Where you once had a head

[Genghis Khan]

A modicum of an incomplete داستان

I only really wanted to post the first part to see if this is even worth following up on. Personally I don't think it is, but if you can change my mind:

Debriefing

Nico Beckenbauer, a socially awkward American kid of Russo-German descent is living an average teen life with his mother in Texas. Not having seen his father in 4 years and trying to cope with his disability, he lives a life of misanthropy and frustration, spending most of his time questioning social behaviour alongside working with his psychologically challenged boss Monty. He eventually meets a person who he would safely call his only ‘friend’ later on.

Nico is inquisitive of Monty’s past life and present philosophies. He is enthralled by Monty’s extreme nihilistic perspective on things and subconsciously starts to develop a desire to be Monty, ignoring the danger that awaits him and his sanity in the near future when he is dragged to a part of Monty’s life where he wished he wouldn’t have gone. It is down to his friend’s motivation and his own willingness to save himself from a cataclysmic destiny.

--

Oh fuck. Never did I see how interchangeable the words room and creepy can be, at least, when you’re in this bizarre room of a room; wild boar skin and human skull on each corner. I hesitantly proceeded to feel the skull; the intensity of my hand shaking was almost palpable to anyone else who could see it. Plastic. The skulls were plastic. I couldn’t find a hint of real bones anywhere on that sofa, not that I'd know what real bone feels like. His convoluted and creative designs were fucking with me, almost like when conversations become awkward and you’re sitting there figuring a way out for yourself.

Paintings of absurd, opaque, obscure and unintelligible imagery; a mime with a rabbit head, paintings of piles and piles of mildly wounded children weeping on each other, a painting of a man with no eyes giving this instant unpleasant shock of a creepy smile. Looking at them elicited some unexpected emotions, it was almost like I was trying to solve a puzzle, the puzzle of course being Monty’s twisted portal of a past that one probably never wants to go down.
I’m the exception though, being an inquisitive socially awkward weird kid. Sometimes I think I understand why Monty is what he is but my life probably doesn’t even come close to what he’s been through so I can’t even begin to compare. Not that I’m profoundly informed about his life, all I know is… it’s been rough.

He’s somewhat normal at work. I mean at least not the typical guy you’d see in a workshop. There is a mini workshop right next to his house which now belongs to him, what a convenience. But yeah, he’s not bad at work, he smiles from time to time, minds his manners in the presence of slightly aged women, never cheats anyone either… even though I was pretty sure the Schwartz family didn’t know a thing about business (despite their Jewish heritage), it would’ve been fairly easy to have taken them for a ride, oddly enough Monty chose not to. His honesty stems from… fuck I don’t know, God only knows. I don’t know if he puts it on to keep an image or if it’s actually some innate characteristic, either way he’s lucky to have that thing about him.

On the other end, I’m a bit of liar.

‘Beckenbauer! Come outside!’ yelled Monty. I couldn’t make something of his tone of voice, but, guess we’ll find out. I hope he doesn’t know I've been lurking in the happy place.

I stepped out onto the porch; he looks at me semi-suspiciously and asks, ‘Nico, I asked you to bring the other screwdriver 5 minutes ago.’

‘Yes sir, it’s right here, it was under a pile of cluttered tools.’

He gently pulls it off me, looks around and signals me to come forward. I follow him.

He leads me to the cashier counter, starts counting his earnings and while doing so, asks, ‘Is there anything bothering you, Beckenbauer?’

‘Not at all,’ I lied without hesitation, so as to avoid any shadow of suspicion.

‘You sure? You’ve been quiet lately. More than usual.’

Truth be told (not that I tell it often) I have, I lost my ‘girlfriend’ earlier this week because she could not take my awkwardness anymore and she just straight up said it to my face. I couldn’t help but escape the feeling that she’s the best I’ll be able to do unless I somehow smite this anti-social beast inside me, I knew this wasn’t going to happen soon anyhow.

‘No sir,’ I lied again.

‘Well son, if there’s anything you’d like to talk about, you know what to do, right?’

‘Yes sir,’ I nodded.

‘Good here’s your pay for the week; you’ll be here after the weekend yes? Very good.’

--

[embers]

This is really well written dude. I know I said to you like.. half a year ago that I'd read some of this and give you feedback and I didn't. So uh.. yeah, it is pretty damn well written and I think better than anything I can do in terms of prose at this stage. Good job and keep it up. (lololol up)

[Magus]

Question: Why is this very short? Do you really hate you readers as much as I hate my fans?

You are really good. You should continue this story(or, I will do it).

[Genghis Khan]

Question: Why is this very short? Do you really hate you readers as much as I hate my fans?

This is just a chapter, I've written quite a few of these. I'll post the second one when I've polished it up enough for this place. Or maybe even now.

You are really good. You should continue this story(or, I will do it).

Thanks habibi <3 Q _____ Q

[Genghis Khan]

Two more chapter-esquesmasochismo

I strolled home with headphones on like any other dude coming back from work, be it a teen, adult or… wow porn. Although sometimes I’d never even put music on, this time I had to because I downloaded an Iron and Wine album last night and have been meaning to listen to it.

Simple folk like this gets me in a better mood. By better mood I mean happier mood, I associate ‘better mood’ with a mood that is deliciously evil too. From the little I know about human beings, it seems every guy has this same tasty desire to kill out of anger or pride. They’re always impressed by a show of strength or ferocity; it just depends on how you reveal it to them. I’m at the conviction that somewhere inside you; yes… you, even you have a moist, untouched, possibly bruised fragment in your heart that’s infrequently accentuated but not yet fully cracked. It’s quite certain most of you won’t crack it open, but some do.

I saw a bunch of 5 year olds with their jump rope. How do they do it? They’re so happy and say things that trigger a positive response. How do they know what to say? It boggles me. Never in my life have I had such a relationship where I say something stupid that makes the other person laugh or smile. That kind of shit only happens at school when I’m being confronted. To be honest, those confrontations don’t make me feel good, rather they give me the feeling that people take me as a joke. They probably do as well.

‘Nico! You forgot to make your bed again’ Mum exclaimed as soon as I entered the house.

‘You could at least say hi mum. You yourself told me it's good manners and it'll get me friends.’

‘What’s the point of that when I’ve seen you today already; you say such silly things’.
That being said, I poured some milk in my glass grabbed a packet of chocolate chips and proceeded to go upstairs when I heard mums high-pitched squeal, ‘Remember to bring it all down after you’re finished, you keep leaving these things in your room and I have to take them out every time’.

I took my headphones out, threw them on the shelf and lied down. I didn’t want to listen to music any more. You’re probably wondering what I know about Monty and what’s happening so far, well, here’s the real picture.

Monty’s my dad, and he used to beat me, we’re good now but he’s becoming a crazy person. Right now it’s like I’m discovering someone I’m supposed to know.

Told you I’m a liar. Monty’s not really my father, he’s a man who became my boss after my previous boss Steve went to Vegas to start up some other business. He was very vague about his real intentions. I could tell from a liar’s perspective, his story would vary from time to time, not significantly but some apparent fluctuations in the circumstances seemed unlikely.

Initially he said he was going to work with this guy who came over to give the workshop a technical upgrade. His name was Gerald Backster, he said not to mention it to him because he had promised to keep it private at that time, so as to keep the competing Dusty Roads workshop in the dark.

Weeks after that he told me he’s not going with him because they had a fight and on that same night he received a call from who I knew was Gerald, from the way they talked it was as if this fight never happened. Obviously something fishy was going on, but I never questioned it, I didn’t want to put my nose in shit that didn’t smell like shit worth sniffing.

Regardless of this, Steve went away in 2 months as planned. I haven’t heard from him since. But why would I? He’s probably got his dick in a Vegas girl’s ass right now, last thing he’d want is to talk to awkward old Nico who… well, can’t even talk normally.

Since then I’ve been working with Monty and trying to understand him. Steve was there at the time Monty worked for him as an assistant manager; at that time Monty was quiet as hell. I didn’t know jack about him and he’d refuse to talk to me at all. Gradually, Steve let me in on Monty’s troubled past, his abusive mother and weak father, kids at school, lack of support, big brother being better looking and shagging girls too much to even bat an eye at his little brother. He knew this because Monty trusted Steve like nobody else. Steve was there for him as a caretaker, this happened when he took Monty in after his father was found hanging from a fan and his mother became terminally diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His brother ran off to Seattle for some reason.

The phone rings, I look around to see if it’s in my room when it stops at the middle of a ring, I knew my mum had answered. It was one of her friends; she spends most of her time talking to them now that my dad’s gone. He left her 4 years ago when I was just a few days over fourteen, reason? Unknown. Since then life’s been more difficult for me than her. I actually loved him; he would know when something was wrong in my life the minute he’d see me walk inside. His advice would often help, or even his presence, I don’t have either any more. But I’ve dealt with that these past four years. I’ve got a better picture of who I am, who I want to be later on in life and so forth. Surprisingly I still want to be like my dad, he was a good person, regardless of his departure. I still wish he was here though.

--

These birds, they’re beautiful. The dogs playing outside are even better. I sometimes wish I were any animal other than human. We’re the only species that rationalise things and operate on a macro-social level. I hate that. Why complicate social behaviour? Why be hypercritical, why jump to conclusions without even knowing the real picture? We find dogs the easiest species to relate to yet we’re nothing like them. Dogs don’t rationalise, they react, they don’t hold grudges and they don’t care if you’re an anarchist, conservative, liberal, capitalist, religious, philosophical, boring to talk to, they just like you because you’re there to love them and do the simplest things with them that make both of you happy. Birds chirp all day long, they can fly, fuck, feed their young, build simple nests where they can live a simple life. Why can’t life be that simple for me?
Don’t go off assuming that I hate all humans now, there is one feature I admire in us; knowledge; dangerous yet so cool.

I suppose I prefer the more straightforward subjects like math and science. It makes sense; it’s deterministic; if you know the stimulus you can predict the outcome almost definitely. Human nature is not like that, you have to get to know the person and base what you say to them off that. How do you just figure them out by small talk? How do you know what’s appropriate to say at what time? This one time when I was 13 these family friends come over, their girl acts friendly, comes into my room and asks me what I’ve been up to. I was in fact masturbating before they got there, so I told her. She was not pleased and didn’t want to talk to me for the rest of the evening.

This was when I discovered how useful lying can be; I use it whenever I can just to avoid unnecessary conflict, saves me time and some respect. In any case, I should probably take this plate and glass downstairs now or mum will be pissed.

Her bedroom door was open in the hallway and she wasn’t in there, I assumed she must still be in the kitchen, cooking up a meal, but it’s felt like ages… surely she should’ve set dinner on the table hours ago. To my surprise, she wasn’t downstairs either… everything looked untouched as it was when I entered the house today. I take a gander out the window to see if she’s taken the car out, oh isn’t this day full of surprises? The car is still there.

I reach to open the door; it’s weird, the knob seems to be stuck. I fiddled around with it to see if that’d do me any good. Apparently not, this is exceedingly frustrating.

‘Having trouble?’

I hesitatingly turned to respond to that unfamiliar voice and found someone standing there. I can’t tell who he is.

I panicked as I peered at the slightly dark figure. He had nice skin and a somewhat easy to look at face, but something about him scared me, well, other than the fact that he’s in my house at this time of night.

‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ I stammered.

‘You’re escaping, I don’t like that, one must stay in the boundaries of their own home, the world out there is dangerous’ he explained. It was no surprise there that I hadn’t a clue what he was trying to tell me, so I asked him, ‘Care to elaborate on that? Maybe even tell me who you are?’

‘Why does it matter, you’ll only leave this place and I might never see you again.’

‘I-I don’t know. Look, I don’t even know you-‘

His face starts to change. Sheet white, piercing red lips and looked like he lacked a nose; his nostrils were exceedingly small as was his nasal cartilage. His eyes, he looked like never sleeps yet his eyes were wide open.

He clamps my head with his giant hand and lets out a shrill cry. I start to shake, oddly enough; it didn’t feel like my bodily response, rather something else shaking me.

His pupils shrink and his eyes light up to this bright blue complexion, with the surrounding darkened circles looking like coiled up veins pumping filthy blood for cleansing. The shrill shriek carried on but assuaged itself into this harmonious Aeolian sound.

I started to feel so sad, I was intensely gripped by this overwhelming vibe of eternal sadness. It was almost like I saw it as a human being whom I wanted to grab by the neck and sink myself into their skin.

I wish I had done that before my dip into an abrupt depression zoomed out into the man's sick and twisted face, a long-forced smile with teeth that didn't look separated but a single white wall. His lips had gone outstandingly red and his eyes remained dead; the cries return once more, and seriously fuck with my already unsettled head.

I open my eye to find myself been shaken and stirred by my mum who I’m assuming has been trying to wake me up this whole time.

'Mum... you, your...-'

'Come on, you know exactly what this is, bad dreams and yes they're bad, but you are a young adult now; no need for me to be there for you,' mum says.

'Thanks a fucking bunch,' I thought. This was already beginning to seem like the weirdest day of my life and I had a feeling things are going to get weirder, and here I am getting the sympathy I need.

--

[embers]

uh, one bit of advice would be not to shift tenses unless it's intentional, otherwise it becomes really muddled and confusing. In one line, you 'reach' for the doorknob, and yet you 'fiddled' with it. Also, keep working on the grammar of dialogue by reading / observing dialogue in other books/novels. But overall cool job dude, keep it up