Tag Archives: morbid

Everything is Out to Get You While You Sleep

You are most vulnerable while you are sleeping and it is for this reason that I give my bedroom a thorough inspection before I am satisfied with my surroundings enough to lay down to rest and this is after the routine perimeter check of the household to ensure that all possible entrances are firmly secured:

I will turn over the pillows
to make sure there is nothing living under there
check under the bed with a flashlight
for God knows what
open the closet doors quickly
in order to surprise what may be lurking inside
and also look behind the drapes
because you just never know.

They say that you grow out of things.
That’s a lie
although granted maybe some things you should
but my imagination
has never been my friend
and it begins to question me as soon as the lights go out
as to whether
something might crawl into my ear
to lay eggs in my brain
at some point during the night
or whether I would open my eyes in the midst of sleep
to find myself
staring into the harrowing face
of a dead child
or entombed under a blanket of frenzied spiders
perhaps buried alive in a wooden coffin
in some field nobody goes to anymore
or duct-taped to a wooden chair
slowly regaining consciousness
to the sound of a maniac’s chainsaw.

Late at night
these become valid questions

and I believe that my methods
may have proven effective thus far
as I have never awakened to find myself
strapped to a metallic table with
aliens clinically examining my genitals

with missing limbs
or fully encased in Jell-O

and so every morning once I realize
that I am intact and unmolested
I will go about my routine
like an absolute hero
knowing that I am safe for another day
as nothing horrifying had happened to me
in my most vulnerable state of sleep.

Not yet.

There is a Growing Sickness on the Web

10 Replies

I’m always at a party somewhere
and it’s killing me
but the alcohol eases the pain
of being around other people
like my friend
who shoves his phone in my face
and says, “Hey Man, you GOTTA see THIS!”
as he starts a video
and although I probably didn’t want to see
whatever he had to show me
it was too late
because now I was watching it already
I was locked in
and what I was soon looking at
was some guy
having a really bad day.

It was a sunny afternoon.
It was a bad dive off a dock
and his face connected
with a concrete ledge
twenty feet down.

I am sure that he didn’t mean for it
to turn out like that.

You could hear the dull whack of
flesh on cement
and groans from those spectating.

Everyone there knew that it was bad
but they didn’t really know how bad
until the man surfaced
and floated face-down
in a growing pool of blood
as people around him
shouted in confusion.

A woman cried, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
She started sobbing.

Things have such an eerie quality
to it when they’re real
even on a small screen.

The video cut to that man lying unconscious
on a hospital bed
with a large tube feeding him air.
The doctor holding his face together
pressing in with his hands
suddenly let go
and the entire thing split open
so that you could see all the way
to the back of his head
where his teeth now were.

His skull was halved like an apple
but somehow he was still alive
though you knew that he would
never be the same again
if he even survived the operation.

Now, I’m no expert
but I’m pretty sure that if you get certain things
shoved in your face all of the time that
you will eventually become numb to it
so this had got me thinking about how desensitized
we must be to find entertainment
in somebody’s life getting destroyed,
somebody with a family
with sisters and brothers
wives and children
and I could not help but think
that this was just a little
cold and sadistic
because it horrified me
to consider all of the pain
that man must now endure
as they attempted to reconstruct his face
and all of the surgeries that would follow,
the extensive hours in the hospital,
the bills and
what it was going to be like when he
looked in the mirror next or
every time for the rest of his life
if he wasn’t dead or a vegetable.

And now here we all are
with our faces still intact
cackling like demented hounds
watching it
again and again
passing the phone around the room:
“Hey! Come check THIS out!”
“Oh Dude, I gotta see THAT again!”

“Bahahaha…Fucker got it good!”

There is a growing sickness on the web
and in ourselves and
maybe it’s always been
a part of us
this interest to see others suffer
spectacularly
to watch them become humiliated
while seriously injuring themselves or others.

This is what happens when people
lose respect for human life
but just because they have
and just because it’s out there
(one mouse-click away)
doesn’t mean that I have to subscribe to it.

So the next time somebody
shoves a smartphone in my face
and shouts, “Hey Man, you GOTTA see this!”
I’m going to do the smart thing
and look away
because there are brutal things that
happen out there
and these things have a tendency to remain
with me once seen.

But it’s always good for a laugh, right?
As long as it doesn’t
happen to you
or anyone that you care about…

right?

The Cupboard of the Keeper of the Dead

6 Replies

1) In the Cupboard

Johnny stood in his kitchen. There was a problem with that one little cupboard that would never open that had extremely unsettled Johnny to the point that there was no returning to his day. The problem: it had opened and there were things inside that had completely changed his perception of reality. Actually they more like obliterated it and then beat on it some more until there was nothing left but a mushy pulp. And then they ate it.
He decided to call his neighbour.

        “Hi Spencer, it’s me, Johnny from number six. Listen, I just discovered this small cupboard beside the stove and was wondering if you would happen to have a similar cupboard. Or if you could come take a look.”
        “What the fuck?”
        “I know this sounds really odd. The reason I called you is because I always figured you were kind of into some strange shit.”
        “What? Sexually?”
        “No, I didn’t mean…”
        “You coming on to me, Motherfucker?”
        “Wait, now hold on…”
        “You want me to come over and look into your small little cupboard beside the stove and I’m the one that’s into some weird shit?”
        “You know what? Just forget it.”
        “Nah, I’m just fucking with you. I’ll be right over.”

Ten minutes later Spencer was banging impatiently at the door. Johnny let him in. Spencer looked like he’d spent the last few days on a bender and living in a trashcan. Johnny led him to the kitchen as Spencer mumbled on about some bitch stealing his wallet and all of his Canadian Tire money.

Johnny bent down and opened the cupboard.

On the upper shelf stood a dozen little men with heads shaped like crap and big, black eyes that were too large for their flat faces. They were all dressed in similar rags. They looked like claymation figures, which made the whole scenario just that much absurd. But they stunk; sweat glistened off their leathery faces and arms and darkened the fronts of their grimy half-torn shirts. They moved, gestured and wandered about like normal albeit horribly disfigured little people. Overall they seemed real enough to scare the shit out of Spencer when he first opened it and the leader at the front started talking, saying exactly what he said now:

        “Greetings! I am Gareth, keeper of the dead, and these are the legion of the dead. We have traveled far to spread the message of death to all living things all across the universe.”
        Behind him the collection of unspeakably morbid creatures began thrusting their fists up in unison while shouting,
        “Death to life! Death to life!”

        Spencer stumbled back. “Shit, I am way too hung-over for this. I’m not sure what to make of it right now…or ever. What are they, rats?”
        “They look pretty organized for rats…and rats don’t talk.”
        “Sure they do. Rats talk to me all the fucking time.”
        Johnny looked at Spencer wondering, ‘Jesus! What the Hell did I let into my apartment…again? Fuck it, why do I bother asking myself that anymore?’

        The leader, Gareth, held up a tiny chest over his warped head and proclaimed:
        “I have in this box every dead soul of everything that has ever lived throughout all of time and when I find the right place I will open it and all the dead will inherit the earth for the rest of eternity as it should be. Once this world has been cleansed of all foul life then will come the great nothing and only in nothingness can there be peace forever after.”
        The group standing behind him agreed by shouting:
        “We want nothing! Death to life!”
        Further fist-pumping ensued.

        “Christ! That doesn’t sound good!” Said Johnny.
        “It’s a scam! Dead things don’t come back to life or talk. Fuck, I learned that in grade seven!”
        “I don’t know, Man, what if he’s legit?”
        “He’s too small to do anything that matters. Look at the size of that tiny box! Whatever.”
        “What should I do then?”
        “Well, do you have to feed them?”
        “No. Um…I don’t think so. I mean, I’m pretty sure they’re dead.”
        “Okay, don’t worry about it then!” Spencer slammed the cupboard door and shrugged. “Just forget about it.”

They were still chanting inside.

        Johnny sighed and scratched his head. “That’s pretty much how you deal with everything, isn’t it?”
        “Hey! It’s gotten me this far.” Spencer replied. The little that Johnny actually did know about Spencer was that he was thirty-seven and had no job, no car and no bank account. What he did have was a massive drinking problem and a recent string of unplanned pregnancies from the girls who all worked at the McDonald’s down the street.
        “What? You don’t owe them anything. They’re lucky you don’t make them pay rent. Come on, let’s go grab a drink.”
        “It’s noon, Man.”
        “We better hurry then! You’re buying!”

2) Out of the Cupboard

        Johnny had met Carmella while out for drinks with Spencer trying to forget about what, he just wasn’t sure anymore. That was two days ago. Fucking Mescal. Now she was lying across him half-naked talking about who-the-fuck-cared as Johnny was just starting to sober up.
        “I’ve had a lot of guys fuck me around before so I’m really self-conscious about the whole relationship thing. I know we have this thing going on so before we go any further I want to clear the air between us and get a full understanding of what our expectations are.”
        “Sure.”
        “We need to be completely honest with each other, no holds barred. I don’t want anything hidden or any lies or any false pretenses lingering over us. I want us to be able to read each other’s mind and finish each other’s sentences. That’s the kind of relationship I’m looking for and once we can get past that then you will find me a very giving and accepting person.”
        “Sounds good. Let’s fuck.”

        Hours into early morning Carmella was awoken by a stirring on the night table beside her. She opened her eyes and could see enough of the shapes moving about to alarm her into turning on the night table to find a strange gray hamster dressed in rags blinking up at her.
        “Greetings!” It said, “I am Gareth, keeper of the dead, and these are the legion of the dead. We have traveled far to spread the message of death to all living things all across the universe.”
        There was around a dozen other hamsters all pumping their fists in the air and shouting: “Death to life! Death to life!”
         Carmella was startled enough from her slumber to start screaming Spencer’s name while tugging at the blankets.
        “What the fuck?”
        “The hamsters are hungry!”
        “Fuck! I forgot about them.”
        “You neglected your pets?”
        “No! They were already dead.”
        “You killed your hamsters?!”
        “No…Wow! This is going nowhere really fast.”
        “I’m getting out of here. You know, I really thought you were a stand-up guy but now I can plainly see that you can’t even handle taking care of animals much less another person. Don’t call me…ever!”
        “They’re not…I mean…sure, whatever. Try not to fuck a fence post on your way out.”

        Johnny sat up on the bed and rubbed his eyes. Gareth stood there, still with the tiny box in his tiny hands, gazing up at Spencer with a puzzled expression.
        “What?!” Gareth barked defiantly.
        “That’s it.” Johnny shook his finger at the whole lot as he tried to figure out what to do. “I know. I’m going to flush you fuckers down the toilet.”
        Johnny arose from the bed and began looking around the room for something he could pick them up with while thinking about the last crazy couple of days, Carmella and the apartment.
        No wonder rent was so low.
        Gareth interrupted him by saying, “Well then, I suppose this is as good a place as any.”
        “For what?” Johnny looked back and realized what was about to happen. “No, no , NO!” Johnny shouted. “Don’t do that!”

Gareth was kneeling with the box before him. He simply shrugged in response, leaned over…

and opened it.

Fly
Come on then, let’s have it
you’re here for a reason
aren’t you?
or did you just show up
expecting something
hoping for the best
going through the minimal motions
to meet the minimal requirements
and I have met you
everywhere I’ve been
In fact
you are most that I’ve met
and unfortunately
this fire
that makes me crazy
I cannot give to you
I would not give to you
you’re just going to have to come
and fucking take it
and even then
you wouldn’t know what to do with it

-this constant burn
this bottomless surge of
every waking moment

this blatant inability to grasp
that I cannot fly.