Rewirings

"Doctor Chaucer, the robot needs you in the emergency unit."

The many footsteps that reverberated throughout the corridor got closer and closer to me.

It was a group of Fixers, claiming to be of the best assistance to me, or that they will be.

I pushed them aside and told them, "He only needs a jolt. I don't need any help."

It was a hospital that housed all types of sentience.

The robots and the humans were sitting side-by-side in the waiting room.

Medicine was a field that went beyond organic beings, but now involved the study of any one with a consciousness.

Basic robot anatomy. Human heartbeats. Robot rotors. Every med student needed to learn the basics of both.

I was a Fixer. A colloquialism to refer to Robot Specialists.

I walked into the emergency unit, expecting it to be empty. But 'lo, a man was sitting by the side of the Robot, holding his hand with his right hand, although the other hand busied itself playing with his hair.

"Both of these people look like they need some serious rewiring", I thought.

Paper Flames

There is a silent harm emanating from those disarmed,
Tracing jet-streams to the monocle of the Man alarmed,
Shooting blanks into the caverns of what once was charmed,
Fields lay unfarmed.

I can't make you love me, Mr. Love Me,
I can't make you stay. When the sphygmomanometer grabs you like the octopus of assistance you suckled your pathetic alien mouth on.
Long gone yesterday

I creep into the crevices of the atoned,
On my own, burying bones.

Destroy the man in khakis,
Later on the man in jammies,
Of empty words,
And loud refrains,
Come hither to these paper flames.

Send the messenger into a pit of cuss,
Or better yet invite them all with lust,
There is a hole they'd like to fill,
With angry men on madder pills.

Fucking snakes, fucking snakes, fucking snakes, fucking snakes, fucking snakes, fucking snakes

Extra, extra READ ALL ABOUT..

Let's gather round the sewing ring,
A thousand echoes of a thousand things,
Of people who can't listen to anything,
But the sound of the midget in'em,
Fidgeting.

Of newer oldies,
And moneyed shame,
Come hither to these paper flames.

Lying about Lying about Lying about Lying

I lie on the marble floor, thinking about words and what to do if they decide to haunt me in my sleep. What to do if what I hold inside suddenly decides to speak to me.

That all I am, all I ever smile about, and all I ever cringe at, becomes the many shells of which I become a shroud.

And then I think of chameleons. I think of it changing colour. I think of how people think they do it to adapt to their surroundings, when half of the time, it's merely a reflection of how they feel.

They're not teenagers trying to be part of the cool clique. They are reptilian beacons.

They're the guys who can't hide their "happy"

And the fair who can't hide their cheeks when it's coloured cherry.

You are...

Your sense of humour,
The reason why morning is a misnomer.

How can I possibly be mourning this morning,
When jokes about calamities,
And laughs about atrocities ,
Make me giggle when I'm yawning.

Because I just woke up.

Not because you're...

Boring into my soul, like a piledriver,
That British singers croon about,

When they're not singing about sleepy towns,
Or whores,
Or when attractive mothers of which you have an affection,
An American exception.

When vampires go out on a weekend,
And colloquial slur becomes the new trend,
A colloquial slur that makes things clurr, (I mean, clearer)
A colloquial slur I've never said before in ways sincerer ,
Before I...

Met you, I haven't even,

Confined by walls that call us heathen,

"Do you wanna go to hell?", they enquire,
And you mock them with your love of fire.

Lie. Coz that's what the word sounds like if your name was abbreviated. Simplified.
Some are pronounced "Lee", Unfortunately.

They call it a suffix
The suffix in Helplessly, Hopelessly, Inevitably, Early, Daily, Nightly, Sweetly, Madly, Hilariously,
But I don't want you to be put Simply,
Really.

I want your many skins. And no that wasn't a fat joke stint.

I wanna be..

The company in your sleepwalking dreams, the antiseptic to the cuts you wake up to on your skin.

I'll hurt you too, there's no doubt,
But only like the occasional cigarettes that you'll eventually put out.

I want the space-time fabric your atom leaves as time in letters and sentences passes.
Past tense, present tense, future tense, mildly tense, intense, pretence, sometimes not tense at all.
Your Aderall, your thoughts like trippy coloured bubbles in a painting, possibly by Chagall.

I wanna hold your hand better than any 60's hit,
I wanna make the cogs in your heart spin a thousand revolutions per minute,

Like how much I think about revolutions per minute,

Like the thrill of kleptomania in a small homeless street kid,
The way a toxic mind doesn't quit,
The way you make me smile like you did.

This is probably not R & B at its best,
A very Jewish attempt at being Mr. West.

Or maybe just to be your glasses,
And to be the lens you talk about when you're in your classes.

Coz then I'd be with you,

And literally,

Everything else will just be scenery.

Wait For Me, Melancholy.

He draws, but he's not a drawer,
Just clutter within him, no shelves for his thoughts of any weather.

He treads in ink, his footsteps are his keystrokes, his guitar strings,

For nothing else about him, around him, seems to be moving.

He is empty,
Like a hole in the ground,
Even if the stars are still visible from down below,
Still to be found.

He is my past,
He is the friend I threw down a rope to, a rope he grabbed onto at last.

This is not a story of a climb,
Nor a story of what's left behind.

This is a story of how I began to lose my mind,
After blinded by what I thought I'd find.

Fuck it. This is not a story.

"Right now, how you feel is how you feel,
Time will either change it to be better or worse,
But right now is right now,
And there is nothing wrong with now."

Chapter 1

"Here you go, boss. The traitor."

It was a dark, dank room. Filled with the scent of corpses. But when the man took of his blindfold, he saw an opulent office, with statues of Grecian characteristics, and crockery of a much more recent time. Surrounding the perimeters though, were ominous looking men donning suits, of which the stench seemed to emanate from.

The thug who had the pleasure of blinding him and later on returning his sight, was addressing a masked person, sitting on the opposite side of the room in the shadows, with a cigar in his hand. He found that his hands were still tied up.

"Good job", and the men were about to step out of the room when their masked leader stopped them.

"No. All of you remain where you are. I need all of you for this next scene.", he said in a hoarse voice in a smirked manner.

The captive was shivering, a sweat started dripping from every inch of his body.

"I didn't know, boss, I didn't know they were onto me!"

The masked man just stared at him, finishing the last of his Cuban.

"Do you wanna know, why I wear a mask, Marcus?", his speech cold enough to silence every whimper of breath from the man kneeling on the carpet.

As he queried, the mask he was wearing came into the light as he walked slowly out of the shady corner of the room. The mask was made of bronze, fashioned like a helm of antiquity, covering only a part of his face and head. Carved on its sides was the name 'Felix'.

"The Japanese," Felix continued with a cough, "often joke about how awful American superheroes and super-villains are at concealing their identity. That we only cover half of our faces. And that very few of us even bother to distort our voices and whatnot. Apparently, to them, we're horrible at staying hidden"

The captive flinched, as the cigar was flicked in his direction. But he hurriedly continue paying attention to Felix, fearing that acting otherwise would mean the last act he would ever commit.

The other men stood silent and staunch.

"I tell you what, Marcus. Don't worry about blowing my cover with that information you've disclosed, I have no problem staying hidden.", after which he laughed.

"This mask makes me more than just hidden. It makes me invisible."

True enough, he disappeared. But his presence was yet too extant for Marcus to even dare to move a muscle. And in a single par sec of a moment, he was lifted of the ground, of what felt like a hand was clenching his throat upward to the ceiling.

"Who am I, Marcus?" The sound seemed to echo around the room, emphatic enough to indicate to everyone who was listening that the question posed was deprived of any subjectivity.

"You..," Marcus struggled with air. "..are the boss..of.."

"A large criminal syndicate? An organization so expansive people think we're everywhere?", he dropped Marcus back on the floor, of which he rolled around on, gasping for air.

"This entire time you were in my office, you tried to stay brave. You tried to hold on to every strand of hope you had of getting out of here, overcoming me."

Marcus tried speaking through his jittery jaws, "No..I wasn't.."

"SHUT UP!". His words sounded like fire crackling through bushes, burning not only vegetation, but thousands of records playing backtracked vinyls looking for hidden messages in old rock songs. Felix reappeared, with a .45 in his hand.

 "You see...I can't have that in an organization like this. People hoping to do better than me, to someday take my power. Relying on the notion that I'm a man, and that someday I'll die."

"But I'm more than a man ruling a powerful club. I'm lucky because I don't have to face any of that bullshit. I'm god, Marcus"

Marcus slithered on the floor towards Felix, with every bit of movement he can master in desperation, "Yes..master..you are..", but his head was stepped on by one of the guards in suits. The stench was unbearable.

Felix ignored it and continued, "No, you don't understand you see. For example," whilst pointing the gun at Marcus's head, "when I kill someone, I don't give them any mercy. Including the mercy of life. I don't relieve them of all of the shit-hole sufferings that people go through every fucking day they have to breathe. I don't give them the serenity of non-existence.."

And at that very moment, Marcus noticed something he couldn't have noticed before when the guards were still a distance away from him. Their eyes were cavernous, and the one that had his right foot on his face was missing a large chunk of his head. Marcus cried.

Felix smiled. "No. I make them more than just bodies. I make them loyal."

"Please, Boss. I think..."

"Hold that thought."

The .45 went of.

Felix walked closer to the man lying prostrate on the floor, while the white of his eyes gradually abandoned him. He stooped down, and he whispered into Marcus's ears.

"Welcome to the 'real' underworld."

Bucket List

K. S. P.

Tired Smiles

Smiles are skewed . Their multidimensional.

A smile can be sinister, warm, malicious or superficial.

But the most wonderful kind of smile, is a tired one.

It represents the human will to pursue joy, regardless of what befalls them.