Nightmareland 2 + Western Gangs

I… I don't know! way to put me on the spot!

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DonRetrasado
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Nightmareland 2 + Western Gangs

Post by DonRetrasado »

Please excuse this interruption. Do not attempt to retune your station. We now return to our regularly scheduled noise. This is NightmareLandTV.


It is 4am, hemorrhaging anxiety, the alarm just says KILL; praying for daylight any minute now. Summer's long but the winter seems like it never ends. The station's changed, I wish my TV still worked. It's 4am, some nights never end. The top of this box is unhinged, we kept it closed with bungie cords but the raccoons still get in. I don't know why you're still afraid, I think this was your second chance. Broken windows and houses made of marble. Victorian dolls that chatter noiselessly. 7 voices that never shut up. Goddamn if it doesn't make you feel lonely. City streets, snowflakes on the ground. Goddamn if the cold doesn't warm your heart. I have work at 9am, I just want to get to fucking sleep. Heave a sigh of relief.

Nuit Blanche, 2011. Fags taking photos of their dicks, underage girlfriends. We broke shit and toppled the grocers' signs on Spadina Road. It feels hot out, the frost didn't bother me. Fire dancers in Queen's Park, a singing inukshuk by McCaul. I swear, everything's either lights or it takes a photo of you. It's a good night to talk to strangers or fight bus drivers. The line to piss at Tim Horton's was crazy. I shouldn't have drank so much. I feel just like a kindergarten kid some days. I try not to get scared on these crazy nights.

Listen to them chatter, it gets gross after a while. First you start to get it, then it goes away. I glean a little more and a litle less each time. Did I tell you I almost studied Vietnamese once? Now it comes through as the name bar bar bar. I'm so tired. She touches my shoulder to wake me. She says, "watch out for the black man." I laugh in her face and drift off.

Jane and Felstaff, she lives in squalor. Bugs in the mattress, roaches in the sink. Dad's gone. Where she got pelted by mom and the bugs she wears long sleeves. Pleasant enough, she has many friends at school, although she's plain in appearance and seems slow in class. Stress at home, stress at school, she finally finds an outlet; fire. It starts with playing with matches and lighters and smoking during her lunch break. She steals the batteries from the smoke detectors and hides them. Then, she lights pieces of paper and drops them in the garbage in the washrooms. One day, she sets fire to her mother's bed when she's at work and pretends to sleep. Anyway, that's the end of the story.


Two cops enters the building. One waits by the door while the other advances, eyeing the people sitting. Hands on their pistols. The one at the rear, taller and fatter than the other, moves to where the attendant is standing. Slams one hand on the table. Shouts out, "so, where the fuck is my free shawarma?" Mission accomplished.

The three kids hustle into the convenience store. One stands idly near the front and sort of sways hypnotically, reeking of weed. The other two move through the store in an organised manner, filling their pockets with snacks but occasionally grabbing something strange by accident; batteries, antacids, tomato sauce. The clerk is wise to the situation, and says, "hey, what the fuck are you guys doing? You're paying for that shit." One of the kids says, "fuck off, old man," and grabs a boxcutter off the shelf and rips it open. The clerk grabs a baseball bat and says, "you little shits better run." He's a little too slow, though; the kid at the front, six foot something, suddenly stands to attention and his right arm shoots out, and the man drops to the floor. A gasp or two, and he lays motionless. The kids ransack the register, stuff their pockets with bills and kick it.

672 words. That's not very good! Don't expect any kind of solid narrative. I'm doing to be doing two works concurrently; Nightmareland is the same as last year, and is a bunch of (mostly) unrelated stream-of-consciousness stories and poems. Western Gangs is a little more structured; it's going to be a bunch of vaguely related vignettes about juvenile delinquents. It'll be fairly easy to tell them apart I think but I'm not gonna bother separating them.
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DonRetrasado
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Re: Nightmareland 2 + Western Gangs

Post by DonRetrasado »

So go and send letter bombs home to mom, or maybe you'll just blast her with your fucking right arm. I'm sure it's just what she wanted, to raise a kid with no father, then let the dragon whip its tail right back at her. I know the jury won't let you hang but get this, the next time you'll see me you'll get my thanks. So, thanks, man.



Every night is just the same. Spin in the dirt, I must be too hot or too cold. My stomach hurts, my back hurts and I need to piss. How many hours of our lives do we piss away? Next time you feel like shit imagine what it's like to be a toilet. The next time you vomit imagine being the porcalain god, and have it all crawl back down your throat. But damn, I wonder if it sleeps better than I do.



I stood contemplatively at myself, staring back from the mirror. My face was covered in shaving cream. With a heavy sigh I picked the blade up, stared at it.

I've never had a good shave in my life. Inevitably it doesn't look quite even, and I have to wait for my stubble to grow in to disguise my craftsmanship. Every man learns to shave from his father, but apparently I missed a lesson. And so I'm left with bloody cuts and bumps all over. My aftershave burns like hell.

I had the razor in my left hand, deep in thought. What is my error here? I am about as proficient with my left hand as I am my right. I'm naturally right-handed but I taught myself to be ambidextrous. I heard it does good things for the brain. Fuck if I know.

Well, that day I was driven to shave with my right hand. And what do you know, it was the closest, softest shave I ever had. No cuts at all. Dad would be proud, I think.

And i stared at my ugly, clean-shaven face, and my face stared back at me. It laughed right in my face, in spite of myself. Then it took the razor in his left hand, and began to dig deep into his cheeks.


1048 words. So pretty much zero chance of me finishing. But I thought I'd demonstrate that I was, at least, occasionally writing a short poem or the like. The shaving story is based on a true story! Apparently right-handedness is for life. Although I did not cut up my face, at least not intentionally.
Astrogirl wrote:Lethal, nobody wants to know about your herpes.
Lethal Interjection wrote:That's good to know. I can avoid a few awkward phone calls now.

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smiley_cow
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Re: Nightmareland 2 + Western Gangs

Post by smiley_cow »

What exactly does aftershave do? I've never really been clear on that. Also good stuff, you should write more.
DonRetrasado wrote:Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Bitcoin.

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GUTCHUCKER
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Re: Nightmareland 2 + Western Gangs

Post by GUTCHUCKER »

Makes you not itch/smell so bad after shaving with shaving cream.
I don't use it since I shave without it, using a blunt razor.
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