Killian cull

Saturday,
February 14, 2009

Here is some fiction I wrote recently, for what it's worth...

It was time for a major cull. The lease on the apartment was up and there was nothing
keeping him in this burnout automotive armpit of Canada. You could
still see Detriot across the water on clear day, still the motor city
but crippled, the industry going in fits and starts as if there was
an intermittent fuel line leak. And with economic uncertainty like
that, nothing but inertia and several lingering attachments to women,
those rare few whose behaviour is truly outside the more of pair
bonding and lacks guilt about it.

Melissa. He would miss Melissa, seeing her even now, her mental image conjured with
breathtaking precision as he watched her toss her wavy red hair, and
ask yet again, 'But what do you think, dahhhrling?' He might get as
far as 'I think...' before her dowturned face, pouting lips and her
eyes upturned, each retina tripping with a psylocibin mushroom, a dim
blue glowstick beacon, strangely alienating while inviting a sense of
intimacy, especially among those immediately knew that here was
someone that had gone through an unusual cognitive experience much
like one they could remember vividly but only bright sharp shards.
Killian tried without success where he had first seen Melissa...

But enough procrastination; the cull must be pursued without mercy. He picked
up a garbage bag and strolled back to the bedroom, the bedroom that
presently had clothing strewn all about the room, some of it
discovered in the deep recesses of his closet and not worn for years.
Such items would go to Goodwill and, frankly, good riddance -
a silver shirt? Really? And are there lasting repercussions
for fashion victims? Should I be worried? These days I find I can't
go wrong with black. But what if bad fashion is like trauma,
situations that are dormant for years then SMACK, you see a long
repressed face, and suddenly you are back there, gasping for air,
knees trembling, looking over your shoulder, sure that you felt his
breath on your neck. Welcome to the wonderful world of Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a useful paradigm for understanding
what just happened to you. PTSD, while something Killian explored
and perhaps suffered from at times, is no longer a worry for him.
One Temazapam tablet and 20 minutes later, Killian wonders why he
couldn't catch his breath. But fashion, fashion could be different,
unamenable to pharmacological intervention. And the timing was just
about right. He remembers wearing the glitterati shirt to an event
at Cherry Beach, an outdoor goa / psychedelic trance party which
would have been the late 90s. Ten years later he runs his hand along
the slick synthetic fabric and wondering what he was thinking.