Author S. K. Nicholas

As a stray cat meows while eating leftover chicken from out of a bin, my fingers itch at the prospect of what will inevitably follow. The evening is made of horror movies and handjobs, and the soundtrack one of thunder and rain against a window held together with duct tape. The sudden intake of breath as flesh is yanked back is enough to make me shudder, so in retaliation, I slip my finger in an inch too deep causing her to cry out in pain. In dreams, there’s a girl who keeps peeping into her father’s coffin, and no matter how hard I try to shift her, she keeps coming back when I’m not looking. There’s a vision of perversion that lurks just beneath my surface, and whenever I act like a gentleman, it keeps rising, unable to withstand being pushed into the background. My beard grows long, far longer than her pubic hair. She wants to be neatly trimmed, but I hide her razors because I want to control her sex as it makes me feel like a real man should. Drunk and smoking cigars while wandering around the garden searching for a doorway to the past, I stumble into an elevator dreaming of vampires and The Mariana Trench. A bottle of wine leads me to question my nature, but my nature is incidental. There’s nothing much to me. I’m selfish and bored, and always will be. It comes from worshiping superfluity over the sense of self. We are such complex little machines, full of riddles and contradictions, and yet we are simple lovers in our hearts, nothing more, nothing less. We try to cover our tracks, and yet the footsteps are still visible after all these years. Trace them to where they came and you’ll find what you’re looking for- it works every time. Eating steak as the wind cools my face, there’s a reason why I never became like the rest. Things happen not through an act of God, but through an act of unconscious design. Pouring over the pages of secret journals, there’s tranquillity to be found in silent rage, but only if you’re prepared to wait. You won’t get any answers, but the thrill is always in not knowing. Showering while fully clothed, the moon reaches down and lifts the cat into the heavens while my girl crawls beneath the bed and finds herself as a four-year-old back in her mother’s arms. I, however, am still lost, much as I always have been.