Jon Ureña's Blog, page 51
November 3, 2021
Revised: 'The Cleaning Crew'
Some time ago I rearranged all my poetry into three distinct books, and I've been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them and expand them if possible. The idea is to format the books into ebooks so I can upload them to online retailers.
This time I handled my small poem 'The Cleaning Crew', in which for the most part I merely recounted what happened and what I thought about it. I started writing it that day, a couple of minutes after I returned from the bathroom.
Apart from updating the punctuation, it was a routine revision: remove a few words here and there, improve some of the remaining words, rearrange a few sentences.
Link to the updated poem: The Cleaning Crew
This time I handled my small poem 'The Cleaning Crew', in which for the most part I merely recounted what happened and what I thought about it. I started writing it that day, a couple of minutes after I returned from the bathroom.
Apart from updating the punctuation, it was a routine revision: remove a few words here and there, improve some of the remaining words, rearrange a few sentences.
Link to the updated poem: The Cleaning Crew
November 2, 2021
We're Fucked, Pt. 11 (Fiction)
Link to this part on my personal page, where it looks better
---
The morning light streaming through the two windows brightens further the frost white ceiling and walls of our office; and the row of three powder white storage cabinets, which contain binders that Jacqueline gets paid to fill with reports that nobody reads; and the porcelain white table where our assigned PCs face the same way, forcing my coworkers to sit so close that they could glance freely at my screen, so I have to worry in case I have opened a porn site absentmindedly. The floor is covered with a carpet that is faded, threadbare, and marred in several places with old food stains that are impossible to remove.
The sound of keyboard clattering serves as the drumline to the popular songs that the radio spews out. Near my empty workstation stands Spike the horse, balancing on his hind legs that tremble as if they were made of rubber. When he lifts his long, drooling face, he shrinks away from my disdainful gaze, but despite the sadness that oozes from his bulging, black eyes, this horse remains a vile creature who has no respect for anyone's dignity and should be exterminated with a shovel and gasoline and fire and whatever else is available, for daring to exist at all.
As I tramp to my chair, I gesture silently to Spike to move aside, but that's as much as I will acknowledge his presence at the office, because my coworkers can't see him. If they did, and knew about Spike's crimes against humanity, they would scream for me to destroy this horrible beast at once.
I sit at the desk as if it were an altar consecrated for worshiping some god or goddess responsible for making humans suffer every day. Although my ass cheeks just began to get squeezed against my seat, Jordi turns towards me and throws words my way.
"You really are unlucky, Leire."
I'm getting dizzy, partly because I have exhausted my feeble muscles and lungs ascending the slope to this business park, and also because of the heavy dose of anxiety that has been injected into my veins. I feel Spike standing close and sniffing my scent, breathing it deeply as if to inhale my thoughts straight off my mind. I can sense the horse's desperate longing for my body. Does he want to impregnate my womb so I produce a litter of horses? Would I end up giving birth to magical unicorns? Or is Spike simply seeking the pleasure of my soft flesh and the caresses of my sweaty hands upon his coarse coat?
I clear my throat as I wipe some sweat off my forehead.
"You mean in general?" I ask hoarsely. "Or do you specifically refer to this moment?"
Jordi pushes his glasses up his freckled nose as he offers me a patient smile that doesn't reach his eyes. As usual, his spotless white shirt is tucked inside his black pants, making him look like an angelic choirboy.
"Jacqueline told me that your car died, so you found yourself having to navigate the public transport system."
"Yeah, I know. The train was filled with people, too. It was like a war zone. But... my life is a battlefield, and I've decided to join the zombie army."
Jordi shrugs.
"Things have been calmer around here, thankfully. As your kouhai, I've taken the initiative to handle that ticket of yours about pushing data to a database via a RESTful API."
I never know what those Chinese words that Jordi keeps using mean, but as long as he does my job and I get paid, he may as well speak solely in Mandarin.
"You are saving my life," I say, then sigh. "Don't worry, I will be firing on all cylinders soon enough."
I switch on my computer. As soon as the monitor shows the motherboard logo, from my right, Jacqueline rolls her chair closer to mine and leans forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. I shiver at the touch of her palm that smells of soap, and I think of the horrors that might happen to my poor soul if she uses a finger to trace a pattern across my skin.
Jacqueline has tied up her glossy, raven black hair in a ponytail with a blue ribbon, and she's wearing a loose, fog grey cardigan over a wine red, low-cut skater dress. Her threateningly large breasts are encased by a lacy, pink bra that flatters them. I get a glimpse of her polyester, thigh-high boots that hug her long legs. My heart flutters. There goes my interest in focusing on my job.
"I have never seen you this pale, Leire," she says softly. "Take it easy today, alright?"
My brain is numb and inert as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over my head, but I nod anyway as I stare at Jacqueline's beautiful face.
"I guess I'll take it as easy as I can while I work through my long list of tickets. But... how are you doing, Jacqueline?"
My question disconcerts her. I guess I never asked for her well-being. Her lips are slightly parted, revealing a hint of crepe pinkness at the corners. I wonder if her other labia sport the same coloration. I want to follow with my tongue the skin from her creamy neck down to the swell of her breasts.
"I'm fine as always, Leire," Jacqueline says appreciatively. "Just take a breather when you need to. Don't punish yourself."
After Jacqueline wheels her chair back to her workstation, I keep replaying her mellifluous voice in my head. But I must look pale for sure; a fear has built up in my stomach like a lump of coal churned into a mountain range of lava by a volcano god, because my boss is likely to reprimand me for my lateness.
I have barely checked out my assigned tasks in Service Manager and opened Visual Studio Code when I hear Ramsés say my name. He's standing at the doorway to his office. Today he chose his admiral blue suit and a spotted tie. As soon as our gazes connect, he beckons to me with his thick, hairy fingers, then he walks back into his cave.
I close my eyes and wish I was dead. After I take a deep breath, I stand up wearily and I shuffle to my boss' office. When I enter it, Ramsés is leaning against his mahogany desk, likely to rub his hard on through his pants at his leisure, but I'm dazed by a rancid stench that permeates this office. Did my boss fart up a storm before calling me in, as a humiliation tactic?
My boss sighs as he goes around his desk. He parks his ass on the expensive upholstery of his executive chair.
"Leire, please sit down."
I hold my breath while I eye him with suspicion, but I slowly lower myself onto the guest chair opposite his desk.
"Did you want something, sir?" I ask meekly.
Ramsés looks down at a stack of papers on his desk, then he wrings his hands together until he finally speaks with an air of authority and impatience.
"Let me put this out there: I don't believe your car broke down."
How dare he accuse me of lying? My blood boils at the audacity of that statement.
"Excuse me?"
Ramsés fixes his gaze on mine with a penetrating glare that makes me squirm uncomfortably.
"Yesterday you complained for the first time about the volume of work I assign you. The following day you arrive more than an hour late without notifying me that you wouldn't come in time. I have to assume this was part of a stratagem to prove how indispensable you are."
My mouth falls open as I stare dumbfounded at my boss. I shift my weight in the chair, but as I'm about to defend myself, a black mass peeks out from behind my boss' shoulder and wraps itself around his neck as if to strangle him. Ramsés fails to react. The hideous form writhes and contorts like it's stuck in viscous liquid. It has a grotesque head shaped like an upside-down bowl of spaghetti, and I make out a mouth full of jagged teeth like rows of broken glass. At the end of two vermiform appendages coming out of its head, two bulbous eyes gleam like black marbles. It reminds me of a deep sea creature.
From the thing's throat comes out a loud squelch, but I can't understand what it's saying, maybe because it's gargling on all those bubbles of thick mucus that keep dribbling from its lips.
I must have fallen into a trance as I gaped at the strange creature; my boss ends up repeating my name. As if he had spoken an incantation, the monster disappears from Ramsés' shoulder. Drops of sticky fluid that had dripped onto his desk vanish into thin air.
"Don't space out, Leire, please," Ramsés demands sternly. "Is this one of your defense mechanisms to avoid facing reality?"
His tone had shifted from annoyance to concern as he observed me. He scratches the side of his face, which is covered by a dark stubble.
My brain feels sluggish and dull. I can only nod as I try unsuccessfully to wipe away the sweat that is now running down my forehead. My temples throb painfully with every heartbeat.
"You have always been strange," Ramsés says, lowering his voice, "as expected with such a technically-minded woman, but in these last few months you've been... deteriorating."
His words cut my heart deeply, because he is correct. I try to smile to dismiss his assumptions, but I fear that my cheeks will tremble and tears will well up in my eyes.
"So what, you think I'm suffering from psychosis or schizophrenia?"
Ramsés shrugs, then shakes his head.
"I don't know. Are you? Those are heavy words. You are a good programmer, but I can't have you being erratic and inconsistent. You know what will happen if we can't deliver the contracts in time, the company will have to pay the penalty fee. If it gets bad enough, I won't be able to pay any of you."
"I get it, sir. I'll work hard."
Ramsés' voice deepens as he tries to convince his employee to do the right thing, and I can't help but tilt my chin down in a submissive gesture.
"You used to go above and beyond. I suppose you worked overtime partly because you had nothing else going on and you may as well earn some extra money. I was glad to pay you for it, but the most I can demand of you is to complete your tasks during the regular workday hours."
I can't force myself to lift my gaze. My shoulders droop, my eyes turn watery. Ramsés' chair creaks as he gets up and walks around his desk. His admiral blue pants fill half of my frame of vision, and then I feel his big hand around my right trapezius muscle. He squeezes it firmly. The smell of cigarettes wafts down to my nostrils.
I stiffen. My throat is dry. I bet this man was waiting for the opportunity to fondle me. I want to jerk my body away, because I know what comes next: he will pull down his zipper, and then he will stuff his fat cock down my throat. Maybe he's expecting me to give in willingly and reach out with both hands for his belt buckle, because I am a whore who loves swallowing every drop of salty juice from her lover's ballsack.
I'm paralyzed as I wait for my boss to grab hold of my neck, but instead he pats me on the back twice with his violating hand.
"Keeping a job must be hard for you, but whatever is going on, Leire, you need to straighten yourself up and be a proper adult."
My chest feels tight as my temples throb. First he rapes me, then he calls me a child? And what if I am? I never signed up to become an adult. If as a newborn I had understood what nightmares this life would have entailed, I would have crawled back into my mother's cunt.
I was never a proper human being. As a baby, my head looked like a boiled egg with a hole in the center that my parents had to feed by screwing a rubber dildo attached to a pump, which gave milk that tasted like a mixture of rotten eggs and vomit. I remember that alien cock clearly, it was bigger than a tree trunk with a snake's head on top that threatened to chomp on mine. The rest of my body was a collection of tubes and wires connected to machines that made weird noises. The doctor said that everything about me pointed towards a malfunctioning brain, so I got put under a magical spell that turned me into a walking corpse, which nobody could recognize as a person anymore. When the sun rose, my dead eyes showed me a horrid world that made me want to cry like a little girl even though I was a grown woman, because this dimension was a scary place full of monsters that could devour a person at a single bite, and there were no adults, just a bunch of children running around with their heads empty, screaming at each other while they played with knives, guns and bombs.
All of my actions have been guided by an overwhelming urge to escape from my trauma-filled past, and my life became an endless cycle of suffering, grief and self-destruction which caused my mind to crumble. My body at least used to function properly, but now I have been reduced to a twisted wreck of insanity.
I black out. The next thing I know, I'm shuffling out of my boss' office, barely able to focus my gaze ahead. My horse stalker was spying on me from the other side of the doorway, and he hobbles aside as I pass. Spike's nostrils flare like they're constantly filled with an unpleasant odor emanating from deep inside his throat, because his digestive organs are filled with a rancid sludge that stinks like rotten meat mixed with urine and vomit, all rolled into one nauseous concoction laced with sulfuric acid and a dash of ammonia, to make sure that no one could ever forget the stench that escapes out of the orifices of this horse-shaped monstrosity.
Spike lets out a drawn out groan that send shivers to my bone marrow, and causes me to cover my nose to block his breath. His hooves scrape against the carpet as he stumbles along trying to keep pace with me.
"Your blood flows through the veins and arteries of the people around you," the horse says gloomily. "It's a miracle that you can live among these human beings without going mad."
Spike wants to pretend that he understands me completely, although he's an inhuman abomination that eats people alive. I see his point, but I'd argue that I haven't been sane for as long as I can remember. In fact, if those around me found out my true nature, they would surely never forgive themselves for having been so blind to such a grisly reality.
---
The morning light streaming through the two windows brightens further the frost white ceiling and walls of our office; and the row of three powder white storage cabinets, which contain binders that Jacqueline gets paid to fill with reports that nobody reads; and the porcelain white table where our assigned PCs face the same way, forcing my coworkers to sit so close that they could glance freely at my screen, so I have to worry in case I have opened a porn site absentmindedly. The floor is covered with a carpet that is faded, threadbare, and marred in several places with old food stains that are impossible to remove.
The sound of keyboard clattering serves as the drumline to the popular songs that the radio spews out. Near my empty workstation stands Spike the horse, balancing on his hind legs that tremble as if they were made of rubber. When he lifts his long, drooling face, he shrinks away from my disdainful gaze, but despite the sadness that oozes from his bulging, black eyes, this horse remains a vile creature who has no respect for anyone's dignity and should be exterminated with a shovel and gasoline and fire and whatever else is available, for daring to exist at all.
As I tramp to my chair, I gesture silently to Spike to move aside, but that's as much as I will acknowledge his presence at the office, because my coworkers can't see him. If they did, and knew about Spike's crimes against humanity, they would scream for me to destroy this horrible beast at once.
I sit at the desk as if it were an altar consecrated for worshiping some god or goddess responsible for making humans suffer every day. Although my ass cheeks just began to get squeezed against my seat, Jordi turns towards me and throws words my way.
"You really are unlucky, Leire."
I'm getting dizzy, partly because I have exhausted my feeble muscles and lungs ascending the slope to this business park, and also because of the heavy dose of anxiety that has been injected into my veins. I feel Spike standing close and sniffing my scent, breathing it deeply as if to inhale my thoughts straight off my mind. I can sense the horse's desperate longing for my body. Does he want to impregnate my womb so I produce a litter of horses? Would I end up giving birth to magical unicorns? Or is Spike simply seeking the pleasure of my soft flesh and the caresses of my sweaty hands upon his coarse coat?
I clear my throat as I wipe some sweat off my forehead.
"You mean in general?" I ask hoarsely. "Or do you specifically refer to this moment?"
Jordi pushes his glasses up his freckled nose as he offers me a patient smile that doesn't reach his eyes. As usual, his spotless white shirt is tucked inside his black pants, making him look like an angelic choirboy.
"Jacqueline told me that your car died, so you found yourself having to navigate the public transport system."
"Yeah, I know. The train was filled with people, too. It was like a war zone. But... my life is a battlefield, and I've decided to join the zombie army."
Jordi shrugs.
"Things have been calmer around here, thankfully. As your kouhai, I've taken the initiative to handle that ticket of yours about pushing data to a database via a RESTful API."
I never know what those Chinese words that Jordi keeps using mean, but as long as he does my job and I get paid, he may as well speak solely in Mandarin.
"You are saving my life," I say, then sigh. "Don't worry, I will be firing on all cylinders soon enough."
I switch on my computer. As soon as the monitor shows the motherboard logo, from my right, Jacqueline rolls her chair closer to mine and leans forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. I shiver at the touch of her palm that smells of soap, and I think of the horrors that might happen to my poor soul if she uses a finger to trace a pattern across my skin.
Jacqueline has tied up her glossy, raven black hair in a ponytail with a blue ribbon, and she's wearing a loose, fog grey cardigan over a wine red, low-cut skater dress. Her threateningly large breasts are encased by a lacy, pink bra that flatters them. I get a glimpse of her polyester, thigh-high boots that hug her long legs. My heart flutters. There goes my interest in focusing on my job.
"I have never seen you this pale, Leire," she says softly. "Take it easy today, alright?"
My brain is numb and inert as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over my head, but I nod anyway as I stare at Jacqueline's beautiful face.
"I guess I'll take it as easy as I can while I work through my long list of tickets. But... how are you doing, Jacqueline?"
My question disconcerts her. I guess I never asked for her well-being. Her lips are slightly parted, revealing a hint of crepe pinkness at the corners. I wonder if her other labia sport the same coloration. I want to follow with my tongue the skin from her creamy neck down to the swell of her breasts.
"I'm fine as always, Leire," Jacqueline says appreciatively. "Just take a breather when you need to. Don't punish yourself."
After Jacqueline wheels her chair back to her workstation, I keep replaying her mellifluous voice in my head. But I must look pale for sure; a fear has built up in my stomach like a lump of coal churned into a mountain range of lava by a volcano god, because my boss is likely to reprimand me for my lateness.
I have barely checked out my assigned tasks in Service Manager and opened Visual Studio Code when I hear Ramsés say my name. He's standing at the doorway to his office. Today he chose his admiral blue suit and a spotted tie. As soon as our gazes connect, he beckons to me with his thick, hairy fingers, then he walks back into his cave.
I close my eyes and wish I was dead. After I take a deep breath, I stand up wearily and I shuffle to my boss' office. When I enter it, Ramsés is leaning against his mahogany desk, likely to rub his hard on through his pants at his leisure, but I'm dazed by a rancid stench that permeates this office. Did my boss fart up a storm before calling me in, as a humiliation tactic?
My boss sighs as he goes around his desk. He parks his ass on the expensive upholstery of his executive chair.
"Leire, please sit down."
I hold my breath while I eye him with suspicion, but I slowly lower myself onto the guest chair opposite his desk.
"Did you want something, sir?" I ask meekly.
Ramsés looks down at a stack of papers on his desk, then he wrings his hands together until he finally speaks with an air of authority and impatience.
"Let me put this out there: I don't believe your car broke down."
How dare he accuse me of lying? My blood boils at the audacity of that statement.
"Excuse me?"
Ramsés fixes his gaze on mine with a penetrating glare that makes me squirm uncomfortably.
"Yesterday you complained for the first time about the volume of work I assign you. The following day you arrive more than an hour late without notifying me that you wouldn't come in time. I have to assume this was part of a stratagem to prove how indispensable you are."
My mouth falls open as I stare dumbfounded at my boss. I shift my weight in the chair, but as I'm about to defend myself, a black mass peeks out from behind my boss' shoulder and wraps itself around his neck as if to strangle him. Ramsés fails to react. The hideous form writhes and contorts like it's stuck in viscous liquid. It has a grotesque head shaped like an upside-down bowl of spaghetti, and I make out a mouth full of jagged teeth like rows of broken glass. At the end of two vermiform appendages coming out of its head, two bulbous eyes gleam like black marbles. It reminds me of a deep sea creature.
From the thing's throat comes out a loud squelch, but I can't understand what it's saying, maybe because it's gargling on all those bubbles of thick mucus that keep dribbling from its lips.
I must have fallen into a trance as I gaped at the strange creature; my boss ends up repeating my name. As if he had spoken an incantation, the monster disappears from Ramsés' shoulder. Drops of sticky fluid that had dripped onto his desk vanish into thin air.
"Don't space out, Leire, please," Ramsés demands sternly. "Is this one of your defense mechanisms to avoid facing reality?"
His tone had shifted from annoyance to concern as he observed me. He scratches the side of his face, which is covered by a dark stubble.
My brain feels sluggish and dull. I can only nod as I try unsuccessfully to wipe away the sweat that is now running down my forehead. My temples throb painfully with every heartbeat.
"You have always been strange," Ramsés says, lowering his voice, "as expected with such a technically-minded woman, but in these last few months you've been... deteriorating."
His words cut my heart deeply, because he is correct. I try to smile to dismiss his assumptions, but I fear that my cheeks will tremble and tears will well up in my eyes.
"So what, you think I'm suffering from psychosis or schizophrenia?"
Ramsés shrugs, then shakes his head.
"I don't know. Are you? Those are heavy words. You are a good programmer, but I can't have you being erratic and inconsistent. You know what will happen if we can't deliver the contracts in time, the company will have to pay the penalty fee. If it gets bad enough, I won't be able to pay any of you."
"I get it, sir. I'll work hard."
Ramsés' voice deepens as he tries to convince his employee to do the right thing, and I can't help but tilt my chin down in a submissive gesture.
"You used to go above and beyond. I suppose you worked overtime partly because you had nothing else going on and you may as well earn some extra money. I was glad to pay you for it, but the most I can demand of you is to complete your tasks during the regular workday hours."
I can't force myself to lift my gaze. My shoulders droop, my eyes turn watery. Ramsés' chair creaks as he gets up and walks around his desk. His admiral blue pants fill half of my frame of vision, and then I feel his big hand around my right trapezius muscle. He squeezes it firmly. The smell of cigarettes wafts down to my nostrils.
I stiffen. My throat is dry. I bet this man was waiting for the opportunity to fondle me. I want to jerk my body away, because I know what comes next: he will pull down his zipper, and then he will stuff his fat cock down my throat. Maybe he's expecting me to give in willingly and reach out with both hands for his belt buckle, because I am a whore who loves swallowing every drop of salty juice from her lover's ballsack.
I'm paralyzed as I wait for my boss to grab hold of my neck, but instead he pats me on the back twice with his violating hand.
"Keeping a job must be hard for you, but whatever is going on, Leire, you need to straighten yourself up and be a proper adult."
My chest feels tight as my temples throb. First he rapes me, then he calls me a child? And what if I am? I never signed up to become an adult. If as a newborn I had understood what nightmares this life would have entailed, I would have crawled back into my mother's cunt.
I was never a proper human being. As a baby, my head looked like a boiled egg with a hole in the center that my parents had to feed by screwing a rubber dildo attached to a pump, which gave milk that tasted like a mixture of rotten eggs and vomit. I remember that alien cock clearly, it was bigger than a tree trunk with a snake's head on top that threatened to chomp on mine. The rest of my body was a collection of tubes and wires connected to machines that made weird noises. The doctor said that everything about me pointed towards a malfunctioning brain, so I got put under a magical spell that turned me into a walking corpse, which nobody could recognize as a person anymore. When the sun rose, my dead eyes showed me a horrid world that made me want to cry like a little girl even though I was a grown woman, because this dimension was a scary place full of monsters that could devour a person at a single bite, and there were no adults, just a bunch of children running around with their heads empty, screaming at each other while they played with knives, guns and bombs.
All of my actions have been guided by an overwhelming urge to escape from my trauma-filled past, and my life became an endless cycle of suffering, grief and self-destruction which caused my mind to crumble. My body at least used to function properly, but now I have been reduced to a twisted wreck of insanity.
I black out. The next thing I know, I'm shuffling out of my boss' office, barely able to focus my gaze ahead. My horse stalker was spying on me from the other side of the doorway, and he hobbles aside as I pass. Spike's nostrils flare like they're constantly filled with an unpleasant odor emanating from deep inside his throat, because his digestive organs are filled with a rancid sludge that stinks like rotten meat mixed with urine and vomit, all rolled into one nauseous concoction laced with sulfuric acid and a dash of ammonia, to make sure that no one could ever forget the stench that escapes out of the orifices of this horse-shaped monstrosity.
Spike lets out a drawn out groan that send shivers to my bone marrow, and causes me to cover my nose to block his breath. His hooves scrape against the carpet as he stumbles along trying to keep pace with me.
"Your blood flows through the veins and arteries of the people around you," the horse says gloomily. "It's a miracle that you can live among these human beings without going mad."
Spike wants to pretend that he understands me completely, although he's an inhuman abomination that eats people alive. I see his point, but I'd argue that I haven't been sane for as long as I can remember. In fact, if those around me found out my true nature, they would surely never forgive themselves for having been so blind to such a grisly reality.
November 1, 2021
xVASynth recites 'A Pair of Old Dogs'
I used the fantastic AI-based program xVASynth to recite part of my poem 'A Pair of Old Dogs', about me taking a stroll after playing the guitar in the woods.
Link to the YouTube video.
Link to the rest of the poem.
Link to the YouTube video.
Link to the rest of the poem.
Revised: 'A Pair of Old Dogs'
Some time ago I arranged all my poetry into three distinct books, which in the future I intend to format into ebooks to upload them to online retailers, although nobody will buy them. I guess it serves as a distraction.
I have been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them, update their punctuation (for some reason I used to think that I shouldn't use periods when writing poetry) and expand them if I see the opportunity.
This time I worked on my poem 'A Pair of Old Dogs', about me taking a stroll after playing the guitar in the woods. I only had to delete a few words, improve others, and of course update the punctuation. I think this is a nice little poem that works well.
Anyway, this is the link to the updated poem: A Pair of Old Dogs
I have been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them, update their punctuation (for some reason I used to think that I shouldn't use periods when writing poetry) and expand them if I see the opportunity.
This time I worked on my poem 'A Pair of Old Dogs', about me taking a stroll after playing the guitar in the woods. I only had to delete a few words, improve others, and of course update the punctuation. I think this is a nice little poem that works well.
Anyway, this is the link to the updated poem: A Pair of Old Dogs
October 31, 2021
We're Fucked, Pt. 10 (Fiction)
Link for this part on my personal page, where it looks better
---
I boarded the Euskotren from Irún, so I managed to wangle one of the best seats available in any of the carriages: the individual one next to the corridor connection, which faces a row of three seats. Now that I've grabbed that seat, nobody can stand beside me, as I have a curved, plasticky wall on my left and an opaque glass divider on my right. But at this hour, the train quickly got crowded by a cross section of the workers and students of this province. Two women in their forties, dressed with conservative business attire, have taken the opportunity to get some shut eye in front of me, and the remaining seat got filled by a student who keeps scrolling on his phone.
I want to sleep, if only to disappear from my life for a few minutes, but my heart is pounding and my palms are sweating because I dread what awaits me at my office. For the first time since I became a wage slave all those years ago, I'll arrive late to work because of a horse that eats my dreams, and also because my car nearly killed me. I had feared that the poor excuse of a horse that stalks me would hinder me as I face the workday's challenges, but now I'm sure that my terrible mood will ruin my performance, although I was already slacking off. I keep picturing my boss' lascivious visage as he reprimands me for wasting his time and money with these shenanigans of mine, while he fondles his hard cock under the desk. Ramsés' eyes always seems so hungry when he stares at me with those serpentine black pupils. He's going to fire me and replace me with a young and obedient female employee, someone he can use like a sexual toy. Or else he'll force himself upon me in various positions, while he yells obscenities in my ear and I cry tears of shame and humiliation in full view of my coworkers. I shudder with disgust. How sick is that man to want to fuck a woman right next to her colleagues?! And why does he want to fuck me so badly anyway?!
Why can't the crowd shut up? Who would want to carry a conversation at this hour? Stop interrupting my thoughts! Be quiet for a minute, just a minute, so my brain can rest. Why must we talk all day long, filling our heads with nonsense? I bet they just want to hear themselves over the sound of the train's engine and the clatter of its wheels against the tracks beneath us. Their voices make me dizzy and nauseous, like they're speaking through an echo chamber that amplifies every word they utter and turns every syllable into an insult that stabs deep into my soul like knives made out of nails. Their brains rot in their skulls while their mouths spew filth into the air. What have they done to deserve to be born into this world, to live their pathetic lives in this miserable country with its shitty weather and its ugly people? Please, let this be over soon.
And those two female office workers sitting in front of me look so placid. Their minds must surely be drifting away into dreams of lovemaking, while mine is consumed with thoughts of a horse's obscene appendages that he so eagerly wants to stretch out towards me.
The train has passed Oiartzun, and again the view from the windows gets reduced to a succession of naked trees that have sprouted from the earth close to the tracks to expose their numerous, skeletal limbs like perverted alien abominations. Why can't nature shield its hideous appearance at least when I'm forced to stare at it to distract myself during such insufferable rides? Instead, I'm being assaulted by its ghastliness every passing second as this monstrosity of metal rumbles along.
When we stop at Errenteria's dreary station, with its graffiti suggestions for us to get out and for the fight to continue, the doors open and a bunch of people penetrate my carriage like an invading horde of zombies. Two Eastern European guys whose stocky builds and worn T-shirts and cargo pants suggest they work in construction, one of who sports a scar that bisects his left eyebrow, stare back at me as they pass by to find seats. My heart beats faster. Why the hell did they hold my gaze? What did I do to them? People always have to bother me even though I'm just sitting here, stewing in my misery. Just leave me alone, damn you!
They are gone. I shouldn't need to worry about those bastards anymore, and I have to focus on finding a way to survive the rest of the day. My stomach feels like somebody has stuffed a fistful of sand down there. I catch the student gazing over his phone towards my work bag, that I placed between my seat and the glass divider. Is he trying to steal my bag? I barely put anything in it, I mostly carry it around because it soothes me somehow. Why does however is in charge of trains in this country force me to share my ride with a thief? Then I hear the muffled sound of my chosen ringtone coming from my work bag. After I reach into my bag to hold my vibrating phone, I anticipate the embarrassment of having to open my mouth and speak surrounded by all these strangers.
When I find out who's calling, I nearly piss myself. It's Jacqueline. The insisting vibrations of her call are travelling down my forearm, straight towards my nether regions. What do I do? I'm too nervous to talk to Jacqueline, especially after she provided such a stupefying orgasm in the shower this morning. But if I don't take the call now, she might hang up and go away forever!
"H-hello...?" I say as I hold the phone against my ear.
I hear a muffled sigh on the other end of the line. I strain my ears to listen in on whatever she utters, hoping to retain every word.
"You know," Jacqueline starts, "I feared you wouldn't have answered, or that your phone would have been disconnected."
I could taste the concern in her voice. She thinks about me when I'm away. I exist.
"Why would you think something like that?" I ask her with a dry tone that evidences my anxiety.
Jacqueline chuckles.
"Because you aren't here? I'm used to seeing you sitting at your PC as I walk into our office every morning. So either you were sick today, or something much worse had happened. After you broke down in the bathroom..."
Jacqueline continues talking, but my gasp interrupts her.
"Wait, I don't want the others to find out about that!"
I spoke too loud, becoming one of those annoying assholes who bother the other commuters by forgetting they aren't sitting in their living room. A few stares land on my exposed skin, so I lower my head and cover half of my face with my free hand.
"I'm standing outside," Jacqueline says. "The dawn is about to break, so that should be nice. Did you wake up today only to start crying all alone?"
I lower my voice to defend myself.
"I'm not that pathetic. No, my shitty old car broke down, that's all. I've found myself having to rely on the train to reach our awkwardly situated business park, although I hadn't gotten on a train for years."
"But you didn't call the office to tell you were running late, did you?" she asks with a slight French accent that makes her sound charming and childish.
"R-right, people inform others when they will arrive late to things..."
Jacqueline laughs, and I become jealous of how natural and effortless it sounded.
"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't have called. So you are fine then? You're safe?"
"I'm fine, other than the fact that adult life is an unending nightmare of indentured servitude to pay for the debt I incurred when I was born."
Jacqueline giggles. I'm offended that she considers modern slavery a laughing matter, but I can almost see that gorgeous woman's smile through the phone speaker. Her laughter is infectious, and I would have laughed if my heart wasn't rotten after years of sadness and self-loathing.
"Alright, Leire. I'll see you soon, then?"
"Who knows what might happen on my way to the office. I can think of many disasters."
"Stop thinking of disasters, sweetie. Tell yourself that everything is going to be fine."
Jacqueline's voice is so warm and soothing that I'm inclined to do anything she demands.
"Because everything is guaranteed to be fine if I tell myself so?" I ask incredulously.
"Not at all. But it would lessen your anxiety, which would contribute to make you feel better. That's what's all about, isn't it? Being happy and feeling good while we are still alive?"
That sounds incorrect to me, but my chest is hot and tight, and my breath has become shallow, irregular. The hint of melancholy in her voice had told me that she had experienced some dark times. I wish we could keep talking for hours. Jacqueline blesses me with her attention; it gives me strength and courage to continue to function as a person. And I'd do anything for this woman to hold me in her arms again.
I can't tune out the conversations of nearby commuters, but I hide the legs of the three people who occupied the seats in front by covering both my eyes. I hunch over, resting my elbows on my knees. Jacqueline and I are alone in the office. She has stayed after hours at our workplace as an excuse to spend time in private with me. Or even better, she has invited me to her house, and she's about to excuse herself to put on more comfortable clothes as I sit on the edge of her bed.
"Hey, listen," I say softly, my lips brushing the phone. "Thank you again for caring for an annoying wreck like me. It means so much that you are looking out for my well-being. I-I want to repay you somehow, so..."
I can't come up with any way to repay her that doesn't involve me kneeling in front of her pussy. A few seconds later, Jacqueline remains quiet. I can't even hear her breathe. I open my eyes and find out that the train is speeding through a tunnel, so the call has dropped. Why does this damn province have to be so hilly?
But as I slump in the chair and I take a deep breath, my body quivers from Jacqueline's lingering presence. I close my eyes. For the rest of this journey, I'll lose myself in memories of our intimate moments together.
As soon as I get off the train at the underground station of Lugaritz, I'm surrounded by fresh young adults who likely attend the nearby college. They walk around while they hold their phones. Some of them stop and chat with each other about their classes.
An unpleasant feeling comes over me, and I start to sweat and shiver. The butter yellow panels that cover this station's walls, along with its bright fluorescent lights, remind me of looking into a fridge, and I'm one of the packaged products waiting on a shelf. When did I become someone's disposable article, meant to be thrown away when they no longer need me anymore?
The nearby humans likely smell my fear of them and consider it an invitation to attack and devour me. There is nowhere to run away to now that I have arrived at this place of horror. The smiles of these twenty year olds are full of malice, but they restrain themselves from touching me in case they catch something contagious.
As I stand on the sidewalk outside the station, a few minutes after sunrise, I look down the slope towards a peanut brown building that features two parallel, vertical constructions that resemble blocky smokestacks and that may house the elevators. The business park where I work is in that direction, but how do I reach it from here? I should have looked it up online at home, but that was a problem for future me to handle. I better start walking.
The clouds look like they are melting into the sky as they fly by fast. I trudge past modern-looking, white and grey apartment buildings, a roundabout, and tall office towers that make me feel tiny. The October sun shines brightly on my face through the trees. My eyes are already tired and sore, and my nose is runnier than normal. My nerves are jangling around inside my body like a chorus of impotent monkeys. Everything is a nuisance and a burden. Why do I bother, in general? Why struggle through this life? I wish it all could cease with the push of a button.
I thought I had gotten lost, but I recognize an upward slope that I have driven along five days a week since I started working at this job. The reclined sidewalk is adjoined to a park with freshly cut grass, and that contains a playground where a few housewives are already playing with their spawns. As always, the moms ignore my existence because I'm not their biological child.
I can't say I'm into kids, but that housewife life sounds like a dream come true. I would forget how this decaying world looks like at six in the morning, and a few hours later I would wake up, prepare myself a cup of coffee, and accompany my young child, whom I would have cursed with my anxiety and depression, down to the playground, where the kid would climb and slide while I would lie down on the soft, green lawn and let my mind drift away until I fell asleep. But I can't do that, because I need to reach my workplace, which is why I'm pushing myself forward and up this hill as my legs burn unpleasantly from the lack of exercise, and I have to steel myself for the remaining hours of the workday, during which I'll have to pretend that I'm a functional human being instead of an anxious wreck that wants to die.
Once I reach the plateau where they built the business park, I turn left and follow the sidewalk, passing by a wide variety of cars that are occupying all the available parking spaces close to the office blocks. The sun whitens the mirrorlike, wavy surface of the building that contains the restaurant to which Jacqueline had dragged me during a lunch break. Less than a minute later I'm staring at the boxy, salt white office building that contains my workplace and that was built to ruin my life.
As I hurry towards the entrance, a sudden movement in the row of multicolored garbage bins makes me stop. My body shudders at a sudden chill running through it as a wind blows from behind me. A dark mass is perched on the lid of the banana yellow bin. A second and a third mass slink up the sides of the bin to join the first entity. A fourth and a fifth mass follow suit. They are formed by a fluid substance that resembles tar. As if my eyesight was getting sharper, I can make out the shades that differentiate each entity as they coalesce to form one single black blob.
I stare at the mass as it shuffles in place as if breathing, and on the edge of my hearing I pick up sounds that resemble whimpers of pain and anguish as the creatures melt into a lump of putrid, foul-smelling sludge of despair.
Whatever. I continue on my way to find out what horrors await at the office today.
---
I boarded the Euskotren from Irún, so I managed to wangle one of the best seats available in any of the carriages: the individual one next to the corridor connection, which faces a row of three seats. Now that I've grabbed that seat, nobody can stand beside me, as I have a curved, plasticky wall on my left and an opaque glass divider on my right. But at this hour, the train quickly got crowded by a cross section of the workers and students of this province. Two women in their forties, dressed with conservative business attire, have taken the opportunity to get some shut eye in front of me, and the remaining seat got filled by a student who keeps scrolling on his phone.
I want to sleep, if only to disappear from my life for a few minutes, but my heart is pounding and my palms are sweating because I dread what awaits me at my office. For the first time since I became a wage slave all those years ago, I'll arrive late to work because of a horse that eats my dreams, and also because my car nearly killed me. I had feared that the poor excuse of a horse that stalks me would hinder me as I face the workday's challenges, but now I'm sure that my terrible mood will ruin my performance, although I was already slacking off. I keep picturing my boss' lascivious visage as he reprimands me for wasting his time and money with these shenanigans of mine, while he fondles his hard cock under the desk. Ramsés' eyes always seems so hungry when he stares at me with those serpentine black pupils. He's going to fire me and replace me with a young and obedient female employee, someone he can use like a sexual toy. Or else he'll force himself upon me in various positions, while he yells obscenities in my ear and I cry tears of shame and humiliation in full view of my coworkers. I shudder with disgust. How sick is that man to want to fuck a woman right next to her colleagues?! And why does he want to fuck me so badly anyway?!
Why can't the crowd shut up? Who would want to carry a conversation at this hour? Stop interrupting my thoughts! Be quiet for a minute, just a minute, so my brain can rest. Why must we talk all day long, filling our heads with nonsense? I bet they just want to hear themselves over the sound of the train's engine and the clatter of its wheels against the tracks beneath us. Their voices make me dizzy and nauseous, like they're speaking through an echo chamber that amplifies every word they utter and turns every syllable into an insult that stabs deep into my soul like knives made out of nails. Their brains rot in their skulls while their mouths spew filth into the air. What have they done to deserve to be born into this world, to live their pathetic lives in this miserable country with its shitty weather and its ugly people? Please, let this be over soon.
And those two female office workers sitting in front of me look so placid. Their minds must surely be drifting away into dreams of lovemaking, while mine is consumed with thoughts of a horse's obscene appendages that he so eagerly wants to stretch out towards me.
The train has passed Oiartzun, and again the view from the windows gets reduced to a succession of naked trees that have sprouted from the earth close to the tracks to expose their numerous, skeletal limbs like perverted alien abominations. Why can't nature shield its hideous appearance at least when I'm forced to stare at it to distract myself during such insufferable rides? Instead, I'm being assaulted by its ghastliness every passing second as this monstrosity of metal rumbles along.
When we stop at Errenteria's dreary station, with its graffiti suggestions for us to get out and for the fight to continue, the doors open and a bunch of people penetrate my carriage like an invading horde of zombies. Two Eastern European guys whose stocky builds and worn T-shirts and cargo pants suggest they work in construction, one of who sports a scar that bisects his left eyebrow, stare back at me as they pass by to find seats. My heart beats faster. Why the hell did they hold my gaze? What did I do to them? People always have to bother me even though I'm just sitting here, stewing in my misery. Just leave me alone, damn you!
They are gone. I shouldn't need to worry about those bastards anymore, and I have to focus on finding a way to survive the rest of the day. My stomach feels like somebody has stuffed a fistful of sand down there. I catch the student gazing over his phone towards my work bag, that I placed between my seat and the glass divider. Is he trying to steal my bag? I barely put anything in it, I mostly carry it around because it soothes me somehow. Why does however is in charge of trains in this country force me to share my ride with a thief? Then I hear the muffled sound of my chosen ringtone coming from my work bag. After I reach into my bag to hold my vibrating phone, I anticipate the embarrassment of having to open my mouth and speak surrounded by all these strangers.
When I find out who's calling, I nearly piss myself. It's Jacqueline. The insisting vibrations of her call are travelling down my forearm, straight towards my nether regions. What do I do? I'm too nervous to talk to Jacqueline, especially after she provided such a stupefying orgasm in the shower this morning. But if I don't take the call now, she might hang up and go away forever!
"H-hello...?" I say as I hold the phone against my ear.
I hear a muffled sigh on the other end of the line. I strain my ears to listen in on whatever she utters, hoping to retain every word.
"You know," Jacqueline starts, "I feared you wouldn't have answered, or that your phone would have been disconnected."
I could taste the concern in her voice. She thinks about me when I'm away. I exist.
"Why would you think something like that?" I ask her with a dry tone that evidences my anxiety.
Jacqueline chuckles.
"Because you aren't here? I'm used to seeing you sitting at your PC as I walk into our office every morning. So either you were sick today, or something much worse had happened. After you broke down in the bathroom..."
Jacqueline continues talking, but my gasp interrupts her.
"Wait, I don't want the others to find out about that!"
I spoke too loud, becoming one of those annoying assholes who bother the other commuters by forgetting they aren't sitting in their living room. A few stares land on my exposed skin, so I lower my head and cover half of my face with my free hand.
"I'm standing outside," Jacqueline says. "The dawn is about to break, so that should be nice. Did you wake up today only to start crying all alone?"
I lower my voice to defend myself.
"I'm not that pathetic. No, my shitty old car broke down, that's all. I've found myself having to rely on the train to reach our awkwardly situated business park, although I hadn't gotten on a train for years."
"But you didn't call the office to tell you were running late, did you?" she asks with a slight French accent that makes her sound charming and childish.
"R-right, people inform others when they will arrive late to things..."
Jacqueline laughs, and I become jealous of how natural and effortless it sounded.
"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't have called. So you are fine then? You're safe?"
"I'm fine, other than the fact that adult life is an unending nightmare of indentured servitude to pay for the debt I incurred when I was born."
Jacqueline giggles. I'm offended that she considers modern slavery a laughing matter, but I can almost see that gorgeous woman's smile through the phone speaker. Her laughter is infectious, and I would have laughed if my heart wasn't rotten after years of sadness and self-loathing.
"Alright, Leire. I'll see you soon, then?"
"Who knows what might happen on my way to the office. I can think of many disasters."
"Stop thinking of disasters, sweetie. Tell yourself that everything is going to be fine."
Jacqueline's voice is so warm and soothing that I'm inclined to do anything she demands.
"Because everything is guaranteed to be fine if I tell myself so?" I ask incredulously.
"Not at all. But it would lessen your anxiety, which would contribute to make you feel better. That's what's all about, isn't it? Being happy and feeling good while we are still alive?"
That sounds incorrect to me, but my chest is hot and tight, and my breath has become shallow, irregular. The hint of melancholy in her voice had told me that she had experienced some dark times. I wish we could keep talking for hours. Jacqueline blesses me with her attention; it gives me strength and courage to continue to function as a person. And I'd do anything for this woman to hold me in her arms again.
I can't tune out the conversations of nearby commuters, but I hide the legs of the three people who occupied the seats in front by covering both my eyes. I hunch over, resting my elbows on my knees. Jacqueline and I are alone in the office. She has stayed after hours at our workplace as an excuse to spend time in private with me. Or even better, she has invited me to her house, and she's about to excuse herself to put on more comfortable clothes as I sit on the edge of her bed.
"Hey, listen," I say softly, my lips brushing the phone. "Thank you again for caring for an annoying wreck like me. It means so much that you are looking out for my well-being. I-I want to repay you somehow, so..."
I can't come up with any way to repay her that doesn't involve me kneeling in front of her pussy. A few seconds later, Jacqueline remains quiet. I can't even hear her breathe. I open my eyes and find out that the train is speeding through a tunnel, so the call has dropped. Why does this damn province have to be so hilly?
But as I slump in the chair and I take a deep breath, my body quivers from Jacqueline's lingering presence. I close my eyes. For the rest of this journey, I'll lose myself in memories of our intimate moments together.
As soon as I get off the train at the underground station of Lugaritz, I'm surrounded by fresh young adults who likely attend the nearby college. They walk around while they hold their phones. Some of them stop and chat with each other about their classes.
An unpleasant feeling comes over me, and I start to sweat and shiver. The butter yellow panels that cover this station's walls, along with its bright fluorescent lights, remind me of looking into a fridge, and I'm one of the packaged products waiting on a shelf. When did I become someone's disposable article, meant to be thrown away when they no longer need me anymore?
The nearby humans likely smell my fear of them and consider it an invitation to attack and devour me. There is nowhere to run away to now that I have arrived at this place of horror. The smiles of these twenty year olds are full of malice, but they restrain themselves from touching me in case they catch something contagious.
As I stand on the sidewalk outside the station, a few minutes after sunrise, I look down the slope towards a peanut brown building that features two parallel, vertical constructions that resemble blocky smokestacks and that may house the elevators. The business park where I work is in that direction, but how do I reach it from here? I should have looked it up online at home, but that was a problem for future me to handle. I better start walking.
The clouds look like they are melting into the sky as they fly by fast. I trudge past modern-looking, white and grey apartment buildings, a roundabout, and tall office towers that make me feel tiny. The October sun shines brightly on my face through the trees. My eyes are already tired and sore, and my nose is runnier than normal. My nerves are jangling around inside my body like a chorus of impotent monkeys. Everything is a nuisance and a burden. Why do I bother, in general? Why struggle through this life? I wish it all could cease with the push of a button.
I thought I had gotten lost, but I recognize an upward slope that I have driven along five days a week since I started working at this job. The reclined sidewalk is adjoined to a park with freshly cut grass, and that contains a playground where a few housewives are already playing with their spawns. As always, the moms ignore my existence because I'm not their biological child.
I can't say I'm into kids, but that housewife life sounds like a dream come true. I would forget how this decaying world looks like at six in the morning, and a few hours later I would wake up, prepare myself a cup of coffee, and accompany my young child, whom I would have cursed with my anxiety and depression, down to the playground, where the kid would climb and slide while I would lie down on the soft, green lawn and let my mind drift away until I fell asleep. But I can't do that, because I need to reach my workplace, which is why I'm pushing myself forward and up this hill as my legs burn unpleasantly from the lack of exercise, and I have to steel myself for the remaining hours of the workday, during which I'll have to pretend that I'm a functional human being instead of an anxious wreck that wants to die.
Once I reach the plateau where they built the business park, I turn left and follow the sidewalk, passing by a wide variety of cars that are occupying all the available parking spaces close to the office blocks. The sun whitens the mirrorlike, wavy surface of the building that contains the restaurant to which Jacqueline had dragged me during a lunch break. Less than a minute later I'm staring at the boxy, salt white office building that contains my workplace and that was built to ruin my life.
As I hurry towards the entrance, a sudden movement in the row of multicolored garbage bins makes me stop. My body shudders at a sudden chill running through it as a wind blows from behind me. A dark mass is perched on the lid of the banana yellow bin. A second and a third mass slink up the sides of the bin to join the first entity. A fourth and a fifth mass follow suit. They are formed by a fluid substance that resembles tar. As if my eyesight was getting sharper, I can make out the shades that differentiate each entity as they coalesce to form one single black blob.
I stare at the mass as it shuffles in place as if breathing, and on the edge of my hearing I pick up sounds that resemble whimpers of pain and anguish as the creatures melt into a lump of putrid, foul-smelling sludge of despair.
Whatever. I continue on my way to find out what horrors await at the office today.
October 30, 2021
xVASynth recites 'I Was Born a Unicorn'
I forced the fantastic AI-based program xVASynth to recite part of my free verse poem 'I Was Born a Unicorn', about me finding out that I was high-functioning autistic.
Link for the YouTube video.
In comparison with the previous voice I had to rein in for my ongoing novel/novella or whatever it is, this recording came out quite good.
Link for the rest of the poem.
Link for the YouTube video.
In comparison with the previous voice I had to rein in for my ongoing novel/novella or whatever it is, this recording came out quite good.
Link for the rest of the poem.
Revised: 'I Was Born a Unicorn'
After the long struggle to revise my beloved first novel in English, ‘My Own Desert Places’, I formatted it into an ebook and got it uploaded to Amazon and other online retailers. So far is has sold a total of one copies, which gives me such a warm feeling.
As I was revising that novel, I also got busy rearranging all the poetry I have written into three distinct books. I have been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them and update their punctuation. In some cases I’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to expand them significantly, whether because I’ve grown enough as a writer, or because I was too hasty in considering them done back then.
Anyway, this time I revised my poem ‘I Was Born a Unicorn’, about how I ended up getting diagnosed with high-functioning autism (formerly Asperger’s). I just added a few lines on top of the routine revision. It didn’t suffer any major issues.
Link to the updated poem: I Was Born a Unicorn
As I was revising that novel, I also got busy rearranging all the poetry I have written into three distinct books. I have been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them and update their punctuation. In some cases I’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to expand them significantly, whether because I’ve grown enough as a writer, or because I was too hasty in considering them done back then.
Anyway, this time I revised my poem ‘I Was Born a Unicorn’, about how I ended up getting diagnosed with high-functioning autism (formerly Asperger’s). I just added a few lines on top of the routine revision. It didn’t suffer any major issues.
Link to the updated poem: I Was Born a Unicorn
October 29, 2021
We're Fucked, Pt. 9 (Fiction)
Link for this part on my personal page, where it looks better
---
I dream of a white horse that's trotting around in circles. Its hooves kick at the ground while its lace white mane flaps wildly about. Its eyes are large and round, and sad as if they often overflowed with tears that had been trapped within since birth.
The images disturb me enough that I wake up. I find myself staring back at a wide set pair of black, bulging eyes that belong to a horse's face. Its ears are unnaturally long and drooping, and its lips are curled back as if sniffing something foul, revealing black gums, sharp, pointed incisors and jagged rows of gray enamel. A thick thread of saliva drips down its chin as if this beast couldn't wait to swallow me whole.
I scream, but I cut it short when I realize that I know this horse. The silence returns to my bedroom, and I hear the muffled sound of my neighbor snoring away. I switch on my bedside lamp, which illuminates Spike's unsteady body as he balances himself on his hind legs, swaying slightly like an old drunk trying to stay upright. The hooves of his atrophied front legs gleam dully. The horse's stench is overpowering and almost makes me gag. Maybe he shat himself while he waited for me to wake up.
I grunt as I prop myself on my elbows. My lower back aches as if a giant was gripping onto my spine, and I'm coated in stale sweat. Why do I always wake up more exhausted than when I went to sleep? How does that make any fucking sense?
After I rub the rheum from my eyes and I take a deep breath, I complain loudly to Spike.
"What, now you are watching me sleep, like some unimaginative pervert? You ugly pile of shit! I would call the cops if I could figure out how to explain your existence."
Spike's eyelids twitch slightly. His head draws back, making his elongating thread of drool swing. He looks bewildered.
"You were sleeping...?"
Is this bastard mocking me? No, he seems genuinely confused. A sudden urge to laugh bubbles inside my chest, making my throat quiver and my mouth twitch uncontrollably. When my laughter subsides, it leaves behind a feeling of emptiness, as if my soul had fled somewhere far away.
I wipe a tear with the sleeve of my pajama top. As I toss aside my blanket to swing my feet off the edge of the mattress, the alarm goes off on my phone. It's six in the morning. Nobody should be awake at this hour, but I do it five days a week. I have to get ready and head to my garbage job that stresses me out so much that I fantasize about blowing my head off. As if the mundane routine of struggling to survive wasn't enough, I have to deal with a horse that insists on stalking me.
"Are you doing drugs now on top of being a hideous horse?" I lash out. "You malignant spawn! You better not be messing with my mind, because if you infect me with your creepy thoughts, whenever I find myself with a hammer, you are going to be the first on my list of victims, got it?! Fucking horse-faced freak!"
I stand up. Spike's atrophied front hooves click together as he struggles to retreat on his hind legs towards my wardrobe. His mouth is agape with a silent gasp. The grotesque sight of that stitched wound where his horse dick ought to be makes me cringe. Such an image will get burned into my retinas, seared into the deepest recesses of my brain cells. Life is an endless stream of horrors that never end as my mind is slowly eroded by the accumulation of stress and anxiety until it will be obliterated and replaced with the collective consciousness of the dead.
I intend to leave my bedroom and prepare a cup of coffee in the kitchen, but this goddamn horse is blocking my way out as if trying to prevent me from moving forward with the rest of my shitty little life. If it were possible for this abomination to follow me into my dreams as well, then I wouldn't hesitate at all about killing myself, because I wouldn't be able to handle that crap.
I gesture wildly for Spike to move aside.
"Get out of here and never come near me ever again, you filthy, repulsive creature! You are nothing but a piece of shit that should have died millions of years ago. I hate you for existing, and for ruining everything that is beautiful on this planet."
I'm on the verge of crying already. My heart is racing as if someone was squeezing it tightly. I can't stop seeing those horrid, bulging eyes and that malformed face. I smell his rancid, nauseating odor, and I can almost taste that foul, toxic saliva dribbling down his chin.
Spike's nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, as if filling his lungs with fresh, sweet oxygen to fuel his hunger for human flesh.
"You are really mean, Leire," he says, sounding hurt by my words and tone. "Why are you so hateful when we are just two lonely creatures who are forced to endure our own personal nightmare?"
My voice trembles as I reply, "Because you are a horse, a disgusting horse, and a horse is a horse whether you are a horse or a rat or a cockroach or a fucking monkey! This is reality, asshole!"
"I am sorry for you, and for everything that you are going through right now, but please don't blame me for your problems."
Spike lumbers away from the wardrobe towards the wall beside my bed. He climbs awkwardly onto the mattress as he places his weight on his front legs. This damn horse rests his head against my pillow, then he holds his long neck at an angle to look at me with his dark eyes full of sadness, which remind me of an open wound oozing pus and blood, even though that is impossible since horses are incapable of bleeding at all due to their lack of a circulatory system.
I shake my head as I stomp to the doorway, but when I stop and turn around to insult Spike some more, he's gone. I feel bad for a moment. Perhaps that horse has no other choice than to eat human brains to stay alive. In any case, there's no point in caring about the feelings of a hallucination.
In the kitchen, as I wait for my coffee maker to finish spitting my coffee, I keep smelling my unwashed body and the lingering stink of the garbage sitting in my trashcan. I hear the engines of a couple of cars as their owners head to work. While I lean against the counter to drink my warm coffee, I feel like a castaway left upon a barren island to rot away and die alone.
Once I take off my pyjamas as I stand on the cold tiles of my small bathroom, I avoid facing in the mirror the dark circles under my eyes and the stress carved in my face, but I check out my pale, skinny body. Despite my sunken abdomen because of poor eating habits, my tits remain nice and big. They're my only pride, especially for someone who often fantasizes about breasts being crushed by powerful hands and mouths devouring them while they are still soft and pliant and hot and sticky with milk and cum. I fondle my tits for a bit until I remember that I must wash off the stale smell of my body, then head to work.
No matter how hard I scrub my skin clean with soap and hot water, nothing can erase what is engraved into me by that horse's weird gaze or his stench. But while I shampoo my hair, I make the mistake of closing my eyes. The dark theatre of my mind was playing, without my knowledge or consent, a vivid picture of Jacqueline wearing that apple red, wrap dress that she comes to our office in from time to time, the neckline so deep that it exposes the black center gore of her bra underneath. Her raven black hair cascades over her shoulders and caresses her large breasts that the dress barely contains. She is also wearing pantyhose that are pulling and stretching around her shapely calves and thighs. My breath thickens in my throat as I stare at the mental reproduction of that mystery wrapped in a sexy package like a chocolate cake with whipped cum on top.
Jacqueline's cobalt blue gaze pierces mine, and it sparkles with a maternal love and compassion that also radiates out of her soft, pink lips, so moist and inviting to kiss and suck on for hours. She must be a goddess sent from heaven to rescue a lost lamb like me from this awful world where everything is ugly and evil.
Jacqueline approaches me, filling most of the darkness, then she strokes my neck and smooths down my hair while she whispers sweet words to soothe my troubled mind. My soapy hands belong to her as she massages my sides, then wraps me in a warm embrace. Her tongue licks my right earlobe, then its slides down along the side of my neck until she reaches my collarbone, where she sucks at the tender flesh while her hand moves lower over the curve of my hips to stroke the skin between my thighs.
As I rub my burning hot pussy, I remind myself that I'm not masturbating about Jacqueline: I'm masturbating and Jacqueline just happened to come across my mind.
It's always the same routine: my fingers slide between the folds of my labia while I imagine that they are the tongue of an animal licking the juices of another female mammal, until I cry like an infant when the tension finally dissolves inside the warmth of my cunt. This orgasm makes me fall into an exhausted stupor. Jacqueline's phantom touch has been imprinted into every inch of my being and is still seeping into my bones and muscles. How I needed yesterday to undo the buttons of her blouse and cup those large orbs of hers for a quick squeeze or two! Now I would have gladly returned to bed, but I snap out of it to face the horrible suspicion that I should have left the house already.
As the water running off my body drips all over the tiles, I check my phone that I put on the sink's edge. I should have left five minutes ago. Although I often masturbate in the shower, I had never wasted time in the morning arguing with a horse.
When I run down the stairs of my apartment building and I exit into the cold October air, my hair is still moist, but more importantly, my Renault Laguna isn't parked next to the garbage container as usual. A neighbor has raised the lid of the container to throw away a bulging bag, likely filled with human excrement and rotting food scraps mixed with cigarette butts and used condoms. I look around frantically, but most of the parking slots are empty, my car is gone, and the only other sign of human activity is a young guy rolling up the rusted blinds of his garage.
I bend my trembling knees as I nearly tear my hair out.
"Where the fuck is my car?!" I shout aloud, since nobody can hear me anyway in the fog of this nightmare. "I will fucking slaughter whoever stole it! Fuck this shit! Fuck this shitfuckthisshitfuck this shitfuck this shit..."
Oh yeah, my car is gone because Spike ate it and turned it to mush! That goddamn horse has to go to the dumpster and eat half a dozen tires and rusty mufflers and broken windshields and a couple of hubcaps and a whole bunch of other shit to stay alive. Then I remember. Yesterday I abandoned my Renault Laguna after I nearly crashed while driving back home, because I was too busy thinking about Jacqueline and how good her nipples tasted. No! The car nearly killed me by swerving by itself into another lane, and cars don't do that unless they're drugged or possessed by an evil entity from outer space or something equally ridiculous like that.
I bet Spike ate my thoughts and memories to turn them into sickening hallucinations without asking me first and without giving me any warning whatsoever. He's a monster! If there's such thing as a horse god of the underworld, then that's him for sure. Even though I was getting used to him and started accepting his presence, he goes and fucks me raw like a wild stallion.
What can I do now? I'll take the train. That's how I intended to travel around from now on, I think. But how do I reach the closest train station from here?
---
I dream of a white horse that's trotting around in circles. Its hooves kick at the ground while its lace white mane flaps wildly about. Its eyes are large and round, and sad as if they often overflowed with tears that had been trapped within since birth.
The images disturb me enough that I wake up. I find myself staring back at a wide set pair of black, bulging eyes that belong to a horse's face. Its ears are unnaturally long and drooping, and its lips are curled back as if sniffing something foul, revealing black gums, sharp, pointed incisors and jagged rows of gray enamel. A thick thread of saliva drips down its chin as if this beast couldn't wait to swallow me whole.
I scream, but I cut it short when I realize that I know this horse. The silence returns to my bedroom, and I hear the muffled sound of my neighbor snoring away. I switch on my bedside lamp, which illuminates Spike's unsteady body as he balances himself on his hind legs, swaying slightly like an old drunk trying to stay upright. The hooves of his atrophied front legs gleam dully. The horse's stench is overpowering and almost makes me gag. Maybe he shat himself while he waited for me to wake up.
I grunt as I prop myself on my elbows. My lower back aches as if a giant was gripping onto my spine, and I'm coated in stale sweat. Why do I always wake up more exhausted than when I went to sleep? How does that make any fucking sense?
After I rub the rheum from my eyes and I take a deep breath, I complain loudly to Spike.
"What, now you are watching me sleep, like some unimaginative pervert? You ugly pile of shit! I would call the cops if I could figure out how to explain your existence."
Spike's eyelids twitch slightly. His head draws back, making his elongating thread of drool swing. He looks bewildered.
"You were sleeping...?"
Is this bastard mocking me? No, he seems genuinely confused. A sudden urge to laugh bubbles inside my chest, making my throat quiver and my mouth twitch uncontrollably. When my laughter subsides, it leaves behind a feeling of emptiness, as if my soul had fled somewhere far away.
I wipe a tear with the sleeve of my pajama top. As I toss aside my blanket to swing my feet off the edge of the mattress, the alarm goes off on my phone. It's six in the morning. Nobody should be awake at this hour, but I do it five days a week. I have to get ready and head to my garbage job that stresses me out so much that I fantasize about blowing my head off. As if the mundane routine of struggling to survive wasn't enough, I have to deal with a horse that insists on stalking me.
"Are you doing drugs now on top of being a hideous horse?" I lash out. "You malignant spawn! You better not be messing with my mind, because if you infect me with your creepy thoughts, whenever I find myself with a hammer, you are going to be the first on my list of victims, got it?! Fucking horse-faced freak!"
I stand up. Spike's atrophied front hooves click together as he struggles to retreat on his hind legs towards my wardrobe. His mouth is agape with a silent gasp. The grotesque sight of that stitched wound where his horse dick ought to be makes me cringe. Such an image will get burned into my retinas, seared into the deepest recesses of my brain cells. Life is an endless stream of horrors that never end as my mind is slowly eroded by the accumulation of stress and anxiety until it will be obliterated and replaced with the collective consciousness of the dead.
I intend to leave my bedroom and prepare a cup of coffee in the kitchen, but this goddamn horse is blocking my way out as if trying to prevent me from moving forward with the rest of my shitty little life. If it were possible for this abomination to follow me into my dreams as well, then I wouldn't hesitate at all about killing myself, because I wouldn't be able to handle that crap.
I gesture wildly for Spike to move aside.
"Get out of here and never come near me ever again, you filthy, repulsive creature! You are nothing but a piece of shit that should have died millions of years ago. I hate you for existing, and for ruining everything that is beautiful on this planet."
I'm on the verge of crying already. My heart is racing as if someone was squeezing it tightly. I can't stop seeing those horrid, bulging eyes and that malformed face. I smell his rancid, nauseating odor, and I can almost taste that foul, toxic saliva dribbling down his chin.
Spike's nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, as if filling his lungs with fresh, sweet oxygen to fuel his hunger for human flesh.
"You are really mean, Leire," he says, sounding hurt by my words and tone. "Why are you so hateful when we are just two lonely creatures who are forced to endure our own personal nightmare?"
My voice trembles as I reply, "Because you are a horse, a disgusting horse, and a horse is a horse whether you are a horse or a rat or a cockroach or a fucking monkey! This is reality, asshole!"
"I am sorry for you, and for everything that you are going through right now, but please don't blame me for your problems."
Spike lumbers away from the wardrobe towards the wall beside my bed. He climbs awkwardly onto the mattress as he places his weight on his front legs. This damn horse rests his head against my pillow, then he holds his long neck at an angle to look at me with his dark eyes full of sadness, which remind me of an open wound oozing pus and blood, even though that is impossible since horses are incapable of bleeding at all due to their lack of a circulatory system.
I shake my head as I stomp to the doorway, but when I stop and turn around to insult Spike some more, he's gone. I feel bad for a moment. Perhaps that horse has no other choice than to eat human brains to stay alive. In any case, there's no point in caring about the feelings of a hallucination.
In the kitchen, as I wait for my coffee maker to finish spitting my coffee, I keep smelling my unwashed body and the lingering stink of the garbage sitting in my trashcan. I hear the engines of a couple of cars as their owners head to work. While I lean against the counter to drink my warm coffee, I feel like a castaway left upon a barren island to rot away and die alone.
Once I take off my pyjamas as I stand on the cold tiles of my small bathroom, I avoid facing in the mirror the dark circles under my eyes and the stress carved in my face, but I check out my pale, skinny body. Despite my sunken abdomen because of poor eating habits, my tits remain nice and big. They're my only pride, especially for someone who often fantasizes about breasts being crushed by powerful hands and mouths devouring them while they are still soft and pliant and hot and sticky with milk and cum. I fondle my tits for a bit until I remember that I must wash off the stale smell of my body, then head to work.
No matter how hard I scrub my skin clean with soap and hot water, nothing can erase what is engraved into me by that horse's weird gaze or his stench. But while I shampoo my hair, I make the mistake of closing my eyes. The dark theatre of my mind was playing, without my knowledge or consent, a vivid picture of Jacqueline wearing that apple red, wrap dress that she comes to our office in from time to time, the neckline so deep that it exposes the black center gore of her bra underneath. Her raven black hair cascades over her shoulders and caresses her large breasts that the dress barely contains. She is also wearing pantyhose that are pulling and stretching around her shapely calves and thighs. My breath thickens in my throat as I stare at the mental reproduction of that mystery wrapped in a sexy package like a chocolate cake with whipped cum on top.
Jacqueline's cobalt blue gaze pierces mine, and it sparkles with a maternal love and compassion that also radiates out of her soft, pink lips, so moist and inviting to kiss and suck on for hours. She must be a goddess sent from heaven to rescue a lost lamb like me from this awful world where everything is ugly and evil.
Jacqueline approaches me, filling most of the darkness, then she strokes my neck and smooths down my hair while she whispers sweet words to soothe my troubled mind. My soapy hands belong to her as she massages my sides, then wraps me in a warm embrace. Her tongue licks my right earlobe, then its slides down along the side of my neck until she reaches my collarbone, where she sucks at the tender flesh while her hand moves lower over the curve of my hips to stroke the skin between my thighs.
As I rub my burning hot pussy, I remind myself that I'm not masturbating about Jacqueline: I'm masturbating and Jacqueline just happened to come across my mind.
It's always the same routine: my fingers slide between the folds of my labia while I imagine that they are the tongue of an animal licking the juices of another female mammal, until I cry like an infant when the tension finally dissolves inside the warmth of my cunt. This orgasm makes me fall into an exhausted stupor. Jacqueline's phantom touch has been imprinted into every inch of my being and is still seeping into my bones and muscles. How I needed yesterday to undo the buttons of her blouse and cup those large orbs of hers for a quick squeeze or two! Now I would have gladly returned to bed, but I snap out of it to face the horrible suspicion that I should have left the house already.
As the water running off my body drips all over the tiles, I check my phone that I put on the sink's edge. I should have left five minutes ago. Although I often masturbate in the shower, I had never wasted time in the morning arguing with a horse.
When I run down the stairs of my apartment building and I exit into the cold October air, my hair is still moist, but more importantly, my Renault Laguna isn't parked next to the garbage container as usual. A neighbor has raised the lid of the container to throw away a bulging bag, likely filled with human excrement and rotting food scraps mixed with cigarette butts and used condoms. I look around frantically, but most of the parking slots are empty, my car is gone, and the only other sign of human activity is a young guy rolling up the rusted blinds of his garage.
I bend my trembling knees as I nearly tear my hair out.
"Where the fuck is my car?!" I shout aloud, since nobody can hear me anyway in the fog of this nightmare. "I will fucking slaughter whoever stole it! Fuck this shit! Fuck this shitfuckthisshitfuck this shitfuck this shit..."
Oh yeah, my car is gone because Spike ate it and turned it to mush! That goddamn horse has to go to the dumpster and eat half a dozen tires and rusty mufflers and broken windshields and a couple of hubcaps and a whole bunch of other shit to stay alive. Then I remember. Yesterday I abandoned my Renault Laguna after I nearly crashed while driving back home, because I was too busy thinking about Jacqueline and how good her nipples tasted. No! The car nearly killed me by swerving by itself into another lane, and cars don't do that unless they're drugged or possessed by an evil entity from outer space or something equally ridiculous like that.
I bet Spike ate my thoughts and memories to turn them into sickening hallucinations without asking me first and without giving me any warning whatsoever. He's a monster! If there's such thing as a horse god of the underworld, then that's him for sure. Even though I was getting used to him and started accepting his presence, he goes and fucks me raw like a wild stallion.
What can I do now? I'll take the train. That's how I intended to travel around from now on, I think. But how do I reach the closest train station from here?
October 27, 2021
xVASynth recites 'We're Fucked, Pt. 8'
I forced xVASynth to recite two minutes and a half of my ongoing thing 'We're Fucked', a story about a programmer who is stalked by a castrated horse.
Link to the audio on YouTube
The rest of this part is located in this link to my site.
The first part of this ongoing story is located in this link.
Link to the audio on YouTube
The rest of this part is located in this link to my site.
The first part of this ongoing story is located in this link.
We're Fucked, Pt. 8 (Fiction)
Link for this part on my personal page, where it looks better
---
I walk down the hallway like a zombie while my mind feels numb and heavy as a lead blanket. I'm still trying to work out ways to delay Jacqueline from entering our office when I raise my gaze and find her waiting in the doorway, holding the door open for me to pass through first. I give up. I'll resume my duties, and squeeze as much work as I can out of this remaining hour just to deduct that much stress from tomorrow's workday.
To my surprise, as I type away at my dirty keyboard, my fingers move more fluidly than usual, although I feel as detached as if I had swallowed a couple of anxiolytic pills, able to concentrate on what needs to get done but uncaring of the sacrifices it demands of my fragile mind. But warm shudders make me tremble from time to time, and I have to restrain my gaze from wandering to my right, to ascertain if Jacqueline is glancing at me. I need those piercing blue eyes to stare back at mine with motherly compassion, to let me know that everything is going to be alright, that she can fix my numerous issues with her healing hands that caress away every pain.
Our boss leaves his office at a quarter to six and says goodbye energetically while he walks past our table. As usual, I pretend that I can't distract myself from the lines of code I'm programming; acknowledging Ramsés' presence might mean offering him the opportunity to assign me more work or to manipulate me into working overtime or accepting some of his sexual advances.
The workday ends, but I only realize it because my coworkers Jordi and Jacqueline are quick to get up to leave. I remain paralyzed, halfway through refactoring a small function, when I feel Jacqueline's warm presence as she stands beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder, which sends a tingle all over my body.
"No way, you aren't working overtime today," she says gently. "C'mon, get up."
I nod and obey, although my body wants to collapse. Jacqueline rubs the back of my neck as she addresses Jordi, who is standing nearby. The intern eyes us with curiosity while he puts on his leather jacket. Does he know that Jacqueline had held me in her arms, and how wet it had made me?
"Don't you think it's time this girl gets some rest?" Jacqueline asks to our male coworker.
"Sure. I keep suggesting that Ramsés is working you to the bone. You should take a break now and then."
"That's right. Go straight home, Leire. Prepare yourself a bath and relax for an hour, and then cook a proper dinner. You need to put some meat in you."
I only own a tiny shower, and Jacqueline's suggestion filled my mind with images of dicks.
"Hey, if you give me permission, I'll gladly leave for the day," I say wearily.
I grab my work bag and I accompany my coworkers to the parking lot. The sun is already setting, and I narrow my shoulders against the chill of autumn. Workers from nearby office buildings are maneuvering out of their parking spaces. I glance at my Renault Laguna, parked in front of the row of garbage bins, and I recall that I'll have to deal with my old car's supernatural abilities.
When I look back, Jacqueline is contemplating me as she wears a smile with a hint of mischief. I feel that she can see everything, and that she is reading every thought that crosses my mind, every feeling that stirs within me, every desire that burns my throat with its intensity. This woman always seems so confident and sure of herself, as if she could do whatever she pleased with anyone, that it used to annoy me. I considered her a vapid bitch. But now that I've felt her touch, I guess I find her as irresistible as those twenty something year olds she seduces on any given weekend night.
"See you tomorrow, Leire," she says in a confidential tone.
As Jacqueline turns towards her fog grey Audi, that is gleaming like it had been coated recently with wax, I realize that this woman had never bothered to interact with me outside working hours; the same way I was wary of her, I imagined that I irritated her in turn, and she couldn't wait to lose sight of me. Apart from my hallucinations, anyone going out of their way to talk to me is a novelty, unless they intend to demand my expertise.
I step forward and raise my nervous voice.
"Thank you for helping me."
My eyes dart around as I try to figure out what else to say, but Jacqueline smiles warmly. She opens the door of her car.
"I'm glad that I could. And I meant what I said. You have my number."
I stand on the asphalt with my arms crossed as I watch Jacqueline climb inside her Audi, start her engine and drive off. After both my coworkers have disappeared, I realize that I had hoped for Jacqueline to offer me a ride, and for her to drive me to her home instead of mine. But I will end up having to face another night alone.
What is happening to me? I blacked out as I was driving home, a talking horse started stalking me, and strange black shapes appeared and faded away wildly as if someone was performing a shadow play from inside my eyeballs. On top of the nightmare that my life has steadily become, now I feel like a teenager with a crush, who can't wait to find out how the object of her affections looks like beneath her business attire and makeup. But Jacqueline is right, I need a break. My mind is too fragile to tolerate a full-time job, let alone one in which I often have to work overtime. I should move to a tropical island and spend my days lying in the sun. I want to hold a big, round coconut in each hand and sip happily on their milk.
***
The night has already set in as I drive past Beraun. The only sounds are the popular songs coming from the radio in my car, as well as some traffic noise due to cars passing nearby at high speeds. Beraun's apartment buildings peek out from behind canopies that resemble shaggy hair.
My mind is hazy, confused, and I've been tempted to swerve twice because cow-sized, quadruped shadows had crossed the highway in front of me without warning or sound. I feel, more than see, smaller black shapes floating in the air like fish in a tank. My heart is pounding, and a constant buzzing is rising in my ears as if an electric saw was cutting into them with every beat of my heart.
As I approach the tall, blue signs hanged over the road, which announce that I'm heading towards Irún, Hondarribia and Bayonne, in the blink of an eye my Renault Laguna has left the signs behind as if time had sped up. Although I take deep breaths and grip the steering wheel tightly, at random, the wild vegetation that lines the highway, as well as the cars whose positions I need to follow constantly, get accelerated as if someone was pressing forward on a video. My reaction time remains the same.
This dreamlike state of confusion, all these weird visions that are invading my consciousness without warning or rhyme or reason... Either the growing stress has triggered them, or maybe these are the symptoms of a brain tumor that will eventually kill me, if I don't crash my car first.
I'm covered in cold sweat. I'm surrounded by cars that are rushing home from work. I want to take an exit ramp onto any secondary road that would allow me to park for a moment and take a breather. Behind the noise barriers to my left, and over the tortilla brown roofs of houses, the Jaizkibel mountain signals that it'll take me about fifteen minutes to reach my rotting city.
My car suddenly accelerates, but I quickly press the brake pedal down. Did I push the accelerator pedal by mistake? I can't tell. Although I can still make out the outlines of the landscape and the buildings, and the white lines painted on the asphalt, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, the distinction between reality and illusion is fading fast.
The steering wheel turns to the left under my firm grip, like a wild animal that's resisting capture. As I try to correct the trajectory of my Renault Laguna, an enormous truck starts passing me by, hiding the view of the Jaizkibel mountain. I brake sharply to avoid colliding with its cargo trailer, which would have crushed the hood of my car, made it flip, and possibly caused the pursuing cars to slam into me. My body is thrown against my seatbelt with a sickening jolt. As I swerve back into my lane, I nearly crash against the guardrail that prevents us from driving off the bridge onto the woods below. The driver of the car following me leans on the horn, and through the rearview mirror I see him gesticulating towards me as he complains.
My hands are shaking, and I'm beginning to hyperventilate. I often fantasized about crashing my car against a pillar and finally putting an end to this nightmare of a life, but now I've become a public menace. If I continue driving, I'll end up ruining someone else's car, maybe injuring the occupants gravely, or I might run someone over. I picture myself realizing that my windshield has cracked and has been dyed red. I'd get out of my Renault Laguna and look back towards the corpse splayed on the asphalt, twisted into an unnatural shape, and I'd fall on my knees and bury my face, knowing that for as long as I lived I'd have to bear the consequences.
I open the window, and my eyes start watering when the wind hits my face. I have to leave my car. I slow down as much as the pursuing vehicles allow me, and I barely blink as I follow the road towards the next exit ramp. A few tears of panic run down my cheeks. While I ignore the shadows that pop in and out of existence, an eternity passes until I recognize an exit ramp that, past a toll barrier, progresses onto a two-lane road that nears the Txingudi mall. Soon enough I find myself back in the outskirts of my hometown. My entire body tingles uncomfortably as I maneuver onto a strip of parking spaces next to the graphite grey, modern building that houses the Café Irún restaurant.
As soon as I pull up and turn off the engine, it feels like a miracle that I have survived the journey. I can't drive anymore. Hell, someone as deranged as me should have never considered getting behind a steering wheel.
I rub my eyes with my sweaty palms. When I open them again, a sentence in bold letters has appeared across the dashboard as if it were a sticker, and it reads YOU ARE BEING WATCHED.
I'm unsure how many seconds pass as my heart keeps pounding. My mouth is dry.
"I-is that you, Spike, you hideous horse? Or what part of my deranged psyche is talking to me now?"
The sentence disappears. I find myself staring intently at the plasticky dashboard of my Renault Laguna. I clench my teeth together to keep from screaming at the top of my lungs. I look in the rearview mirror expecting to see Spike's horse face as he sat on the backseat, but those two seats remain empty like they've always been.
"If one of my stalkers is brave enough to show itself as a castrated horse," I croak, "you fucker with the car messages should just pop up and talk to me face to face, pussy!"
Nobody takes responsibility for the message. A group of middle-aged men leaves the restaurant and part from each other to get into their cars. An amorous couple is enjoying the evening under the awning, sitting at one of the outside tables. Nobody pays any heed to the crazy woman, with possibly a bad case of schizophrenia, who is decaying inside her shitty car.
I shake my head. I reach for the handle of the door, but it has reverted back into a two-dimensional object, so my fingers slide over the surface. I've had enough of this car and its supernatural abilities. I go through the trouble of starting its engine, opening the door, then reaching inside to turn off the engine again. I don't bother pulling out the key card from its slot in the dashboard. I'll never get into this car again. Whoever ends up stealing it, and I doubt it'll take long in this city, will get to enjoy rotating random objects with the car's steering wheel, assuming I didn't imagine the whole thing in the first place.
As I stand in the cold October air of this dark evening, my legs tremble, my chest is heavy. The nearby supermarket and car dealers look blurry, likely because I'm dizzy and I want to cry. I better start moving. I'll either walk the entire way back to my apartment, or I'll get annoyed enough that I'll take a bus. Either way, tomorrow I'll have to wake up before dawn and repeat this nightmare all over again.
---
I walk down the hallway like a zombie while my mind feels numb and heavy as a lead blanket. I'm still trying to work out ways to delay Jacqueline from entering our office when I raise my gaze and find her waiting in the doorway, holding the door open for me to pass through first. I give up. I'll resume my duties, and squeeze as much work as I can out of this remaining hour just to deduct that much stress from tomorrow's workday.
To my surprise, as I type away at my dirty keyboard, my fingers move more fluidly than usual, although I feel as detached as if I had swallowed a couple of anxiolytic pills, able to concentrate on what needs to get done but uncaring of the sacrifices it demands of my fragile mind. But warm shudders make me tremble from time to time, and I have to restrain my gaze from wandering to my right, to ascertain if Jacqueline is glancing at me. I need those piercing blue eyes to stare back at mine with motherly compassion, to let me know that everything is going to be alright, that she can fix my numerous issues with her healing hands that caress away every pain.
Our boss leaves his office at a quarter to six and says goodbye energetically while he walks past our table. As usual, I pretend that I can't distract myself from the lines of code I'm programming; acknowledging Ramsés' presence might mean offering him the opportunity to assign me more work or to manipulate me into working overtime or accepting some of his sexual advances.
The workday ends, but I only realize it because my coworkers Jordi and Jacqueline are quick to get up to leave. I remain paralyzed, halfway through refactoring a small function, when I feel Jacqueline's warm presence as she stands beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder, which sends a tingle all over my body.
"No way, you aren't working overtime today," she says gently. "C'mon, get up."
I nod and obey, although my body wants to collapse. Jacqueline rubs the back of my neck as she addresses Jordi, who is standing nearby. The intern eyes us with curiosity while he puts on his leather jacket. Does he know that Jacqueline had held me in her arms, and how wet it had made me?
"Don't you think it's time this girl gets some rest?" Jacqueline asks to our male coworker.
"Sure. I keep suggesting that Ramsés is working you to the bone. You should take a break now and then."
"That's right. Go straight home, Leire. Prepare yourself a bath and relax for an hour, and then cook a proper dinner. You need to put some meat in you."
I only own a tiny shower, and Jacqueline's suggestion filled my mind with images of dicks.
"Hey, if you give me permission, I'll gladly leave for the day," I say wearily.
I grab my work bag and I accompany my coworkers to the parking lot. The sun is already setting, and I narrow my shoulders against the chill of autumn. Workers from nearby office buildings are maneuvering out of their parking spaces. I glance at my Renault Laguna, parked in front of the row of garbage bins, and I recall that I'll have to deal with my old car's supernatural abilities.
When I look back, Jacqueline is contemplating me as she wears a smile with a hint of mischief. I feel that she can see everything, and that she is reading every thought that crosses my mind, every feeling that stirs within me, every desire that burns my throat with its intensity. This woman always seems so confident and sure of herself, as if she could do whatever she pleased with anyone, that it used to annoy me. I considered her a vapid bitch. But now that I've felt her touch, I guess I find her as irresistible as those twenty something year olds she seduces on any given weekend night.
"See you tomorrow, Leire," she says in a confidential tone.
As Jacqueline turns towards her fog grey Audi, that is gleaming like it had been coated recently with wax, I realize that this woman had never bothered to interact with me outside working hours; the same way I was wary of her, I imagined that I irritated her in turn, and she couldn't wait to lose sight of me. Apart from my hallucinations, anyone going out of their way to talk to me is a novelty, unless they intend to demand my expertise.
I step forward and raise my nervous voice.
"Thank you for helping me."
My eyes dart around as I try to figure out what else to say, but Jacqueline smiles warmly. She opens the door of her car.
"I'm glad that I could. And I meant what I said. You have my number."
I stand on the asphalt with my arms crossed as I watch Jacqueline climb inside her Audi, start her engine and drive off. After both my coworkers have disappeared, I realize that I had hoped for Jacqueline to offer me a ride, and for her to drive me to her home instead of mine. But I will end up having to face another night alone.
What is happening to me? I blacked out as I was driving home, a talking horse started stalking me, and strange black shapes appeared and faded away wildly as if someone was performing a shadow play from inside my eyeballs. On top of the nightmare that my life has steadily become, now I feel like a teenager with a crush, who can't wait to find out how the object of her affections looks like beneath her business attire and makeup. But Jacqueline is right, I need a break. My mind is too fragile to tolerate a full-time job, let alone one in which I often have to work overtime. I should move to a tropical island and spend my days lying in the sun. I want to hold a big, round coconut in each hand and sip happily on their milk.
***
The night has already set in as I drive past Beraun. The only sounds are the popular songs coming from the radio in my car, as well as some traffic noise due to cars passing nearby at high speeds. Beraun's apartment buildings peek out from behind canopies that resemble shaggy hair.
My mind is hazy, confused, and I've been tempted to swerve twice because cow-sized, quadruped shadows had crossed the highway in front of me without warning or sound. I feel, more than see, smaller black shapes floating in the air like fish in a tank. My heart is pounding, and a constant buzzing is rising in my ears as if an electric saw was cutting into them with every beat of my heart.
As I approach the tall, blue signs hanged over the road, which announce that I'm heading towards Irún, Hondarribia and Bayonne, in the blink of an eye my Renault Laguna has left the signs behind as if time had sped up. Although I take deep breaths and grip the steering wheel tightly, at random, the wild vegetation that lines the highway, as well as the cars whose positions I need to follow constantly, get accelerated as if someone was pressing forward on a video. My reaction time remains the same.
This dreamlike state of confusion, all these weird visions that are invading my consciousness without warning or rhyme or reason... Either the growing stress has triggered them, or maybe these are the symptoms of a brain tumor that will eventually kill me, if I don't crash my car first.
I'm covered in cold sweat. I'm surrounded by cars that are rushing home from work. I want to take an exit ramp onto any secondary road that would allow me to park for a moment and take a breather. Behind the noise barriers to my left, and over the tortilla brown roofs of houses, the Jaizkibel mountain signals that it'll take me about fifteen minutes to reach my rotting city.
My car suddenly accelerates, but I quickly press the brake pedal down. Did I push the accelerator pedal by mistake? I can't tell. Although I can still make out the outlines of the landscape and the buildings, and the white lines painted on the asphalt, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, the distinction between reality and illusion is fading fast.
The steering wheel turns to the left under my firm grip, like a wild animal that's resisting capture. As I try to correct the trajectory of my Renault Laguna, an enormous truck starts passing me by, hiding the view of the Jaizkibel mountain. I brake sharply to avoid colliding with its cargo trailer, which would have crushed the hood of my car, made it flip, and possibly caused the pursuing cars to slam into me. My body is thrown against my seatbelt with a sickening jolt. As I swerve back into my lane, I nearly crash against the guardrail that prevents us from driving off the bridge onto the woods below. The driver of the car following me leans on the horn, and through the rearview mirror I see him gesticulating towards me as he complains.
My hands are shaking, and I'm beginning to hyperventilate. I often fantasized about crashing my car against a pillar and finally putting an end to this nightmare of a life, but now I've become a public menace. If I continue driving, I'll end up ruining someone else's car, maybe injuring the occupants gravely, or I might run someone over. I picture myself realizing that my windshield has cracked and has been dyed red. I'd get out of my Renault Laguna and look back towards the corpse splayed on the asphalt, twisted into an unnatural shape, and I'd fall on my knees and bury my face, knowing that for as long as I lived I'd have to bear the consequences.
I open the window, and my eyes start watering when the wind hits my face. I have to leave my car. I slow down as much as the pursuing vehicles allow me, and I barely blink as I follow the road towards the next exit ramp. A few tears of panic run down my cheeks. While I ignore the shadows that pop in and out of existence, an eternity passes until I recognize an exit ramp that, past a toll barrier, progresses onto a two-lane road that nears the Txingudi mall. Soon enough I find myself back in the outskirts of my hometown. My entire body tingles uncomfortably as I maneuver onto a strip of parking spaces next to the graphite grey, modern building that houses the Café Irún restaurant.
As soon as I pull up and turn off the engine, it feels like a miracle that I have survived the journey. I can't drive anymore. Hell, someone as deranged as me should have never considered getting behind a steering wheel.
I rub my eyes with my sweaty palms. When I open them again, a sentence in bold letters has appeared across the dashboard as if it were a sticker, and it reads YOU ARE BEING WATCHED.
I'm unsure how many seconds pass as my heart keeps pounding. My mouth is dry.
"I-is that you, Spike, you hideous horse? Or what part of my deranged psyche is talking to me now?"
The sentence disappears. I find myself staring intently at the plasticky dashboard of my Renault Laguna. I clench my teeth together to keep from screaming at the top of my lungs. I look in the rearview mirror expecting to see Spike's horse face as he sat on the backseat, but those two seats remain empty like they've always been.
"If one of my stalkers is brave enough to show itself as a castrated horse," I croak, "you fucker with the car messages should just pop up and talk to me face to face, pussy!"
Nobody takes responsibility for the message. A group of middle-aged men leaves the restaurant and part from each other to get into their cars. An amorous couple is enjoying the evening under the awning, sitting at one of the outside tables. Nobody pays any heed to the crazy woman, with possibly a bad case of schizophrenia, who is decaying inside her shitty car.
I shake my head. I reach for the handle of the door, but it has reverted back into a two-dimensional object, so my fingers slide over the surface. I've had enough of this car and its supernatural abilities. I go through the trouble of starting its engine, opening the door, then reaching inside to turn off the engine again. I don't bother pulling out the key card from its slot in the dashboard. I'll never get into this car again. Whoever ends up stealing it, and I doubt it'll take long in this city, will get to enjoy rotating random objects with the car's steering wheel, assuming I didn't imagine the whole thing in the first place.
As I stand in the cold October air of this dark evening, my legs tremble, my chest is heavy. The nearby supermarket and car dealers look blurry, likely because I'm dizzy and I want to cry. I better start moving. I'll either walk the entire way back to my apartment, or I'll get annoyed enough that I'll take a bus. Either way, tomorrow I'll have to wake up before dawn and repeat this nightmare all over again.
