The O.G.

--This is my first post here and my first real experience in writing something more substantial than the random musings of yet another punk kid. This is just the rough idea of what I am thinking as a beginning for a far larger work. I am however furtive about going too much further without getting some early comments on whether the style is too erratic or whether the content seems uninformed. Whether it comes across as a youth who has a slight penchant for words merely putting what has already been covered in a slightly different context or whether I am in fact on to something unique. I only ask for honesty in your responses (if i recieve any).

Kind regards and I hope whomever is reading enjoys and most importantly thinks themselves.

WB.



Upon entry to the bar, there was a madman on the table. Drinks scattered in directions and an audience made up of 1 part bemused, 2 parts scared and 23 parts a combination sat in stunned attention to the moustached, vodka bottle wielding figure leaping from table to table berating what would seem an unearthly source in a ridiculously French flavoured accent. This is my first, and sadly the lasting impression of the man who I only ever knew as OG. I sat down with a drink to watch the show.


"Love, despite many best efforts, haunts like a plague. An ecstatic disease seeking not to evade the humblest and the greatest of lords, the noblest but poorest of whores, the ever romantic muse, or even the corporate bitch with his fancy black shoes. All are brought down by this falsehood of achievement and pride and every other emotion behind which it hides.

“Oh how it makes the ill sicker, the gambler lose all on a bet, the dead less forgotten and the lonely lonelier yet, all compounded and confounded by the heads need to forget what folly the heart has led it into.

“How love took you to such great heights, but then without a parachute in sight dropped you to seemingly infinite lows, in that the greater the gain surely the greater the pain of loss with only the memories of the smell, taste, feeling, safety and warmth of what was the mountain peaks of love.

“The simple thought to know wherever you may be that there is someone out there carrying a torch for you in the darkest corner of your mind is surely the crux of love. Someone waving the flag, propping you up, holding your hand through the momentarily flashy and thunderous, but generally dull storms of people’s lives. But why have we made this so?

“For to sell your soul, or even voluntarily donate (to the cause of which I harbour such hate), surely must be the result of the greatest mistake in perception and priority.

“Will young lovers die together in a fiery embrace that moulds two souls (and two souls only) together for a romanticized after world fate? What of other loves, less personable in nature? What is the soul capacity of this great furnace in and of death?

“Oh you will wait for me?”
“Of course dear.”

“The old man says to his soon to be widowed wife as she comforts him through the last moments.

By this point he was acting out the characters as he introduced them…both characters. Funnily enough he still had the dexterity to cradle his bottle of vodka like a baby in one instant, and a schoolmasters stick the next, pointing to various crowd members as if to bring a recalcitrant youth to his point of view through terror.


“What then?

“Will you tell the celestial blacksmith of souls to wait? Will you register yourself down for a further date?

“But of course as black follows white, and dark follows light, the question that naturally follows is where does your half full (I am not a complete pessimist sir) soul wait…and more importantly…what do you drink?

“Would you like tea sir?”
“Well no, I would prefer scotch…”
“I am afraid we have run fresh out of it along with time, despair, ginger, bread, gin and that delightful little garnish you call guilt.”
“Oh I see….so a sandwich is quite out of the question?”
“Quite.”

“Is this the conversation you would have with your waiting lounge attendant….resplendent in a costume quite beyond words, even clever descriptive words to describe?

“Would you compose (if capable of rational, or indeed any, thought) limericks in your head whilst you wait for the soon to be dead figure of your wife?

“Stars and tea keep me company in this place, whilst I selfishly long for you loving embrace.”

“Perhaps form a barbershop quintet with others waiting with you complete with tuneful harmonies to amuse the tea lady (or tea thing as such) with your renditions of a variety of popular classics, perhaps throwing in a few originals when you think you are reading the mood right.

“Oh how wonderful life is turning out to be in this gentlemen’s club in some after world.

“But you need to remind yourself, constantly, why in fact you are here. Your new found friends in death ask you why the long face.

“You inform them and you can hear the door slam behind all the forgetfulness and dare I say contentedness that had entered the room (so much as you can call the place a room, you are still not quite sure as to what if in fact anything it is) quietly without anyone noticing.

“Gone is the tuneful refrains of American Pie, replaced with the truthful remains of guilt and longing upon your new found comrades faces.

“Oh come on lads and ladies, cheer up….I don’t know about you but I’m going to be here for a while…so why not have some fun while we wait,” says one of the younger members of the crew, a jolly Englishman named Wilbur who upon later conversation you discover was suddenly lost to cancer at the ripe age of 47.

“Did you tell your wife you would wait?” you ask.
“Of course dear.”

At this point the narrators face became tortured and pained as if all he had to say was fighting in the queue between his mind and his mouth. The following spewed out in increasing angst as the storm reached a furiously mocking climax.

“Now as the lovely tea attendant pointed out to you, they are fresh out of time, as such they have none to dole out in whatever form time comes in these days. So you cant can’t cross out days on a mock calendar on a wall; A. because there are no walls as such. There is no such either so don’t be too concerned. B. you have no idea anyways because your watch is off doing the can-can at the bar and is not interested in the slightest in doing something as degrading as telling you the time.

“But it’s a watch!”
“So…so long as it is drinking responsibly or at least the aforementioned drink is responsible there is nothing wrong here.”

“You try in vain to press your watch back to active duty but the tea attendant is of no help. However I digress. Time is non-existent and so would it seem your body’s normal functions. Life progresses in complete relation to itself. The body the mind, the soul and the theft of identity from it all mash together to mean nothing and everything but nothing in everything etc etc etc. . Every little bit of philosophy you always read but never really took too much notice of seems useless as everything is happening as one in a head that is not necessarily your own. But in an instant of realising this, things seem normal and you can almost feel the urge to go to the nearest celestial bathroom…if they have one…which I doubt.

“Strange things begin to happen though however. You are beginning to forget why you are there in the first place and in the face of such ludicrous notions as can-can dancing watches and barber quartets you begin to wonder if you are in fact as Dorothy once said “in Kansas anymore”. This place seemed normal enough upon arrival. Sure you were dead an all, and there was a bar….but how quickly things have got out of hand without something holding your head to the ground as such. Besides, living in the face of a can-can dancing watch can be tricky at the best of times. Dodging hands can become quite tiresome.

“What you thought were walls are in fact windows to the walls coated in a pattern of staircases with the top of each staircase leading to you staring out the window.

“All perception of depth and what is real is not just blown out the window, but the reasons you had in your head pre-death for having such perceptions have been removed.

“There is a tiny soldier in your mind fighting a brave last stand against a horde of chaotic beings beyond your comprehension toying with your soul.

“By now the visions you had of pleasant drinks and singing with other figures has faded to a distant memory of a dream you had as a child as the memories you do now have are truly wild.

“But what of my friend the watch?” you mutter to noone and everyone.
“He took off with a grandfather clock….nearly twice his age….quite the scandal.”
“Oh….I am alone then?”

“The madness (although I use the term lightly, as in fact you have probably been thinking it all quite normal and sane which is what makes it more comforting but scarier……you get my point I hope….that nothing is essentially what it seems) has seemingly subsided as a figure is standing before you.

The storm has run its course or so it seems.

“Hi, I’m Eve.”

“Will you then question this character? Or with the only senses still surviving deep inside you will you cling like a writer clings to the last scrap of blank paper. A rock. Someone to rally the troops in your mind again and fight back the gods (or whatever they in fact are) mercilessly toying with your being.

“Come through with me.”
“But I said I would wait for my wife.”
“What is a wife?”

“In your previous life you would not have understood and luckily you still don’t.

“I don’t know what or where.”
“Come with me.”
“But how do I know you care?”
“Come with me.”

“The last bastion in your mind surrenders to her command and you sheepishly follow her through a colourless shift in a colourless horizon, broken even in this strange after world. And where has love gone?"

"I labour to love not nor hate! Merely hide my head and wait for the world to abate."