KB
Are you afraid of anything?
Afraid? Well, shore, course I am.
Like what?
Particularly churlish geese. K-Pop Stans. Furries. Woke Twitter. Attack ships on fire off the Belt of Orion.
The not-so-unbelievable possibility that life is a fantastic simulation & I’m merely a mouth-breathing robot with sciatica who has been dead this whole time.
Egad! What a twist, no?
I wish you wouldn't default to randomness in a piss-poor effort to deflect serious inquiries into the tenets of your soul. Now, I'll ask again. What are you afraid of?
Wholehearted, genuine lack of interest in me. Not just me as a person, but in the concepts & thoughts I espouse. A full-throated repudiation of my interpretation of consciousness.
The infinite cosmos, simultaneously experiencing itself at the macro & micro-level & coming to the swift conclusion that "Hey dude, unfortunately, it's painfully obvious you’re rather lacking."
You’re shit, mate. Go home. Sod off. You are trite, hackneyed, contrived, stilted, recursive, uni-dimensional, reductive, derivative, worthless, embarrassing.
I’m afraid of anonymity. I am afraid of dying alone. I’m afraid of living because it hurts rather a lot.
I am afraid I made a mistake pursuing naked ambition. I'm afraid I can’t delude myself that I coulda, shoulda, woulda, been somebody. I am frightened of the world & that those panthers will tear out my throat-neck.
Or are they vipers? Lions, tigers, & bears. Oh me, oh my, can you hear me cry for help?
I’m so damn afraid my life is meaningless.
Who cares if your life is meaningless?
But for my narcissism, would we be having this conversation?
Suppose not.
It’s a constant battle to reconcile “everyone sucks but me” with “I love everyone but myself." I love seeing my friends thrive, even as I am left behind in the dust.
Drowning in their wake as their initials are chiseled into the marbled underbelly of the zeitgeist.
Every damnable, distracting drink downed a fruitless loan proffered from the bank of time's coffers. Forever making withdrawals. Never making the effort to reinvest in me.
Begging Christ to rescue me from this nightmarish existence.
How do you think that would go?
I’d almost assuredly be shoulder-checked by big Saint Peter at the doors to the Pearly Gates.
Sorry bruv. No can do. We’re strict anti-vaxxers up here. If I let you in with a cold, you’ll set off the Apocalypse prematurely.
Just let me squeeze past ya, for Chrissakes.
Not a bloody chance.
Hold on, are angels allowed to swear?
Mate, it’s called privilege. Look it up. You knew your writing credentials were going to be revoked when you went swimming amidst the swill of the smooth-brained.
It was a fit of pique! I plead temporary insanity!
You must be insane to think you’re getting a second go at it. Besides, it’s above me now.
Oh, for fuck's sake. We both know your buddy is the Grand Poobah of Heaven. He’ll understand. Do something useful for once, you alleged disciple.
He’s got about a billion things more important than concerning himself with the trifling insecurity of every addlepated moron who fancies himself the next Dante of the dangerously deluded.
As I recall, the big man flirted with a great revival crusade in his wandering youth.
Heresy! Hearsay! Hopped up hokum hatched hopelessly in heroin harems by haranguing harpies hellbent on heisting holy honor from His Head!
I'm no usurper. Just allow me to loiter here indefinitely until the end of days.
Listen up. Your zeitgeist-shaping days are hereby canceled before they ever began.
Sufficiently chastened & brow-beaten, catch me swan-diving gracefully back to Terra Firma. Vaguely aware I’ll be spending plenty of quality time in hell anyway.
Throw a man some zinc oxide & an inhaler, at the least.
All this sulfur & brimstone is doing an absolute number on my seasonal allergies. Sniffling in perpetuity until a solar flare mercifully snuffs out life on earth.
A partially congested nostril that you can never fully clear. Isn’t that the definition of hell?
Aye, & charlie horses, hangnails, cold sores, & bug bites that you can’t quite itch. The full gamut of mildly irksome quarrels that drive a man to insanity when foisted upon him forever.
Forever is a rather long time.
What's your excuse for only needing a quarter-century to turn out more than a bit cracked in the head?
I'm desperate for attention.
