Puke.



the sacrificial nothing
by Morbus

Welp, I'm tired, I'm damn hot, and I don't feel like thinking. That's a bad combination for living. In the background, I'm listening to the "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" radio show, and the TV is on some football game. That's a bad combination for writing. I have a laundry to be done in the next five minutes, and my laptop is heating up my legs.

Life is not treating me very happily right now. But, hey. Too damn bad, eh? Ya gots to move along and just be happy with it all. Ya gots to put on that happy face and move around in the sludge of every one else's carbon dioxide.

So, I get up. Not because I want to, or because something exciting is going to happen which will make you feel wonderfully important for being a part of this moment of my life, but because I have to do the laundry. Like I said, it was going to be done in the next five minutes.

Lazy thing about the laundry in my house: it hardly ever gets folded when it's supposed to. The only laundry basket I have is still full with last week's clothes, which is why I'm stuffing them into one of the tomato boxes I have. Someone will get to them eventually.

I live on the third floor of an apartment building so I have to climb down flights of stairs to get to where the dryer is. It's right next to the ScratchyLady, and like every time I bring the laundry down, I can hear her talking to herself. Her live-in help usually leaves every night at around 7. It's 10 now.

And, as is fucking usual, someone decided that doing the laundry on a Sunday at 9:00 is mucho importanto. Meaning an hour later, the dryer is in use. The same hour later that I'm sitting there, holding a basket of wet clothes, listening to ScratchyLady talk about Clinton and his confession.

The ScratchyLady moved in a couple of years ago... her real name is Roberta Gallant. She lives in 1D, I think, although I'm too lazy to check her door. I've already started my way back upstairs, a scowl on my face. I remember how she had some friends moving stuff in for her, while she shifted on her feet, introducing herself to everyone that went by. She always had two favorite conversation starters: "Do you know what time it is, uhhh?" and "Geez, Gloria, that's a nice shirt you're wearing". She wasn't one for talking, although she tried.

I think most people didn't like her because of her itchy and scratchy voice and her bulging eyes. Her voice seemed like it had been badly burned from too much smoking. Her eyes, obscenely large, always looked straight at you as she groaned and licked her lips. A precursory glance would label her wacko.

I don't think so though. I remember sitting across the street waiting for a ride to the video store a couple of miles away. I usually sit on my steps, but I hate being conversational with people I don't really know, nor care to endure. I had told her what time it is, had told her that my shirt came from some three pack and that was all I needed.

But, waiting, I noticed something unusual being carried carefully by one of her semi-normal friends. It wasn't packed, wasn't protected in any way, yet it was strange the reverence with which this simple glass mug was carried. As much as I tried to see some sort of markings on the glass, my eyesight wasn't all that good. Staring at too many monitors. But the shape of the glass reminded me of a place I only visited once, somewhere in a town whose name I can't even remember. I'm sure if I drove around for awhile, I'd be able to find it. Hmmf. Something to write down on my To-Do list.

The place was a small tavern, where homey gatherings of people you all knew came to eat, drink, and cause a three foot deep cloud of smoke to hang from the ceiling. The taverns' name seems to escape me as well. Ahk, I'll blame that on the computer too.

I have no clear reason why she would have a mug from a tavern whose only discriminating feature was a centered table, at least three feet from any other. Seemed unusual at the time... you could probably have fitted two more with a little moving around. The detail faded into the back of your memory though, just as the liquor faded into your blood.

I get up again. And yet again, not because anything exciting is going to happen, but rather because an hour has past. Plenty of time for the dryer to be done. Unless they dry it twice. Argh. No one dries it twice anymore these days. Too much money and time spent for only hot air. Of course, I dry it twice, but I'm special. Or so I like to think.

Either way, the dryer is empty, now full, happily chugging on the four quarters I fed it. I go back upstairs to lounge on the couch. The tv goes on, my computer goes off. Vegetate.




the sacred head
by Morbus

Mealtime at the Sacred Head was the same it had been every other night. Belches from beer-guzzling buddies, the sniff of the waitress who had "innocently" gotten her butt in trouble, and the raucous laughter from table A3 about eight feet from the door.

A man who sat in the middle of everything, almost unnoticed, was at the Sacred Head that night... probably the only reason everything was normal. His name: Warren Cassidy, although most of the bar's inhabitants knew him simply as "he". You see, Warren Cassidy was an inquisitive and, you could say, annoying man. When someone spoke to Warren, he always seemed to bring you down to the level of a child. Weeks later, when you were in bed making love to your wife, you always seemed to forget how he could have done something like that. And you'd always stride into the Sacred Head days later, ready to shoot him down... but the cycle would always begin again. No one in the history of the Sacred Head remembered anyone beating him.

Cassidy ate his roast beef sandwich, smiling at the bit of gossip he had just picked up. Yes, Cassidy prided himself for knowing everything, and knowing that Woodworth's wife was pregnant with William's baby was news indeed. Cassidy wiped his mouth and took a sip of his Goreau, a drink he (again) prided himself for inventing. Cassidy was one who oozed "ego-trip", but most people secretly agreed he was allowed to.

The bar was covered with set-in mug rings and a little bit of pretzel here and there. Johnson, the bartender, wiped a ring with a dirty rag and grimaced as a man in the corner wretched pathetically. Stacey was given the job of cleaning it up. Twelve tables across the bar's floor were all occupied with drunken males as rarely a woman visited the Sacred Head. Last count, only two had ever willingly come, and twelve not so willing.

Yes, Cassidy was a recorder. A man who took everything he heard and tucked it into his little head until time came to bring it out at the worst moment for anyone but him.

"Jesus Christ!", a man yelled as his beer was spilled by Stacey, who had accidentally hit it with the broom handle. Drawing breath to throw out a remark, he let it all out in a fast swoosh. Cassidy had spoken.

"Yes?" Cassidy repeated. Everyone in the Sacred Head could feel verbal abuse coming and they all quieted in hopes that maybe, just maybe, they could learn something. It was quite funny to watch, actually... seeing all the heads nod in some sort of understanding, only to be inwardly more confused than ever.

"Huh?" Half drunk on beer, the man, whom we will call Matt (for that is what his hair looked like) gave a half-drunk slur. "Whad'ja say?"

"You said Jesus Christ. I naturally assumed you would like to speak to me, so I said, 'Yes'." Cassidy replied calmly. The bar's participants could feel this one ending already. Drunk people were a fun spectacle, all the more when they were on the receiving edge of Cassidy's forked tongue.

"You're nosh Jesus Christ."

"Oh, yes I am."

"Then why arensht yous in heaven?"

"Tell me Matt, do you believe in UFOs?"

A strange twist that Matt was not ready for. He quickly forgot the original argument, left to float in his sea of semi-consciousness.

"Yesh, why?"

"Now tell me again Matt, what are in UFOs?"

"Why aliensh of course!" Matt slapped his knee and turned around, his back to Cassidy. He thought he had won.

"Now tell me Matt, if there are aliens in UFOs and let's assume that aliens die, then can't we assume that aliens must go to heaven?" His voice was calm. Matt, on the other hand, was confused, thoughts swimming in his head.

"Now tell me Matt, how do you know that I am not an alien? Walking on water, returning from the dead, healing the sick? How do you know that I, Jesus, have not returned for my deserved salvation?"

Warren Cassidy had won again.




judgments
send us an email

98-Sep-15
raper_x@hotmail.com

sounds like tugboatmr is an asshole. if i had the time i would fuck him up bad and teach him to show respect but i dont. i too know a cassidy like person. i showed them down though. mainly cuz i was tired of all his shit he would give people. he was the type of person who knew he could talk shit mainly because he knew he would never get the ass kicking he deserved. He was a prick. he always thought me stupid, pushed me aside, thought me an idiot he did. well to make it quick. this Cassidylike person thought he would show off for his friends and he started talking to me about philosiphy and the like. i am not stupid, i am highly intelligent. i have nothing better to do all day then mess around and read books. anyway, i made this simple statement: (purposely i might add, so as to appear stupid) what i am saying now is false. the cassidy clone thought about this and he promptly came up with an answer. yes, what you are saying now is false. and of course everyone with half an unclouded mind laughed his stupid, pompous ass right out of the place. he hasnt come back to my knowledge. and it was incredibly humiliating for him. the bottom line. dont take shit from people you dont feel authorized to give it.


98-Aug-27
Warpster93@aol.com

I knew a "scratchy lady" back in the late 60s. She wore silk flowery kimonos (never saw her in anything else) and had hair the color of the cheap brass trashcans in Pier One.

I got to know her after awhile, and it turned out she'd been a Ziegfeld girl back in the 1920s, and had the album to prove it.

So treasure your scratchy lady. You might find out she's been some pretty remarkable places.


98-Aug-27
Tugboatmr@aol.com

YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE

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Devil Shat is published by Disobey & is protected under all copyright laws.
Devil Shat Thirty Four was released on 08/27/98. Last updated: 09/10/98.