Axl Barnes's Blog, page 6

Odin Rising now available

Packing more than six years of intense research and writing, my first novel, Odin Rising, is now available to order on Amazon . 275 pages full of nihilistic hate and violent misanthropy, this book carries my literary DNA and stylistic matrix. I'm very proud of the final product. This book is to be enjoyed by true horror fans and lucid readers. This blasphemous work will be surpassed in extreme depravity and anti-human sentiment only by my next novel, This Town Must Burn.
Here is the description: "Tudor, Alex, and Edi are Romanian junior high school students in the 1990s when they discover extreme metal and begin to explore the destructive, Satanic ideology behind the music. This shared discovery cements their friendship by forming a unique bond as they delve into depravity. Occasionally aided by their psychopathic friend George, they urge each other to commit increasingly more vandalistic and blasphemous acts: animal cruelty, slashing of tires, smashing windows, and grave desecration. This pattern of anti-social behavior climaxes when the three teens randomly kill an innocent elderly man during an afternoon of alcohol-soaked violence. The murder brings to light an ideological gap between Tudor and Alex. In Alex’s mind, Satanism means total war and the triumph of the Luciferian, Aryan race. Comparatively, Tudor sees Satanism as bleak nihilism and violent misanthropy. Because of the difference in ideals, Alex and Tudor face off in a final confrontation that transcends into a mythological dimension."

Punching Nazis, Black Metal, and the Use of Ideological Symbols

I'm all behind the political trend of punching and scalping Nazis. Once you wear the swastika symbol or do the Nazi salute, then you're fair game, you can be beaten, pissed on, burned and so on, as you, in fact, have shedded your humanity. While this case seems to me pretty clear, I wonder about others that don't appear to clearly warrant a violent response. How about someone wearing the communist hammer and sickle symbol? Is that an endorsement of genocide, given the communist atrocities? I think people are less inclined to react to the communist mark, partly because of ignorance, and partly because the communist threat seems so distant and academic, compared to the Nazi threat, which became hard to ignore especially after the election of Trump. Also, I'm a bit biased so I wouldn't punch a comrade.   
Things can get pretty tricky when, like me, you're a leftist who happens to love black metal. The anxiety about whether the hoodies and band-shirts you wear warrant you getting punched is a real thing, especially when you yourself are itching for some political violence. I'm a fan of Revenge, Marduk, and Peste Noire, bands singled out and boycotted by Antifa as Neo-Nazi. Black metal is an extreme and serious business and the rise of National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) seems to be a natural development within a genre aimed at smashing all taboos. Peste Noire is easily categorized as NS given, among other things, the frontman's, Famine, happily doing the Nazi salute, a penchant for Third Right memorabilia, and the title of their first demo, Aryan Supremacy. Revenge is a bit harder to categorize, in light of their minimalist style and the fact that they don't publish their lyrics. However, reading through the album and song titles paints a vivid far-right picture. On Scum. Collapse. Eradication. you get songs like "Parasite Gallows (In Line)" or "Burden Eradication (Nailed Down)" Now, if you ask yourself who are the parasites who need to be nailed down and eradicated, you can get a clue from titles like "Sterilisation (Procreation Denied)." Given that Revenge is from Alberta, Canada, where eugenics had been practiced mainly against Aboriginal People up till the '70s, it's not far-fetched to conclude a virulent racism against Natives is at work here, with yet another history of genocide right on its tail. Taking into account the evolution of their style, their changing aesthetics and the variety of themes behind their music, Marduk is yet harder to pigeonhole than the previous two acts. Their early output was straight Anti-Christian Satanic Black Metal. However, the Panzer tanks featured on their EP Here's no Peace and the Panzer Division Marduk  album, as well as the eagle insignia adorning the cover of their Live in Germaniaalbum, have raised a few eyebrows and placed them straight on the Antifa black list.


Although NSBM is the more explicitly political sub-genre of black metal, Satanic Black Metal also has some grim political implications. Black metal is closely associated with various forms of Satanism, and it has a cultish, fanatical side to it. And I don't mean the watered-down, compassionate and humanitarian version of Satanism defining the Satanic Temple, but the real deal: ruthless destruction of all creation, savage misanthropy, a celebration of darkness, chaos, and death. This is the ideology behind towering acts like Behemoth, Satyricon, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Watain, Marduk, Inquisition, and so on. Now, genuine Satanic Black Metal hasn't received as much political attention as NSBM, but it goes without saying that it can be more dangerous. I mean, a real Satanist wants 99% of mankind eradicated or enslaved by the Luciferian elite, not only the Jews or the Slavs or the Blacks. If no satanic black flame of rebellion is burning within them,  Aryans can line up in front of gas chambers the same way as other misbegotten races. So, that's a tad worrisome, I'd say. Erik of Watain eloquently states his views as follows: "For me,
Satan represents something so much bigger than this world, than this universe, than the creator of this universe. It is a force that is constantly counteracting the creation and breaking it down until everything has returned to its totally unlimited state of chaos." And the natural conclusion comes when Erik states that he "totally encourage(s) any kind of terrorist acts committed in the name of Watain."

So then, do I deserve to be beaten up for wearing a Watain hoodie, just as I should be if I were wearing a swastika armband? Should I be burned? After all, one of my hoodies claims "Let the World Burn" and last time I checked I was part of this world. Also, isn't a leftist supposed to destroy only the ruling class while waking the working class out of its exploitative slumber and help it build a bright, majestic, just future? Revenge hoodies have minimalist designs (skull-and-crossbones, knives, gas masks and so on) and pretty vague inscriptions ("Doom Division," "Total Rejection," "Scum Eradication," or "Nihilist Militant")  so I feel pretty safe wearing them but I've decided against buying a Panzer Division Marduk hoodie and settled on buying a flag instead. I thought wearing that hoodie would be in bad taste, especially in the ugly wake of Trump's election. Plus, what adorns the walls of my place is private, my business, behind closed doors. The private/public distinction comes with its own problems. My Facebook account is technically private but social media seems by definition to be public. And what if I decide to throw a party, does my apartment then suddenly become a public space for one night?

Philosopher Richard Rorty has an original understanding of the private/public distinction. In the private sphere, we focus on self-improvement or overcoming ourselves. Or, to put it differently, we focus on becoming who we are, as opposed to who others want us to be. Nietzsche, Rorty argues, is a philosopher of the private sphere. His metaphors regarding war are just meant to highlight the struggles we face on the road to self-discovery, the struggle of the individual trying to distance himself from the herd, the master trying not to drown in the sea of degenerate slaves. For Rorty, privacy also comes with a spiritual and artistic dimension. Following Whitehead's definition of religion, Rorty characterizes it as "what you do with your solitude." The artistic impulse, for Nietzsche, also comes from solitude, and it's aimed at transfiguring the world. This is also the area of madness and perceived deviance from social norms. On the other hand, Rorty argues, in the public domain the focus is on the public good, on social and economic justice, and creating the conditions necessary for everyone's development, including the gradual reduction of cruelty and humiliation, which are harmful to the self in general. One example of cruelty and humiliation is life in totalitarian states where the individual's private sphere is crushed in the name of a collective purpose. By avoiding cruelty and humiliation, the public sphere poses only minimal requirements on the individual, the ones we're familiar with in liberal democracies, while giving the space to the individual to develop in whatever way he sees fit.
Now, I have to admit I've been using Rorty's private/public distinction to defend my infatuation with black metal for a decade now, the idea being that black metal falls mostly in the private sphere. Incidentally, Ash from Nargaroth has a similar understanding of Satanism in black metal, one inspired by Nietzsche and Ash's own studies in psychology. That is the philosophy behind Nargaroth's hit "Black Metal ist krieg!" Marduk's militaristic imagery and glorification of war can be interpreted in the same Nietzschean spirit. In addition to the destructive aspect mentioned above, Satanism also has a more constructive dimension, rooted in its uncompromising individualism. Echoing Nietzsche's distinction between master and slave morality, Satanism emphasizes that we're fully responsible for our own lives, we're the authors of our destiny, not God or our parents or the horde of sheep we happen to live amongst. Satan is, after all, the romantic rebel angel, the accuser and opposer, to quote a Marduk song. So then, to a certain degree, bringing satanic symbols like the inverted pentagram or the inverted cross or the trident into the public domain is justified as a constant reminder of a commitment to individual freedom. For a more detailed discussion of this point see my Satanism Without Gimmicks .  Of course, the madness and cultish character of black metal will also spill into the public sphere some statements that are hard to justify like "Let The World Burn."
Another important line of defense here is that black metal is an art form, just extreme music. Now, if the creators of that music also see it as a medium of communicating a political message, that doesn't imply that the fans of the music automatically agree with the message. The music itself is non-representational, it's not aboutanything. It can surely give rise to strong emotions but the direction of those emotions is pretty much left open. Like, Revenge definitely has developed one of the rawest, most barbaric and confrontational sounds in black metal and one cannot listen to them without being overwhelmed by burning hatred. But what's that hatred directed toward? Human scum, parasites? And we saw the meaning the band attaches to these notions. But why can't the listener attach his own meaning? Like, imagining beating Trump with a claw hammer and puking down a hole in his skull. Both leftists and fascists feel burning hatred. The fact that it's directed at different things doesn't diminish its intensity. Maybe the song titles and lyrics of black metal bands point to the target of the hatred? Maybe, but a text is open to various interpretations, and the author's intended interpretation is just one of many. The Holy Bible, let's say, is a militant book but not all readers of the Bible agree with its message. Similarly, I find the lyrics of bands like Behemoth, Watain or Marduk very well written and aesthetically pleasing, but that's not gonna turn me into a church-burning Satanic terrorist. In one of their songs, Peste Noire uses a poem by critically-acclaimed writer Charles Baudelaire. Obviously being exposed to such sublime art is not gonna turn one into a raving neo-Nazi.
All in all, I don't think the symbols and statements on black metal merch warrant the automatic violent response that a swastika armband does. Although someone wearing a Revenge tee or hoodie that states "Scum Eradication" is kinda asking for it. These are complicated issues and all I did here was skim the surface. Another layer to the problem is supporting Nazi-bands or militant Satanic acts with money by buying their merch and going to their shows. What if that money is used toward terrorist activities? Then there's blood on your hands? Does that, indirectly, make you a Nazi? Truthfully, I don't yet have an answer to these important questions.

In Defense of Hate

This post is in reaction to the YouTube crack down on hate speech channels, which is part of a larger pattern of shutting down extreme voices online. The list of attributes of individuals or groups that shouldn't be targeted seems to get longer and longer: age, caste, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, nationality, race, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, victims of a major violent event and their kin, veteran status.
Now, although I'm not racist or anti-LGBTQ rights, I watch this trend with alarm, skepticism, and distaste. I think if you squint hard enough you can see the neurotic SJW with a sign of "Live, Laugh, Love" hanging in her kitchen who comes up with these idiotic ideas.
So, first, where exactly do we draw the line between people it's ok to hate and the "sensitive" groups? Is it ok to hate my cheating wife or my lazy co-worker? Or maybe is hatred, in general, a bad thing? What if I hate the bourgeoisie and want to eat the rich and save the planet from the ecological catastrophe late capitalism will bring about? Is that wrong because it leads to violence? Well, that's the whole point: a red, violent revolution. So what if I hate religious people? Isn't religion the cause of genocide and various atrocities?  Wouldn't humanity be better off without these slavish freaks?

Second, hatred is a glorious, natural emotion that shouldn't be repressed. I can't think of anything positive that I've achieved in life without my hatred playing a role. I went to university partly because I hated my parents and wanted to move out of their house. I moved to Canada because I hated Romania. All my writing is steeped in bitter misanthropy. The same goes for the fiction of famous classical writers like Dostoyevsky, Kafka or Lovecraft, not to mention more modern writers like Martin Amis andChuck Palahniuk.                                                                                                      

Which brings me to my next point: you can't do psychology with a hatchet. Chopping off a strong emotion like hatred can only result in a fractured, lobotomized self. Hatred is the same as the sexual instinct: when you try to repress it, as Freud teaches us, it will come back ten times stronger and wreak havoc to the whole psyche. Hate is intimately related to love. Sometimes jealousy can turn the most sublime love into savage hatred, or someone we hate might suddenly appear to us in a beatific light. Also, the term "love-hate relationship" clearly captures the essential connection between these two emotions. In an ironic twist, the absolute divide between love and hate that SJWs assume is a remnant of Christian ideology. Christians have been happily torturing, raping, and killing people for two thousand years now. So, uncritically accepting that absolute dichotomy, that our modern hippies and feminazis find so appealing, didn't go so well in the Christian case. Lastly, the SJWs cry, all the hatred leads to violence. Well, I reply, first, there's physical violence and then there's systemic violence. Trump's decision not to pay taxes is systemic violence. Extreme inequality is systemic violence. Now, physical violence is sometimes used in reaction to systemic violence, like during the French Revolution. My point is that physical violence isn't bad in itself and that there are forms of institutional violence which are more sinister and damaging: the Catholic Church covering sexual-abuse cases, tax-giveaways to the rich, The Church meddling in the affairs of the state, money in politics, and so on. Thus, who's to say that the eradication of Catholics wouldn't be a blessing for humanity? Sometimes violence is the only solution. 
To sum up, I think the crackdown on hate-speech online could potentially create more difficulties than it solves, and it's a poor, ad-hoc solution to a complex problem; a cowardly, weak attempt to sweep complex, important issues under the rug. Who's to say that these hate groups would just disappear as a result of the crackdown? The oppressive censorship move might offer them more legitimacy and vindicate their narrative. We have to accept that hatred exists, try to understand its mechanism, and fight it head-on. 

Wordless Miscarriage (short poem)

Salvador Dali, Gradiva Finds the Anthropomorphic RuinsThe lack of answers makes me bleed,and the bleeding makes me forget the questions.
My body is a temple,and I search through its stony rooms for the calls.I put my ear to the walls,waiting for words to drip their life.My skull is a barren tower with no windows, but I can still hear the shrill cawing of the ravens circling outside.
Running up and down the spiral staircase,I feel more naked, ashamed, and forgotten.The grin of darkness snuffs my torchlight.
As terror engulfs me I become smaller and smaller,and start biting my flesh for a taste of blood,as if I can somehow give birth to myself anew, through twisting and turning and hiding into a knot of bruised flesh.The quiet agony turns me into a blue fetus of bitter silence,strangled by the bled out fortress.

Review of the movie Lords of Chaos

I really enjoyed the Lords of Chaos movie but was a bit turned off by how it caricatures Varg Vikernes and casts him in the role of the villain. I personally think Varg is a smart and charismatic individual, as well as a brilliant musician, but I'm not gonna let those beliefs affect my judgment of the movie. I think the movie fails on its own terms in the inconsistency with which it portrays Varg. In one early scene, we see Euronymous be mesmerized by the Burzum music (Varg's one-man band) and call it True Norwegian Black Metal. However, not only do we not hear the music (because Varg has denied them the right to use it) but also we get no insight into what inspired Varg to create that original, ground-breaking sound and of the ideology behind his music. Varg is just depicted as a one-dimensional follower who learns from his daddy Euronymous what's what in politics and how Christianity is a plague. But that's really hard to believe. First, Euronymous was a leftist, an admirer of the communist Romanian dictator Ceausescu. Second, Varg had been into collecting Nazi paraphernalia and into paganism before meeting Euronymous, which is suggested by his dungeon-like apartment in Bergen. And this interest, as well as an inclination toward history, Norse Mythology, and RPG games are what inspired the early Burzum music (The word "burzum" means "darkness" in the black speech, a fictional language crafted by Lord of the Rings writer J. R. R. Tolkien.) Thus, it's hard to believe that the danger of the Christian plague was brand new info for Varg at the time he first met Euronymous.
The movie briefly refers to these essential aspects of Varg's personality but in a dismissive way, as a teen trying his best to seem cool, be accepted by his peers and promote his music by taking credit for vandalistic acts like church burnings or grave desecrations. For instance, in the scene when Varg gives an interview to the reporters from Kerrang! in his own apartment adorned with Swastikas and weapons and so on, the interviewers ask him how Nazism and Satanism and Odinism are all connected. And Varg says that there is a connection, which is rendered as a laughable reply. But this was actually a perfect opportunity to offer a glimpse into Varg's complex character. Satanism is obviously connected with his anti-Christian stance and Nazism is inspired by Norse mythology and, as we all know, Vikings hated Christians. Varg is not only an attention-seeking teen, but he also has an outstanding speculative power to connect ideas from different spiritual traditions and weave them into a coherent ideology. If there ever was a philosopher in the Black Circle, it was Varg, not Euronymous.
Toward the end of the movie, Varg and Euronymous talk about the release of Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and how the band is going to go on tour. To this, Varg, Mayhem's bass player, replies that he doesn't care about touring. This again doesn't fit the movie character. If Varg was desperate for attention, rock-star status, and the groupies that come with it, then why wouldn't he want to go on tour? But this was a widespread attitude in the Black Metal scene at the time, one adopted by other influential acts like Darkthrone, and it signifies their rejection of the commercialization of Black Metal and, more generally, their opposition to the modern world. But again, the movie fails to capture this aspect of Varg's personality.

Overall, Lords of Chaos is an engaging movie that takes a stab (lol) at portraying the main characters and bloody events associated with the birth of Norwegian Black Metal. There's no shortage of gore and brutality in this movie, and the depictions of Dead and Euronymous are very striking, tasteful, and memorable. The only portrait that doesn't ring true is that of Varg. The movie showcases Varg only as an attention-seeking, power-hungry, womanizing thug and completely ignores, although hints at, his spiritual, intellectual side. This is mainly because of the Hollywood formula of hero vs. villain the creators apply to a complex reality that has many grey areas. Why isn't Euronymous the villain? A sellout and a poser who took advantage of Varg and his talents for his own gain? Is he a victim just because he ended up stabbed in the head? Or, better still, why should we look for a hero in this story? Maybe we deal with two anti-heroes who pose complicated challenges to our belief systems. Maybe our story-telling should follow that human complexity rather than forcing it into pre-existing molds.  

Five melancholy poems

In the grips of nostalgia, I've translated from Romanian four poems by my close friend Madalin Bestelei. He wrote them when in high school in 1995 and they inspired me greatly. The fifth poem, Too Late for Suicide, based on Emil Cioran's famous dictum, "It's not worth the bother of killing yourself since you always kill yourself too late," is my first stab at writing Depressive Suicidal Black Metal lyrics.

Photo by Uzay The Poet
I toll the bellsof the time to comeand of the memories before me.
I speak to each and every loneliness,And shed my tear on your wounds.I let you cry on my shoulder,and support your step.
Don't ever ask me, though, about salvation.
Dream with Meral
He looked at me with the star in his eye,for a long time, meaning departure.And he spoke to me in that languageone can only cry in,about the fear of a great joy.
"For I'm also one of your beings,I want you to remember this and be proud.You yourself are the key to your passing through worlds,Beyond objects, beyond time.
Don't cry it yet — it's still the time of the story,the mirage — but carry with you this tear for the bitter time of the great sadness." Recluse by Blemished Art
The Kiss of Silence
It's the time of the wet wood, in the wind,It's the time of the red wine, in clay cups.
It's the time of the wandering heart,blowing paths through the autumn rain.
It's the time of the bygone suffering and of the silent tear.
So, let's go, my darling, to the end of the twilight, to give me the kiss of silence.
The Wing of Loneliness
No more birds are flying through the night's field of stubble,Only the wing of loneliness beats quietly through objects, and in my heart of molded wood.Like an old friend she came, giving me secret joy,And she seemed to beg for my forgiveness,for not having visited in a very long time.
We then talked for long, not caring about time,through the blue haze of cigarette smoke,the continuous word of human nature, as loneliness. 
Too Late for Suicide
Why stab a slug melting on the pavement? Why cut dried up veins when blood is but a rusted memory? Why blow your brains out when you can't smell rotten burger meat or the blessed sulfur? Why hang yourself when the only time you breathe is when you light a smoke? 
Here I am, committed to grey skies and empty parking lots,the champion of leaf-clogged gutters, tumbled over shopping carts, and broken toys,too tired to create something out of nothing, I'm convulsing like a sperm trapped in a bottle of Prozac. 

Florică, The Legend (Funeral Portraits #4)

I've met Florică when I was in middle school, he was in this gang of metalheads me and my friends so desperately wanted to be part of. Back then, alcohol was just a way for us to look cool, extreme, and anti-social. It was a ticket into the club. But, looking back now, I realize that for Florică it was more, he was a natural born drunkard.
Florică wasn't very extreme or metal looking, but rather nerdy and quiet. He was short and stocky, always dressed in blue jeans and a neat plaid shirt buttoned all the way up, with short, black hair and dark, intelligent eyes behind rimmed glasses. Already an avid smoker, he had a cavity build-up between his front teeth that showed whenever he smiled. His legend was firmly in place by the time I met him. He had already been in an alcoholic coma at least two times. The plunges into coma had been preceded by the most erratic behaviour. First time he crawled under a bench in the park where some of the metal girls were sitting and started licking their feet and the soles of their sandals. Second time, at someone's place, he grabbed a leaf and started poking it against a light bulb while singing "Green leaf of fire, I'm hitting you against the light bulb." 
He was a fixture of The Penguin, the tavern that was our hangout at the time. He would be there when it opened and stay till closing or till we decided to hit another dive or go drink in the park across the street. Always with his glass of vodka and his pack of cheap, unfiltered cigarettes (we were allowed to smoke in bars back then, and there were no ID requirements). The waitresses knew him well and he told me once he had masturbated over every square inch of their asses. At times he'd get philosophical and make references to Mircea Eliade or Emil Cioran, our intellectual idols. He told me how Eliade hated people trapped in sedating routines, always having their coffees at precisely the same time of day and so on, and that we should just go and knock over their cups and try to wake them up from their spiritual slumber. His philosophical reflections where brief, he wasn't the type to rant about things for long. Once, he just asked me out of the blue whether I thought that one could achieve spiritual enlightenment through the mortification of the body. Thinking of east Indian monks who live in meditation and eat dead bodies I said yes.
Florică was always ready to get smashed. We were enrolled in different high schools but since our town was small, we'd sometimes see each other in the morning on the way to school. More than once we'd decide to skip school and get hammered. He'd either steal money from his parents or drink his class fund. Always vodka. Sometimes I'd have to go take an important test at a certain time and then go back to his place to drink more. Many times we'd get plastered in the middle of a hot summer day, grabbing a bottle or two and wandering by the river valley in the unforgiving sun and passing out in a bush or under a tree.
Florică's love life was somewhere between Freudian lust and pure, idiotic romanticism. Once, he confessed to us that he had made a move on his mom. His dad was away from home one night and his mom suggested he slept on her bed as she was afraid to sleep alone. Florică saw this as an open invitation. Then, when the lights were off, he started caressing his mom gently through her soft nightgown, her shoulders and hips and the lower side of her boobs. He told us he swore she started moaning in pleasure at that point. This gave him confidence and he whispered in her ear "Do you want to make love?" At that point the woman jumped out of bed as if it was on fire and turned on the lights and shouted, "What did you say?" To which Florică replied meekly, rubbing his eyes, "Nothing, I was just sleeping."
One time, Mihaela's cousin Irina came to visit from Constanţa. Mihaela was a pretty girl in our group but her cousin was smoking hot and Florică fell madly in love with her. When she went back to her hometown after a week or so, Florică decided to go after her and confess his undying love, become her slave even, if need be. Florică hopped on the train to Constanţa, a five hour journey, and only half-way there did he realize he didn't know the girl's family name, only that she was Irina. Plus, Constanţa was a big city, a few hundred thousand people. So, his romantic enthusiasm ended in bitter failure. He just wandered the city for a couple of days and then headed back home, tail between his legs.
As you probably gathered, Florică was prone to erratic and absurdist actions, especially when drunk. One summer we decided to go to this metal festival in a nearby town, hopped on the train and proceeded to drink as per usual. After a few, Florică needed to use the washroom and, on his way, tripped over a luggage in the aisle. Annoyed, he grabbed it and threw it out the window of the moving train. The owner of the luggage missed the revolting action. When he discovered that his full duffle bag was missing his suspicions naturally fell on us, as we were a group of rowdy young kids who wouldn't think twice before stealing something. However, he had no evidence. He checked through our backpacks and found none of his items. His pack was laying in a field miles away by now. We said we knew nothing about his missing bag and looked at the floor struggling not to burst out laughing. The guy looked like he was about to cry. He instinctively knew we were guilty but could not comprehend what happened. He eventually left us alone, defeated. Some of us felt bad for the guy and scolded Florică about it but then we laughed it off and went back to drinking. 
One summer evening I went to Florică's place and then we made our way to The Penguin. He seemed agitated and out of sorts and was walking fast, a bit hunched over, smoking. I tried to keep up. He told me he'd been reading the first hundred pages of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment that day and the story made him very anxious and unsettled. Then, when we were to crossed the street he walked mindlessly into traffic and I had to yell at him and pull him back before a car speeded a few inches in front of him. He turned to me and gave me a strange smile, displaying the cavity before his front teeth. "Watch it, you idiot!!" I said, smiling back.
Florică has died by getting hit by a car about fifteen years later. I was already in Canada at the time, but I could imagine him walking fast, hunched over, a filterless cigarette dangling in his lips, when the collision happened. I could hear the screech of tires and the thud of metal striking flesh and bone. I could feel the pain and the blood flowing, as if it were my blood. As a teen, regularly drinking with a friend till you pass out is an act of communion that transcends time and space. He bleeds, you bleed.
There aredrunk drivers and drunk pedestrians. Many drunkards get hit by cars. Chronic alcoholism shrinks your brain and limits your attention. It atrophies your muscles, stiffens your limbs, and slows down your reflexes. But Florică knew all that, and he knew that even if the mortification of the body doesn't give you spiritual enlightenment, at least it might buy you the anti-hero role in a legendary story.

Dead Seed (a zombie story)

Drawing by Brittany Cardinal of Morbid Asylum  When the zombies came, Will was dying and I was already dead. Dead inside, as they say. It was another one of life's cruel jokes. I had been the butt of cruel jokes since middle school when the other students started calling me Germy instead of Jeremy. I had the nervous habit of picking my nose but I never ate my boogers. However, most kids claimed that was all I did and that solidified my identity as Germy. Also, my personal hygiene was very iffy, no question there. I was already pretty big by then and no one tried to physically bully me but every time I tried to talk to another classmate they would start mockingly picking their noses, laugh, and run away. Cruel jokes like that get to you when you're a kid. I started withdrawing, and eating more junk food and sweets, and playing more video games. Soon I became Booger King. Slowly, a kind of curtain of invisibility dropped over me and it felt I was living on a different planet from my classmates. A few years after, Game of Thrones came out and I became an expert in the mythology of ice and fire. Then I got into Skyrim and World of Warcraft and all that. Around that time, something snapped inside my mind, or more exactly between my mind and the world. It made me unhinged somehow, out of tune, out of synch. And since that tie between me and the world was severed I've been floating in a grey abyss, closer or further from the physical world, closer or further from any kind of identity that comes with naturally being in the world. Everything became blurred, foggy, fluid, all mundane actions became heroic, almost impossible tasks. I was diagnosed with chronic depression and anxiety disorder in the tenth grade. Once I barely graduated, my parents said that it would be better for me if I moved on my own and became more independent. That's when I moved into the house by Whyte Avenue and met Will. I also started receiving AISH support from the government. Shortly after, my parents left Edmonton for Grande Prairie. "Bye bye forever, Jeremy!" the move appeared to say. Another one of life's cruel jokes. But by that time I was so numb and my sense of self so fractured, I really didn't care; my parents kinda made me sick anyway. They could lick my hairy ass, as Will would say.Will was older and looked like a bum. He was skinny as hell and, after a lifetime of smoking, only a few yellow teeth populated his mouth. He'd usually wear the same pair of battered blue jeans, Sperry shoes, grey t-shirt (or flannel shirt when it was raining) and an old Edmonton Eskimos cap. Plus, a pair of big Kamik boots and a worn out jacket for the winter months. The blue eyes behind his glasses were alive and alert. Also, full of compassion. He loved his small white dog, Princess. After many failed marriages that left him in bad shape mentally and financially, he called Princess the love of his life. Other than her white color the dog had nothing royal about it, she was just some degenerate cross-breed; fat, short and ratty looking, with eyes of different colors, one hazel, and one blue. She was slobbering uncontrollably every time she smelled food. Mostly sleeping when she wasn't in the backyard running with a stick in her mouth or doing her business.Will probably took me for a lost soul and embraced me like a son. I took full advantage of his good heart. Shortly after we had started living in the same house, he became my gofer. I'd look after Princess and he'd run my errands. His health was already poor when I had met him: he had heart problems and was on blood thinners, which made him unable to sleep much. And then, in the summer of last year, he was hit with lung cancer. When he found out he cried and smoked, smoked and cried some more. Then they did surgery on his lung and, for a while, he began bragging that he beat cancer. Around Christmas, his vision and balance problems had started. Once, I had sent him on an errand to the City Center Mall and he had knocked over their Christmas tree by mistake, causing an argument with security. He was bumping into stuff and falling on the ice like crazy, Kamik boots and all. Even so, he wanted to stay productive and started shoveling snow for Becky, our devout Christian neighbor, in exchange for money and prayers. In early January I called our landlord to take Will to emergency as he was unable to stand and walk anymore. I waited with him for the CT scan and when the doctor came and said "Will, I'm afraid I have some bad news," I had the surreal sense I was in a soap opera. The young doctor sat on a chair by Will's bed and told him there was a dark mass in his brain, most likely a tumor, most likely his lung cancer that has metastasized. The tumor was pressing on his cerebellum and occipital lobe, hence his vision and balance problems. The news pulverized Will, it happened all around me, something in the room broke, like a psychic earthquake, like he exhaled his ectoplasmic soul which was then savagely ripped to shreds. I actually felt exhilarated, I felt the true, chaotic nature of the universe reveal itself at that moment. The dark chaos mercilessly ripped through what Will called reality and shouted, You're nothing! The cosmos doesn't give a shit about you! All Will could manage through hot tears was, "I just want to see Princess, my baby dog."Once back home Will smoked and cried and cried and smoked some more. I told him that maybe radiation would work but I didn't believe it myself. He was dead meat, and not even that much meat. I read somewhere that brain tumors sometimes grow hairs and teeth. This reminded me of Stephen King's The Dark Half, the brother who gets absorbed into his twin in utero and survives only as a milky eye and a set of teeth in the stronger twin's brain. I thought that when Will fell into his shallow sleep, those teeth moved and formed words: I got you now Willy-boy. Gonna take you with me six feet under and we're gonna eat dirt for all eternity. Eat dirt, and smoke and cry.    But you should never underestimate the survival instinct, it may disappear for a day or two but then it comes back in full force, in a different, more seductive form. Soon, Will started buying my bullshit about radiation, stuff I really had no idea about. "Oh yeah, they have the best Cancer Treatment Center here in Edmonton," he'd say. "I'm in good hands. The doctors here are the best in the world, Becky told me." Becky, determined to save Will's soul and prepare him for Jesus, started stopping by the house more often. It was fine by me in a way, as she'd always bring food and sweets, but I couldn't stand her sermons about how life is a gift and a blessing and we should enjoy each and every day, blah blah blah. As winter turned to spring and summer Will was hospitalized and did a full course of radiation therapy. He was back home just in time for the playoffs and, as the Edmonton Oilers were playing well, the old man was as happy as can be, trying to forget about the tumor (if it was still there) by whipping his nervous system with alcohol and nicotine.  We were both drinking pretty heavily, for lack of something better to do. Yeah, I know, alcohol only masks depression and doesn't cure it, but it's a good mask, I don't want to see the motherfucker in the face. I figured alcoholism is easier to handle than mental illness, it's a known, familiar demon.But then, one afternoon, breaking news interrupted our hockey game. What they were saying was incredible, but it was on CBC and Peter Mansbridge was all serious and gloomy about it, shaken to the core, so we figured it must be true. Canada, and Alberta in specific, was under attack by Saudi terrorists. It was chemical and biological warfare. They poisoned the water supplies of all of central and northern Alberta. "If you live in those areas, do not drink tap water!" the reporter advised. The contaminated water turned you into what appeared to be zombies; flesh-eating creatures who won't die unless shot in the head, mostly attracted to noise. The Saudi's goal was to shut down the oil production in Northern Alberta thus bumping up the price of their own "unethical" oil. Will and I sat up straight on our respective couches (we had three of them in the living room) and looked at each other wide-eyed and then gazed at the coffee table overflowing with empty beer cans. Neither of us had had water in days. "Camel humpers," Will muttered. "I bet our government will turn around and nuke them straight to Allah.""Oh God, I hate them brownies so much," I said in agreement. "I wonder if the US is gonna be on the side of Canada in this, as they import oil from the fuckin' Saudis too.""But they import tons of other stuff from us as well, let alone oil. Our trade with them is in the billions, sonny!"Before I could reply I realized this was turning into a political discussion when more concrete action was needed. "Do you have any more full water jugs from Safeway?"Will rubbed his stubble, "Only one, I think.""Fuck, we need to run to Safeway man. We can't live on this shitty beer for long. A jug of water only buys us a day or two." I knew that, when it came to survival, water was more important than food. Without water, you're dead in a week.Right then, as if to confirm the news and give us a sense of urgency, an ambulance drove past our house at high speed, it's siren wailing. Then we heard what sounded like fireworks, but realized they were gunshots, most probably coming from Safeway, which was only a few blocks away. Suddenly, I felt electrified. The presence of death always excites me, I'm the type to laugh at a funeral. I was up and ready to go when Will said, "Hold your horses, junior! We need to go prepared, it will probably be busy and sounds like bullets are already flying." The old man stumbled down to the basement and came back with two Glocks. I knew he had firearms down there as Will was, deep down, a redneck who thought that Alberta was the Canadian counterpart of Texas. He gave me a loaded handgun — fifteen rounds — pulled the safety, and said it was ready to go. The weapon felt good in my hand, it instantly gave me a sense of power. Will grabbed the other Glock and stuffed it in his waistband. I decided to run to my bedroom upstairs and grab my black hoodie and backpack. I placed the gun in the big front pocket of the hoodie. In the meantime, Will brought a rifle upstairs and placed it on a couch in the living room.Armed with the handguns, we left the house and walked a few blocks. The sight of the Safeway parking lot and entrance gave us pause. Pure pandemonium. It seemed that in only half an hour all civilization collapsed and the world had turned into pure anarchy. My excitement skyrocketed. There were a few hundred people struggling to enter the store as others tried to get out with their loot. For a second, this reminded me of the crowds you see outside malls on Black Friday or Boxing Day. Except for the broken windows, the gunshots, and the zombies. Someone smashed one of the big windows with a cart and others did the same in quick succession. Then people jumped into the store, some cutting themselves on the jagged remains of glass. You could tell the zombies by their shuffling gaits, their slack, expressionless faces, and the fact that they didn't carry anything, no bags or baskets. Their food was all around in huge supply: living flesh.The undead hoards seemed to be coming mostly from Whyte and were circling Safeway from both Whyte and 109 Street. In the maelstrom, I recognized Sue, one of the cashiers, now biting off a customer's jugular, blood splattering on her face and work uniform. A policeman shot her in the back and she turned to him. The second bullet went through one of her milky eyes and out the back of her head. She dropped to the ground but then another undead, built like a football linebacker, blindsided the shooter and ripped the skin off his right cheek. The policeman uttered a piercing scream and elbowed the zombie but the undead already had a strong hold of his neck and he chocked-slammed the officer, broke his skull on the pavement and then proceeded to savagely feed on the victim's brains. The parking lot was congested with cars, some already involved in collisions, steam rising from their hoods. The ones that were driving away were cutting through the green areas surrounding the store and the parking lot and then joined the already chaotic traffic on Whyte. The looters that were scurrying away with filled carts were probably from our neighborhood.  I knew instinctively that if we join the chaos we die. Part of me wanted to do it. I was debating it when, in the corner of my eye, I saw Becky and her husband pushing carts filled with jugs of water and canned food. I recognized her short, "I-want-to-speak-to-your-manager," haircut. They were in a rush to get home, looking down and frowning, no wonder shook by the ungodly chaos behind them. I just waited for them to come closer and then stepped up to Becky and shot her in the head. One-handed, gangsta style. The recoil almost threw the gun out of my hand. Blood and bits of skull and brains splashed her husband who turned toward me, wild-eyed, ready to scream. I got a better grip of my weapon, squeezed the trigger again and blew his brains out. "Take that Christian scum!" I shouted, kicking their dead bodies and jumping with joy. Fuck, I was so happy. So excited. There's no explaining it; I mean, rationally, I wanted their goods and I wanted to survive but there was more than that. My hatred for them ran deep, I didn't know where it came from but it was an ugly hatred, probably as ugly and disgusting as a tumor with teeth and hairs growing on it. Will gaped at me with wild, puzzled eyes."Don't just sit there!" I yelled. "Take the fucking cart and let's go, it's dog eat dog out here man, survival of the fattest!" Will was too shaken to laugh at my joke. He did as I ordered and took one of the carts. I started pushing the other one and looked back to see if anyone has witnessed my outburst of violence. No one did, or even if they did, they didn't care enough to do anything, everyone was focused on their own survival. Will and I took all the canned food and water to the kitchen and then went into the living room. We had five jugs of water now. At almost ten liters each, it was enough to last us a week.Suddenly, Will and I were overcome by a primal fear that the zombies will invade our house. We decided to barricade it. Starting with the porch door, we put a small couch against it and Will nailed some boards he had in the basement against the windows. Will's basement was always a work in progress so we had no problem finding a piece of plywood that could cover the large living room window. Before we put it up, Will smashed some holes in it with a hammer so he'd be able to shoot at zombies with his rifle through them. Exhausted, we had a smoke. Princess was curled up at Will's legs, probably sensing that something was wrong. "They said they're attracted to noise. They won't come our way if we keep quiet," I said.. "We'll use only the side-door from now on, and I'll reinforce that one too," Bill said. "Don't worry, we have some time as the crowd at Safeway will keep the fucking zombies busy for a while. That will be their feeding ground as desperate people keep flocking there for food and water."  I thought of the short wooden fence that bordered the front of the house. "We can do something about that front fence too, maybe bury some spikes behind it and put barbed wire on top," I offered, although I wasn't sure where we'd get the barbed wire. After a few moments of silence I said, "Hey Will, you know now that I killed Becky and her whipped husband, their place is basically ours." Will looked at me, he was still shaken by how I killed them in cold blood but he saw my logic. "We can use slabs from the fence that I've built for her last summer and really make our place into a fortress." "Yeah man, what was hers is now ours, food and everything."Will nodded thoughtfully. "Anyway," I said. "I'm beat. I'm gonna take a nap." I climbed the stairs huffing and puffing, didn't even consider taking a shower, and collapsed on the bed in my bedroom. Sometimes during the night I woke up from a hot, wet dream and popped a Prozac. I had forgotten to take it during the day. Then a thought cut through me, as cold and merciless as a scalpel: I'm getting out of meds, and the Safeway pharmacy is probably devastated by now. A cold chill went up my spine and froze my mind in the grip of terror. I had to talk to Will the next day about meds. I figured Will, with his shuffling gait, could easily pass for a zombie, so, the next morning, I gave him my backpack and sent him for a run with the main purpose of finding meds. He returned with a few cartons of Pall Malls from 7-Eleven and a fifteen pack of Black Ice from Liquor Depot. However, he said Safeway was still swarming with zombies and checking out the pharmacy was too risky. I believed him. The news hit me hard though. I knew withdrawal from Prozac and didn't want to go through that shit again. Will said Becky might have some at her house. We went and checked. She had other kinds and I didn't know if they worked for me. Instead, we found two bottles of Jack Daniels and a Stalinskaya. Changing depression meds unsupervised is the pits. You can fall from the frying pan into the fire. It's a sickening vortex. The same with anti-anxiety meds. But quitting cold turkey also sucks. The world around you melts and turns into pure, liquid fear, a fear that drowns you and tastes like metal. On top of that you start getting brain zaps like you're some frog getting electrocuted by a sadistic kid. All of this reminded me how much I hated my condition. My exhilaration about random killing wore out quickly and I was back to square one. Why should I put up with this shit? I asked myself bitterly. I told Will I was going for a nap and went upstairs with my gun. The dog followed me, nails clicking on the stairs. Not many illusions survive the questioning of a gun's muzzle. It was there, the end of my life at my fingertips. No more procrastinating. I chugged a beer quick, just to work myself up to it. Yeah, no more illusions. There was no point making fun of life when life itself was a circus. My books had been untouched for months, gathering dust. The days when I thought I'd write something interesting were long gone. I didn't give a shit anymore about the multitudes of missions and campaigns of World of Warcraft. My apathy had prevailed, which was no surprise since the depressed brain, they say, is an atrophied brain, an old brain. From a physiological perspective, I was probably older than Will, even counting his tumor and all. The only difference was I could still get a hard-on. Depression makes everything so tough as you always dissociate. It's funny how some idiots say they fight against depression. To struggle presupposes to exist. But a depressed person doesn't fully exist, they have a broken, blurred identity. Lots of things should go well for a person to exist: serotonin molecules should cross the synapse and bind to receptor sites just so; in case they don't bind they should be stopped from being sucked back in the presynaptic neuron (that's where the drugs come in, if they work properly) and should be kept in the synaptic cleft so they could magically exert their blissful influence. With serotonin levels up, one can cope with one's experiences and create a narrative about one's place in the world, like a spider spins its web. Serotonin is the silk of the brain, without it there's no web, no story, everything is trapped in the abyss between is and isn't. I is a fucking achievement. Without I there's only being-there, killing time, no projects, no will, no meaning. That's why it was so hard to open a book, it was like they were bricks painted to have the appearance of hardcovers or paperbacks. Not to speak of herculean tasks like taking a shower or doing laundry. This was my state of mind when the zombies came on the scene. Now, it was either get killed, or hope that the military will come and save us, or start everything from scratch in a post-apocalyptic world. The last two options involved nauseating levels of risk and humiliation. First, even supposing the military would come, there was a big chance the whole city would be quarantined and we'd all be exterminated like plague-carrying rats. Even if the authorities didn't decide on such an extreme solution, people in protective gear would arrive and take the survivors to hospitals and I would once again become Germy, the possibly-infected scum. And, if against all odds, I survived all these ordeals, and life would get back to normal, what was there waiting for me? I was Mr. Unwanted Nobody Mooching off Government Support; the severely handicapped loser.  It was back to killing time and freaking about meds and playing video games. Fuck that shit! Enough was enough! Second, the last option was that people would come together in hippie-style and rediscover the joys of agriculture and living off the land and close to nature and slowly, phoenix-like, rebuild civilization. That possibility turned my stomach. I hated physical labor and once my comrades realized I'm but a lazy parasite they'd probably hang me, wild-west style. Also, this was Alberta, eight months of winter per year. Their communist enthusiasm wouldn't survive the first blizzard. By Halloween Edmonton a.k.a Deadmonton would be a dead city, fulfilling the promise embedded in its name. So there were my arguments, no hope in sight. I lifted the gun, pressed the muzzle to my forehead and squeezed my eyes shut. My palms started sweating, my breathing got out of control, and I felt a panic attack coming as my finger was ready to press the trigger. I'm nothing, I'm nothing, this is nothing! Just get it over with! I kept telling myself. I knew I was nothing but also that I was something. My brain was nothing, but I was still there, wasn't I? a worm crawling, an electrical impulse,... something. My hands started shaking, my vision blurred, my heart shook my rib-cage, and my brain felt squeezed by strange, coarse hands like a lump of dough. I collapsed on the dirty floor crying. I couldn't do it! Princess came to me, put her paw on my arm and looked at me with her sad eyes of different colors as if she knew my pain. I punched her in the head as hard as I could and she whimpered, jumped on the bed tail between her legs, and curled up in the corner. Turning again to my idea of suicide, I realized I had just started a war, a conflict against my own brain. The brain was winning the first battle but I'd win the war. It was a paradoxical confrontation of self-destruction. I knew I've sent a strong signal of self-annihilation down the wire and the resulting action would come sooner or later. This reminded me of working for Sears Canada when in high school. The moment the company started getting bad publicity you could sense the stench of bankruptcy everywhere: in the sluggish movements of the associates, in the almost empty stockrooms and careless product displays, in the high turnover as the rats were abandoning the sinking ship. The company had been dying for a few years before they decided to pull the plug. It was the same with my brain, I had sent the signal, and now I was waiting for the chaos, the decay, and the inevitable collapse.  Any regrets? At the end of the day, my need for pussy was still there, alive and well. I hadn't gotten lucky in like two years and it got to the point I was thinking of fucking my own linty belly button just to remember how it felt. This made me chuckle as it reminded me of Gwen, my FWB from high school, this dirty-minded chubby girl. One day she let me fuck her belly, she just squeezed my penis with her stomach fat, like I was fucking her tits. It worked pretty well. I came a healthy, thick jet. Then Gwen, before eating the cum like a good sport, started doing these masticating movements with her cellulitic stomach as if she was chewing gum. Gwen was amazing, too bad she had to move to BC.  But yeah, that was my dying wish: I wanted to feel a woman's warm thighs hugging my hips as I plunged into her, see her ass and tits quake as I took her from behind, feel the soft globes of her buttocks smash against my abdomen as I approached ecstasy, feel the circle of her throat expand against my cock as her eyes bulged and teared up and her face turned red.  My hard-on was now as solid as the gun I was holding in my hand. My mind was made: one last fuck before I blew my brains out. Completely vulgar and animalic and ignoble but, as I said, the gun strips down all illusions and sometimes what you have left is a horny chimp. Sad but true.I didn't know how to go about fulfilling my plan but I intuited that the new state of anarchy created by zombies will help me out. After all, anything went in this world, it was back to the state of nature, till the army and the police came back to restore order. I had an image of the policeman being eaten by the undead outside of Safeway. I decided I wouldn't worry about order getting restored till I saw army planes and helicopters in the sky and troops on the ground. For now, it was dog eat dog, might is right. The following days felt longer and longer, with nothing to do. The electricity went down a few days after the outbreak, so there was no more TV or Internet and we had to start making use of candles and flashlights. I watched porn and masturbated all day before my dusty laptop's battery went out. It was a pleasurable yet sad day. On one of the trips to Cindy's place we found some camping gear and took a camping stove, a gas lantern, and a large canister of Coleman fuel. Will was planning on doing more cooking in the backyard where we already had a propane barbecue. We had to cook all the meat that was left in our fridge and Cindy's, as well as heat up what we had in our cans. Will told me that our landlord and most people in the neighborhood decided to go to BC, thinking that no zombies are gonna cross the Rockies. Following the exodus, everything appeared dead and forsaken, like the stage for a play that had been canceled. Once, I saw Will speaking with Randy, our neighbor next door, a middle-aged guy with a prosthetic leg, they were speculating about how the army should arrive any day now. Another time, when I went for a smoke and walked up the pathway by the side of the house, I saw a guy who lived down the street. He was on his bike, no shirt on, and would stop at each and every pole and tear down the posters glued or stapled on them. Will told me later the guy was crazy since before the outbreak. He was also known to shovel snow at midnight during the winter months. Other than that everything was quiet, still. No one was mowing their lawns which gave the street a bit of a primeval, destitute look. The crows were getting bigger and more aggressive as carrion was plentiful and Will was always worried when we'd take Princess out, that they'd fly down and poke her eyes out. He was also terrorized by the thought that zombies might get her so we would keep her on a tight leash at all times we had to take her out of the house. Moreover, there was a horrid stench in the air that got thicker and thicker every day, partly from the dead, partly from the unpicked garbage all over the back alley. The water situation was temporarily under control as one day we got rain and were able to fill up a bunch of buckets and pots and pans we had placed in the backyard. Randy did the same in his own backyard. Then, using a funnel, Will and I transfer all the water into the plastic bottles we had gathered from our place and Becky's. We were set for water for another few weeks. Bill wanted more though, he wanted alcohol, so he'd go down Whyte on scavenging expeditions almost daily and he'd come back with beer or hard liquor, and sometimes canned food. The old man was incredibly determined and resourceful. He also reported that the hoard of zombies was still there, orbiting around the Safeway and that Whyte appeared deserted and ruined. Most of the store and bar windows had been smashed and some of the buildings looked like they had been torched. Will was still busy with the project of boarding up the house and I'd help now and then, although the danger of a full-on assault of the undead seemed pretty low. At times zombies would come down our street, usually attracted by noise. Sometimes, they'd just venture aimlessly. I'd hear them at night scraping their hands on the boards downstairs but they didn't have enough strength to remove any. One day, Will sent me to pull out some panels from Becky's fence so he could use them to cover a small side window. While working on that task, I saw a lone zombie stumbling down the alley toward me. At first, it looked like a drunken live woman but then I saw the gory wound on her neck, how her jaw was dislocated, and her white, vacant eyes. She was wearing a black shirt saying "Love Pink" in sparkly print. Her tight jeans were soiled. Under the flimsy shirt, I could see the straps of her bra and the contours of large breasts. My penis responded instantly to her cleavage and I approached her with my claw hammer. When she got close to me she growled and lurched but I easily pushed her hands aside and buried the clawed end of my hammer in her temple. As soon as she went down and stopped moaning I kneeled by the body and pulled down her shirt and bra, revealing a pair of saggy livid breasts, which I proceeded to pull at and press and suck on. I soon got fully hard and pulled my shorts down and started stroking myself, gently rubbing her purple nipples against the tip of my cock. Her dead, mangled face was a bit distracting, so I took off my t-shirt and covered it. I gazed around but there was no one in sight, alive or dead. I focused on those large breasts, twisting and pulling and rubbing them, trying to ignore the acrid smell of feces and decomposition wafting from the body. Soon I came, two thick jets flew out in succession, the first one on the asphalt and the second one in the cleft between her breasts. Once I pulled up my pants I stood there on my knees huffing and puffing. Then I grabbed the t-shirt covering her face and put it back on. I looked more closely at her head and was overwhelmed by a strange desire to break it and see her brain. I grabbed my hammer and started cleaving her head around the nose line and then I broke it in half like a coconut. The brain appeared grey, soft, almost liquefied. It was a wonder the zombie could even walk. Absent-mindedly I started spreading the brains on the gritty asphalt with the head of the hammer. With a grating noise, I separated a bit of brain tissue. Was this bundle of neurons the one that said the woman loved pink? If I zapped it would it form the thought I love pink? But who would be the I in that thought, given that the rest of her brain was disintegrating on the pavement? How many interconnected clusters of neurons do you need to get to I? Next, I scrambled the brains with the cum I had just released on the ground. Wasn't sperm some kind of energy? I figured that neurotransmitters like serotonin are kinda like sperm flooding the brain. Depression was just wasted seed. I then gazed at the woman's soiled groin, wondering if she menstruated as well. Dead eggs and excrement. It dawned on me then that the zombie apocalypse was just the depression of mankind, a collective exhaustion, life following its natural progression to widespread incontinence; dying seed, sterile blood, and feces running down rotting legs.  Even with the head now pulverized, I thought the body was still good, especially the torso. I decided to hide it in Becky's shed for later use and made a mental note to bring a handsaw next time and cut her head clean. When I was back in the alley, crows were already gathering around the yellowish soup of semen and brains splashed on the ground. That night I took Princess out and asked Will to come for a smoke. He seemed in bad shape, leaning against the house so he wouldn't fall over. Crickets were singing in the high grass and mosquitoes were buzzing around our heads. Will noticed that Randy hadn't boarded up the large basement window. The fence between our houses was ruined and had gaps in it, which gave us a perfect view inside their basement bedroom. In the yellow glow of candles and flashlights scattered around the room, we could see a mirror on top of a dresser. Suddenly, a naked chick came into view. A beautiful, live young girl in her early twenties, skinny but also curvy. Her long, brunette, wavy hair draped over her shoulders to the tops of her apple-shaped breasts. She had wide hips and lean and taut legs. She stopped for a second with her back to the mirror, apparently talking to someone, and then moved to the other side of the room, out of view. I was so excited I squeezed Will's skinny arm, "Did you see that?""I know, I see her almost every night," Will said, smirked knowingly, and pulled his arm free."Motherfucker...And you told me nothing?""There's not much you can do Spud, she's with Bobby, Randy's son.""How come I haven't seen them before?""Well, most people stay indoors these days on account of the zombies, in case you haven't noticed...But yeah, she's a nice piece of tail isn't she? Did you see her pubic hair is shaped like a heart?" Will licked his tongue over his dried lips and broken teeth. I've missed the pubic hair but got a good look at her gorgeous, heart-shaped ass. She had a lot of junk in the trunk for a skinny girl. "Yeah, it's been a long time for me," I confessed bitterly, and took a deep drag from the cigarette. "I actually came on a zombie's boobs today.""Well, any port will do in a storm. Just watch and don't get any diseases, eh? I can tell you're desperate. If you want I can make you a pole-lasso so you can grab some fresh ones. The good thing about them is they can't run very fast." A hoarse laughter escaped the old man's throat, followed by dry coughing. Then the old man crouched down and petted Princess, "Hey baby girl, does uncle Jeremy touch you inappropriately?" Princess licked his stubby face and wagged her tail. I looked at him, exhaled thick smoke through my nostrils and said, "Actually, Will, you're starting to look pretty hot these days too, with your sensual mouth, tight bum and skinny legs."Defensively, Will stood up and pressed his back against the house. "You stay away from me and my dog, pervy, or I'll rip you a new asshole.""Ok, fuck, I'll just go upstairs and please myself then," I said, stubbed out my cigarette and left. Behind me, Bill laughed and said, "Yeah, you go do that slimy! Keep those pervy hands to yourself, eh?"After I wanked it savagely, I sat there in bed thinking for a long time, twisting in turning in the filthy, sweat-stained sheets. It was hot and I kept thinking of her. She was right there, only twenty feet away from me. My goal, my only ambition in life was within reach. I couldn't sleep until my plan was set up in detail, and my mind made. And that was when the first pale rays of dawn filtered into the room. Next morning Will I found Will passed out in the living room, the table filled with empty beer bottles. Princess looked up at me and scratched the floor like she wanted to go out. I put the leash on her and took her to the front lawn of Randy's house. Just as she was spreading her back legs and lowering her behind to do her business I took out my gun from the pocket of my hoodie and shot her in the head. She collapsed with a small whimper, her skull pulverized, blood reddening her white fur. Then I turned her around and, with a sharp knife I also had in my pocket, I cut her belly and spread her innards in the tall grass, holding my breath so I wouldn't sense the foul stench. Then I sprinted into the house and shouted, "Will, Will, Wake up!! There's zombies! I think they got Princess, she just ran toward them."Will stumbled out of the living room, gaping at me with bloodshot eyes. "What?" he said groggily."Come on, man, I said. Maybe she comes back when you call her. She knows your voice better!" Bumping hard against the walls like a drunk Will managed to get out of the house and I pointed toward the street. He stumbled down the pathway shouting "Princess, come back here!" I followed him from behind, my gun at my back. Then he saw the dog laying disemboweled in the tall grass. His eyes bulged as he took in the grisly scene. His thick sadness and terror empowered me, I inhaled it deeply like pure mountain air. Then, before he was able to look at me or form an idea of what was going on, I shot him in the head, execution style, aiming for his tumor. There it was, a fast cure for cancer. Side-effects: immobility and decomposition. His Edmonton Eskimos hat flew up in the air and Will dropped dead on his face. Then I pulled his body in the grass close to the dog's. Some zombies were already shuffling on the street toward us, attracted by the gunshots and the aroma of fresh meat. So far so good, I said to myself. Then I ran to the backyard and grabbed the large gas canister Will wanted to use for the camping stove and gas lantern. I sprinted back to the front of Randy's house. No one had come out the front door to inquire about the shots or fight the zombies. They probably figured zombies won't be able to pull out the boards covering the windows. But my plan was to smoke them out like rats. I started throwing gas on the front of the house as fast as I could and spilling it on the boards covering the windows as well. That would send them in a panic. Then I lit the gas with my lighter and saw the flames spread out and up, turning the wood from white to brown. Once the fire was set, I ran as fast as I could all around Randy's house, through the back, so they wouldn't be able to see me through the cracks in the boarded-up front windows. Or if they already did, to make it look like I ran away. Huffing and puffing I reached the opposite front corner from the one where I set the fire, crouched down and waited, handgun at the ready. The zombies were approaching the house as the flames spread up the outside wall. Randy and Bobby should come out any moment now, I thought. Even if they didn't care about Will or Princess or the zombies, they wouldn't let their own house burn to the ground.Sure enough, after a few minutes, the front door opened and Randy and his son descended the front steps. Bobby was athletic and was wearing a ball cap turned backward. His cut off grey t-shirt revealed muscular arms and tattoos. He was carrying a baseball bat and a gun was stuffed in his waistband at the back. Randy had a fire hydrant and started spraying foam over the blaze while his son looked at the zombies already feeding on Will and Princess a few yards away. Bobby kinda intimidated me. He was so ripped and handsome while I was but a fat troll. My hands started sweating and shaking as self-doubt invaded my thoughts. I'm gonna fail and they're gonna kill me, feed me to the fucking zombies. I'm gonna fail like I have failed at everything in life. I aimed my gun at Bobby but my hands shook so bad my first shot missed him completely. He turned toward me. He seemed puzzled for a moment, not sure whether I was shooting at him or the zombies. But then in a few seconds, he realized I was the one who killed will and set their house on fire. Next, he raised his bat and charged me. In a panic, I squeezed a shot that blew out the left side of his face. He managed another stride, his remaining eye fixed on me and burning with hatred. Just as I got ready to squeeze the trigger again, he collapsed at my feet. I quickly turned toward Randy who was just gaping at his son's moveless body. He looked up at me for a second with a mixture of anger and disbelief. Then he ran up the stairs, as fast as his prostatic leg allowed, trying to get back inside. That was a bad decision and I think he knew he was dead the moment he acted on it. Not only was he slow climbing the stairs but he had to open the screen door to enter the house which made him a perfect target from where I stood. I fired three times and he dropped dead right in the doorway. I leaped over his body and found myself in the hallway. I was feeling ecstatic. The hardest part of my mission was done and over with. The girl must be here somewhere. It was possible she was armed but the idea didn't give me pause. I felt invincible. I found her sitting on the couch in the living room, scared, holding her knees to her chin. She was wearing short cut-off jeans and a white t-shirt. When I saw her I said in a panic-stricken voice, "Zombies are coming! We have to run through the back door." I pointed the way with my gun."Where's Bobby?" she asked, looking at me puzzled. "I think they got him. Come on, we don't have time!"Finally, she moved. I put the gun in the front pocket of my hoodie and extended my left hand toward her. When she grabbed it I knocked her out with my right, not hard enough to kill her, just to render her unconscious. Then I tossed her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was tiny but still pretty heavy. I opened the back door, walked fast through Randy's backyard, made my way past bushes and through a gap in the broken fence, and was back at my place. The side door was clear of zombies so I entered and locked it behind me. The feel of the smooth back of her thighs already made me hard. I took her to the living room and dumped her on the floor. Some of the beer cans fell from the table because of the brief commotion. She still seemed to be out of it as I took off her shorts and panties. Then I put my gun on the floor, grabbed my knife from my pocket and cut her t-shirt and her. With trembling hands, I placed the knife next to the gun, out of the way. No need for weapons as she was completely in my power now. Next, I took my shirt off and pulled down my pants. I started sucking on the nipples of her small but perky tits and then went down on her as my mouth instinctively released a thick rope of saliva that went from her chest to her pussy. I began hungrily eating her and, to my surprise, I've heard her moan a few times. Encouraged, I sat up, spread her legs and entered her tight, warm wetness. I stood like that for a few seconds, fully erect inside her, savoring the divine sensation. Then I started pumping, slow at the beginning and then faster and faster, looking now at her beautiful face, now at her tits jerking up and down in the rhythm of my thrusts. She moaned a few more times which made me pick up the pace. I finished with a loud, primal groan and released a spray of spittle through my clenched teeth, but she didn't seem to mind or react at all. Outside, the zombies I attracted with my gunshots were moaning and feebly pulling at the boards covering the windows. I didn't mind them, nothing could ruin my moment of bliss. All spent, I put my head on my woman's belly, trying to catch my breath, at peace with the world. Sacred juices were lighting up my brain like fireworks: endorphins, serotonin, dopamine. Finally, after years of bitter self-doubt and misery, I felt I wasn't a complete loser. After a few minutes, I stood up on my knees and looked at her. She was slender, white, unblemished, a real princess. I saw some of my black, curly, chest hair, mixed with sweat on her flat belly and wiped it away. This girl was now my focus, my purpose. Never had I had a woman so beautiful. Then I noticed, under her heart-shaped pubic hair, some of my spunk was leaking out of her on the carpet. Did I make her pregnant? Did my seed finally find purpose? Even if she got pregnant, I thought, I'll care for that baby, I'll love it with all my heart. While thinking all this I realized I didn't know her name. I leaned toward her face. Her eyes were open a bit, measuring me. "Hi," I said and snorted nervously. "My name is Jeremy." Then I automatically added, "They call me Germy."  

Odin Rising cover and some news

I finally got a drawing that will go on the cover of my novel Odin Rising. Kudos to fantastic local artist Britanny Cardinal for her help!! Also, graphic designer and author Konn Lavery will help with the general design of the cover and formatting. The novel will be released in early 2019.

In other news, I now have a Facebook page. I had to go with Axe Barnes as Axl Barnes was taken. Feel free to visit and follow. https://www.facebook.com/AxeBarnes/
In addition, next year I'll publish a collection of short-stories entitled Funeral Portraits. Most of the stories will be accompanied by killer drawings by Brittany Cardinal. Some of the stories I posted here will be rewritten and gathered in that volume, Natasha Suicide, A Playground with Crosses, A Perfect Day, Closing Shift and others. Plus, this collection will feature my first zombie story and tons of other sick and twisted tales. 

A Perfect Day (Funeral Portraits #3)

Picture by Blemished Art
David was having a perfect day. His body was buzzing with so much energy he felt like he could do anything. If he were a religious person, he'd have said it was a blessed day, but he hated that word, "blessed." However, there was undoubtedly something mystical about it. Everything seemed so easy. At work, he even made small talk with colleagues he'd usually avoid. He told Jack from receiving that two Albertans have hit the jackpot at Lotto 6/49. Jack was visibly pissed. He was an avid lottery player, and he answered that, if he won the lottery he'd buy a house with a big basement where he could play video-games 24/7. Given his gargantuan size and grumpy manner, Jack was not a chick-magnet or a human magnet for that matter, and David was not surprised that the troll harbored such escapist dreams.
None of the usual small, annoying accidents happened. David didn't drop any boxes of strawberries or mushrooms, didn't hit the skids full of produce against the empty wheelers or the stacks of merchandise arranged along the side wall of the stockroom, didn't bang his shins while using the fork pallet jack. It was like he was wrapped in a warm, protective bubble. As if, after years of working in that tiny, cluttered, stinky stockroom, his brain finally calibrated the weight and behavior of all objects around him and now it functioned in perfect harmony with its environment.
As he sipped more of his morning Starbucks coffee, David also remembered this was a special day for other reasons too. It was payday and him and Rose were about to buy their tickets for their Mexico vacation this evening. He could almost smell the sea and the sand and taste the margaritas as he was putting the new stock away. Plus, he was close to hitting another 500 hours with the company, and that meant another raise. Moreover, Friday night meant Rose would get a rise out of him. She'd probably be extra-horny because of the vacation. David smiled at the thought. And, on top of it all, the money he was making today was still going into their vacation fund. It was so great; he didn't remember the last time he'd felt so happy. Life was bursting with meaning.
During the lunch break he talked to Rose, who was working on cash that day, and saw the glint in her eyes and her willing smile. She was as excited as he was. She told him she took her four-year-old, Jordy, for his vaccinations and the doctor was tremendous. The doc sang a song to Jordy and poked him with his finger to make him laugh so that the lil' guy didn't even notice when the needle stuck. Then Rose went on about her fear of needles and David stopped paying attention but focused more on the fine line of her neck, her lips, and the soft sway of her boobs through her shirt as she was gesturing. When she went to grab her coffee, he had a chance to admire her bubble butt. His mind was swarming with different sexual positions.
"But you take him to your folks tonight, right?" David asked anxiously when Rose sat back on the couch. Not that he disliked the lil' booger, but he was an attention-starved brat and David felt like getting all the attention tonight.
"Yes," Rose answered and laughed knowingly.
David relaxed and offered a pleased smile.
After the lunch break he finished warehousing and went on the floor. It wasn't busy, so his mind wandered as he replenished the onions and potatoes, the lettuce and bell peppers, and cut corn with his knife. An old memory popped into his mind. He remembered the crazy doctor who sliced him with a scalpel when he was in middle school. That summer he had been to camp and helped to gather wood for the bonfire. A splinter got stuck in the palm of his left hand and David couldn't take it out, not all of it anyway. He paid no mind to the incident until, when back home, a little white spot appeared where the fragment was buried under his skin and the area around it had turned an angry red. Then that white spot grew bigger and bigger and more painful. It got to the point he couldn't sleep at night, feeling the infection digging deeper into his flesh. He finally told his parents, and his dad took him to the doctor the next day. The doc was an old bald guy with glasses and a hunched back. A portly nurse asked David to lie down on the bed and applied some brown liquid on the wound and injected an anesthetic close to his wrist. Then the doctor came, sat next to him on the bed, grabbed a scalpel from a tray, took David's left hand and stabbed the blade deep into his palm and then pulled it out. Two vicious, expert motions. Blood and pus jetted up from the wound and David began screaming and crying and hitting the back of the merciless doctor with his knees. His dad looked anxiously from behind the curtain and, unable to bear the screams, he decided to call David's mother. When the quick procedure was done, the doctor left and the nurse bandaged him up. Then let him go. He was to come back the day after so 'Doctor Sadist' could check how the wound was healing and cut the dead skin around it. Outside, David sat on a chair and cried, and his mom came and his parents looked at him sadly. David felt like shit as he had been wearing a metal t-shirt and was supposed to look like a tough metal guy but there he was crying like a pussy. David's mom tried to encourage him by saying that he was as resilient as a pirate as he suffered surgery with no anesthesia.
David didn't feel much like a pirate or anything. He felt humiliated.
Now, working on the floor, David kept thinking of this memory and the smell of hospitals. How parents can never really protect you from the pain. The memory didn't dump his mood. He felt detached from it, like watching an entertaining movie in the theater of his mind. He was still happy and upbeat, talking to customers and offering smiles to everybody, his hands doing the job in a fast, methodical fashion. When his shift was over, he took the wheeler with the empty boxes back to the stockroom. On the way, he saw the meat-lady go outside for a smoke, and she asked him to look after her department for ten minutes. David said yes as he had experience working in meats but, deep down, he knew he lied to her.
Ten minutes, that was enough to do it. David went to throw the empty boxes in the garbage and then looked around the receiving area. Jack wasn't there. No one was. Perfect. He stepped into the meat cooler. It was cold, but his hands were suddenly sweaty, and he felt dizzy, high on his anxiety. He grabbed the knife from the pocket of his tool belt and, in a quick motion, stabbed it deep into his neck. Hard and savagely, like cutting through steak. Without hesitation this time. David thought he almost heard the tip of the knife hit one of the cervical vertebrae. Then he slashed through his jugular, muscles, tendons, and arteries. Quick and fast, with surgical precision. Bright arterial blood and dark red venous blood splashed the shelves and the floor of the meat cooler. David was terrified, but he knew terror would come. He didn't cry or scream; but ground his teeth so strongly he felt some of his molars crack. A scream would alert them. All that came from his ruined throat was a low, gargled growl. He was no longer a pussy like he was as a boy. He was now a Viking pirate. No cries, no ambulance, no paramedics. No more being manhandled and secured to a gurney. Instinctively, his right hand went to his throat to stop the bleeding, but he moved it away once it was covered in gore. There was no going back now. Next, his knees turned to water, and he collapsed on the grey, concrete floor. The heart pumps five liters of blood in one minute, David thought. There are only five liters in a person's body. One other thought formed into his mind, but his oxygen depleted brain couldn't read it fully. Some regret about how his parents weren't there to appreciate his courage. Then vague thoughts, sepia-colored memories, he knew all this and was prepared for it, just signs of his brain shutting down. A smile touched David's lips. He had done the hardest thing on the most perfect day.