MONKEY STINK (i hate but am fascinated by the new body. it makes me laugh)
I was born in 1976. That was about the time Mick Jagger was sucking off David Bowie. Poor Angie was stuck in the corner watching and fiddling with her bits. It is all in the blood. None of this means anything except telling you my age. It means something to me though. I could tell you how I got here but that is for another day. I was born cold enough. My will to live only just exceeds my will to die
I finished drying myself with a towel. My left hand felt sticky so I opened the palm and saw it was covered with blood. I looked on my chest and asked myself, where the fuck is the blood coming from? I checked my whole body but couldn’t find the source. I fucked around for a good fifteen minutes trying to look at the bottoms of my feet in the mirror. My hand went down and checked my arsehole a couple of times to make sure that my haemorrhoids weren’t bleeding. Oh well, fuck it, I couldn’t find the source. I started getting dressed. The final part of the process involves strapping the orthotic’s on my feet. I found the source. The scab from the scratch half way up the outside of my left calf had bled. I must have removed the scab when I was rubbing my legs dry. No feeling
I got dressed then had to go to the post office so I left. I’d only pushed one hundred metres from my front door when I saw the postie. Did you get the ticket, she asked? I turned to face her and I fell out of my wheelchair. I hit he pavement. I haven’t fallen out of it for the longest time. There was a branch lying on the footpath. The postie and a strange lady walking by helped me back into it. They both fawned over me asking if I was okay? I told them I was fine. That was a lie. I am so sick of everything. I got home and stifled the tears… no sorry that’s also a lie. The tears came but I managed to control them. It seems like it’s the only control I have in my life
It’s best to keep your darker tendencies to yourself. I told a friend how I was feeling and she told me to call her whenever I felt that way. It was such a sweet thing to say but I will never call her. It is best enjoyed alone. Since becoming disabled I feel like it’s the only control I have is my life. Thinking about death. I am at the mercy of poltroons and suckerfish. The only pleasure I get is when I’m drunk. The trouble is when I sober up everything is the same. My life is full of appointments and she never picks me up. I shuffle from home to there and back again. I can see no end of my medical problems. They are only getting worse as I care less. I had to ring for a ride to the doctors so I picked up my phone. The car dropped me there and I tried to hear. Halfway through my appointment the right tyre on my wheelchair popped. Too many Mars bars
I rang the company to fix my tyre. They told me they would call back. I had to wait for a ride home from the quacks. It finally came and dropped me back. Nothing happened at the appointment except for him getting paid. The driver couldn’t speak English but he could drive. That was all I needed. As the car dropped me in my driveway I got out. It is a very slow procedure pushing a wheelchair with one tyre. I shifted my weight and saw this thing moving towards me. It looked huge and moved slowly. The driver tooted as he left and I waved. As it neared I saw it was a woman pushing a shopping trolley. She looked right into my eyes. She was wearing seventeen layers of clothes and her hair was matted. All of her possessions filled the cart… I mean the cart contained everything that she owned. I looked at her face and she was beautiful but covered in dirt. I used to think that seeing a homeless man carrying all of his possessions was the saddest sight in the world. I have changed my mind. I looked at her face and saw that she could be a model. I wondered what had happened to her so I approached and asked her? Well, she said as she looked down at my wheelchair, what happened to you? Fair enough, I said and headed to my door
I got inside for a piss then started rolling a fag. I got out on to the balcony and saw the beautiful homeless woman was still standing outside. She was running her right hand over her greasy hair thoughtfully. I will never know what she is thinking. She was standing directly in front of my apartment. She looked up at me and I blushed. She still knew she had it
I rang the company to find out where the man to fix the wheel on my ‘chair was? Three hours later the doorbell rang. I opened the door and a monkey wearing a satchel brushed past me. It ran around the house and climbed on top of my fridge. It picked its nose and rubbed the monkey snot between its fingers while looking at it. It jumped down in front of my chair and picked a tool out of its bag. It didn’t know what it was doing. I transferred on to my couch and sat and watched it hitting the chair with a spanner. It kept stopping, rubbing its arse and sniffing its fingers. I rang the company and asked them if the monkey knew what it was doing? The lady said, most of the time, and hung up on me. I rang the number again. Another lady answered the phone. Hello, she said? Hello, I replied, I’m calling to complain about a monkey that you sent me. Did it bite you, she asked. No, I said it’s destroying my wheelchair. Ok here’s what you do, she said, there is a little amulet on the necklace of the monkey, can you see it? Yes, I said as I found it. Good. It’s a vial of poison to kill this fucking thing. Open the amulet, she said, but be careful; the monkey bites. It’s not biting me, I replied, its rubbing its arsehole and smelling its finger. It does that too, she said. I hung up and slowly opened the amulet. There was a piece of paper folded up within. I unfolded it and a folded twenty-dollar note fell out. I bent down and watched the monkey watching me. I picked it up off the ground and opened it. The note read, here’s a twenty. Do it yourself dickhead
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Andrew Stuart Buchanan