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Jerrybaldy
11-09-2012, 06:57 PM
My pyjamas are wet. I have just pissed myself. I am in pyjamas, in a nicely arranged garden with wood bark borders and visitors wandering around.

Jack off John had been pulling himself off in the rocking chair for a good half an hour before I came outside. He kept calling ‘Mummy’, as he rocked back and forth, but still he couldn’t come. I think he may have lost it. Or it may be a technique problem.

He had a visitor on the third day of the rota last week. I was told it was his sister. The inevitable happened. She was left with a look in her eyes that said nothing made sense any more. Nothing has a time and a place like masturbation. Except maybe defecation and that’s a whole other story around here.

My pyjamas are seriously wet. How long does the sun take to dry piss soaked cotton on an average English summer’s afternoon? Whole puddles disappear from the pavement in no time at all.

I begin to burn a red ant with a looking glass. The glass belongs to Lily. She uses it to read the small print on her medication. ‘35mg!’ she declares after breakfast most days, with a wet cornflake clinging on to her chin. ‘ Enough to stun an ox!’

The ant is all legs in the air, in the midst of a dramatic death. His middle section is melting like golden toffee in a desert. ‘He was a good and brave ant’, the other ants may well recall. Death does wonders for your kudos.

John whispered in my ear, two Tuesdays past, whilst I was washing my face. He told me that the even numbers are evil. I didn’t sleep for days, so troubled with this thought. Proving it over and over through mathematics, using birth dates, ages and events. At breakfast, the following Friday, I spread golden shred marmalade on whole meal toast and then removed the little finger of my left hand. It hurt like hell, not least because the bluntness of the knife meant I had to hack at the bone for nearly a minute.

Luckily, cries of pain are background noise around here, so my actions went unnoticed, until my finger fell onto the floor beside a surprised earwig. I crunched into my toast and felt the anxiety flow from me at the comforting sight of my 9 remaining fingers.

‘Enough to stun an ox!’, finished Lily, then screamed as she caught sight of my squirting finger stump, interrupting John at a vital moment.

I am not drying out anytime soon. Today is Thursday. Visitors day. I met Mary at junior school. She had scars on her legs that she said were from a house fire. She had foster parents. I assumed these were people you pretended were your parents when you didn’t have any. The way we pretended that Santa, God and the tooth fairy all populated our days.

She had brown eyes and the softest voice and heart, I loved her of course. Somehow we always kept in touch. I was still ok last time we met. Ten, or maybe fifteen years ago. I have cut ties with all my past since I came here. I pissed myself when Mary arrived. It gave me a hope that I could not cope with.

I am running around the garden, arms spread like a kid being an aeroplane. I figure this will speed up the drying process. I can see Mary inside through the French windows. She is looking at a crayon creation of a former inmate. It is a an angry red sun picture; placed in a frame it may well be priceless.

Soon I will be dry. I will be ready for Mary. I will kiss the scars on her legs. We may well marry.

John jacked off for the last time the following night. He came and he went. He was 72. I would guess his sister attended the funeral and buried an earlier version of John; playing marbles and kissing a girlfriend with acne, climbing trees, maybe playing catch with his adoring little sister.

sarah.nichole
11-12-2012, 11:56 AM
I'm not quite sure what the point of this piece is? It made me slightly uncomfortable actually. But maybe that was the point?

Jerrybaldy
11-12-2012, 06:54 PM
Hi Sarah. Thanks for commenting.

I wasn't trying to make a point, just writing a piece of fiction. I am guessing Jack off John may have made you uncomfortable, but he existed, as I used to take my grandmother to see her brother in a mental institution and came across the character I based this upon.

Mary also has a basis in reality, but I have to admit, although we now live in a world where self harming has left the closet, the finger removal was purely fictitious.

Its just an imagining of life in an institution and I would guess the reality is much more uncomfortable.

best wishes
JB

JackCharles
11-12-2012, 11:24 PM
I found it interesting myself. Maybe because I wasn't looking for a point, I was just following along to where it went. I'm not exactly sure why, but I liked it.

AuntShecky
11-14-2012, 03:38 PM
A very strange and remarkable piece of fiction. Know what I like best about it? (All together now): it doesn't tell, it shows. The only thing I take issue with is the last word in this sentence:


Death does wonders for your kudos.

There could be a better way to express the phenomenon of the kind of praise that comes after death, other than "kudos." The statement is universally true, though, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum."

DieterM
11-15-2012, 08:46 AM
Very effective piece indeed. In just so many words, you gave me all I needed: characters, a plot, atmosphere, and a supplementary gut-feeling (was I a bit uncomfortable, like sarah? if yes, it's not the wanking, but rather the bit about the cut finger). Thanks for sharing.

hillwalker
11-15-2012, 10:32 AM
Hi JB,

I've come back to this several times before deciding to comment. It's a nightmarish portrayal of life in a mental institution, written with your trademark flair for graphic detail and uncomfortably dark humour.

But... it left me wanting something better, which I know you're capable of. I think it's the style that I found unsatisfying - a list of declarative sentences, almost like bullet points entered in a diary. Interesting individually but when seen en masse rather lifeless.

I accept that the narrator possibly thinks in this way and you're mimicking his thought processes but I feel the set-up has potential for a longer and more engaging piece.

H

Jerrybaldy
11-17-2012, 11:53 AM
Thank you Jackcharles I am glad you enjoyed it, even without knowing why!

Thanks Auntie, I am still pondering a better word.....

Thanks Dieter. I hope you didnt feel the finger removal was gratuitous. I guess I do have sex and violence in here, but neither particularly attractively :)

Thanks Hill. I guessed by your tardiness that you had your doubts. I take your points on board. I agree that the over all idea may be better than its execution. As an excuse I will offer that I am still in transition from poetry to stories ;)

Your point is proved as I re-examine it.. I took joy in adding Lily and John back into the story as the finger is cut off. Reading it back it reminds me of a comedian telling a series of jokes and later in the act bringing one of the previous jokes or punch lines back into the current joke. (if you know what I mean) . I guess I was doing this as the parts of the story were disparate in the first place.

That said, I enjoyed the jumping around in time and place and plotline but I appreciate I could have made a better job of it. Your comments are always appreciated.

hillwalker
11-17-2012, 01:03 PM
Thanks JB - yes, that's it exactly.

I often criticise people for posting poetry that could just as eaily read like prose - but here it's almost like prose intended for a poem. Well-crafted but not stylistically convincing as a story.

H

Jerrybaldy
11-19-2012, 07:55 PM
I think as a retired teacher you still love to teach, proven by the hours you certainly spend giving valuable feedback on here, to people you will never meet. You are either a selfless philanthropist or you love to coach, either way you are this sites greatest assett. I hesitate to say that I can see a falll in standards here now, hell I just said it, but you, Phil, should have the respect of everybody on here. You will not be right all the time, who is, but you take time to give a detailed and informed view on beginners and old timers. Without you and the very few others like you this place would be useless.

More power to your elbow and your hillwalking knees. Good job you haven't left the building.

JB