, Dustin.

Is this one of those things where if you stare at it long enough you see a sailboat?

I never see the sailboat.

A Little Julien Story

Little Julien and I have been talking about memory lately. Mostly about how a person can still have a good brain even though they can’t remember things. I let him know that having a good memory is something some people have and some people don’t, just like some people are good spellers and some people aren’t.

Last night, I went in to kiss Little Julien goodnight and he started asking me about time. He knew it was 2010 and wanted to confirm what next year would be. He was upset at the notion that time goes forward and not backward or in a circle. He asked whether he could build a time machine to go back and see what happened. What would he need to build one? I suggested that maybe he would invent one when he was older, but that made things worse. He was weeping. Daddy came in with Kleenex and it took a while, but this is what we figured out:

1. He has reached the age where almost all of his memories before the age of 4 are gone.
2. He wanted to go back in time so he could see what had happened and help himself remember.
3. He thought something was wrong with his brain because he couldn’t remember.

I got that last detail out of him when I asked if that was the problem and the little head weeping on my shoulder nodded.

We assured him that his brain was fine and told him that forgetting being little happens to everyone. You have to admit that last bit is cold comfort.

I unashamedly used this as an opportunity to remind him that although he finds my incessant photo-taking annoying, it does provide photos to look at and remember with.

THE JESUS COBRAS CANNOT HELP YOU NOW.

superasente - To quote my son, "Are you chocolate nonsense?".*

Coveredinbees - As long as the cobras can't hurt me now, I don't really care if their presence is benefical or not.

*The chocolate is strong in this one and he thought "talking nonsense" was, well, I think you can extrapolate the rest.

Jackie Boy didn't know if he felt like he was being eaten alive by ants or if there were actually ants eating him, as he lay semi-conscious in his damp bunk. The woven rattan fan above traced lazy circles, doing nothing but stir the hot, midday air in his room. He covered his face with the light fabric of a sarong some sweetheart had left in his room, he didn't remember who, its perfume made the humidity even thicker and harder to breath. He pulled the sarong off his head, the light of the day burned through his half closed eyelids and into his brain. It didn't make it harder to sleep, it was too hot to do anything but, but the light made the dreams more like hallucinations or visions. Jackie Boy had had enough of those and didn't want any more, at least not now. He rolled over to face the wall, raised a sweaty, muscled arm up to his brow to try and cut the glare a bit more. His arm was hot, it radiated heat like the tarmac on the airstrip when it sticks to your feet and burns. He dreamt half heartedly of ants, setting sail on leaves like they were tall ships bound for the new world. At sea for months, having to eat their vessel out from under them to save themselves from thirst and hunger, the leaf that had gone from succulent green to woody brown early in the voyage. Finally they surfed onto a beach, an island, as far from the tip of Queensland as it is from Papua New Guinea, but just further from either of them than they are from each other. The boarding party scrambled out onto the wet sand, making a break for the dry white powder between waves. Many were lost, come so far only to be swallowed up here by the salty foam, a handful survived. And hundreds of years later, their descendants chewed at Jackie Boy's arms, his legs, his balls. He sat up, and trying to focus dry eyes, stared at his ruddy arms and torso. He couldn't see any ants in the burning golden light. He scratched his head, dry flakes of scalp and grit scraping off, he felt ants scurrying under the forest of his sun bleached hair, but he knew this too was probably his sun bleached mind playing more tricks on him.
His head throbbed and he looked around the room for something, he had forgotten what exactly as soon as he had undertaken the action to look, he'd know it if he saw it. As he cast his gaze, it came to rest on the small, salt rusted white box, that was it. A moment later, he knew the concept and how it was a common thing. Refrigeration. His tongue tasted like how sour sweat smelled and was swollen tight in its skin. Without getting up, Jackie visualised what was left in the small bar fridge. A quarter full gallon bottle of water, three beers and some brown and sweating bananas that he'd been too lazy to throw to the crabs. He weighed up in his mind if water or beer would go better with his pounding skull. Glancing around he saw the neck of a bottle of white rum, sticking up out of the gap between his bunk and the wall. Feeling this would be a good compromise, Jackie Boy reached for the bottle and downed the hot, sweet syrup in a mouthful. It was too little to hope for sleep, so Jackie dragged himself up from the bed, the sheets stuck to him like the sweaty arms of a clinging lover. They almost convinced him to lay back down, but he shook the sand and salt and scalp from his hair and walked, weak-legged to the fridge and grabbed a cool beer. He slammed the door shut quickly, before the sickly smell of rotting fruit could flood out through his shack.
Pushing through the pandanus leaves that served as a door, Jackie Boy surveyed the beach from his verandah. He remembered seeing this scene years ago, in a dream, or perhaps a postcard, maybe a poster advertising cigarettes. The paradise they sell everyone back in the cities and sprawl, if they'd only buy this product or that, use these tampons, drink this cola and you too can feel like you're here. But Jackie hadn't needed to buy anything but a plane ticket and he was here. He would live here and he would die here. Away from the grey concrete and steel and glass. The only glass here was the powdery white sand or the cool bottle in his hand. And he remembered in that moment why he put up with the heat and the ants and the throbbing in his head. Because he knew what the alternative was. A cold, grey world, a harsh reality. A place where people get murdered, wives and children and nobody does anything to stop...
Jackie boy drained the last of his beer and went inside to grab another. Yes, life was sweet here, life was good. When the sun was a little lower he'd walk to the Sundowner and get another bottle of rum. See if any new tourists had arrived and wanted to take a boat out to fish on the reef. He didn't run dives like a couple of the other guides, but he knew where the fish were biting. A sudden red hot pin stuck in his foot, an ant, he saw, chewed earnestly on his heel. Jackie Boy smiled, flicking the ant off into the scrub. Yes. Life was good.

The Brisbane river wound through the city like a python, the ferries criss-crossing its back like some form of parasitic grub. It was a cliché comparing the people in the streets below to ants, but Brian was in the business of cliché. Cliché was easy, it did the work for you, like a secret language it spoke to people and they didn't have to think to receive the message. Brian's business was advertising, marketing, public relations. And the public related to cliché. The ants, down there, twenty-three floors beneath him, they fed on his words and pictures like sweet sap. They followed his commands to buy and borrow and believe, as automatic as a chemical instruction flooding through the hive. Brian was filled with a deep revulsion towards them, the human ants. Disgusted by them for following and obeying. But he knew that what really stuck like a dry clod in his throat was that, up here, at the top of the hive, he was still one of them. He was still a slave, a worker ant, a drone. What made it worse, was that he was aware of it and he still couldn't escape. He chose to work here. Chose to follow and obey.
He had worked in the business right out of university, for five years. And in a relatively short time he had climbed fast and far and he still felt like time was slipping away from him. He felt like he was too old to be where he was. There were younger people, who were smarter, who were better, above him in the company. He was twenty-five years old and already starting to feel like an old man in the industry. From being an exceptional prodigy, he had slowed to being merely talented, his progress slowed, he was in danger of slipping into mediocrity and of course, becoming obsolete.
Brian's immediate boss was Gerry, who he reported to once a week as part of Gerry's team. Brian brought to the table the ideas he had approved from those provided by his own team, whom he met with once a week the day before reporting in Gerry's team. Brian knew that the members of his team had their own teams who pitched to them the ideas they presented to him. And he knew that Gerry presented the ideas to his boss, once a week, as part of a team of higher level executives. It seemed like nobody was actually coming up with their own ideas, only saying “yes,” or “no,” or “this needs more work,” to the ideas of those working in the nether regions of the company. At some point, the ideas made it all the way to the top, and they were presented to the clients, who said “yes,” or “no,” or “this needs more work,” depending on what ideas they were presented with by the other companies they had gone to. And somehow, after all that, it still seemed to Brian that almost half the marketing material he noticed in the world had at sometime been pitched by him to Gerry.
The process of promotion was simple. Brian's job was to make Gerry look good to those above. If Gerry looked good, he got promoted. If it was Brian who had made him look good more than the others in Gerry's team, Brian would be promoted by Gerry to Gerry's old position. Then Brian would decide who had made him look good more than the others in his team and promote that person. And so on and so forth. For a while, it seemed as if the process was working for Brian. He had found some slipstream to the top and was riding it, getting every promotion at every opportunity. But then someone else had beat Brian to the position above him, they had promoted Gerry to their team, to work alongside Brian. And then, Gerry was promoted again, ahead of Brian. It seemed as if Gerry had found the slipstream and Brian was desperate to get back on track, even if he now had to follow Gerry to the top. But Brian wasn't sure he'd even be promoted at the next opportunity. Gerry was heading up soon, the Green Bank campaign had made sure of that. However, Brian had not pitched one idea that had made it through into that campaign. He blamed his team, they'd lost focus, left him with nothing to work with and now, Dane was looking likely as Gerry's successor.
Brian took another belt of the chalky pink antacid and shuddered as the after taste nearly made him vomit. He stared down from his window at the ants marching to and from lunch in the city below. Were they beneath him for not knowing that they were slaves to the hive, or was he lower than them for knowing that he was also a slave and choosing to be one? An image of blue sky and sea and pristine white sand played across his mind. The smell of salt air and sweaty contentment. A wonderful cliché of freedom, paradise.
A shape blurred past Brian's window, a body, flailing, hurtling to the street below. The daydream evaporated and even though Brian didn't get a good look at the falling man, somehow he knew. It was Gerry, leaping to his death.

“Hi, my name's Simon. What's your name?”
The jumper just stared down into the water. Had he heard Simon? The wind might have muffled his introduction, or maybe the guy was just too far away in thought to register Simon's presence. Surprise was not a good thing in these situations, so Simon tried again.
“Hello. Do you mind if I sit down? I'm sort of afraid of heights.” Simon waited, no response. “I said do you mind if I sit down here?”
The jumper rolled his gaze over at Simon. At least the guy was aware of him, though the sunken and bloodshot eyes of the man hardly boded well. Simon could smell liquor, another bad sign.
“I said before, my name's Simon...”
“You a cop?” The jumpers voice cracked, was it raw from the drink? Had he perhaps been screaming obscenities all night? Or was he, as he looked to Simon, on the verge of tears?
“Yes,” said Simon, “but, don't hold that against me.” He usually tested the waters with a joke, or something light hearted. Often if the joke was well received, things ended well. Not always though.
“Cops,” said the jumper, looking back into the depths of the Brisbane river, “don't you have some killer you should be out catching?”
Simon took the jab, no matter how bitter, as a sign that at least there was some humour left in the man. “Nope, not today, so I thought I'd come up and see what you were doing.”
Simon had made a mistake.
The man launched to his feet, completely unconcerned about the potential fall. He rounded on Simon, fire burning in his red rimmed eyes. “Bullshit! You fucking liar! You just gave up... All you pigs... You... Fucking pigs.”
Simon held up his hands and cowered before the man. Even with the harness clipped to the wire rail, Simon was terrified that if the man decided he would take Simon with him, then Simon was going with him. There were other police on the bridge, but nobody with anything better than a handgun. No rifles were trained on the jumper. Simon squeezed his eyes shut. His fear seemed to placate the jumper, or perhaps disgust him, either way, the fire went out of him and he backed away with a curl of his lip. He flopped back down onto his backside and dangled his legs over the edge.
“I'm sorry,” Simon said meekly. Sorry for whatever failure, real or imagined the jumper was referring to. Sorry for saying the wrong thing.
“You guys are supposed to catch people who kill women and children,” the jumper finally said.
“I'm sorry,” Simon repeated. “I'm not involved with that sort of police work. I'm a negotiator.”
The jumper looked him up and down, then shook his head, rubbing his face. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled.
“It's okay,” said Simon, “I'm basically just a jumped up social worker.” Now he was making jokes out of nervousness. And using stupid turns of phrase like 'jumped up' whilst talking down a jumper. He never did that. Simon tried to get his focus back, steer things back around, get control of the situation. “I'm Simon.”
“You told me,” the jumper said. With another look he relented, “my name's Jack.”
“Thanks, Jack. So, what happened?”
Jack looked down at his hands, clasped together in his lap. He looked like he was going to sob, but he held it together. “My wife and daughter.”
Simon joined the dots but didn't want to push. “They were murdered?”
Jack nodded.
“How long ago,” asked Simon.
“Its been three months,” choked Jack. He gritted his teeth against the tears. “The cops haven't got anything to go on. They seemed to think it was me until they checked my alibi. They've come up with a big, fat zero.”
“I'm sorry.”
“What for? You said you had nothing to do with that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I mean,” Simon struggled for the right words, “I'm sorry that happened.” Those were hardly the right words, but Jack nodded.
Jack was a big man, tall, and his clothes tight on him. He looked down from their perch at the apex of the Story Bridge. His eyes seeing something far away, Jack muttered, “I wonder if I'll see them again.”
“Maybe, one day,” said Simon, trying to sound like he didn't know what Jack meant.
“Maybe today,” said Jack. He shifted his weight. He'd easily just slide under the wire of the safety rail and there'd be no stopping him.
“There's still the possibility,” said Simon hastily, “that they'll find the person responsible for this. I've heard of stranger things. Their conscience might get the better of them, or they might have told someone what they did. These types of crime, they always share their story with someone and then later that someone gives us a call or word spreads... There's still hope.”
“You want to know something really messed up?” Jack interrupted.
Simon caught his breath. “Sure,” he said.
“For as long as I can remember, I've seen things,” said Jack, “things others can't. I'd have dreams about things that would happen. Like I've known who would win the Melbourne Cup half a dozen times when I was a kid. Sometimes I'd be able to find things that other people had lost, just by hearing them say they lost whatever it was. I knew that the Challenger shuttle was going to blow up. I even had a dream about the World Trade Centre and woke up the morning after to hear about it on the news.”
Simon shifted uncomfortably. “Okay,” he said, “that's an impressive gift.”
“Is it?” Jack spat bitterly, “you think so? Well, I didn't have any dreams, any visions, not a single fucking gut feeling that this was going to happen. No warnings. Clear sailing. Then I come home and there's blood... On the... And afterwards? I tried to work it out. I tried to see who it was who'd done this to my wife. To my little girl. I wanted to see their face. I even tried to look back, tried to watch it happen. And I can't... The one time... The most important thing, and... And... Nothing.”
Jack and Simon sat for while, quietly watching the water glinting below. On the bridge, the police were carefully trotting back and forth, keeping a safe distance. Too close for comfort and too far to do anything helpful. Police boats were on the river now, waiting to fish out the body if it came to that. For the first time on the job, Simon considered letting someone go.
“I had a friend who tried to kill himself,” said Simon, almost absent mindedly. “He had broken up with his wife, been caught with a younger woman and she left him. His wife I mean, well, they both did, the girlfriend too. There was a really nasty divorce and he lost almost everything. He had to move back in with his mother. And I don't know, he just decided that it was easier to end it than start again. So he sat in the car in his mother's garage with the engine running.”
Jack looked over at Simon. He knew that it wasn't bullshit, not some story they teach negotiators to get under the skin of the suicidal. “So what happened?” Jack asked.
Simon looked out to the horizon, “his mother came home early. I think she had some feeling, or... Something. Anyway, she saw exhaust coming out from under the door and she dragged Bill out of the car onto the lawn. She called the ambulance and that was it.”
“Did you talk to him about it?” Jack felt suddenly ashamed for what he was doing up on this bridge.
“I went to see him,” Simon looked at his hands, the same way Jack had a few minutes earlier. “But he had suffered brain damage from the monoxide. He's in a permanent vegetative state now. His mother takes care of him. Feeds him, empties his shit.”
It was Jack's turn to say, “I'm sorry.”
“You know what really gets me though,” Simon's voice cracked, “what really pisses me off? I looked up to this guy for a long time. He was always what I thought of as being a free spirit. He told me once, years before, that one day he'd just get on his bike and ride off and never look back. So why didn't he do that? When he finally had no reason to stay, when he finally had nothing left to lose. Why didn't he just ride off over the horizon and just keep on going? Go to America or Europe. Or find some island paradise somewhere. Something. Anything, that's not... Nothing.”
In that moment, it was suddenly clear to Jackie Boy.
The day they let him out of the nut house he bought the ticket. And the day he landed on Garfalk Island he sent Simon a postcard, with a one word message on it. “Thanks.”

The stink of mildew and rot hung in the air. Steven could almost see the thick ropey vapours, a miasma that flowed into and out of his lungs as he breathed the foetid air. He was in a room, taller than it was wide, with green walls stained nearly black with rivulets of smoky grease. Steven's breathing was laboured, each breath a chore that he felt too tired to perform. The beating of his heart troubled him. He was slumped into a pile of damp and mold coloured rags, perhaps bedding at one time, sheets and some misshapen mattress, sagging underneath. There was a television on in the corner of the room, a small screen like a blind, bulging eye. The snowstorm static broken every few minutes with a flash of some image or other, mainly commercials though it seemed that many of the images were from decades ago. Above Steven, far above, hung a dim light bulb, caked in a spattered layer of yellow grease. The light from the bulb only seemed to reach halfway down the walls. The light would flicker and cut out as if the wires were loose, or it was shorting out somewhere behind the greasy, peeling walls.
Why wouldn't his heart stop beating?
With every hollow, thumping beat in his chest, the memories flashed across his mind. The guilt and shame and hatred he had for himself and for the world he'd made for himself, washed up on the shores of his brain like an oil slick. His heart pumped pain into his soul. He wanted it to stop.
He gasped for breath as he reached down into the shadows that blanketed the floor, they were cold, there was grit floating in them and it stuck to his hand, got in between his fingers. His hand came to rest on something hard and colder than the shadows. He lifted it up to the muted light. The object he had drawn from the darkness was a straight razor. On the television, a burst from an old black and white samurai film scrolled askew. A warrior was stabbing a short sword into his stomach, spilling blood onto the mat before him. It was only on for a fraction of a second.
Steven lifted his sweat drenched shirt and without a moment of thought, opened the blade and drew it across from hip to hip. The stench was revolting, almost causing him to void whatever was in his stomach, even as it slipped out of the smiling slit in his belly. Steven gasped a few short sharp breaths. The black tar that flooded into his lap and down over his legs was cold as ice water, in it floated thick lumps of pitch. He started to sob at the horrid stuff that filled him now. Only the steady thump, thump, of his heart spurred him on. Again Steven reached down into the shadows of the floor. He brushed his fingers across the detritus hidden in the murk, sharp and broken things, stone and debris, bones and hair.
On the television, a shot from some show about surgery was inter-spliced with abattoir footage. Steven pulled the meat hook out of the umbra.
He grasped the tear in his flesh, lifting it free like another shirt. He probed inside his chest with the hook. He reached in with his other hand and felt around for the offending organ. There was no colour to his insides, it was all black and smelled of old rot – ammonia and shit. It was like nothing so much as crude oil. He reached up past withered organs, not knowing what was liver or spleen, he grasped his left lung in his right hand, squeezing it gently, his breath wheezing out past his chattering teeth. He forced more air into his lungs and the spongy sack inflated in his hand. Working his way to the middle of his chest he found the heart, a tight and sinewy strip, now no larger than a man's tongue, if it was torn from his head. It pounded regularly, pumping its poison, burning with each beat. Steven guided the hook along his arm until the rusty tip grazed and scratched at the muscle.
Gritting his teeth, he yanked the hook through his heart and pulled. He sweated with the strain, panting the turgid air. He felt the snapping of decrepit arteries and tendons like old, worn rubber bands. It was easier than he had suspected and the heart came free with a dark splatter of tar. It continued to beat a half dozen times before slowly stilling and loosening on the hook. Steven sighed as his body fell silent at last. The visions of his sins faded and he knew a moment of peace.
And then the heart began to beat again. Not on the hook, but back in his chest. Holding up the meat hook, a handful of black toffee oozed onto the floor. The intestines in his lap snaked themselves back into his gut, the last withdrawing like the tentacles of a startled anemone. The slash across his abdomen stitched itself up with fine threads of scar tissue, zipping shut from either ends like a sports bag. Steven considered ripping at it with the hook, but really, what was the use. He tossed the rusty implement back, ringing like the tongue of a bell, into the shadows. He put his head in his hands and wept. The burning, black tears gritty in his palms. The images were washing over him once more. The faces of those he'd killed. Most of them were demons, but he knew that some of them were not. Some were mistakes, innocent people, he didn't know which, he could never know which. Instead he carried the burden of them all. It was their eyes, pleading and despairing that haunted him most. Especially the children's. That was why he would put out their eyes first, before he did any of his other work. He'd take away their eyes, but it made little difference. He still saw their glistening gazes on him.
On the television, the mouth growled his name. “Steven.”
He looked up. Static hissed. Then flashes of a sunset. Water. A beach, maybe an island. Yes, there was a fly-by of it, some tropical island in the middle of a coral atoll. Shots from old Malibu and Barcardi commercials. Then the mouth, just teeth and sneering, stretched lips, “go now Steven. Find the father. Kill him or he will kill you!”
Steven pulled his knees up to his chest and gripped his head with clawing fingers. “Leave me alone!” he screamed.
“Do it!” Commanded the mouth, its voice distorted and mechanical, a blend of different people, different genders, whispers and screams. “Do it, or face the consequences!”
Steven rocked back and forth, black acid burning his cheeks. “No! I... Please!” he sobbed, he finally choked out the word, “where?”
An image of a man burning on a pyre flashed for a moment. Then there was a scene from an old show with a bearded Australian adventurer, captaining a large catamaran out on the open ocean. An overlay of a map, a red line following the boat out from the tip of Cape York. Garfalk Island growing to fill the screen. Then, the rustling hush of static, there would be no more to see.
Steven was standing, even though he didn't remember standing up. The door opened. There was no door a few seconds ago. Steven thought nothing of it as he stepped into the darkness on the other side.

The airstrip was like toffee, sticking to the soles of his thongs and tracing black strands of bitumen from footstep to footstep. Brian had thought it was as hot as it was possible to get when he landed at Weipa, but Garfalk was that little bit closer to the equator and it seemed to make that much difference. The heat was like a sheet of lead, his lungs threatened to give up, the air so unnaturally hot that breathing it seemed like something no natural creature was designed to do. But rather than be oppressive, as a hot, humid day in Brisbane would be, it was alien enough to become exhilarating. Brian felt like this was another world. A strange planet, where the normal requirements of society, and his crushing sense of responsibility, did not apply. Every burning breath was an experience. Just walking to the small shack, laughably labelled the “terminal” by a hand painted sign, was somehow adventurous.
The only other passenger of the single engine plane had been a sickly looking man of about twenty. Brian hadn't caught his name, and had found it impossible to strike up a conversation with him. The young man seemed to be having a harder time in the heat than Brian.
At the “terminal” Brian was directed to the Sundowner, the island's only accommodation for visitors. He hadn't needed to ask directions, as the plane had banked for landing, Brian had seen that the only street with any real built up habitation was a short walk from the strip. He guessed the Sundowner was the two story building he had seen, the only one on the island.
The sickly man had asked something of the attendant in a hushed whisper. It seemed she didn't quite understand what he was inquiring about. Brian had a distinct impression that the man could somehow be simple minded. He remembered an odd smell in the cabin of the plane, and it seemed to have followed the pale young man, old body odour and mildew. Something about the guy gave Brian the creeps, he set off towards the main street, if only to be far enough away from the creep.
So, this was Garfalk Island. Brian had decided to come here completely by chance, or almost completely. After Gerry had thrown himself off the top of the Inspire Inc. Building, his team had been given a month of paid leave to cope with the loss. It was fairly clearly implied that they should spend this time finding other employment. Brian knew it wasn't that the team who worked so closely with Gerry were somehow responsible for his choice to take the cowards way out – if anyone was to blame, other than the man himself, it was quite obviously the people who Gerry reported to, those who put pressure upon him from above – no the reason for the soft redundancy was purely superstitious. They were thought of as bad luck. The business was strange like that. People were hired and fired quite often because of hunches, feelings, instinct and any other of the many words for irrational, illogical reasons.
The day after he was, for all practical purposes, laid off, Brian had done an image search on the internet for the words “tropical,” “island” and “paradise”. He'd kept having day dreams, of a white beach, coconut palms reaching out over the blue crystal water, a small swirl of cloud across the horizon the only division between sea and sky. He seemed to recall a magazine advertisement he had signed off on for some brand of cigarettes that he could no longer remember the name of. He thought they had ended up using that picture and it must have stuck with him.
Scrolling through all the thumbnails of sun and sand and surf, he'd finally decided one picture was close enough to his fantasy, perhaps it was the same picture they had used for the advertisement. Clicking on the page, he found it was for a small blurb about Garfalk Island on a Cape York tourism website. A few emails later and he had his route plotted to get to the “paradise” he'd searched for, on Google.
The road from the airport to the main street was a powdery white sand. When he stepped around the bushes onto the town road itself, he found it too was just an impacted stretch of the same sand. Brian passed a post office that was little more than a shed, a few low stumped Queenslander houses, and a tiny general store on his way to the hotel. He could see a fishing and diving store, even smaller than the general store, further down the street and more houses. The street looked to end with a sandblasted church, like a miniature version of a chapel from a movie set in the old west.
Entering the Sundowner, it took a while for Brian's eyes to adjust. It was hardly any cooler than outside, but they seemed to have tried to make it seem cooler by making it darker. The fans above only served to move air around the room. Perhaps it offered some cooling of the sweat that drenched Brian's clothes, but it made him think of how fan forced ovens roasted things quicker. There were a few tourists around the bar. He could hear a group of beautiful blonde and bronzed people laughing and joking in German in one corner. A couple of obvious business types were talking about fishing as if they were great white hunters talk about lions and tigers, each one trying to match their rivals bravado. Most of the people in the bar were probably locals though, there were perhaps few more than a dozen.
Brian walked to the bar and ordered a beer. He had a choice of two, deciding on fourex. The girl behind the bar looked about fifteen, she expertly poured the beer without having to look to see what she was doing. She asked, “so, what brings you to Garfalk?” Her accent was broad and drawling, somehow she still sounded pleasant and had a sparkle to her.
“I... don't really know,” Brian shrugged, “I just stuck a pin in a map and here I am.”
As she took the money for the beer, she flashed a dazzling smile, “you know, we get two thirds of our customers that exact same way.”
She's smart, Brian thought, surprised. He stuffed the change in his pocket without counting it. He realised she could have given him a handful of chocolate bar wrappers and buttons and he'd not have noticed. He didn't even know how much the beer had cost. He'd have to keep a closer eye on her, he decided.
“Well, there's three things to do on the island,” the girl said in her drawl, “first is fishing. Either off the beach or off a boat. The second is diving, again either from the beach or a boat.”
“And the third thing?” Brian asked with more than a little hint of lechery.
The girl grinned, completely aware of Brian's subtext. “Well,” she leaned forward conspiratorially, “if you're really adventurous.”
Brian couldn't help but lean in to her whisper.
“You could pitch a tent and camp out alone in the scrub,” the girl wiped the counter dismissively, shooting Brian down with an arch of her eyebrow.
He smirked. “Well, the fishing sounds like fun.”
The girl nodded, “do you want a boat?”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. I'd say so. Hang on a sec,” she walked around to a big man at the end of the bar. He was tanned like a leather suitcase, built like a heavyweight boxer and sun blonde, both his unkempt mop and unshaven face. The girl pointed to Brian, who lifted his glass in the universal salute.
The man drained his shot glass and then strode lazily over towards Brian. He offered his hand, a huge meaty paw with a rough palm and too tight a grip when Brian shook it. “Fry tells me you're looking for a boat to go fishing?”
“Uh, yeah,” Brian nodded, looking over to Fry. The girl winked and gave a thumbs up, as if to reassure him that this brawny man was a great choice. “The name's Brian.”
“Jack,” the man's smile was broad and white in the ruddy, brown shadow of his face, “Jacky Boy to my mates. I've got a boat and I know a few good places to cast a line. Are you settled in yet?”
“I, uh,” Brian shrugged.
“No worries, Brian. Fry'll fix you up with a room upstairs.” Over his shoulder, “won't ya Small Fry?” Jack fixed his gaze back on Brian's eyes. “Fry's like everybody's little sister on the island. Actually, she reminds me of my daughter.”
Even in the incredible tropical heat, there was a sudden coolness that crept into the pause in conversation as Jack regarded Brian. Goosebumps prickled on Brian's sweaty skin.
That wide, toothy smile again on Jack's face as he slapped a heavy hand on Brian's shoulder, “you got gear?”
“Huh?”
“Fishing gear? Rods, tackle, bait?”
Brian glanced around for a second, “uh, no.”
Jacky Boy's smile widened, “well then, come with me.” He wheeled Brian around and marched Brian out the doors. They passed a small sickly, young man, who was entering as they left. The sickly man turned to watch them keenly. It seemed that Jacky Boy hardly cast him a sideways glance.
Unrecognised by the man whose family he butchered, Steven forced himself to breathe again.

To Be Continued...

HAHAHA.

thanks for a much needed laugh, lauren.

also, is this like that time magazine thing where the person of the year was you, me, and everyone we know?

also, happy birthday and stuff.

Dill the Devil wins my heart not only for quoting Spaced but for mentioning my favorite character on it.

Sorry fpr, but DarthBrookes' comment was way longer than yours.

former pajiba reader, current pajiba troll, apparently.

Yes, good point Former Pajiba Reader. That you posted on Pajiba. Your scathing commentary on the topic of posting in a link devoid of content that you posted in a link devoid of content is truly telling. The only other way you could've made your point that would've been better would have been not to say anything at all. I welcome you to adopt this method in the future.

Hey guys, guess who I am.

"Waaaahhhh, every body is having fun and I'm not! I woke up on the wrong side of the bed with a stick up my ass and I'm pissed off. But everyone here is having a good time and I have nothing to bitch about about! Waaahhhhh! So I'll just bitch about how every one is a bunch of lemmings for commenting on a post with no content....except that makes me just as bad. And that pisses me off even more and makes that stick suck further up into my iron-clad sphincter! Someone call the motherfucking WHHHAAAAMMMM-bulance."

I'll give you three guesses.

Fail! Your comment submission was a no-go because it broke one of the rules:

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Um, I think if you're going to offer such posts you need to reconsider this rule.

Rykker is magic!

Dill the Devil definitely wins, but I'm a little disappointed in MySharona for not letting me be the only British comedy genius who got the joke.